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Plenary, 27 Jun 2002

Meeting date: Thursday, June 27, 2002

Official Report 734KB pdf

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Point of Order

On a point of order, Presiding Officer.

Is the point about question time or could it wait until the end of questions?

My point of order is about question time.

Go on.

I seek your guidance on the fact that, at 12 o'clock today—the last plenary day before the recess—the Executive announced the new ferry services for the Clyde and the Hebrides. That announcement is extremely important to many members' constituents. Will you confirm that, under rule 13.8 of standing orders, an emergency question for today's question time would have had to be lodged before 10 am, and that, as the announcement was made at 12 noon, that was impossible? Given the seriousness of the issue, with the removal of services to areas such as Dunoon, is that an appropriate way for the Government to behave? Will you give guidelines for how the Government should behave?

The member is correct to say that it is too late to lodge an emergency question. The Presiding Officers have considered guidance on Executive announcements; we finalised a paper on the issue only yesterday. The paper will be issued shortly, so I hope that that will please everyone.

I have read the written answer about the ferry services. It leaves open a consultation period until the end of September, during which any member or parliamentary committee can deal with the matter.