 The next item of business is a debate in motion 8.7.6.4, in the name of Douglas Ross on transparency of Scotland's governing party. I would invite those members who would wish to speak in the debate to please press the request to speak buttons and I call on Douglas Ross to speak to and to move the motion up to seven minutes, please, Mr Ross. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer, and I move the motion in my name. I hope that, with the early start, we have a bit more flexibility in some of the timings this afternoon, because I'm very keen that this is a proper debate, that we interact with each other, and I'm looking forward to interventions from the Government benches, who I'm sure have a lot to say on this topic, because transparency at the heart of government and indeed at the heart of the governing party is crucial. It's important to each and every one of us, but the fact is that we shouldn't need this debate to get that transparency from the First Minister or from the Scottish Government, because I made a very open offer just a couple of weeks ago to the First Minister to come here and give a statement to this Parliament on the issues engulfing his party, the party of government here in Scotland. It was a genuine offer at First Minister's Questions time for the First Minister to put on record his point of view, his answers and indeed his responses to crucial questions that remain unanswered weeks into this, sorry, saga. I will give you a week. John Mason. I thank the member for giving way. He says that he is genuine. Could he expand on that by telling us the membership of the Conservative Party in Scotland? Is it six and a half thousand as the number who voted in the last leadership election? Douglas Ross. In the most predictable intervention of the afternoon, which will probably be repeated by several others, and I thought that it might have actually come from the Minister, but maybe he's got that later on in his script. The point is that the Scottish Conservatives announce their membership numbers during a leadership election. That's always been the way we have approached this issue. The point from the SNP benches seems to be, and the noise from the front bench seems to be that the Scottish Conservatives and other parties here in Scotland should change our approach because the nationalists lied to the press, lied to the public across Scotland about their membership numbers. I will take no lectures from the SNP who want to see a changing approach from the other parties to cover up for the lies that those in the SNP made about those membership numbers. That is a serious allegation. John Mason. Mr Ross. Mr Ross, could I please ask you to zoom your seat? I think that it might be instructive if I, at this stage in the debate, remind members that there are certain expectations about language in the chamber. Of course, we know that the chair will not tolerate an accusation, for example, that a fellow member has been deliberately untruthful. I would also perhaps remind members of a statement made by a previous Presiding Officer, the late Alex Ferguson, who reminded members at the time that the words lying or liar should not be used in the chamber in relation to other members. Indeed, he went on to add and preferably not at all. Dr Ross. I think that we did clarify this all through the Presiding Officer's office this morning. I am not saying that any individual member in here lied. I am just saying that there was clearly actions from the SNP on their misleading claims about their own membership numbers that led to the resignation of the head of media of the SNP MSPs that led to the resignation of the former chief executive of the SNP. Just days before he was arrested by the police, he resigned from a role that he had held for years because of the conduct of the SNP on their membership numbers. That is why I am saying that I will take no lectures from the SNP on the issue, but the fact is that there are and remain serious questions to be answered. The First Minister seems quite happy to answer those questions outside the chamber. He always stops to speak to the press to give his views on a whole host of issues. As an Opposition leader, I want to see that continue because he has only been beaten by Colin Beattie in his attempts to provide no more press stories, but in answering the press and providing us with plenty of nuggets and press stories going forward. If the First Minister is happy to give those answers to the press just a few metres from this chamber, why is he not happy to come in here to answer those questions? Not just is he unwilling to answer the questions in this chamber, he is unwilling to even attend today to respond to those points. There are so many questions, Deputy Presiding Officer. For example, how was the supposedly ring-fenced Indie Ref2 funds raised through RefScot and YesScot spent? How was that money spent? Why did the parties, former chief executive Peter Murrell, give the SNP a six-figure loan and when will that loan be repaid? Was that loan a consideration in the decision not to suspend Peter Murrell, not to suspend Colin Beattie and potentially any other MSP currently serving in this Parliament who may find themselves arrested by the police? Why was the unused motor home kept at the home of the former First Minister's mother-in-law's home and why were members of the SNP's Finance and Audit Committee refused information on the party account? We have several senior members in Government and in the SNP in the chamber today. There is a flavour of some of the questions that we would like to put to the First Minister. In his absence, can any single SNP MSP answer those questions? Silence! Silence! We have the Deputy First Minister of the Government, the Deputy Leader of the party here in Scotland and no answers to very basic questions, basic questions that are being asked by our constituents and members of the public across the country. I think that it is really important that we have transparency at the heart of Government and that we have a governing party that is willing to answer those questions. Sadly, we do not. In the time left available to me, I want to look at the amendment that is just about to be moved by the parliamentary business manager for the Scottish Government. That is an amendment that incredibly deletes massive amounts of the motion that I put forward and deletes some key lines. George Adam wants SNP MSPs tonight to vote for an amendment that deletes that they agree the scandal engulfing the party of government here in Scotland should be properly scrutinised and debated. Why would he not want that properly scrutinised and debated? His amendment deletes the line calling for a more transparent budget process. Why would he not want a more transparent budget process? His amendment deletes the line that says that we should give arm lengths organisations control over information publication. Why would he not want to give them more control over the publication of key information? It also deletes the line that calls for an improvement in the scrutiny of the breach of ministerial code. Why would any MSP representing the governing parties here in Scotland tonight vote for that amendment, which takes out those key lines on transparency, on openness? Today marks 16 years since the SNP was elected into government. During that time, we have seen secrecy, spin and cover-ups from the heart of government. Today is an opportunity for SNP members to say that enough is enough. It has been happening for too long. They can do that by voting for the Scottish Conservative motion tonight. Supporting the Labour amendment, which adds to the scrutiny that we are seeking, and voting down the shameful amendment from the Scottish Government, which wants to delete so much of the transparency that this Parliament and the people of Scotland deserve. Thank you, Mr Ross. I now call on George Adam, minister to speak to and to move amendment 8, 7, 6, 4— Thank you. I have to read out my bit first. To move amendment 8, 7, 6, 4, point 2, minister. