Hansard

I do not want to speak against the motion, but I want to speak about the fact that it has caused some confusion and some issues regarding the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee. The political parties in this Parliament learned at 11:47 on Friday that there was going to be a statement on Ferguson Marine (Port Glasgow) in the chamber today. I know that for a fact, because, at that stage, I asked to speak when that ministerial statement was being made. However, it was not until Monday at 13:43 that Ferguson Marine (Port Glasgow) told the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee that it was unable to attend the committee meeting that was scheduled for this morning. That was less than 24 hours’ notice.

Presiding Office, I do not need to point out to you or members in the chamber the pressure that the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee is under at the moment, along with many other committees of this Parliament. Only last week, we had to have three committee meetings to get our climate change report published in time to meet the Government’s last-minute deadlines. We are still taking evidence, and we will meet on 24 March, which is the last day when we can meet in the current session of Parliament, to sign off various items that still need to be considered. They include various statutory instruments that are being laid before the committee and a request by the Cabinet Secretary for Transport to consider a legislative consent memorandum on the Railways Bill. Those matters require a considerable amount of work and investigation.

It was therefore deeply unhelpful to be told less than 24 hours before the committee meeting that Ferguson Marine could not turn up because Transport Scotland had told it that it would be inappropriate for it to do so. That left no time for the committee to schedule some of the many other items of business that we could have taken, and we were left meeting at 8.15 this morning with a significant gap in our work programme.

I have two questions. First, does the Parliament think that it is acceptable for Ferguson Marine to have told the committee less than 24 hours before it was due to attend the committee meeting that it would be unable to do so when it must have known, like the Parliament, that the statement was going to take place? Secondly, will the Minister for Parliamentary Business and Veterans find out when Ferguson Marine found out about the statement and perhaps tell it to give due respect to committees of this Parliament, given their workloads? There is a considerable amount of work to be done before the end of the session, and the notice that it gave was totally unacceptable.