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Alex Salmond says sorry for using wrong college funding figures | |
(about 2 hours later) | |
First Minister Alex Salmond has apologised to MSPs for using incorrect figures in relation to college funding. | |
Labour had asked him to return to the chamber to clarify whether he had misled MSPs during his weekly question and answer session at Holyrood. | |
Earlier Mr Salmond had told parliament funding in the sector was going up. | |
He said he had not been misleading and had used the figures in good faith. Mr Salmond added that his Education Secretary Mike Russell was also sorry. | |
Before the afternoon's parliamentary business got under way, Labour lodged a point of order on the matter. | Before the afternoon's parliamentary business got under way, Labour lodged a point of order on the matter. |
| The party's education spokesman Hugh Henry said the first minister had been guilty either of incompetence or of misleading parliament. |
Deputy Presiding Officer John Scott said the veracity or otherwise of ministerial statements was not a matter for him. | Deputy Presiding Officer John Scott said the veracity or otherwise of ministerial statements was not a matter for him. |
| |
The apology came after Mr Salmond had insisted during FMQs that resource funding for colleges was up. | |
He was responding to questions from Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont, who said Mr Russell had misled the parliament over college funding figures. | |
Mr Salmond responded: "He [Mr Russell] was correct, the funding position, resource funding for colleges, is £545m in 2011-12 and in 2012-13 it's £546m." | |
But Ms Lamont told the first minister both the Auditor General and figures from the Scottish Parliament's independent information centre showed that "the cabinet secretary was, in fact, wrong". | |
She said: "College budgets have been cut this year. In the light of these independently-sourced facts, was Mike Russell right or was he misleading parliament?" | |
However, Mr Salmond insisted the public spending watchdog had failed to take account of funding announced after the SNP unveiled its draft budget. |