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I'm just so keen to get involved in this debate. That was definitely a thing from Douglas Ross. He's not sure what it was, not sure what the relevance of many much of it had to what we're talking about here today, but let me tell him right from the start. The important thing for me is the fact that transparency and scrutiny of this Government is important. That's why it's in the amendment, and that's why it's actually there. Can I take this opportunity to move the amendment in my name? Can I just say one thing to start with? In the first of April, many people might find that the irony in this. Douglas Ross was in the great town of Paisley, where he was there for one of his many jobs, the one of being a football referee. It was an important game between St Murden and Livingston. Mr Ross had a terrible game as he missed a Stonewall penalty in the first four minutes, but luckily that was corrected by Vaugh. However, that is the relevant and interesting point, Presiding Officer. There was a crowd of 5,894 people attending. Many contemplated that that may or may not be the membership of the Scottish Tory party, but that's the reason. We will never know, Presiding Officer, because the Conservatives won't publish, won't be transparent and won't practice what they're trying to preach here. The absolute hypocrisy—no, we've heard enough from you, Mr Ross—the absolute hypocrisy from the Conservatives is almost laughable. Presiding Officer, you have to admire someone who has that level of brass neck, who needs to complain about a lack of party transparency when you lead the Scottish Conservative Party. Mr Ross's political party that illegally prorold the UK Parliament and avoid debate and scrutiny. The party of a Prime Minister that would only agree to speak to the Scottish press if he could handpick the media and he could actually handpick the questions. The party that packs the House of Lords with donors such as the Scottish Office Minister Lord Offord, who, after being appointed for life in the House of Lords and given a place in the Government payroll, had given the Tories £150,000. The Tories come to us here in the Scottish Parliament and they talk about our integrity. The Conservative party has received hundreds of thousands from unincorporated associations that do not reveal their origin of funding and have questioned the integrity of others. It cannot take the Tories seriously on this issue. A party refused to see how many members it has while criticising those that do. There is a word for this, Presiding Officer, and a word for that person. It is a hypocrite. I am not going to stand here and claim that there are not issues in the SNP, which needs to be addressed, but I can stand here and say that those issues are being addressed. Mr Ross is having a lot of fun and games over here in the corner, just shouting from the sidelines. I must be from his time as a referee, but within days of Humza Yousaf's election— Minister, we cannot have two members standing at the same time. I think that Mr Ross, the minister, is probably indicated by his not to take your intervention request that he probably is not planning to take your intervention. However, I have said that we are dealing with this. The First Minister, within days of his election as leader, announced an urgent review of internal party governance. As our amendment makes clear, this Government places great importance in openness and transparency. We are fully committed to meeting the standards of public, rightly expects of us being an open Government. Let me give you just a few examples of that. Ministerial engagements and travel are published monthly. We also aim to proactively publish minutes of Government meetings on our website so that people can see who their Government is meeting with and what we are discussing and understand how discussions are made. We are focused on making the necessary improvements in handling freedom of information requests, as set out in our published improvement plan agreed with the information commissioner. Our performance on responding to requests on the time is comparable with the wider public sector in Scotland at around 86 per cent, but it is important to note that we are responding to significantly more requests for information rising by over 50 per cent in the past three years. We also recently enhanced transparency on the Scottish Government finances to Parliament and public, including through providing more detailed out-term reporting and providing more detailed material to the finance and public administration committee, which I know all members of that committee have welcomed. Mr Arthur will provide more detail on the steps that we have taken to improve engagement on budget in his closing statement here today. Let me come back to the issue of party membership. Much has been said, but not enough. We are not hearing what their members are. Because of the five parties that are represented in the chamber, only two have published up-to-date figures of their party members. That is the SNP and the Scottish Greens. I am quite happy if he wants to say the membership now. Grateful. We have finally had an intervention. Will the minister accept that his party lied about their figures that led to the resignation in this Parliament of the head of media and then the party's chief executive? Will he apologise to the press and the public for that? My goodness, Presiding Officer, I gave him the opportunity to build himself up into a frenzy, and that was a bit of a damp squid there from him. This coming from the party of Boris Johnson and all the nonsense that has gone on in Westminster, Douglas straws has refused to publish his members' numbers of his members. He says that he has nothing to hide, yet he continues to hide it. His defence, in an interview with ITV Bordder, is that the party only publishes its membership figures during a leadership election. Given Douglas straws' performance today, around in recent weeks, I do not think that we will wait too long for those figures to be published. I now call on Jackie Baillie to speak to and to move amendment 8764.1. Thank you Presiding Officer. The culture of secrecy, spin and cover-up at the heart of the SNP has been laid bare for all to see with the recent revelations about their finances. I find it extraordinary that the SNP's sole defence is to demand membership numbers from the Opposition when they are being investigated by Police Scotland. That is serious and it is not about their membership numbers. We cannot comment on the substance of the investigation, as this is a live police inquiry, but suffice to say that if you had told me 10 weeks ago that I would witness the resignation of the First Minister, the arrest under caution of her husband Peter Murrell, former chief executive of the SNP, the arrest of Colin Beattie MSP, former SNP treasurer and a blue forensic tent on the front lawn of Nicola Sturgeon's home, I would have said that you were delusional, but that is indeed what has happened. This is a shameful episode in Scottish politics. People who believed in the SNP have been badly let down, but so too have the people of Scotland. The governing party is mired in scandal, which is a complete distraction from focusing on the people's priorities. What we are witnessing now is the arrogance of a party who have been in power for far too long, thinking that they are untouchable and treating this Parliament and the public with contempt. I know that many people will say that the party and government are two separate things, but that is simply not true in this case. The culture that pervades the SNP as a party, pervades the SNP-led Scottish Government to. They are inextricably linked. No wonder when you consider that the top two positions were occupied by a husband and wife team. Let me illustrate that and take you back to the inquiry into the Scottish Government handling of harassment complaints, otherwise known as the salmon inquiry. Let me start by reminding the chamber of Nicola Sturgeon's words. The inquiries will be able to request whatever material they want. I undertake today that we will provide whatever material they request. My commitment is that the Government and I will fully co-operate, 17 January 2019. What hollow words, Presiding Officer. The SNP and the guys of Nicola Sturgeon, John Swinney and her chief of staff, Liz Lloyd, blocked every attempt by the committee to get information. It dragged on for months, if not a full year, as they defied the will of the committee and of Parliament at every turn. Letters from the Parliament's lawyers were effectively ignored and it took the threat of a successful vote of no confidence in John Swinney to get the material released. Evading scrutiny and accountability underpinned much of the SNP's approach to the salmon inquiry. The use of SNP emails and WhatsApp groups by Cabinet Ministers, the former FM and special advisers was widespread to avoid formally recording ministerial discussion and decisions. The dissembling, the dishonesty, the duplicitous behaviour on the part of government was routine. Then there were the memory lapses, the inability to recall or remember from people who, it has to be said up to that point, had the sharpest of memories for details. Then there was the incompetence and a new low, the leaking of material by the then Deputy First Minister and his special advisers to journalists writing a book about the inquiry after the inquiry that had not even been shared with the inquiry in the first place. Of course, whilst this breached the ministerial code of conduct and the special advisers code of conduct, the then First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, chose to do nothing about it, such contempt for Parliament. Presiding Officer, it is time for an overhaul of the Parliament's ability to hold this Government to account. Scottish Labour has a plan for doing just that. Let's start by seeing fewer Cabinet Secretaries and Ministers. Let's see binding sanctions for breaches of the ministerial code. Let's see more power for committees to compel witnesses and evidence and less tribalism from members that try to deny the evidence presented to committee before their very eyes. Yes, let's have a right of recall for MSPs that break the law, whoever they are. Presiding Officer, the SNP are tarnishing the reputation of this Parliament and of government. They are mired in scandal, they are divided and fighting like ferrets in a sack. They are contemptuous of the Scottish people and have completely lost focus on the people's priorities. It's time they were held to account. It's time for a Scottish election and it's most certainly time for change. I move the amendment in my name. