3. The First Minister hides when she has been found out. She usually hides behind the national health service in England or Wales. Today it is a new low. She is hiding behind Scotland’s doctors. Doctors may have advised her to close the children’s ward at Paisley. They did not force her to lie in an election television debate. Is she not ashamed of blaming the doctors for her broken promise? [Interruption.]

The Presiding Officer:

Order, please. Mr Rennie, be careful with the use of your language, please. You can finish the question. I am not sure that anyone heard the end of your question, as there was so much noise. Please finish the end of your question.

I will ask the end of my question again. Is the First Minister not ashamed of blaming the doctors for her broken promise?

All we have learned from that question is that Willie Rennie is a pathetic attention seeker. Given the state of his party, that is perhaps not surprising.

Let me return to the substance of the issue. First, the proposal on the children’s ward at the Royal Alexandra hospital came to the Scottish Government almost a full year after the debate that Willie Rennie is talking about.

Secondly, Willie Rennie accuses me of hiding. I am standing in the chamber of the Scottish Parliament, answering questions on this issue and a range of other issues.

I was health secretary for five years. Maybe this is just a difference between Willie Rennie and me, but I happen to think that when decisions are being taken about really important matters of health service provision, it is important to listen to the experts on the front line. With the greatest of respect to Willie Rennie, it is important to listen to the doctors and the nurses, who probably know more than he does about how best to care for some of the sickest children in our society. Yes, we listened to the doctors; I am sorry if that upsets Willie Rennie, but I am not prepared to apologise for listening to doctors, who know best about how to treat sick children in this country. [

Applause.

]

The Presiding Officer:

Order. I am sorry, but indulging in that level of clapping does not impress anybody. Please keep it to a minimum.

I say to both participants and to the chamber that the use of such language does no one any favours. In particular, Mr Rennie, “lying” is a word that you have to be extremely careful about, although it does not help if the First Minister rebuts that by using personal accusations—[

Interruption

.] I should not have to remind anybody in the chamber that they should treat one another with respect. You are here to talk about the issues and not to indulge in personal accusations across the chamber. Please would both participants bear that in mind in framing both the question and the answer.

Presiding Officer, I was there. I was standing right next to Nicola Sturgeon when she said what she said. The First Minister led everyone to believe that the children’s ward at Paisley was safe in her hands. That is what was pathetic. She said that she would always stand up for local services, but now she is shutting them down. Let me ask her this: does she feel guilty for misleading the parents of sick children?

The First Minister:

What I said in that debate was that there was no proposal on the ward. At the time, there was no proposal on the ward; no clinical evidence had been presented. That changed over the course of the months that followed.

This is quite a similar exchange to the one that I had with Ruth Davidson. The Opposition parties are so intent on attacking the Government—as is their job—that they fail to follow through on the logic of what they are saying. Ruth Davidson is so keen to attack Michael Matheson that she forgets that the logic of her question is that she would have allowed something indefensible to happen.

What Willie Rennie is saying is that the health secretary should have stood against all the clinical evidence from the nurses and paediatricians who care for sick children. I know how difficult these issues are, and I know how difficult they are for parents. There can be nothing worse than being the parent of a desperately sick child, but that makes it all the more important that we listen to expert advice to make sure that we have the best possible services in place for sick children, and that is what the health secretary has done.