Wendy Alexander: New Housing Partnership resources totalling almost £2 million have been earmarked to enable Aberdeen City Council to progress City-wide proposals. Calum MacDonald met the Tillydrone tenants and the Council in March this year. The Council is now considering the future options for its housing and I await the outcome of this consideration. It may, however, be possible to meet the Tillydrone...
John Swinney: Mr Macdonald raises a number of issues that take us into the fascinating territory of local government organisation in Scotland. Some of those issues are a hangover from the abolition of the regional councils, the existence of which allowed such matters to be handled in the context of a broader financial settlement that covered a larger geographic area. As Mr Macdonald will know, the...
Kenny MacAskill: I may have misheard Mr McConnell, but I thought that he referred to a civil service brief. I have a personal letter from Lord Macdonald of Tradeston-he even signed it "Yours, Gus Macdonald"-and I was pleased to receive it. The letter enclosed a copy of the report of the pathfinder groups and said: "This report brought together the findings of the 13 Pathfinder Groups that I set up and I am...
Donald Dewar: I can assure Margo MacDonald that we still co-operate fully with the police. I sign warrants under the interception laws. That is fairly common. These are important matters and there is proper scrutiny of any application for a warrant. We will shortly examine the business of new, intrusive surveillance techniques; there will almost certainly be legislation on that. I am sure Margo MacDonald...
Hugh Henry: It has been a somewhat bizarre debate because, at times—despite what Margo MacDonald said about some of the speeches—it has felt as though I was participating in fringe meetings at an SNP conference. There has been plenty rhetoric, emotion, sophistry and semantics but little about some of the facts and detail that we need to resolve. Had the debate been constructed around the terms of...
Jackie Baillie: To ask the Scottish Executive who in the First Minister’s private office decided not to bring to the First Minister’s attention correspondence from Mr Donald Macdonald and an enclosure of correspondence between HBOS and Highland Council intimating the prospective closure of the Macdonald hotel company and the complete resort operation received from the First Minister’s constituency...
Drew Smith: ...stronger Scottish Parliament in a stronger United Kingdom was Mr Macdonald’s position. However, does he not accept that that was the position that was voted for by the majority of people in Scotland, and that it is the SNP’s bad faith and poor tone in response to the entire Smith commission process that undermine people’s belief that the SNP genuinely accepts the result?
Reverend Llywelyn Williams: I happen to be able to speak with some authority on this matter. May I submit that the hon. Member is wrong on both counts. In the first instance, Lord Macdonald was in Wales when he was appointed to this post and always lived in Wales during his tenure of the post. Secondly, very few people in Wales listened more often to Welsh programmes than did Lord Macdonald in the last few years.
Lord Rotherwick: asked Her Majesty's Government: Further to the Written Answer by the Lord Macdonald of Tradeston on 26 November (WA 19), why they will not provide the information requested when it is due to be published early next year; and Further to the Written Answer by the Lord Macdonald of Tradeston on 26 November (WA 19), whether the Guardian press report on 9 November is correct in stating that the...
Mr Peter Thomas: There was good reason to believe that the signature on Mr. Macdonald's application form purporting to be that of his father was not authentic. The case was therefore referred in the normal way to the local police authorities for enquiry and subsequently, on receipt of the police report, to the Director of Public Prosecutions to consider whether proceedings should be instituted against the...
Lord Freyberg: asked Her Majesty's Government: Further to the Written Answers by Lord Macdonald of Tradeston on 9 December (WA8–9) and 16 December (WA84), why they will not consider allowing cyclists to use flashing lamps as an alternative to steady lamps; and Further to the Written Answers by Lord Macdonald of Tradeston on 9 December (WA8–9) and 16 December (WA84), whether the Road Vehicle Lighting...
Sir Geoffrey Mander: I hope the hon. and gallant Member will take note of that fact and draw the obvious conclusion. Reference is made to Lord Hankey and the French representative. Great Britain and France work very closely together. They have mutual interests in regard to Syria and Palestine, and I understand that there has been some sort of working arrangement between them. Mr. Malcolm MacDonald, who put the...
John Swinney: If we take the absolutist view—and I would never suggest that Margo MacDonald is an absolutist—the current legislative arrangements mean that the Westminster Parliament can legislate for whatever it likes under our current constitutional framework. I suppose that, in theory and in an absolutist context, Margo MacDonald has a fair point. Where the legislative framework has been put in...
Fergus Ewing: I agree with Angus MacDonald. During Covid, many individuals have revisited their eating habits and cooking arrangements, and there has been a marked move towards local food in many different ways. In this year’s programme for government, I have committed to developing a local food strategy for Scotland, and I am working as part of a ministerial group on the matter to publish a statement of...
Sarah Boyack: I am well aware of the interest in ensuring that the road is brought up to the best possible standards. It is to that end that, when I last met Gus Macdonald, I raised the issue of that stretch of road with him, and said that we were very keen that it should be upgraded. If the north-west regional assembly confirms that the recommendations are acceptable, I will write again and be in touch...
Jackie Baillie: To ask the Scottish Executive what advice was given to the First Minister or his special advisers in relation to the receipt of the correspondence and enclosures sent by the First Minister’s constituency office manager to his private office, intimating Mr Donald Macdonald’s intention to show the First Minister the exhibition of the live planning application for the second phase of the...
Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay: ...reluctant to join the Labour Party. Is the Minister aware that Gordon Brown is on track for an unprecedented double disaster, with the lowest housing starts in this country since 1924, when Ramsay MacDonald was Prime Minister, and, looming up in two years' time, the highest unemployment as percentage of the workforce since Ramsay MacDonald was Prime Minister in the 1930s?
Henry McLeish: The Minister for Health and Community Care and I agree with Margo MacDonald that the use of nursing banks should be appropriate. On winter recruitment in Lothian, approximately 240 additional nursing staff have been taken on. We intend that Lothian should have sufficient nursing staff to implement its winter plan. I hope that Margo MacDonald is reassured. I also hope that the whole chamber...
Jamie Hepburn: I welcome today’s debate. I understand that police support staff play an important role in ensuring an effective police force. The cabinet secretary clearly set out his admiration for their work. The debate is set against the backdrop of a direction of travel in policing in Scotland that is clearly different from that south of the border. The Scottish Government is ensuring that the front...
Mark McDonald: We had the debate on the Scottish Futures Trust during the election campaign. The people of Scotland demonstrated that they are quite happy with the work that it is doing and are quite unhappy with the scaremongering of people such as James Kelly. Margo MacDonald rose— I apologise profusely to Margo MacDonald for not taking an intervention from her, which would have been 10 times better...