
First Minister's Questions (FMQs) is the name given to the weekly
questioning of the
First Minister
A first minister is any of a variety of leaders of government cabinets. The term literally has the same meaning as "prime minister" but is typically chosen to distinguish the office-holder from a superior prime minister. Currently the title of ' ...
in the
Scottish Parliament
The Scottish Parliament ( ; ) is the Devolution in the United Kingdom, devolved, unicameral legislature of Scotland. It is located in the Holyrood, Edinburgh, Holyrood area of Edinburgh, and is frequently referred to by the metonym 'Holyrood'. ...
. It serves the purpose of holding the Scottish Government to account and the format has evolved over time. First Minister's Questions follows in some of the traditions of
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs, officially known as Questions to the Prime Minister, while colloquially known as Prime Minister's Question Time) is a constitutional convention (political custom), constitutional convention in the United Kingd ...
in the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...
. Other devolved administrations in the United Kingdom also have sessions for the question times of their leaders that take
the same name. An independent report published in 2017 suggested further reforms.
Procedure and format
There are rules and procedures about who can submit a question. The
Presiding Officer selects questions from all of those lodged by
Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs).
History
Establishment of parliament
In 2000, during the
1st Scottish Parliament, the procedures committee recommended that a specific First Minister’s Question Time be set up, to last for up to twenty minutes out of the hour set aside for the questioning of Ministers. There were lively encounters between the First Minister,
Donald Dewar
Donald Campbell Dewar (21 August 1937 – 11 October 2000) was a Scottish statesman and politician who served as the inaugural First Minister of Scotland, first minister of Scotland from 1999 until his death in 2000 and leader of the Labour Par ...
and the then Leader of the Opposition,
Alex Salmond
Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond ( ; 31 December 1954 – 12 October 2024) was a Scottish politician who served as First Minister of Scotland from 2007 to 2014. A prominent figure in the Scottish nationalist movement, he was Leader of the Sc ...
. The Parliament's first Presiding Officer Sir
David Steel
David Martin Scott Steel, Baron Steel of Aikwood (born 31 March 1938) is a retired Scottish politician. Elected as Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (UK Parliament constituency), Roxb ...
had reservations about the format, describing it as "something of a caricature of Prime Minister’s Question Time”.
Recent history
While First Minister,
Jack McConnell
Jack Wilson McConnell, Baron McConnell of Glenscorrodale, (born 30 June 1960) is a Scottish politician who served as first minister of Scotland and leader of the Labour Party in Scotland from 2001 to 2007. McConnell served as the Minister f ...
expressed views about seeing changes to how the Scottish Parliament functioned. In May 2003, at the beginning of the
2nd Scottish Parliament, McConnell wrote to Presiding Officer
George Reid
Sir George Houston Reid (25 February 1845 – 12 September 1918) was a Scottish-born Australian and British politician, diplomat, and barrister who served as the fourth Prime Minister of Australia, prime minister of Australia from 1904 t ...
, to ask for various changes in how business was conducted in the Scottish Parliament. He requested a shake-up of FMQs, including the session being held earlier in the day as school parties visiting Parliament often had to leave before the end of the session.
He also wished for FMQs to run for longer and allowing back-benchers to be given more time to ask supplementary questions. He sought for the leaders of the
Greens and the
Scottish Socialist Party
The Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) is a Left-wing politics, left-wing political party campaigning for the establishment of an Scottish independence, independent Socialism, socialist Scottish Scottish republicanism, republic.
The party was fou ...
to be allocated to ask questions every two weeks, after their parties made electoral gains.
In a written response, Reid proposed extending the length of FMQs from twenty to thirty minutes.
In January 2004, FMQs was moved to midday, from a 3.10pm slot. The
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
reported an initial fall in viewing figures following the move. The numbers of questions asked varied, with some leaders speaking at length, which left few opportunities for back-bench politicians to ask questions.
In May 2011, as the
4th Scottish Parliament
This is a list of members (MSPs) returned to the fourth Scottish Parliament at the 2011 general election. Of the 129 MSPs, 73 were elected from first past the post constituencies with a further 56 members being returned from eight regions, ...
got underway, Presiding Officer
Tricia Marwick announced changes to give backbench MSPs more involvement. This quickly resulted in the shortest exchange at FMQs between the First Minister and the Leader of the Opposition since early 2007, with eleven back-benchers asking questions or supplementaries.
In May 2016, at the start of the
5th Scottish Parliament, MSPs approved a trial period where the length of the session was extended to 45 minutes. The longer sessions were seen as a positive move, with the atmosphere less rushed and more opportunities being given to backbenchers. In June 2017 the
Commission on Parliamentary Reform reported and considered FMQs as part of this. There were recommendations around the effective use of chamber time, included ceasing the practice of using scripted diary questions from party leaders to open First Minister’s Questions (FMQs). The report suggested scrapping the requirement for selected questions to be published ahead of the session and granting the Presiding Officer the power to rule out questions "which do other than seek to genuinely scrutinise the minister".
Leaders involved in First Minister's Questions
References
External links
Tickets for First Minister's Question Time{dead link, date=January 2018 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes at Scottish Parliament website
Episode guideon BBC Parliament website
Scottish Parliament