Official Report 260KB pdf
Before we move to First Minister’s questions , as remembrance day approaches, I know that members across the chamber will wish to join me in remembering those who have served and sacrificed and all those whose lives have been affected by conflict. I invite each party leader to make some remarks.
13:59
This remembrance Sunday, we will come together in solemn reflection to honour the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice and gave their lives to protect the freedoms that we enjoy today and which we hold dear. Their sacrifice should be the compass that guides us towards peace, today and always.
As we pay tribute to the memory of those who gave their lives in the two world wars and in other conflicts, we resolve to support those who are currently serving in our armed forces around the world. We resolve to care for the many veterans who have given us their service and, of course, we each commit to doing everything that we can to promote peace, democracy, respect and understanding across communities and across the world.
This remembrance Sunday, we remember with the utmost gratitude and respect not only the sacrifices of the past but the courage of members of our armed forces today.
We will remember them.
14:00
This weekend of muted coats and scarlet ceremony rightly calls the nation to give pause for the dark memory of the blood spilled and the mortal sacrifice of so many Scots in far-flung fields. They laid aside their daily bread of work and friends and their life’s rest of family, that we might all feast.
The trumpets and ceremony are too little compensation for the sacrifice of those wives, husbands and children:
“The Flooers o the Forest are a’ wede awa”.
The politicians’ commitment to our brothers and sisters under arms must be to show them care, to give respect for the damage that war has done to them and, for those lost, to honour their memory by searching for the surest common ground of peace.
14:01
Remembrance Sunday is indeed a solemn day for all of us in the United Kingdom. We all gather in our respective towns and cities to commemorate the fallen: those who gave their today for us to have our tomorrow.
We will also give thanks for those brave men and women who are serving in our armed forces right now, in these uncertain times. We thank them for their service, and we shall always remember the fallen.
14:02
On Sunday, we will remember all those whose lives have been cut short by the horrors of war. We will remember civilians killed by brutal militaries in the past and the present. We will remember the victims of genocide and those killed in the persecution of minorities. We will remember those brave men and women who gave their lives or sacrificed their youth defending the sacred values that we hold dear, of freedom and democracy.
14:02
In 1914, “For the Fallen” was first published. The poem was in honour of British forces killed in the early days of the first world war. Many more men and women have since laid down their lives to protect our country and our freedoms. The poem is now spoken at remembrance Sunday services across the United Kingdom.
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.At the going down of the sun and in the morningWe will remember them.”
14:03
Every year, for 100 years and more, farmers ploughing fields around places such as Verdun, Passchendaele and Mons unearth shrapnel, barbed wire and other material of war. It is known as the iron harvest and it is a perennial reminder of the mechanised slaughter of the western front—of the fact that war can leave an indelible mark on people and places for many generations.
This Sunday, in Corstorphine and Kirkliston, I will join my communities in an act of remembrance that will be replicated the country over. We will give thanks to those who have fallen or who have been wounded in the service of this country and its ideals, and to those who are serving far away overseas, in harm’s way today.
“At the going down of the sun and in the morningWe will remember them.”
I thank all our party leaders for those remarks.
Previous
General Question Time