{"id":67221,"date":"2025-05-02T02:14:23","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T02:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/67221\/"},"modified":"2025-05-02T02:14:23","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T02:14:23","slug":"snp-minister-blasted-for-evasive-excuses-days-after-dodging-holyrood-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/67221\/","title":{"rendered":"SNP minister blasted for ‘evasive excuses’ days after ‘dodging’ Holyrood questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth posed with a giant SNP logo on the campaign trail – the same afternoon she controversially failed to turn up for Holyrood questions.<\/p>\n

The Nats minister was due to appear in parliament<\/a> to be quizzed on issues including on school violence at the first education questions in five weeks on April 24.<\/p>\n

\"Jenny<\/a><\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth campaigning in Fife on April 24.\"Neil<\/a><\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

Scottish Labour MSP Neil Bibby has criticised Ms Gilruth over her failure to attend.Credit: Getty<\/p>\n

But, social media snaps on her Facebook page show her out door-knocking for the SNP in the Glenrothes Central and Thornton by-election that afternoon.<\/p>\n

It came on the same day that a 12-year-old girl was rushed to hospital<\/a> after an alleged stabbing at a school in Aberdeen.<\/p>\n

A Scottish Government spokesperson had said \u201cdiary commitments\u201d were the reason that Ms Gilruth was unable to attend the parliament.<\/p>\n

As she exited the Holyrood chamber following FMQs, our reporter quizzed her on the issue, asking: \u201cWhy did you not appear last week in parliament for education questions?\u201d<\/p>\n

But, Ms Gilruth expressed surprise, asking: \u201cEducation questions?\u201d<\/p>\n

Our reporter then pressed: \u201cWere you campaigning for the SNP?\u201d<\/p>\n

A defiant Ms Gilruth responded: \u201cI was undertaking government business and I was also in my constituency.”<\/p>\n

The Education Secretary then ignored The Scottish Sun when our reporter asked whether it was \u201conly government business\u201d that she was involved in.<\/p>\n

When quizzed by another journalist on the issue, she said: \u201cI was undertaking government business and I was undertaking a range of different democratic responsibilities in my local constituency, as I think you can see on my social media.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite being asked to clarify whether she was campaigning for the SNP<\/a> as part of a by-election, Ms Gilruth ignored the question and entered a lift taking her to Holyrood\u2019s ministerial offices.<\/p>\n

Scottish Labour MSP Neil Bibby said: \u201cThese are evasive excuses for skipping her responsibilities to parliament. <\/p>\n

“As Education Secretary, she should be setting a better example to Scotland\u2019s young people.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe teach our school children to admit they were wrong and apologise if they get caught out. <\/p>\n

“Jenny Gilruth should follow that lesson and come clean by publishing her diary.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Scottish Tory shadow minister for children and young people Roz McCall weighed in: \u201cJenny Gilruth clearly knows she has been caught red-handed and her shameless attempts to spin her way out of this simply won\u2019t wash.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven all the challenges facing Scotland\u2019s education system after 18 years of SNP failure it is appalling she put her party above doing her job in Parliament.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is all too typical of nationalist ministers who are always looking for ways to avoid being held to account.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth posed with a giant SNP logo on the campaign trail – the same afternoon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,527,1102,918,4884,528,857,712,8545,935,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-67221","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-conservative-party","10":"tag-edinburgh","11":"tag-glasgow","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-labour-party","14":"tag-schools","15":"tag-scotland","16":"tag-scottish-national-party","17":"tag-section-newspolitics","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114435829595966515","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}