HOLYROOD'S Presiding Officer was forced to suspend voting after MSPs said they had no confidence in a new system that allows them to vote remotely.

Ken Macintosh promised a “thorough debrief” of what happened after a number of politicians said they had been unable to take part in a vote.

He accepted there were “major issues” with the remote system – introduced by Holyrood in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic – and that these were “undermining confidence”.

But he refused to re-run the vote in question, instead saying that MSPs will be informed on Wednesday if the result is valid.

Labour MSP Neil Findlay raised a series of points of order with Mr Macintosh after his amendment – calling on the Scottish Government to halt the development of a new specialist service for women affected by a vaginal mesh until it can be confirmed who will will be carrying out procedures – appeared to be defeated by 58 votes to 57.

But concerns were raised that at least three MSPs had not been able to take part in the vote.

Findlay told the Presiding Officer that confidence in the remote voting system was “ebbing away every single day we come here”.

Findlay insisted: “The system is self evidently not working to the satisfaction of all members.

“We have a major problem with this system and we can not continue in the farcical way we are just now.”

SNP MSP and Scottish Government Constitution Secretary Mike Russell agreed with the Labour politician, saying as it stands MSPs could have “no confidence” in the result of the vote.

Russell said: “I voted two weeks ago in a remote division on a Bill and I was terrified in each division that the vote was not being counted or not being counted properly.

“Today we have seen a vote which, at the very least, must be one in which this chamber will have no confidence. A vote by a single vote, and we do not know whether individuals have voted or not.”

Macintosh said while the system was working he recognised “it has major issues at the moment, which is undermining confidence”.

The Presiding Officer told MSPs: “We need to have a thorough debrief of what happened in that particular vote, to make sure everybody here has confidence that the vote has been carried out, including myself, that it has been carried out robustly and effectively.

“I will inform the chamber tomorrow once we have had a through debrief whether that result was a valid result or not.”

Prior to the introduction of the remote voting system he said MSPs could “miss votes for lots of reasons”, adding that sometimes politicians in the chamber could “press the wrong button”.

And while he said there were “difficulties” he added that these could be in part because of a lack of familiarity with the new process.

Macintosh continued: “The fact that Mr Findlay does not like the outcome of the vote is not the same as not having confidence in the outcome.”

But he added: “I need to know what happened in the vote at which point we will be able to make a proper decision.”

He pledged to ensure MSPs were made “fully aware of what happened in that particular vote and of any decision to re-run”.