Technical gremlins disrupt Schools Bill

It was business almost as usual on the Mound

By BBC Scotland Political Correspondent Elizabeth Quigley

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It was the first day back in the chamber on the Mound after the parliament's trip to Glasgow.

MSPs only had a few hours for the final parliamentary stage of the Schools Bill. As usual for stage three debates, they were on a rolling vote, with divisions taken after each of the amendments.

There were pages of them and, with only two minutes notice of the votes, the politicians couldn't stray far from the chamber.

So after only 30 minutes, the last thing they needed was a technical hitch. But then the Deputy Minister for Children, Peter Peacock, found himself cut off in full flight.

The presiding officer was caught out by technology

The sound system stopped working completely. It was the perfect way to silence 129 MSPs - although they didn't keep quiet for long and they milled about chatting as they waited for normal service to resume.

Twenty minutes later and the debate was restarted.

But not everything was back to normal. When it came to the first vote after the technical breakdown, Sir David Steel was at a complete loss.

The MSPs seemed able to vote but the presiding officer's screen wasn't working. Exasperated, he even suggested they might resort to having a show of hands to find out the result.

'Pointless endeavour'

But one of the clerks saved everyone the indignity of returning to more old-fashioned methods by handing Sir David a piece of paper with the figures on it.

The debating time had to be extended but still there didn't seem to be enough time to go through the wide variety of amendments put forward to the Bill.

Mike Russell wants more done for Gaelic

The former teacher and MSP for Falkirk West, Dennis Canavan, took the executive to task over their use of the word "endeavour" in relation to achieving higher standards in schools.

He didn't just want them to try, he told the chamber. There was no point in that. In fact with that word included in the Bill, ministers could still insist they had succeeded even if standards actually fell in Scotland's schools - because they could at least say they had tried to improve them!

His plea failed as did a move to strengthen the executive's commitment to gaelic education. The SNP's Mike Russell, who is learning to speak the language, said Gaelic would die out if more children were not encouraged to take it up.

'Scourge of discrimination'

He pointed out that only £10m was going towards Gaelic education - a sum which was less than the executive was spending on saving the corncrake in the Western Isles.

Then a native Gaelic speaker, the Lib Dems' John Farquhar Munro, addressed his remarks to the Gaelic Minister Alasdair Morrison.

In what can only be described as a dressing-down, he lambasted Mr Morrison - another Gaelic speaker - for failing to deliver.

John Farquhar Munro told the minister off

A lot of the parliament's time, he said, had been devoted to getting rid of the scourge of discrimination - most recently Section 28. But why, he asked, could that same level of protection not be given to the Gaelic community?

The rights of disabled children to attend a mainstream school were also debated in the limited time as an amendment calling for parents to have a legal right to remove their children from sex education classes.

Executive warning

There was hardly any time at all to consider Labour's Helen Eadie's amendment on extending the number of families eligible for free school meals as well as improving their quality.

In the end, she chose not to move her amendment - but warned the executive she would bring about her own member's bill on the subject if there was no progress in the next 12 months.

Alasdair Morrison was attacked on Gaelic commitments

The technical problems meant there was very little if any time for discussion of the various amendments towards the end of the debate.

Concerns were raised that even without the sound system difficulties the stage three debate would still have been too rushed - and say they would have preferred to have had a longer period of time devoted to this than had been scheduled.

Last year three hours was devoted to debating the Millennium Bug - and some MSPs grumbled that the last stage of an important piece of legislation should really have been allocated at least as much time in the first place.