THE Scottish Parliament broke up for the summer recess yesterday with MSPs wishing each other well, but there were no appreciable warm spirits during the final First Minister’s Questions of the session.
Tory leader Ruth Davidson tried to make out that there was a scandal brewing behind the scenes over the Common Agricultural Policy subsidies to Scottish farmers, some of which the Scottish Government has admitted will be paid late.
The question enabled First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to demand an apology from the Conservatives over the deal with the DUP.
Davidson said: “Last week I asked the First Minister three times whether her government had contacted the European Commission to seek an extension to the deadline on farm payments and three times she refused to answer.
“There is a reason why I’m raising this again today — it’s because there is a principle at stake about the conduct of ministers in this parliament and about the transparency of this government.
“I asked the First Minister a simple question in this chamber last week and she refused to tell this parliament what she knew to be the truth.”
Sturgeon replied: “Last week I said we were discussing with the European Commission contingencies around this issue — that is exactly what we are doing. It is what we continue to do. Seeking an extension in case we require that extension is exactly that — a contingency.
“But I don’t want anyone, particularly those working to deliver this system to think that we are in any way relying on getting an extension so that we take our foot off the pedal.”
She told MSPs that “rapid progress” was being made ahead of the deadline, which is tonight, and that 82 per cent — equal to £347 million — of the payments had been made. The First Minister added that a system of loans had been put in place last November, and that the government would make sure the payments were made.
Davidson continued with the same approach: “Last week the First Minister had to apologise to farmers over messing up their payments again. But now she owes the parliament an apology for not being straight about it.”
Sturgeon went on the attack: “I think there is an apology due to the people of Scotland this week and it is an apology from Ruth Davidson for allowing her MPs in Westminster to do two things.
“Firstly, allowing them to sit back while Scotland was denied the same extra funding that went to Northern Ireland and secondly an apology for being the MPs in the House of Commons last night that voted to block a pay rise for public-sector workers. Perhaps that is the apology people in Scotland want to see.”
The First Minister later added: “If Ruth Davidson really wants to talk about lack of transparency in an answer given to a Parliament, perhaps she’ll go and watch the video of Theresa May in the House of Commons yesterday, refusing to answer the simple question, did the Secretary of State lobby for Scotland to get the same money that went to Northern Ireland? No amount of camouflage from Ruth Davidson will hide this point.” Labour leader Kezia Dugdale then cited figures from the Scottish Parliament’s information centre showing reduced spending per pupil in Scottish schools and called for “cold, hard cash” to be put into education.
Dugdale said: “Until the first minister commits more funding to our schools using the powers of this Parliament, her promise that education is her top priority is utterly meaningless.”
In response, the First Minister highlighted the £750m attainment fund and £120m going directly to headteachers.
She said: “This government is taking tough action to reform our education system, to get more powers into the hands of headteachers and teachers and, crucially, to get more resources into their hands.
In response to LibDem leader Willie Rennie’s list of ongoing problems that he said were facing the Scottish Government, Sturgeon replied: “That proves that Willie Rennie lives in a wee world of his own most of the time. Sometimes it sounds like quite a fun one, so maybe I will join it one day and take some of whatever he is on.”
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