It concludes general questions this morning.

Our next item of business is First Minister's questions.

At question number one, I call Douglas Ross.

This week, John Swiney spoke about the process of sanctioning Michael Matheson.

He said this.

In no other walk of life, would this be judged to be acceptable.

So I ask the First Minister, in what other walk of life would Michael Matheson still be in a job?

First Minister.

I think the issues in relation to the case of Michael Matheson have been well exercised

within Parliament and Parliament came to its conclusions yesterday and I accept the conclusions

that Parliament arrived at last night.

I am not surprised John's 20 wants to move on as quickly as possible. He accepts the judgments

that Parliament came to last night. What the people of Scotland want to know is John Swinney's

judgement, because we haven't heard that yet. He refused to support any sanction at all

for his friend Michael Matheson. That MSP has now been banned from Parliament for 27 days, but he has not been suspended from

the SMP by John Swinney.

People across Scotland think Michael Matheson should have been sacked because they would have

been in the same circumstances.

It is one role for the SMP and another for everyone else in Scotland.

Not only have the SMP refused to support any sanction for Michael Matheson, incredibly,

one of their SMP members of this Parliament said yesterday, we actually need more MSPs like Michael Matheson.

It is incredible, just like it is incredible that the First Minister is still defending his disgrace colleague.

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