HUMZA Yousaf’s former boss has weighed in over ongoing speculation about his motivations for missing the 2014 equal marriage vote.
Fiona Hyslop, who served as the external affairs secretary at the time, was Yousaf’s boss during his time as a junior minster.
Yousaf is facing questions about why he missed the final vote making same-sex marriage legal in Scotland almost a decade ago. He voted for the policy on its first reading in the Scottish Parliament.
He has insisted he had to meet the Pakistan consul in Glasgow to plead the case of a Scot in the country who was facing execution.
But Alex Neil, who oversaw the introduction of gay marriage, said this was untrue and that Yousaf had sought and obtained the permission of then-first minister Alex Salmond to dodge the vote.
Neil claimed the SNP leadership candidate was under pressure from the Muslim community – of which Yousaf is a member – to vote against the legislation and the meeting was a cover so he could avoid backing the policy.
Hyslop told The National: “The only comment I can make is that Humza Yousaf’s track record on equal rights is a matter of public record as was his vote at stage one of the bill, as cabinet secretary for external affairs I did not micro-manage my deputy minister’s diary but although it is nine years ago my recollection is that the issue he met the Pakistan diplomat about was serious and important.”
Neil told Times Radio: “We were having a free vote at stage three … and any minister who wasn't going to vote for the bill, or we wanted to skip the vote, had to get the permission of the first minister to do so.
“There was a request from Humza, because, in his words, of pressure he was under from the mosque for him to be absent from the vote. And Alex Salmond, the first minister, gave him permission to do that.
“And a ministerial meeting was arranged to take place at exactly the same time as the vote in Glasgow to give Humza cover for not being there."
Speaking to press at a campaign event in Pollokshields on Friday, Yousaf explicitly denied he had deliberately arranged a meeting to avoid the gay marriage vote.
He said: "No, that was not done. It was an unavoidable meeting."
Yousaf said the issue was "clearly being raised nine years on ... in a bid to destabilise my leadership campaign".
The Health Secretary said he had been lobbied by religious groups about the vote, but said that had been true for almost every MSP and that lobbiests had come from a range of different faiths.
Commenting on Twitter on a video from the event in which showed Yousaf denying arranging to miss the vote, Neil wrote: "This is not true. Humza deliberately skipped the vote."
When approached by The National, Salmond declined to comment.