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. It's been a painful few weeks for the SNP, a party that has seemed impregnable for the last 16 years, now shambling and arctic quarrelling. I almost feel sorry for them, but we must all feel sorry for Mike Russell, the modest self-effacing president of the Scottish National Party. At the last election, for four whole weeks, he was forced to live in a smelly old horse box. If only he had known poor President Mike could have been chauffoured in that executive motorhome. I can almost see it. In fact, I can't get the image out of my head. President Mike thrust the top, the luxury motorhome, draped over his chaise long, dressed in his satin robe, addressing his adoring crowds at Dorun Pier. What a glorious sight that would have been. But like everyone else, he was kept in the dark, so we do need transparency. The current troubles within the SNP have further undermined faith in the governing party on public finances and their ability to look after the public finances. This is on top of the waste of millions of pounds of hard-earned public money—£50 million to save 1,500 jobs at BiFab wasted—£586 million to create 2,000 jobs at Lochaber, which are nowhere to be seen, and £300 million to build two new ferries, which are over budget and over time, boosting their public image by wasting public money. All this waste, when people are struggling to make ends meet, when people are desperate for a decent home, when the NHS is on its knees, when schools are struggling, when the climate is in crisis, no wonder people have had enough when the SNP Government spaff their money up against the wall, when the country and the people count every single penny. I have to get this off my chest. The Conservatives have a nerve to talk about standards. No party has done more to damage faith in politics than the Conservatives. This is the party that gave us Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Boris Johnson, with the parties in Covid, the loans, the decor and number 10 flat, the PPE contracts for friends, the defence of friends who breach the rules. Liz Truss and our reckless budget and cavalier dismissal of the so-called blob cost billions of pounds, ramping up the cost of mortgages, rents and the cost of living. What about Douglas Ross? Some call him dithering Douglas. He could not even make up his mind about the blundering Boris Johnson and the gormless Liz Truss condemning them one minute, hailing them the next. We do need change in politics, but it will not come with the Conservatives and it will not come with the SNP. We do need change, Katie Clark's bill, for extending the freedom of information powers, to follow the money so that we have greater understanding of how our money is spent, the pre-release of statistics so that the Government cannot spend hours and days manipulating the facts before they publish the statistics, making sure that we have a recall system like we have in Westminster that evades the Scottish Parliament and our ability to throw out recalcitrant MSPs. We need to have all of those powers in this Parliament to have a change. We can agree to some of the elements in the motion today about the ministerial code and about transparency, but I have to say that the rest of the motion is utter tosh. The Scottish Parliament is not the SNP conference nor it is the SNP national executive committee. Our job in this Parliament is to run the country. Our job is not to run the SNP. We will now move to the open debate. It is only last Thursday when this Parliament debated the issue of transparency. We agreed in principle all of us, including SNP members in the debate, that this Parliament has a primary duty to the public to be as open and as transparent as possible when it comes to accounting for public money. So, too, do Government ministers. Taxpayers surely have a right to know exactly what their money is being spent on, just as importantly, why elected members in this place make certain choices. As politicians, we need to be held fully accountable for every single decision that we make, most especially when it comes to spending other people's money. I completely understand that there is a non-going police inquiry about current events inside the SNP, and it is not appropriate to comment on those aspects of recent events. However, as Douglas Ross rightly said, that should not overshadow the very important issue about the lack of transparency both inside the Government and inside Scotland's ruling party, because they are interlinked. This Parliament has a clear interest in establishing probity, so we will not shy away from asking very important questions of the First Minister. Auditor-genals around the world believe that there are five acknowledged principles of good governance—accountability, leadership, integrity, stewardship and transparency. Personally, I do not see how anyone could argue otherwise or seek to undermine those principles. However, with regard to that latter point, that is exactly what we have currently within the SNP, and it is a matter of public interest. Just yesterday, the times reported on the finance committee's current inquiry into the efficacy of Scottish Government decision making, and it does not make good reading for the Scottish Government, not just because too much decision making has been seen by senior civil servants and former senior ministers to be rushed, unclear and unstructured, but also that some financial rules have on occasion been found to be optional. That must be a concern for us all, yet the Scottish Government, despite the fact that the committee's inquiry is not yet concluded, seems to be rubishing that report. That is just not acceptable. As a member of that committee, I am very clear indeed that all is not well when it comes to Government openness, transparency and accountability. Yes, it is true that Audit Scotland and the Scottish Fiscal Commission have welcomed some of the efforts to improve the Scottish budget transparency, but they have also warned very strongly that it simply is not good enough. We have heard so much about the profligate waste of failed Scottish Government projects somewhere in the region of £350 million. The committee has been told that we have to start thinking about serious reforms so that we get much better transparency. The name person legislation, the hate crime bill, the national care service bill, gender recognition reform, the deposit return scheme and the HPMAs, which we will debate later. Those are all examples of Scottish Government failures when it comes to good governance. On top of all this, and worst of all, we have the murky and disreputable goings-on inside the party of government. Openness and transparency are not only good practice to measure the best value for taxpayers' money, but it is also because that openness and that transparency are essential if there is to be renewed trust between Government and the public. That current loss of that trust is very serious and it is particularly serious for this country, so I support the motion in the name of Douglas Ross. I now call John Mason to be followed by Martin Whitfield. There is certainly a lot in this motion and in the amendments today, so I will not try to cover everything in four minutes. In the first place, concerning the SNP accounts, I understand that a police investigation is under way and we need to let that take its course. No one has been charged as yet and we have a system that says that someone is innocent until proven guilty, so it seems to