David Maddox: Do the Lib Dems have anything to say?

Apparently not. It seems they turned down their chance to have a subject debate on Thursday, allegedly because they had nothing to table.

Labour have stepped into the breach with another planned stooshie on building schools and the Scottish Futures Trust. It will be interesting if education secretary Fiona Hyslop turns up to defend her record this time having ducked the last education debate. Needless to say Labour are already challenging her to come out of hiding.

But perhaps, she will take the line of the Lib Dems and decide again that the least said the better.

In fairness to the Lib Dems, I have at least received an explanation from them for their reticence.

The party's ever cheery spindoctor in parliament Jenny Stanning told me: "I've also checked about the party business debates - we only get four a year, not as many as Labour - so it's not really a case of taking turns. The Government offers slots to parties as part of the business programme and we decided that we'd prefer one of our four debate mornings to be later on in the session. Hope this clears up any mystery!"