Members of the Scottish Parliament were last night facing embarrassing accusations that they had snubbed the Queen after 48 out of a total of 129 failed to turn up for the celebrations to mark Holyrood's 10th anniversary.

In what was being seen as a severe public relations reverse for Holyrood, there were glaring gaps in the Parliamentary chamber where MSPs should have been as Her Majesty in her speech congratulated the Parliament on its “spirit of engagement” and the commitment of MSPs to Scotland.

So poor was the attendance of the MSPs, with between a half and a third posted missing, that only minutes before the Queen was due to speak, Parliament officials had to be drafted in to sit in seats normally occupied by members.

While many of the MSPs who stayed away pleaded constituency or personal business as the reason for their absence, the Parliament itself pointed out that they knew of yesterday's ceremony as long ago as last October with an update on arrangements issued at the start of April this year.

Some MSPs who were not there to mark the occasion were on holiday because the Parliament is now in long summer recess. Others decided to spend the day in their constituencies while a few had valid personal reasons such as, in one case, the birth of a child and, in another, a family bereavement.

Among those MSPs who did turn up, there was deep regret and some anger at what they regarded as an “own goal” by their colleagues.

One senior Conservative MSP pointed out that Holyrood's reputation had recently risen because its expenses system has been compared so favourably with that of Westminster.

“This is a really big negative for the Parliament on what should have been a happy and momentous day. People should have made more of an effort to turn up. It's bad manners,” he said.

Ross Finnie, a Liberal Democrat MSP and a former minister, described the turn-out as “very disappointing” but claimed that some MSPs may have booked holidays thinking that the 10th anniversary celebrations would be in May, when MSPs were first elected.

It appears that the individual parties did not mount any whipping operation to ensure that their MSPs were present to celebrate the anniversary of Holyrood being given legislative powers on July 1, 1999, and the Parliament as a body did not ask them to do so.

There was even speculation at Holyrood that the ‘no-show' by MSPs could affect major occasions at the Parliament in future. One MSP said: “After this, will Buckingham Palace look so kindly on an invitation from this place?”

Of the individual parties, 26 out of 47 SNP MSPs were present; Labour had 29 out of 46 there; The Conservatives had 13 out of 16 and the Liberal Democrats 11 out of 16. One of two Green MSPs turned up but the sole independent MSP, Margo Macdonald, did not.

Five SNP government ministers - Richard Lochhead, Jim Mather, Roseanna Cunningham, Stewart Stevenson and Bruce Crawford - were also marked absent, electing instead to spend the day on ministerial engagements. Ms Cunningham, the junior environment minister, is well-known for her republican views which have earned her the nickname ‘Republican Rose' and she was instead visiting an ironworks and a waterways path network in the West of Scotland.

Christine Grahame, the Nationalist MSP, admitted that she had stayed away because of her republican sympathies. She said: "I had no intention of being there and I made my position clear before the event. I do not want to be seen as a hypocrite. I do not believe in the aristocracy running our country."

Mr Crawford, the SNP's Parliamentary Business Minister, was in France laying a wreath, on behalf of the Scottish government, at the site of the Battle of Paschendale while Mr Lochhead, the Rural Affairs Minister, was in Campbeltown opening a dairy plant.

A government spokesman said: “Government has to continue and these were ministerial engagements which have been in diaries for a very long time.”

AN SNP spokesman said several backbench Nationalist MSPs had “unbreakable” constituency engagements including one, Willie Coffey, who was holding discussions with Diageo following the company's announcement of job losses in Kilmarnock. Another, Gil Paterson, had been on his way to Holyrood when he was told of a family bereavement and had to turn around.

Labour claimed that with 29 MSPs present, it had the largest attendance of any party. Four could not attend as they had constituency business, said a spokesman, one was speaking at a conference, another had business at the House of Lords and three could not make it for medical reasons.

"There were further eight who had already booked their holidays as the Parliament is in recess and it was before we were notified about the Queen's visit,” said the spokesman.

Alison McInnes, a Liberal Democrat MSP, was said by party officials to have had a dental appointment; later she said she had been absent for “personal reasons”. Meanwhile, Patrick Harvie, a Green MSP, was moving his constituency office. Elizabeth Smith, a Tory MSP, was on a visit to Belgium with children from her constituency.

Buckingham Palace would make no comment on the absent MSPs but a spokesman for the Parliament said: “Obviously we would have liked a bigger turnout but nothing has detracted from the fact this was a highly successful day which involved many ten year olds from across Scotland and beyond who share our 1 July birthday.”

In her address to MSPs, The Queen said the challenge to MSPs in the coming years was to take the Scottish Parliament “forward on the next stage of its journey.”

She called on MSPs to build on “strong foundations”, to reflect the “priorities and aspirations of all of Scotland's people” and to retain the public's confidence and trust.

The day of celebration featured a birthday party for 143 children born in Scotland on July 1, 1999,. Eighty eight per cent of them attended, some of them coming from as far afield as Canada, the USA and Germany, compared to only 62 per cent of MSPs.

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