General Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament at on 23 January 2025.
Clare Haughey
Scottish National Party
To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to support South Lanarkshire Council as part of the local government settlement for 2025-26. (S6O-04235)
Shona Robison
Scottish National Party
If the budget is supported by Parliament, South Lanarkshire Council will receive £805.8 million in 2025-26 to fund local services, which is an extra £63.2 million, or 8.5 per cent, compared with the 2024-25 budget, to support vital day-to-day services.
Clare Haughey
Scottish National Party
This year alone, South Lanarkshire Council is having to pay back more than £40 million due to Labour’s disastrous private finance initiative contracts. Those funds are hiking up the profits of the private sector when, instead, they should be going towards local priorities.
Despite additional Scottish Government funding, I am concerned about the impact of those debt repayments when the Labour administration at the council, which is cutting free school transport provision and divesting interest in community halls, sets its budget for next year. Can the Cabinet secretary assure me that this Scottish National Party Government and future SNP Governments will never follow in Labour’s PFI footsteps, which have left a damaging legacy across all our local authorities?
Shona Robison
Scottish National Party
I can certainly give Clare Haughey that assurance. She is absolutely right that we will be paying the price of the Labour—and, indeed, Tory—flawed PFI-PPP deals for some years to come. I also assure Clare Haughey and Parliament more generally that this SNP Government will continue to ensure that all forms of procurement for sites and services provide the best value for money for the taxpayer and that they realise benefits for our communities.
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.
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
The political party system in the English-speaking world evolved in the 17th century, during the fight over the ascension of James the Second to the Throne. James was a Catholic and a Stuart. Those who argued for Parliamentary supremacy were called Whigs, after a Scottish word whiggamore, meaning "horse-driver," applied to Protestant rebels. It was meant as an insult.
They were opposed by Tories, from the Irish word toraidhe (literally, "pursuer," but commonly applied to highwaymen and cow thieves). It was used — obviously derisively — to refer to those who supported the Crown.
By the mid 1700s, the words Tory and Whig were commonly used to describe two political groupings. Tories supported the Church of England, the Crown, and the country gentry, while Whigs supported the rights of religious dissent and the rising industrial bourgeoisie. In the 19th century, Whigs became Liberals; Tories became Conservatives.
