That the Parliament notes that NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and ASH Scotland have carried out a pilot exercise that trained and supported money advice workers on how best to raise with their clients the financial benefits of stopping smoking; understands that, in addition to the training on how to raise and discuss the topic, staff, managers and clients were interviewed to evaluate the impact of the pilot and any perceived barriers to change; believes that positive feedback was received with every group suggesting that talking about the cost of smoking could be a useful addition to the support provided; welcomes the evaluation report, which it believes will be published on No Smoking Day, 9 March 2016, and looks forward to financial support services across Scotland engaging with their clients about the cost of smoking so that they can provide the best support to people experiencing financial difficulties.
Video Blog: Fiscal Framework Negotiations
John Mason MSP congratulates Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney on their renegotiations to ensure Scotland suffered no detriment because of the fiscal framework agreement.
Motion S4M-15689: Trident Costs Security
That the Parliament notes the article in The Independent of 13 February 2016, which reports that the UK has had to rely on aircraft from allies over 20 times in the last year; further notes that aircraft have apparently had to be called from the US, Germany, Canada and France to protect Scottish waters due to a lack of maritime patrol aircraft that, among other uses, can detect and track Russian and other submarines; understands that the need for such support stems directly from the decision taken by the Ministry of Defence to cut the Nimrod patrol aircraft supposedly due to a deficit of £38 billion in the military budget; believes that if cuts are to be made in the defence budget they should take the form of scrapping the Trident nuclear submarines, which it considers make no sense either on moral, economic or strategic grounds, and considers that Trident is prioritised due to politicians in the UK Parliament clinging on to a false sense of Britain’s importance in the world and that this has led to real gaps in the conventional abilities of the armed forces thereby compromising the security of Scotland.
John asks about Economic Impact of Clydesdale Bank sale
John Mason: To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has made of the potential economic impact on Scotland of the Clydesdale Bank being floated on the stock market.