Keith Raffan: Does the minister agree that important sections of the constitutional treaty would give increased power to sub-state national Parliaments in their say on European legislation? Will he kill the myth from the Tories and will he endorse the work of that noted member of the Scottish National Partly, Sir Neil MacCormick, by appealing to the SNP to come off the fence, stop being entangled in...
Keith Raffan: I join members from all parties in welcoming the Black Watch home and expressing condolences to the families of those brave five who lost their lives in the deserts of Iraq. "I ... believe that a super-regiment would submerge and eventually extinguish all the individual loyalties, traditions and histories of the Scottish regiments as we know them. That might not matter to the MOD or to...
Keith Raffan: No. My second main point is to counter the argument that the move to larger regiments will increase recruitment and retention. I will give the 2003-04 recruitment target and actual recruitment figure for the Black Watch: the annual target was 112 and the actual recruitment was 122, so 109 per cent was achieved. The links with the community are not only a matter of sentiment, tradition and...
Keith Raffan: I listened carefully to what Miss Goldie said, but what is absent from her speech is any indication of how the Conservatives would try to break the cycle of reoffending through rehabilitation, training or educational opportunities in prisons. All that they see is punishment.
Keith Raffan: Does the minister agree that the Conservatives have shown again and again their failure to understand the complexity of drug misuse? The whole point of DTTOs and drugs courts is to get drug addicts into treatment and recovery and so break the cycle of reoffending. That is how we should treat people—unless they are guilty of serious offences—rather than sending them to prison, which is a...
Keith Raffan: Will the minister join me in congratulating bridgemaster Alastair Andrew and his team on the efficient way in which they are managing traffic on the Forth road bridge? They cannot be expected to do that indefinitely. What does the most recent structural report that the minister has received say about the state of the bridge, especially since the opening of the main suspension cables, which I...
