Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 25 January 2018.
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.