me to be far too soon to be having statements or debates in Parliament. When we look at the last published accounts of the SNP, which were to the year to 31 December 2021, they show net assets of £610,000. They also report that the referendum appeal raised £740,000 of which £253,000 had already been used, so the balance on the referendum fund of £487,000 is covered by the assets on the balance sheet. On current membership of UK political parties, the House of Commons Library makes it clear that parties do not need to publish numbers. However, they show that the Conservatives at last September had 172,000 members. If we are generous and give the Scottish Tories 9 per cent of that, it would mean that they had some 16,000 members, although only 6,500 voted in 2020, so either way they are way behind the SNP. Labour reported to 432,000 members at December 21, and 9 per cent would give them about 39,000, but the record reported that it was only 16,000. I am afraid that I have only got four minutes. The SNP is clearly well ahead of both parties with 74,000 members. In percentage terms of the relevant electorate, the SNP would be about 1.7 per cent, Labour 0.9 and the Conservatives 0.4, so it is pretty clear which party has the most members, is the most popular with the public and wins the most elections. Moving on to transparency around budgets, this is a serious point. I am not quite clear what practical differences the Conservatives want made. For example, I think that both the SNP and the Greens have been very open and clear that if we want better public services, we need to consider raising taxes. By contrast, the Conservatives have called for lower taxes, but simultaneously asked for extra spending on a range of areas. This is neither honest nor transparent. In fact, it is impossible. The Tories might set an example in transparency by saying where they would cut public services to match tax cuts. When it comes to transparency within political parties, we could do no worse than look at the House of Lords. As members know, the SNP does not take seats there because the Lords are unelected, and that is an affront to democracy. Britain cannot be considered a true democracy as long as one half of its Parliament is appointed and not elected. How do those people get appointed? Some might be there in merit, but for others it seems that they just pay money to the Conservative Party. I understand that around £3 million is the going rate. We are told that 15 of the last 16 Conservative Party treasurers have been offered a seat in the House of Lords, having each donated more than £3 million to the party. It is not only party treasurers. It is reported that since 2010, 22 of the Tories' main financial backers have been given peerages, having donated at least £54 million to the party. Other nominations have been blocked by the Lords' Appointments Commission, and they tried to block Peter Crudus in 2020, but Boris Johnson overruled them and he got his peerage. Open Democracy and Brunel University said that the chances of so many Tory donors ending up in the Lords is equivalent to entering the national lottery 12 times in a row and winning the jackpot every time. To be clear, it is illegal to sell titles for money, but this has only been forced once in 1933. Just to mention Labour in passing, they seek the right of recall for MSPs, but we should not forget that Labour's Mike Watson had to resign after he got a 16-month sentence for trying to set fire to a hotel, but he still sits as a Labour member in the House of Lords. Maybe Labour should clean up its own act first. In conclusion, politics can be a dirty business. No party is completely squeaky clean, but I argue that, if we are looking for a party that is heavily engaged in sleaze, underhand deals, lacking transparency and selling seats in the House of Lords, it is the Conservative party. I am very grateful, Deputy Presiding Officer. It is a pleasure to follow John Mason, although I am not sure that the concept of squeaky clean parties will resonate with our constituents outside of here. This has already been a robustrous debate, which I think was to be expected. However, to the heart of it are very important questions that this Parliament needs to ask itself, the people of Scotland need to ask themselves and also to understand the difference between political parties, between the Scottish Government and between the Parliament and where the powers should lie for this Parliament to hold to account the Government of Scotland. It is right that surely any party, any member, indeed any citizen of Scotland should be interested in upholding those very basic democratic principles that we have here. To look to strengthen this Parliament irrespective of the party membership that makes up this chamber, that this Parliament can hold to account properly the Scottish Government, because that is the role that constituents send us here to do when not in the majority party that then forms the Government. I think it is fair to say that there has been a great deal and increasing lack of transparency over 16 years as to how the Scottish Government operates. We have heard already discussions over the budget and indeed within the motions there are calls to clear and make that more transparent. However, there are other matters that addressed both in the motion and indeed the Labour amendment that I would like to take the short time that I have to draw attention to. The first is in respect to the size of the Government. The Government can only be drawn here in Scotland bar for one position from members of this chamber. We have seen an increase in the size of the Government, both in cabinet secretaries but also in ministers who support. That clearly causes challenges when it comes to supplying membership for committees. Given that we are a unicameral Parliament here, the responsibility on committees to hold the Government to account is enormous and the pool that can be drawn to make up those committees is, of course, reduced where the number of ministers is increased. I am grateful to the member for the intervention. There is much in the Labour amendment that I sympathise with but this is the line that I have a problem with. I would be interested if Mr Woutfoul would acknowledge that this Parliament and the Scottish Government are far more powerful than they were in 1999 but the number of members in the Parliament remains unchanged. Is the issue not the number of members of this Parliament rather than the number of members in the Government? I absolutely welcome the recognition of the increased powers that the devolution has given to the Government and indeed the Parliament here in Scotland. I would agree that there is a challenge in that balance. I wonder whether, when we look at the dehoit calculation, whether or not a more balanced approach could be achieved if we reduce or deduct from the dehoit calculation those members of the predominant party that are in government to give a balance across, as to speeches and to debates. I am conscious that there are going to be many very positive contributions but I do want to mention my colleague Katie Clark's private members bill on the FOI legislation and look forward to seeing that come forward. My final comment, which I would ask the cabinet secretary or minister to deal with at the end, is in respect of breaches of ministerial code. Ministerial code is not overseen by the Parliament or any committees within here and we have a situation where, in essence, the judge is judging themselves. We have seen the problems of that down south in Westminster and I would invite ideas as to how that is going to improve under the current Scottish Government. I am grateful, Deputy Presiding Officer. Thank you, Mr Whitfield. I now call Russell Finlay to be followed by Stuart Millan. The SNP is engulfed in scandal. Police Scotland are following the money, arrests have been made, resignations have been rapid, front pages have been lured, the wheels of justice are turning. However, this is quite a familiar story. For decades, the Scottish Labour Party arrogantly viewed Scotland as its fiefdom, its iron grip unbreakable, no matter how badly they behaved or how poorly they performed. We know what happened. People grew sick of being taken for granted. They finally rejected the sleezing corruption and Labour went the way of the dinosaurs. Self-righteous SNP politicians like Nicola Sturgeon were the noisiest critics, unfortunately not of only a four minutes, I'm sorry. Their party would be different. Scottish politics would be cleansed was their pious pitch. Honesty, integrity and transparency were the buzzwords. Dear dear me, look at where we are now. The past 16 years of SNP role have been a disaster for our country. This is a single issue