Willie Rennie
Liberal Democrat
This morning, the UK Statistics Authority reprimanded the First Minister for the misuse of statistics in response to my question on national health service waiting times at last week’s First Minister’s Question Time. The letter states:
“Waiting times are a major concern to patients and their families. The statistics informing debates about them must therefore be trustworthy, of suitable quality and useful. We are therefore extremely disappointed that it has been necessary for us to intervene in this way.”
This is the second time that this has happened recently. Will the First Minister take the opportunity to apologise to the chamber and to the country for misusing statistics in this way?
Nicola Sturgeon
Scottish National Party
I will, as the Government always will, reflect carefully on anything that the Office for Statistics Regulation says. The statistics that I used were accurate and, as I understand it, are available to anybody on request and will be published by ISD Scotland. It is not the Scottish Government that decides what statistics ISD publish or do not publish; ISD decides that. I hope that we can have as much transparency and as many comprehensive statistics as possible, because that would demonstrate that the NHS is, on so many different measures, the best-performing NHS anywhere in the UK.
Question Time is an opportunity for MPs and Members of the House of Lords to ask Government Ministers questions. These questions are asked in the Chamber itself and are known as Oral Questions. Members may also put down Written Questions. In the House of Commons, Question Time takes place for an hour on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays after Prayers. The different Government Departments answer questions according to a rota and the questions asked must relate to the responsibilities of the Government Department concerned. In the House of Lords up to four questions may be asked of the Government at the beginning of each day's business. They are known as 'starred questions' because they are marked with a star on the Order Paper. Questions may also be asked at the end of each day's business and these may include a short debate. They are known as 'unstarred questions' and are less frequent. Questions in both Houses must be written down in advance and put on the agenda and both Houses have methods for selecting the questions that will be asked. Further information can be obtained from factsheet P1 at the UK Parliament site.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
