Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 10 September 2020.
Nicola Sturgeon
Scottish National Party
There are two contextual points to make here. First, criminal proceedings are under way in relation to that specific case, so I will not comment directly on that. As Christine Grahame knows, being a former lawyer with long experience on the Justice Committee, we have different structures of fines and fixed-penalty notices in Scotland, and we have tried to fit the coronavirus system into those existing systems. They are different here from what is in England.
We will continue to consider whether we can use greater fines and enforcement but, in cases where there has been a flagrant and egregious breach of the law, it is right that the full force of the criminal law is brought to bear on people who do such things. They are not just breaking the law, they are putting lives at risk.
Let us not lose sight of this: it is still the case that all of us, in small ways and large, need to act in a way that saves lives. The virus kills people, and every time we allow it to spread, somebody’s life is potentially at risk. Let us all ensure that we abide by the regulations—and the vast Majority of people are doing so. Christine Grahame is right about this: in cases where people are not doing things inadvertently or because they make a mistake, which everybody will do from time to time, but are just flouting the law with no regard for other people’s safety or for human life, the full force of the law should be brought to bear on them.
The term "majority" is used in two ways in Parliament. Firstly a Government cannot operate effectively unless it can command a majority in the House of Commons - a majority means winning more than 50% of the votes in a division. Should a Government fail to hold the confidence of the House, it has to hold a General Election. Secondly the term can also be used in an election, where it refers to the margin which the candidate with the most votes has over the candidate coming second. To win a seat a candidate need only have a majority of 1.