party that is perpetually distracted, distracted by the incoherent obsession of breaking up the United Kingdom. A party with all the power in the hands of Nicola Sturgeon and her husband, a party that does not tolerate reasonable questions from its own people, a party that thinks nothing of destroying those who do not toe the line. In recent weeks I have seen SNP members in a state of shock. Party unity shattered, they have been put in the spot and forced to pick a team. One newspaper identified the following seven factions, the use of loyalists, the Forbes followers, the Sturgeon establishment, the Westminster wing, the rebel alliance, who I believe sit up the back, the watchers and indeed the sheep. Many in the SNP are trying to tell us that this is private party business, that this has nothing to do with Parliament or Government while they are wrong, because this toxic culture of the SNP has been allowed to infect St Andrew's house and Holyrood. We have Government, which operates by three main principles, secrecy, spin and self-preservation. The private public of information while preaching about transparency mislead the public while preaching about integrity and when cornered, when evidence of wrongdoing and corruption are laid bare respond with aggressive deflection and deception. Let's talk about accountability. This Government acts as if it answers to no one. Even the Auditor General for Scotland is impeded in his work, unable to access critical yet basic financial data. Everyone else is blamed. Colossal and costly failures usually result in promotion, not the sack. Look no further than Humza Yousaf. The SNP has forgotten that principles matter. Values of honesty and integrity are gone from this Government. The only values that they are interested in are the ministerial salaries of Humza Yousaf's continuity cronies. What is now clear is that SNP politicians have absolutely no right to wag their fingers at anybody else. Just like the pigs in George Orwell's animal farm, the SNP now looks no different to Labour. Those scandals have exposed an out-of-touch, governing class of careerists and chancers. They could travel Scotland in their mysterious motor home, but they will never find the moral high ground. They are as transparent as the painted-on windows of the ferry launched by Nicola Sturgeon. They have lost their way, and if political justice is done, they will also lose the power that they take for granted. I now call Stuart McMillan to be followed by Ross Greer. At the outset, I will concede one point to the Tories with regards to the motion that we are debating today. It is abundantly clear that there are a range of issues facing my party at present. A party that has had stability for 19 years, a party that has been the party of choice with the electorate, and a party that has been the choice of the electorate at Westminster for Scots since 2015. The issues are great. Certainly not of my choosing, but I am convinced that we will get through them. With a huge amount of work, I believe that the electorate will continue to place her trust in us to deliver for the people of Scotland. There are many aspects of the motion that do surprise me. I am pleased that the Tories seem to accept that Westminster does not speak for Scotland, as its motion speaks of, and I quote, the governing party of Scotland. The Tories continually proclaim that Scotland has got two Governments. Does that mean that the Tories are now about to give up on the long-discredited union and the absolute shambles of a Government down the road in Westminster? Nobody in Scotland will be fooled by this debate. It is the Tories who are playing cheap particular games, chasing headlines with absolute zero credibility. Describing last week's debate on the abhorrent and inhumane illegal migration bill, Brian Whittle said, and I quote, that we could have had a constructive debate this afternoon, but we have instead had an exercise in performative anger. Brian Whittle then went on to describe that debate as, and I quote, an exercise in posturing in the absence of policy and a point-scoring exercise and nothing more. I had no idea, genuinely no idea that Brian Whittle is the Scottish Parliament's very own Nostradamus, but his predictions are so very apt for today's debate. The Tories talk about transparency as if they actually care about it, but this from the party, this from the party that's been up to their eyeballs and scandals, including cash for honours, cash for contracts, tax for tax breaks and even cash for curtains. In the eyes of the public, this is a UK Government that has normalised sleighs. Let's take one example of the abuse of power, the cash for honours scandal. Fifteen of the Tory party's main treasures who happened to have happened to hand over £3 million to the party were coincidentally given life perishes to the House of Lords. Twenty-two of the Tory party's top financial backers have all coincidentally been given perishes since 2010. In total, this group had stuffed their Tory party coffers with £54 million. We even have a situation where the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson tried to give his dad a peerage. C'mon, what's all that about? C'mon, Mr Kerr, when you're laughing, but mind you, even Boris Johnson is trying to give his dad a peerage. The Tory's claim about transparency indicates the parallel universe in which the Tories live. Only last week have the Tories wanted to shut out the press from asking their Prime Minister questions at the Scottish Conference. The economic lessons that we were supposed to take from Liz Truss and Clasic Harding's time in charge were much lauded by Mr Ross before he quickly realised he'd backed the wrong horse. This is on top of the lying and scheming of the Brexit campaign, led by Boris Johnson, which is estimated to have made the UK economy 5.5 per cent poorer now than it would have been if we'd stayed in the EU, with UK-important exports expected to be 15 per cent lower also. It's no wonder that the IMF predicts that the UK is set to be the worst performing economy in the G20. The Tories want transparency. Maybe they can respond to the following. Do they agree with £8.7 billion wasted and unused or unused with PPE, storing it in prematurely cancelling PPE contracts? Do they agree with the Commons Public Accounts Committee report that is found, and I quote, no clear evidence that the £29.5 billion spent in testing trace at any impact on reducing code infections? Do they agree that a firm owned by ex-conservant councillor and Tory donor was awarded contracts worth £275 million for the supply of masks and gowns? I could go on for a conscious of time so the public know it and they will not be filled by today's debate, thank you. Believe it or not, buried under the hypocrisy and the double standards in this motion, there are a few points that are issues for which the Scottish Government has responsibility. Believe it or not, on one of the points I agree, the First Minister's salary is an entirely reasonable level at which to set a threshold for proactive publication of the list of posts within the public sector in receipt of high levels of pay. Why would I go further than what the Conservatives proposed? Significant services are delivered by the private sector on the public sector's behalf and high levels of pay inequality are certainly far more prevalent in the private sector. If the aim is to reduce pay inequality and ensure best value for money with a public purse, I would not only support regular publication of the public sector posts with salaries or at or above that of the First Minister as the Conservative motion proposes. I would want to see grants and procurement contracts to the private and third sectors be conditional on those receiving organisations opting in to this transparency mechanism as well. Whoever receives it, it is public money and we should set high standards. Given the initial proposals included in the Conservative motion, I would appreciate hearing the thoughts of Conservative members on expanding it in that manner. It is a timely suggestion, given that the Scottish Greens suggestion of a review of chief executive pay was accepted by the Scottish Government earlier this year. I hope that all parties engage with that review and with wider public sector pay policy at budget time. One policy that I would like to put on the record now would be to bring college principles into the chief executive pay framework. They are the heads of large public bodies in Scotland and some principles are completely unjustifiably, in my view, on salaries larger than that of the First Minister. Indeed, the growth in principal pay over the past 30 years has massively outstripped that of college teaching and support staff. If that newfound enthusiasm