Hansard

I absolutely agree with that. I thought that I was old, but I did not realise that Mr Sweeney had been around in 1190—it is encouraging to know that he was there.

It is a great pleasure to see Richard Lyle, our former parliamentary colleague, sitting in the public gallery. Richard, who had a voice like a fairground attendant and was known to bark “Yes” or “No” from his party’s benches, was fundamental to ensuring that the work of the Showmen’s Guild was properly represented.

Let me sound a slightly discordant note. I think that the Parliament betrayed Scottish showpeople. Richard Lyle had a member’s bill that unfortunately fell because of Covid. That bill sought to correct the huge injustice in Scotland whereby local authorities charge variable rates, as David Torrance said, from £21 up to thousands of pounds for these family businesses to operate in our communities. Those charges are not applied in England and do not exist there—they are a purely Scottish phenomenon. In this, the week when Donald Trump has returned to the White House and signed so many executive orders, I say to the cabinet secretary that he should sign an executive order to correct that injustice. If he cannot do that, he should explain why, given that Richard Lyle’s bill fell because of a lack of time as a result of Covid, the Scottish Government has not picked up the matter to correct that injustice.

I want that injustice to be corrected and, using the vernacular of the time, I want to make showmen great again. Let us make the showmen great again and let us back them—not just by welcoming them to Scotland today, but by doing something that will help generations to come to enjoy fabulous funfairs and support a community that does so much for Scotland, such as paying taxes that send our kids to schools and all those things. Given the tradition of Scottish family businesses going back generations, let us get behind those people and correct that injustice once and for all.