Marlyn Glen: I, too, congratulate Murdo Fraser on securing the debate. As we can see, lots of people like red and grey squirrels. As we have heard, the problem is that the two species cannot live together. Grey squirrels, which were introduced to Scotland from America more than a century ago, are causing the endangered red squirrels to disappear slowly. It is our responsibility to prevent that from...
Murdo Fraser: .... In 1990, the car that I was in was involved in a head-on collision on the A9 single carriageway near Carrbridge. I suffered multiple fractures and spent weeks in hospital. I was one of the lucky ones—I survived—but others have not been so fortunate. For decades now, I have been campaigning for A9 improvements, with petitions, at public meetings and by raising the issue in Parliament...
Keith Brown: ...veterans commissioner’s recommendations. In such debates, I have never declared an interest. Perhaps I should have done so but I should perhaps also have declared an interest when appointing Eric Fraser because, like me, he was in the Royal Navy—although I, of course, was in the best part of the Royal Navy, having been in the Royal Marines. I agree with members who pointed out the...
Dr Rhodes Boyson: I appreciate, although I do not necessarily agree with, the points made by the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser). A number of images were presented during the short Committee deliberations. Tonight we heard of chocolates being taken to a hospital patient. We were told that, when the patient wanted to eat the chocolates, they were whisked away. They were a mirage. Undoubtedly, there will be...
Henry McLeish: ...Lockerbie criminal investigation. He mentioned 11 or 12 debates, but we have factually established that the total is 14. In his most recent Adjournment debate, he said that he must be extremely lucky to have secured such a debate. He must have an exceptionally lucky star, because that debate was only six weeks ago. I share with him, however, an appreciation of the seriousness of the...
Murdo Fraser: ...of poor standards or inadequate curriculum development and that, if parents choose their nurseries properly, they will not face those problems. However, I know that too many parents are not as lucky as we were. Rather than have the right to choose and flexibility, they are left having to take their children to the nursery place that the local authority provides. They are left with the...
Sir Richard Nugent: Before dealing with the main trend of the debate I shall answer the smaller points raised by the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser). He asked me what steps had been taken to fulfil the promises made in the 1952 White Paper to deal with the inefficient farmer. There is a very good tale to tell here. The general work that we, with the county committees, have done in the past 18 months or...
Mr Hugh Fraser: ...into account the huge sums involved, running into hundreds of billions of pounds, the burden will not be so very onerous. The variations are immense. An acre in the north of Scotland or Wales is lucky to be worth a fiver, whereas in Holborn or Mayfair it is cheap at £5 million. The golden mile in the City, with some of its 32 million sq ft at £25 per sq ft, raises an astronomical sum for...
Mr John Fraser: ...passed, so that it can go into Committee. Part I gives the right to buy to those in the privately rented sector. Three things have a particular influence over a person's life—his job, if he is lucky enough to have one, his family and his home. The idea that someone in the private sector can own and control something that has such great influence is good and to be welcomed. All the...
Rachael Hamilton: ...highlighted the fact that the Government is sitting on £2.2 billion of Barnett consequentials that should, rightfully, be in the hands of businesses around Scotland, which are on their knees. The Fraser of Allander institute revealed that the Government is hoarding more than £1 billion at Holyrood instead of using it to protect jobs and support businesses. More than anything, that...
Eddie Hughes: ...afterwards, the Government offered YMCA Birmingham tremendous support through what might seem to be a lexicon of the funding available. Indeed, YMCA Birmingham seems to have been particularly lucky. Alan Fraser, the chief executive who appointed me, is obviously a very wise man, and the organisation’s success is partly down to his brilliance. When I joined the organisation, it had just...
Mr Giles Radice: I have not done that. The Minister should not look a gift horse in the mouth. He should accept support, wherever it comes from and not complain, because he is quite lucky. In supporting the next steps reforms, I am not hiding the fact that there are major problems of implementation; we must accept that. Some of the problems were covered in the three reports of the Select Committee, and some...
Anne McLaughlin: ..., where I got chatting to some Canadian tourists—a father and son. The father told me that the son had just won the world pipe band championships. It turns out that he was a piper with the Simon Fraser University pipe band of Vancouver. I congratulated him and remember telling him that I knew how good the band must be to have beaten Strathclyde Police pipe band, which had come fourth....
Fraser Kemp: I agree that co-operation between the authorities is important. The judge at the trial following Anne Brennan's death said at the end that those involved were lucky to get away without facing a charge of manslaughter. I agree, and I believe that the Crown Prosecution Service and other legal authorities should be vigorous in ensuring that the full weight of the law comes down on such people....
Jenny Gilruth: I absolutely agree with what Murdo Fraser says. I will come to that issue later in my speech. Much as in the Borders, opening up the Leven rail link would not only be about driving investment and job creation. It is about more than that; it is about tourism. When the rail line first opened in the 1960s, it helped Leven to become a tourist destination. My granddad, who is from Springburn, used...
Hon. Lancelot Joynson-Hicks: It is likely that the Communist Party is quite right when they say that it is the Minister's lucky number. Recently when we were discussing another figure, namely, making it 80 instead of 40, the Minister said that the only reason why that figure of 80 had been chosen was because it was double the figure 40. He argued that, therefore, it should be rejected. The only argument advanced in...
Mr Iain Sproat: .... If, on Second Reading, one can look at a one-sentence clause and make such a point of substance, it argues that the Bill has not been drafted carefully. I agree with my hon. Friend, and if I am lucky enough to be a member of the Committee I shall adduce arguments in his support. I wish to continue on clause 2, which deals with the duty of all education authorities to provide education...
Jim Hume: ...valley of the Nile. The worst flood that I remember happened in October 1977, when Selkirk lost its bridge and there was much damage to property and loss of livestock but no human loss, which was lucky. Last year I watched as the family dog disappeared into a 12ft-deep torrent of water rushing by the house, which had been a lazy burn of 6in only 10 minutes earlier. It was lucky that the...
Murdo Fraser: .... This is an historic budget. For the first time, this Parliament has control over an extensive range of taxes in Scotland. He might not think so right at the moment, but the finance secretary is a lucky man because he has more choices than his predecessor ever had thanks to a Conservative Government at Westminster delivering financial devolution. He had the choice to use the new powers to...
Hon. Oliver Stanley: ...there were 5,344,000,000 passengers travelling on motor omnibuses. Who can say, after that, that the motor does not play its part, not in the life of the small, select community who happen to be lucky enough to own cars, but in the life of the ordinary man and woman all over the country? I am sure that anyone who is carried away either by his feelings or by rhetoric to set one class of...
