Margo MacDonald: Will the member give way?
Margo MacDonald: Ooh! Thank you, Presiding Officer. I cannot make too many points, but I will say that I am absolutely in solidarity with Duncan McNeil, because his ambitions are the same as mine were and still are. Chic Brodie made the same sort of point, which is that, at the end of the day, it is the bottom line that counts. There is not a Government in Europe just now that can afford to pay over the odds,...
Margo MacDonald: It is a case of putting our minds to ensuring that things happen in a logical, planned fashion
Margo MacDonald: Will the member give way?
Margo MacDonald: I may have missed this—I apologise if that is the case—but does Labour have a strategy or policy on shipbuilding on the Clyde? Is its intention that the Clyde should deal only with military orders? If so, who will pay for those, given that the UK is just about bankrupt and cannot afford to pay for the ships that are already on the stocks?
Margo MacDonald: I am doing Malcolm Chisholm a good turn. Because I respect him so much, I must ask him the following question. He used the phrase “once and for all” again. Does he believe that it is ever possible to settle any principled question once and for all?
Margo MacDonald: The point intrigues me. The member claims that he has the best of both worlds. Does that mean by implication that the part of the British isles that left the British state has the worst of all worlds? Has Ireland got the worst of it?
Margo MacDonald: The Deputy First Minister said that the bill is large and complex. That is fair enough—but who cares about that? What we care about is the bill’s central core, which is the opportunity for Scots to face and to answer the core question that runs through all our politics. The bill gives us a chance to choose a future of which the boundaries, aspirations and achievements of Scots will be...
Margo MacDonald: Will the member give way?
Margo MacDonald: On a point of order, Presiding Officer. You said that a good number of back benchers were interested in putting questions on and debating the position of the shipyards. I was elected to represent Govan 40 years ago today. The trouble then was the shortage of orders after the current ships were in the slips. The problem is therefore old. Many folk know about it, and we could have a...
Margo MacDonald: 6. To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on Police Scotland’s reported decision to ask the City of Edinburgh Council to grant licences for saunas only on the condition that items of a sexual nature are not allowed on the premises. (S4O-02507)
Margo MacDonald: I thank the minister for his reply, but I am a bit puzzled, as the Scottish Government promotes the safer sex message. It is an odd contradiction to ask saunas not to have any condoms in them. Where was that policy made? Is it an operational matter, or should it be overridden by the Government’s greater task of ensuring safer sex and lower levels of transmission of infectious diseases,...
Margo MacDonald: Can the member give me some information?
Margo MacDonald: I am sure that the member will be able to help me with this. It is a laudable objective to have people reclaimed—to have new people walk out of the prison gates—but recidivism in Scotland, we are told, is extremely high. How does Scotland compare with other countries? Do other countries manage to renew the heart and soul and body when they send their prisoners out?
Margo MacDonald: Will the member give way?
Margo MacDonald: Let me ask a quickie. Does the member think that what crime prisoners have committed makes a difference to how they are received and are able to rejoin society?
Margo MacDonald: Employers should also be encouraged to provide some of the training in prisons, because the cabinet secretary will have a hard job persuading folk during a time of recession that they should put their money where we are saying their mouths should be.
Margo MacDonald: I greatly appreciate the amount of work that Elaine Murray has done and the statistical information that she has provided. Were the stats for the better times—the period before the recession—the same? Has she considered doing that comparison?
Margo MacDonald: On the point that I made earlier, how do we shape up against other countries, and to what extent does poverty determine the outcome of rehabilitation?
Margo MacDonald: Would it be possible to find out whether everyone who speaks agrees with going to a new set of verdicts—proven and not proven?