in some quarters for good governance could extend to greater scrutiny of the governance of our colleges, it would have far more positive outcomes for the public than the partisan opportunism motivating this afternoon's debate. If the Conservatives are interested in good party governance, they really need to look much, much closer to home. Since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine a year ago, the Tory party has accepted at least £243,000 from Russian-associated donors, according to the Good Law project. Much of that £175,000 came from Wubov Cherykin, her husband's former deputy finance minister under Putin and a former chairman of the state corporation VBRF, which is rightly subject to sanctions in the UK. If that name is familiar here, it is because the same Wubov Cherykin also paid £20,000 for a meal with Ruth Davidson. That meal did not go ahead, but the cheque was certainly cashed. The Tory party is a wash in dodgy, cremlyn-linked cash, and it has been for years, so I suppose that we should be grateful to them for giving us this opportunity to put it on the parliamentary record. There is a clear conflict of interest in political parties nominating their donors for awards and privileges, but it is particularly outrageous for donors to be nominated for lifetime appointments to Parliament via the House of Lords. However, the Tories took that one step further, as the Minister for Parliamentary Business has already mentioned, when they appointed a party donor, Malcolm Offer, not just to the Lords, but to the Government as a minister in the Scotland office. This is a man who has never been elected to any office, who is not accountable to voters and who will have the power to influence the laws of the UK for the rest of his life. Why is he in that position? He donated £150,000 to the Tory party in the years leading up to his appointment. Even other Tory party members have described the support that Mr Rolfords received from their party leadership as cronyism. Talking about the endorsement that he received ahead of candidate selection for the 2021 elections to this Parliament, one Tory said anonymously, so it might even be somebody who is in the room today, that it seems that all you need to get an endorsement is to have deep pockets, a pretty damning indictment from your own party members. Of course, there are only two parties in this Parliament who will not nominate to the House of Lords—that is the Scottish Greens and the SNP. I challenged those in the Opposition who are extolling the virtues of transparency and accountability in government to reconcile that with their party's role in maintaining the undemocratic outrage of the Lords and arcane mechanisms that allow the royal family, for example, to amend draft legislation in secret. The Conservatives demand transparency and accountability from everyone but themselves. The debate is not motivated by principled belief in good governance, it is pure opportunism, but it is spectacularly backfired with a party with so much baggage of its own that we have barely scratched the surface this afternoon. I will finish by asking Douglas Ross if he would not mind bringing a similar motion back in future. There is so much more wrot at the heart of the Tory party, which we could do with putting on the parliamentary record. Thank you, Mr Greer, and I now call Keith Brown, who will be the last speaker before I ask the front benches to close the debate. Mr Brown. Thank you. I am delighted to take part in this debate and grateful for the opportunity to provide some balance for the benefit of Conservative colleagues in here. Douglas Ross is muttering away. I will welcome the motion in the same way as the Hibs Ffans in McDermott, which was part two weeks ago. I will not use the same language as was used by the Hibs Ffans. The motion talks about the governing party, but as the Tories are never tired of saying, as Stuart McMillan said, but often tiresomly from the Tories, Scotland has two Governments, and theirs is the governing party also. Yes, the Tories are transparent, so transparent, and it is crystal clear to everyone that this motion is nothing more than an attempt to grab some headlines and to deflect from the failures of their own Government at Westminster. Take, for example, last week, they did not seem to think that debating the UK Government's abhorrent anti-immigration bill was a good use of their time. So transparent was their discomfort, you can only see one or two of the back benches that others were completely transparent. However, this week they are here aplenty for a debate about party political matters, so let's play their game and do a wee test of transparency here. I am happy to give way to any Tory member who can and will tell the chamber how many members they have in Scotland. Anyone? Anyone? Are you going to answer the question before I leave to take the intervention? No, I will not take the intervention. He is not going to answer the question, but let's play the game. Members, please resume. As members know, it is up to each individual member whether or not they take an intervention. Keith Brown. Yes, so I couldn't hear much of that exchange. I have obviously touched the raw nerve of the Conservatives. A simple question, really, but Douglas Ross has failed to answer it so many times. I am starting to hear myself, Presiding Officer. Is it possible to get some quiet as they have been given when they made their speeches? I think that there has been quite a lot of sedentary chitchat throughout the debate, and all speakers probably have had to put up with a bit of that, but I would invite members to please listen to Mr Brown. According to the chairman, Craig Hoy, who is here today, there is a number, but they don't disclose it. Demanding the SNP to do something that we have already done whilst refusing to do it, seems to be the Tory way. I would also be happy to give way to any Tory who can tell us, and let's make this as easy as possible. Just to the nearest £1 billion, how much did the trust's quartang economic experiment cost the people of Scotland? If he answers the question. I think that he is giving way to Douglas Ross. I am grateful, because I want to go back to the last time he said that he would give way to any member. Sorry, we can't have two… Members, I think that Mr Brown said that he would give way to Douglas Ross. Am I wrong in that, Mr Brown? I am not in charge. Mr Brown, please, Mr Brown, please, I am not in charge of answers given, as members know well. Could we please just clarify, is the member giving way to Mr Ross or not? No. I am also happy to give way to any Tory who can actually tell us. I can't hear what has been said to you. To give way to any Tory who can tell us not just how many members they have, but whether he actually knows how many members they have, because that seems to be a moot point as well. How can we expect… I can say it like Russell Finlay. I only have four minutes, most of which have been wasted already, so I am not giving way. Members, how about when can we expect the publication of the… How can we expect the publication of the Russia report? The motion talks of transparency in government. I have said three times that I am not giving away, Presiding Officer. That is a positive answer. Mr Brown is not giving way to Mr Ross. The motion talks of transparency in government, and we have no transparency whatsoever. My apologies. I am just wondering if Keith Brown, the SNP's deputy leader, might like to clarify whether his questions are rhetorical or they are actually genuinely looking for point of order. Mr Huckle Johnson, that is a debating point and not a point of order for the chair. Mr Brown. As ever, it is not a point of order. It is also true that we should really be down by now expecting the fact that Scotland's other Government, the Conservative Government, will be releasing the polling evidence that it collected at taxpayers' expense on support for Scottish independence. How about an arithmetical question? How much is the HS2 costing compared to its original estimate of around £30 billion, now over £100 billion? Or what is the operational status? I think that Mr Ross is indicated in the past that he is not giving way. Mr Brown, I say that your time is coming to a close fairly soon. How much is the £3.5 billion aircraft carrier, the Prince of Wales, now worth since it has been stripped for parts for its sister ship? Or how much of the EU structural funds that used to come to Scotland and other parts of the UK have been cut from Scotland? So let's have no more pious lectures in the Tories on transparency. After all, in 2021, the current Prime Minister's tenure as Chancellor of Exchequer, it was revealed that the Treasury refused to comply with more freedom of information requests than any other department in Whitehall. We have also repeatedly on our side called for a full public inquiry into the revelation that the UK Government used funds for Covid contracts to conduct... Mr Brown, you will need to complete those issues. We will now move to closing speeches, and I call on Michael Marra to wind up on behalf of Scottish Labour up to four minutes, please, Mr Marra. