MSPs will have just 20 minutes to quiz Culture Secretary Angus Robertson over Scotland’s troubled census - despite initially being told they would get an hour.
According to the Tories, the promise of 60 minutes scrutiny had, in fact, been a typo.
An attempt to extend the time available to ask questions following Thursday's statement was defeated in parliament after SNP and Greens MSPs voted down an amendment to the business programme.
Stephen Kerr, the Tory chief whip, said the request for an extension was due to “the vital importance of the subject and the extraordinary interest from members to ask questions on the census and it's shambolic handling by the Scottish Government.”
He said in a 30-minute statement that MSPs would likely only have 20 minutes to ask the cabinet secretary questions.
Mr Kerr said the minister for parliamentary business, George Adam, had initially “appeared to agree with our request” telling the parliamentary bureau, the cross-party body responsible for organising business in the chamber, that there would be a one hour slot for the statement.
“Finally, I thought, the Scottish Government are moving towards welcoming transparency and scrutiny,” Mr Kerr told MSPs. “More fool me. You see, it turns out that the one hour slot was just in fact a typo from Mr Adam, and he does intend to keep the statement to only 30 minutes.”
He added: “There's no escaping the fact that the political decisions of the Scottish Government on the handling of the census could have far-reaching damaging consequences for Scotland.”
Mr Adam dismissed the amendment and said the discussion over the timing had already been debated and agreed by the bureau.
Originally due to take place last year at the same time as the English and Welsh censuses, the Scottish survey was delayed by ministers for a year because of the pandemic.
The English and Welsh response rate was 97 per cent.
However in Scotland almost a third of Scottish households in some local authorities had failed to respond by the initial May 1 deadline, forcing an extension to May 31.
With the response rate around 87% against a target of 94.2% when this deadline arrived, the cut-off was then moved again to June 12.
The latest return rate is 87.5% nationally.
The survey is used to inform, design and improve public services.
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