Margo MacDonald: Will the member give way.
Margo MacDonald: Will the member give way?
Margo MacDonald: Much as I appreciate hearing the detail that is comprising the debate at this precise moment, I cannot help but think that the Opposition has to come up with an answer to the question that is being asked elsewhere in the United Kingdom: what are we going to do about the cost of living?
Margo MacDonald: I have a very basic question, for the benefit of people who might not understand all the high-flown economics. How can we be experiencing growth without the debt getting bigger if we are borrowing more?
Margo MacDonald: Is it true that the credit rating portrays what everybody else values a currency and economy at, and that the UK’s credit rating has not reached again the AAA rating that it used to have?
Margo MacDonald: I have an interest to declare—I am the Parliament’s one qualified specialist PE teacher. I might have two sticks these days, but I would not even be going around on two sticks if I had not qualified in PE. Although I greatly appreciate the work that the minister has done in promoting the additional modules of PE for general teachers at training colleges, nothing will beat a PE specialist...
Margo MacDonald: Obviously, I am pleased to hear that. We have not yet identified a strategic way to develop sports that suit Scotland. The figures show that fewer young people are taking part in sport of their own volition, and that cannot all be explained by the PC-in-the-bedroom generation, because the same generation exists in Scandinavia and elsewhere. Although some other countries find it difficult to...
Margo MacDonald: I have said my piece. Thank you, Presiding Officer.
Margo MacDonald: Does the member have an answer to the question about why there has been that drop in the percentage of young people who are taking part in sport?
Margo MacDonald: Will the member give way?
Margo MacDonald: I thank Mark McDonald for giving way. That is not the point that he thought I might make. The council is providing a top-class quality facility, and all the clubs—there are a lot of clubs in the Grampian area—will want to use it. My message to the council would be, “Don’t put the prices too high,” because the clubs cannot afford to take the water time.
Margo MacDonald: Will the member take an intervention?
Margo MacDonald: The member has given an excellent example of a sport that has far too much underfunding, but so much potential.
Margo MacDonald: Will the minister take on an even more fundamental issue and look at the idea of incorporating specialist PE colleges into universities? That was the position when I trained, but I fear that there is now far too much classroom work in the approach adopted.
Margo MacDonald: I congratulate the Government on producing a very workmanlike document, which I hope will start many of the debates that we should have in Scotland. I also gently say that Nicola Sturgeon should not dismiss what Malcolm Chisholm said, because a lot of us feel that this looks too easy. We know that it will be difficult, which is where we get to negotiations. When we talk about negotiations,...
Margo MacDonald: The paths of my family and Helen Eadie’s family crossed a long time ago, when Alex Eadie was a candidate in Ayr and my husband, Jim, was his election agent—that is a team, if members can imagine it. When Jim was elected to Westminster, he went to live with Helen, which is something that not everybody knows. He was there with a clutch of young members of Parliament, and she was the...
Margo MacDonald: Is the member concerned in any way that we should be concentrating on defence work for the Clyde when we know that the Ministry of Defence will cut back the size of the navy even more?
Margo MacDonald: Let us get back to shipbuilding on the Clyde. Can the member explain why it should still be in the same perilous state that it was in 40 years ago, when I represented the constituency? It has been hanging on by its fingernails for 40 years. Does the member agree that it would be a good idea to try something else?
Margo MacDonald: I hope that Stuart McMillan thinks that it strengthens his argument to recall that Jimmy Reid decided that independence was the way forward.
Margo MacDonald: Will the member give way?