Fiona McLeod: It is important and fitting that we are having this debate about the major national and international festivals that are being held across Scotland this year. I very much want to talk about how our major festivals encourage, raise the profile of and raise participation in local festivals and themed festivals across Scotland, not just this year but every year. I will give members a personal...
Fiona McLeod: Will the member take an intervention?
Fiona McLeod: On a point of order, Presiding Officer—it is a genuine point of order. I seek your advice. Is it possible for a member to intervene in the middle of another member’s speech when they have not been present to listen to that speech? I would appreciate your ruling on that.
Fiona McLeod: 5. To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to inform doctors about the medical certificate of cause of death that is expected to be introduced in August. (S4O-03395)
Fiona McLeod: I thank the cabinet secretary for that comprehensive reply. I am pleased to hear about how much work we have done on the issue, but what have we done to inform funeral directors of the new MCCD?
Fiona McLeod: I speak as a member of the committee that considered this private bill and will concentrate my remarks on reassuring MSPs—both those who are in the chamber and those who are following the debate in their offices—before they vote at 4.45 this afternoon, given the number of emails that they have received and the assertions that have been made in them, that the committee conducted itself in...
Fiona McLeod: Will Dr Simpson take an intervention?
Fiona McLeod: I rise to speak as the constituency MSP for Strathkelvin and Bearsden, which has one of the fastest rising populations of older people in Scotland. A friend of mine who is a consultant in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde told me that a few streets in Bearsden have the fastest rising population of older people in the whole of western Europe. That is a testament to how well we have lived our lives...
Fiona McLeod: I was content that my father-in-law was a silver surfer. I am not sure that I would have been happy with him being a silver flyer. Towards the end, we were not sure that he should have been silver driver, but there we are. The demographics in Ken Macintosh’s constituency are very similar to the demographics in mine, so I was interested in the degree to which the structure of my speech was...
Fiona McLeod: I certainly will. I want to make it clear that we recognise the many achievements of older people and that we celebrate and support them in all that they do. Scotland’s older people deserve better than the carping that we have heard from the Opposition during the debate. Opposition members need to get real. The UK is eroding through welfare cuts, changes to pension ages and the widening...
Fiona McLeod: Does Ms Marra not accept that the number of full-time equivalents is the accepted measure of how many people are at college? That is the measure that is accepted by all statisticians, including those in the Scottish Parliament information centre, which recently said that FTE numbers were stable. Indeed, the Scottish Government had 116,399 extra places in 2012-13, which exceeds our manifesto...
Fiona McLeod: I am not necessarily giving my opinion, but I found it interesting that East Dunbartonshire youth council campaigned strongly to keep the one-week work experience when East Dunbartonshire Council did away with it. We need to listen to young folk as well as everyone else on that.
Fiona McLeod: I begin by thanking members across the parties who signed my motion so that we could debate it today, and the members who I know want to speak in this important debate. I also thank Melanoma Action and Support Scotland for the briefing that it gave me and other members. I welcome its representatives to the gallery—I hope that they are there and not standing in a queue, waiting to get in....
Fiona McLeod: I thank the members across the parties who signed my motion so that we could hold the debate. I also thank the members who will speak and who have stayed to listen to the opening speeches. I thank the minister for meeting volunteers from Action on Hearing Loss earlier this afternoon. I welcome to the public gallery many volunteers and their supporters—supporters who are human and canine. I...
Fiona McLeod: It is 20 May.
Fiona McLeod: Mary Scanlon, James Kelly and Willie Coffey, among others, have talked about digital exclusion and digital literacy, and I want to take the few minutes that I have to highlight what libraries are doing to address that issue. Unless we tackle the problems of the digital divide and ensure that people are digitally literate, our young people will simply not see the point of pursuing the...
Fiona McLeod: I agree with Ms Marra’s comments about digital exclusion in relation to hardware. Is she aware of the work by the Carnegie UK Trust that indicates that, once we give people the hardware, we need to ensure that they want to connect?
Fiona McLeod: I join everyone else in the chamber in thanking George Adam for bringing this very important debate before Parliament today. It is just a shame that we do not have more time to explore the issue in more depth. I thought that George Adam’s impassioned explanation of the benefits of fair trade, which go beyond commerce and into supporting communities, was an important message to take from the...
Fiona McLeod: The Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative administration in East Dunbartonshire is on course to have a large underspend in its Scottish welfare fund budget allocation, apparently because grants are being refused unless people turn up with receipts for everything down to their messages. Perhaps that is an explanation of why Labour councils are refusing to help local people in need.
Fiona McLeod: Thank you, Presiding Officer, for finding the time for me to speak. I will concentrate all my remarks on fair trade under the provisions on the sustainable procurement duty. In true librarian fashion, I was going to go through section 8 point by point, but there is not enough time. I refer members to paragraph 53 of the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee report, which summarises...