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I'm happy to support the amendment in Jackie Baillie's name on behalf of the Scottish Labour Party. The SNP's descent into chaos in recent months has certainly brought the dark underbelly of their party management into the light of day, but the culture of secrecy, spin and cover-up has been far-reaching, and as Jackie Baillie rightly pointed out, has stretched the gap between party and government, and that does require remedy, it requires scrutiny, and it does require the measures outlined in Labour's amendment today. I would say that it's been a debate of rather dubious standard at point, because those are incredibly serious issues, but there has been, I've read, no shortage of audacity from the Tory benches, Russell Finlay in particular, to cite Orwell. Well, I'm reminded, I enjoy talking to you, your mind appeals to me, it resembles my own except that you happen to be insane, George Orwell said, and when you hear Willie Rennie and Ross Greer recounting the VIP lane stuffed with Cremlin money, I think it's right that these points are made and repost to where the Tory motion is coming from today. But the back benches of the SNP have been rather remiss, it's fair to say, as well, and the minister in his opening, and the lack of recognition from the lack of transparency from this Government over many years. The surprisingly thin paper trail on the decision of what to award ferry contracts to Ferguson shipyard reports from Audit Scotland by almost now, but almost too numerous to mention, calling on the Scottish Government to improve transparency, particularly with regard to how they spend taxpayers' money. A positive data on how nearly five billion pounds of Covid-19 funding to support businesses was actually spent, and again, as my colleague Jackie Baillie highlighted, the SNP's Governments are dissembling their dishonest and duplicitous approach to the provision of documentation in the Salmond inquiry with that committee facing obstruction at every turn. They take the exploitation of lobbying register loopholes, meaning that in 2020 alone hundreds of meetings between Scottish Governments, ministers and lobbyists were not registered, and a fully contemptuous approach to freedom of information requests, not at this moment, thank you. A contemptuous approach to freedom of information requests culminating most shamefully in their failure to disclose Covid-19 data and modelling, and that cover-up, then, challenged by the Scottish Information Commissioner saying that the lack of compliance found there was a strong public interest in publishing that data. It's absolutely clear, Presiding Officer, that when we come to warnings about patient safety from staff and patients at Queen Elizabeth University hospital that were covered up in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, they were aided and abetted by the then health secretary, Humza Yousaf. He failed to remove those responsible, backing that culture of secrecy, cover-up and incompetence. While to most that behaviour showed Mr Yousaf to be unworthy of his position, in the eyes of the SNP High Command it proved that he was the ideal candidate, the continuity candidate capable of ascending to the highest office in the land. But the people of Scotland are not fooled in any of this. They are led by that continuity candidate and it is infected by the same culture of secrecy, spin and cover-up that has festered at the heart of their party for too long. Again, as Orwell said, the end was contained in the beginning. So the amendment that we have from Labour today puts in place serious measures, serious actions that can improve transparency on behalf of the people of Scotland. The good governance of our country and the public services on which we all rely need to see the restoration of integrity and transparency to the heart of government. Scottish Labour's stronger Holyrood paper sets out how we would do that and is contained in this amendment today, and I hope that the chamber is able to back it in that spirit. Thank you, Mr Marra. I now call on Tom Arthur Minister to wind up on behalf of the Scottish Government up to five minutes, minister. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I begin by thanking members for their contributions from across the chamber this afternoon. I think that it is very important, and it is a Parliament that we consider how we can enhance scrutiny and transparency. Both of the work of the Government more generally, also of the activities of Parliament that have been touched on as well, and I think that it is important to recognise that we do operate within a devolved context through the way in which this Parliament and this Government interacts with the UK Government and the way in which processes are conducted by the UK Government and indeed the UK Parliament, how they impact upon the processes that we undertake. That is something that is quite clear when it comes to the matter of public finances and budgeting, because of course we operate under a fiscal framework, which I think we would all recognise as one of the most complex set of arrangements between a state level and a sub-state level Government to be found anywhere in the world. There was, if I recall correctly, an OECD report a few years ago, which highlighted that very point. This can create genuine challenges in my ability to present information transparently and clearly indeed it can present challenges for Government as well, particularly when we consider some members who have served in the House of Commons will be aware of the rather esoteric approach to finance that Westminster has through votes on confidence, main estimates and supplementary estimates, which can mean that we discover changes to our own budget quite late on in the financial year. We have a well-established process set out in the Scottish Parliament with regard to public finances through the annual budget statement followed up by the Free Stage Budget Act and routinely two budget revision processes throughout the financial year. Indeed, during the Covid pandemic, we took the extraordinary step of an additional budget revision process. Along with that, we have statements on provisional outturn, we have a rates resolution as required under statute and a local government finance order, providing multiple parliamentary opportunities for engagement, certainly. I am grateful to the minister for laying out the budget process, but I wonder whether I might ask him in the interests of transparency whether he will encourage the cessation of the use of SNP emails and WhatsApps to avoid scrutiny of ministerial discussions and decision making. Everything that we undertake in government and all decisions that we take around the budget process are taken through the Scottish Government and Scots system, and that information is there. I can assure members that that is a process that I and my colleagues undertake. What I would want to come back to—I have already given a way in us a bill to have a minute to make— Miss Bailey, are you making a point of order? Oh, I haven't made a point of order. No, I wasn't inviting you. I was just asking you. I'm making a point of order, Presiding Officer. Point of order, Jackie Baillie. I wonder whether the minister heard my question, because he certainly hasn't answered it. Miss Bailey, as you know, that is not a point of order. Minister, over to you. Now, with regard to the processes that I was setting out, I also made reference to the on-going work around the budget process, but I recognise that there is a desire to do more. I have certainly sought through engaging with the Finance and Public Administration Committee. I would say that constructive engagement with Liz Smith and, indeed, with Daniel Johnson, the former Rhone, I look forward to constructive engagement with Mr Marra about ways in which we can provide additional information, particularly around those budget revision processes, which can be quite fluid and dynamic, particularly with the challenges that we face around supplementary estimates. I'm very keen, yes, certainly. Willie Rennie. With this common intelligent contribution, I don't think that he's been in the earlier debate this afternoon, but, nevertheless, would he be in favour of a freedom of information reform in the lines that Katie Clark is proposing, which will allow