Fiona McLeod: Will Education Scotland give any weight to the informal consultation in the East Dunbartonshire Council area, which has been deeply flawed and has caused a great deal of misery?
Fiona McLeod: I thank Jim Eadie for bringing this incredibly important issue before Parliament today and for his eloquent and informative speech, which I am sure everyone enjoyed and got a lot of added information from. I congratulate Lothiansound on its 25th anniversary, but I hope that it will not mind my using this opportunity to highlight talking news provision within my constituency. Members will not...
Fiona McLeod: I thank Dave Thompson for bringing this incredibly important topic to Parliament. As Dave Thompson said, the elderly are often the target of these ruthless criminals. Those in the chamber know that my constituency, Strathkelvin and Bearsden, encompasses one of the fastest-rising elderly populations in Scotland. At the moment, 22 per cent of the population are aged 60 years and over. It has...
Fiona McLeod: Thank you. This is not just about money or the attack on property. When this happens to older, vulnerable people, they lose their confidence and, often, their sense of independence. We must take it seriously. In my constituency, a dreadful incident was reported in the local papers last year. An elderly lady in her 70s was persuaded into a car. When the police stopped, the chap took off and...
Fiona McLeod: 4. To ask the Scottish Government what transport options are available for care home patients who are discharged from accident and emergency departments at night and what guidance is given to national health service boards regarding this. (S4O-01732)
Fiona McLeod: Is it worth developing guidelines and distributing them to care homes?
Fiona McLeod: I and some other members of the Scottish Parliament have volunteered to be volunteers at the Commonwealth games. Will the cabinet secretary join me in encouraging employers to help folk to attend training for being volunteers for the wonderful opportunity in 2014?
Fiona McLeod: The member talked earlier about reducing the stigma of mental ill-health. Does he think that it is unhelpful to continue to refer to antidepressants in the way that he has done, which leads to stigma? We would not have a campaign to reduce the use of insulin for people with diabetes.
Fiona McLeod: I want to confine my remarks to mental health problems in older people. Dementia is very much the headline mental health problem for older people. The dementia strategy was welcome and was well received but, as Richard Simpson explained, more older people experience mental health problems such as depression and anxiety than suffer from dementia; I add that I am in no way playing down the...
Fiona McLeod: Given that we are very short of time and that I have already cut my speech, I hope that the minister will be able to respond to some of that, which was nonsense. I would like to talk about why more older people are suffering from mental ill health. There are a number of reasons for that. We talk about multiple morbidity. It is a fact that many of us are living longer, but we are living longer...
Fiona McLeod: I echo the words of the convener and Graeme Pearson. The cross-party groups are an incredibly important part of the Parliament. They are part of the way that we engage with wider Scotland, transfer knowledge into and out of the Parliament and share knowledge with interest groups to inform MSPs in their parliamentary duties. As such, they are incredibly well respected throughout Scotland and...
Fiona McLeod: I would like to concentrate on peatlands. The minister and Rob Gibson, the convener of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee, have already spoken about the importance of peatlands and biodiversity. The convener gave us a lot of figures on peatlands, and members should expect me to add to them, because the importance of peatlands must be recognised. It is said that a...
Fiona McLeod: In his discussions with the NFUS, has the subject been raised of research into Neospora caninum, from dog faeces, which causes neosporosis in cattle?
Fiona McLeod: As I rise to follow many of my fellow members who used to be scientists, members must be wondering what a history graduate and a proud librarian can contribute to the debate. Of course, librarians of my generation are also called information scientists. The scientists and the researchers go out and find the evidence, and the big thing that we do is ensure that everybody can access the...
Fiona McLeod: I will give way briefly, but I am about to list three levels of evidence, with the references.
Fiona McLeod: I refer Mr Gray to paragraph 12 of the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s publication, to which many Labour members have referred, which provides exactly the evidence against the assertion that he makes. The funding that we have put in place in Scotland, and—it is not just about the money—the creative way in which we have got the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council and the...
Fiona McLeod: Professor Glover says that she must ask that politicians be “transparent about why they have not used the evidence available.” That is the question that we must ask the Labour Party today.
Fiona McLeod: Will the member give way?
Fiona McLeod: First of all, I refer members to my register of interests as the chair of the Scottish Library and Information Council and as a member of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. So, yes—Mr Campbell was correct. I am going to talk about book week Scotland. I usually speak as a very high-tech librarian and talk about evidence, references and citations. However, I am...
Fiona McLeod: Will the member take an intervention?
