S3M-5832 Commonwealth Day 2010

Scottish Parliament

Wednesday 10 March 2010

[THE PRESIDING OFFICER opened the meeting at 14:30]

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Commonwealth Day 2010

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Alasdair Morgan): The final item of business is a members' business debate on motion S3M-5832, in the name of Sandra White, on Commonwealth day 2010, science, technology and society. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.

Motion debated,

That the Parliament considers that the Commonwealth has a valuable role in strengthening relationships between nations across the world; welcomes the continued contribution of Scotland and its people to those relationships; reaffirms its support for the work of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA); notes that, this year, the CPA Scotland Branch and the Scottish Government have, as a key focus, continued to develop relationships with Australia, Canada, Malawi and New Zealand; considers that Scotland has contributed throughout the Commonwealth to promoting technological innovation as a powerful tool for fighting poverty and climate change; commends the CPA Secretariat for facilitating an online discussion via web and teleconferencing during the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009; believes that it would be helpful if international organisations and donors focussed on science and technology to strengthen expertise in this area, particularly among developing countries, and commends the theme of Commonwealth Day this year, Science, Technology and Society.

17:07
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17:30

The Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change (Stewart Stevenson):

This has been an interesting debate that has been brought to the chamber by Sandra White. I, too, add my thanks. I confess that I have not read the report on the Commonwealth conversation, which was published last week; however, I might be inspired to seek it out and see what it says.

Sandra White referred to morals and ethics for the 21st century. It is fair to say that that strand ran through several of the speeches tonight. The CPA is essentially not economic or military, but is an association of people who share values and want to build a world that is fair to everyone. In introducing that in her opening remarks, Sandra White was absolutely on the money.

Karen Gillon focused, as did Willie Coffey, on science and development. She talked about the need for access to knowledge in many parts of the Commonwealth and about the role that Scotland and the Commonwealth as a whole can play in ensuring that countries that have less capability than we have receive the support that we can give. She graphically illustrated some of the health threats in one of our close partners, Malawi, and focused on the academic links that both benefit the academics in Scotland by increasing their knowledge base, and benefit countries around the Commonwealth through the knowledge that we can transfer to them. That is done somewhat outside the parameters of the patents system, to which Willie Coffey referred and which is sometimes a severe inhibitor to the useful transfer of intellectual property for good social and health purposes.

Karen Gillon also raised one of my particular ministerial interests when she talked about climate change and mentioned the role of engineers in generating electricity. When we talk about technology, we tend to think about the advanced computer stuff and high-precision engineering.

However, it is interesting to see how quite simple things make real differences to people's lives. When I was in Barcelona for a pre-meeting for the Copenhagen climate change conference, I saw a solar furnace—a portable umbrella that a person can carry around in a bag and which, when set up with a kettle in the middle of it, will boil the kettle in 20 minutes by the power of the sun alone. There are many innovations that are simple, inexpensive, can be replicated without vast industrial infrastructures and which will be of use to Commonwealth countries around the world.

Willie Coffey referred to the patents system, and highlighted the role that global system for mobile communications phones have played throughout Africa. Occasionally, there is an advantage in not having an existing infrastructure, because that allows a country to leap forward over the old technologies to new technologies. The Commonwealth can be a vehicle for enabling countries to do that.

Ted Brocklebank spent over much of his time talking about Tommy Sheridan. My view of Tommy Sheridan is that he is his own worst enemy, which is—when we consider the competition—a terrific achievement.

As someone who is one and a half generations away from Gaelic and regrets having virtually none of it, I also found it interesting to hear what Ted Brocklebank said about work on the Maori language.

Jamie Stone has been engaged with the Commonwealth through his work in the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association for some considerable time.

Members talked about many people joining the Commonwealth. One of the interesting things that really illustrated the value of the Commonwealth was Rwanda's joining in 2009. Of course, that country has no historical connection to the United Kingdom, but was a colonial outpost of Belgium and Germany. The fact that it has joined shows that the idea of the Commonwealth is much bigger than perhaps anyone imagined when it was first dreamed up. The Commonwealth is a glue that binds many countries together.

Later this year, the Commonwealth games will be held in Delhi, after which we will see the transfer of host status from India to Scotland. The year 2014 will bring the Commonwealth, on the sporting field, directly to Scotland, which will show what we can contribute to the world on the sporting field and that we can organise such an event.

As a country, we have always looked beyond our borders. We might not have sent many convicts to Australia, but because I do family research, I know that one of my distant cousins—a first cousin four times removed, I think—was a member of Parliament in Australia, although I hasten to add that that was 130 years ago.

We are still managing to find the money to fund an international development budget. We are increasing it from £6 million to £9 million in 2010-2011. That is part of Scotland's contribution to the global fight against poverty.

My colleague the Minister for Culture and External Affairs will publish four components of a programme of engagements with south Asia before the summer recess. We are looking to build further links with India, Pakistan and south Asia more generally.

The Copenhagen conference was a great disappointment to many people but it was, nonetheless, an opportunity to make terrific links with various countries, which will serve us well as we progress the climate change agenda. In sub-Saharan Africa, the threat of climate change is real and imminent and is of a different character from the difficulties that we would experience from climate change. Running through the climate change agenda is the moral core that we need to take action on the climate in order to help people around the Commonwealth and around the world.

This has been a first-class debate, although it has barely scratched the surface of an immense subject that we will, I am sure, debate again and again, and always to good purpose.

Meeting closed at 17:38.