us to be able to scrutinise the public finances in public bodies? I know that the Government will be consulting on matters pertaining to FOI. I do not have a lead responsibility in FOI, but the member has made his points. The Minister for Parliamentary Business will have heard the points that the member has made. The point that I would want to come to is that, in our consolidated accounts, we have had unqualified clean audits for the past 17 years, but I nonetheless recognise that there are always going to be challenges around ensuring that information is accessible and is as transparent as possible, because it is absolutely vital that the work that we undertake in this place is as accessible and transparent to the people who vote for us. That would always be challenging with any state in terms of public finances, particularly with regard to the devolved context in which we operate. However, I make that open offer, as I have previously. I want to ensure that all the people that we are so privileged and honoured to serve have as much information as possible, and that information is presented in a way that is transparent and inherently discernible and easy to grasp. Any member who has a desire to, beyond the theatrics of today, engage constructively on something that is of such vital importance, I very much want to have those discussions and conversations. I look forward to the conversations that will be happening having with Opposition finance spokespeople, but I extend that offer to all members of Parliament, because it is something that we have a shared interest in and a shared responsibility to effect. I now call on Murdo Fraser to wind up on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives up to six minutes. I thank all the participants in the debate this afternoon. There are many issues that we rather have been debating this afternoon. Indeed, we will shortly be moving to a debate on the vital subject of highly protected marine areas. However, the debate was, sadly, necessary, because the whole issue of SNP party finances, the scandal, perhaps even criminality, has become a distraction from the business of this Government. That is why we called for the First Minister to come clean, to come to Parliament, to make a statement on his party finances so that we can all move on. However, Murdo Fraser has refused to do so, and he has sent George Adam to do his dirty work for him. I will say this at least for Mr Adam. He has a sense of humour. He read out the line in the amendment that good governance and transparency are matters of the utmost importance with a straight face. I commend him for that. At this rate, he will be making a bid to fill the vacancy that has now appeared at the Stan comedy club by the removal of Joanna Cherry, who has been cancelled by the Stan comedy club. Perhaps Mr Adam will be there. I am sorry that nobody in her party seems prepared to speak up for Joanna Cherry. Not the constitution secretary, not Shirley-Anne Somerville on the radio this morning prepared to speak up for not even the First Minister, is left to people on this side of the chamber defending free speech and defending Joanna Cherry. What we heard on this debate is that there seems to be only one line of defence from the SNP. There was only one thing that they kept repeating parrot-like. How many members do you have, they kept saying? Do you think that the entire army of spads and advisors and spin doctors and press officers could have dreamed up one other attack line other than simply how many members you have? Even poor Keith Brown was exhausted at the end of this debate. There are legitimate questions here that need to be answered. It is simply not enough to say that, because there is a police inquiry, answers cannot be provided. What has happened to the £600,000 of ring-fence funds that are raised for another independent referendum? What is the real position with the SNP party finances? Are they, as some have suggested, on the brink of financial collapse? Why did the auditors resign? Why did the former chief executive grant a substantial personal loan, which is only now partly being repaid? And why on earth did they purchase a camper van as a campaign vehicle, one that does not seem to have moved for the last two years? None of this makes any sense. We learned today, Presiding Officer, that the SNP has now appointed new auditors, AMS accountants of Manchester, not perhaps the greatest start to learn that that business has already been late in filing necessary paperwork at companies' houses. I hope that they attend to the SNP documents better than they handle their own. But what we see of the SNP finances is just all too typical of the way that this Government conducts its business, as a number of members around the chamber have made clear. Last week in the finance debate, I identified concerns raised about a lack of transparency across a whole range of Government decisions, including investment in private funds companies such as BiFab, Pressway Airport and GFG Alliance. These are issues that have been identified by the former Auditor General, the current Auditor General and even by the Parliament's Finance Committee. We learned this week from evidence sessions at that committee that former ministers, senior civil servants and special advisers have denounced Scottish Government decision making as, I quote, rushed, unclear and unstructured. Even those who have been at the heart of this Government know that they are getting this badly rolled. Liz Smith reminded us earlier of the need for greater transparency in Government. Yes, I will give way. As having this party get any self-awareness at all, I have been sitting with this debate, and this is the party here who took us all for mugs during the pandemic, took us for mugs, contracts for cronies, as the Labour Party pointed out to you, as the UK Labour Party pointed out to you, and you partied the whole time. I think that this is absolutely shameful today. What a bizarre intervention, Presiding Officer. There is nothing to do with the debate, but I just say to the member—I think that when we shine a light on the Scottish Government's track record of procurement of PPE and other matters, we will find that the choices they made were not very dissimilar to the choices made from the UK Government at that particular time, so he needs to be very careful in terms of what he was saying. Like Jackie Baillie, I can well recall two years ago sitting on the committee of this Parliament looking at the handling of harassment complaints against the former First Minister, Alex Salmond, and the deplorable attempts at cover-up that we saw from this SNP Government, the refusal to release vital documentation that committee needed, and the unwillingness to cooperate with a cross-party inquiry. It took a threat of a vote of no confidence in John Swinney, the then Deputy First Minister, to get the documentation that that committee of this Parliament required. Nothing, it seems, has got any better in the interim period. Today, Presiding Officer, we have a motion noting the lack of transparency in the Government and giving a range of positive proposals as to how to make matters better. It also calls for a statement to this Parliament on the governance of the Scottish national party, the party of government in this place, and these are all matters of legitimate public interest. We know that there are those on the SNP benches in this Parliament who share our concerns. They agree with us that something has gone far wrong with SNP finances. They are as appalled as we are at what has been going on, and they, like us, want answers. We have already seen in the SNP a willingness among some backbenchers to stand up to their leadership. We have seen that over issues such as the A9, over DRS. We might be about to see it in relation to marine protected areas. We saw it in relation to the GRR bill with an unprecedented rebellion. I would call on the SNP backbenchers today to show the same resilience. I am not a supporter of independence, but, if I was trying to make the case for independence, I would want to demonstrate that this Scottish Government was as effective and transparent as possible. Immense damage is being done to the body politic in Scotland from this culture of secrecy and cover-up. I hope that all members from all parties will be prepared to join with us in voting for this motion today, and I hope in particular that those with conscience and backbone on the SNP benches will be prepared to join us, because it is the least that Scotland will expect. That concludes the debate on transparency of Scotland's governing party. There will be a short pause before we move on to the next item of business, to allow frontbench teams to change positions, should they wish.