 I remind members of the Covid-related measures that are in place, and that face coverings should be worn when moving around the chamber and across the Holyrood campus. The first item of business this afternoon is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is Professor Sir Jeff Palmer, Chancellor of Herriot-Watt University. Bear with us members. We'll just suspend shortly. Thank you. It is a great honour to speak to this Parliament today. Scotland has historical links with slavery in Jamaica, but today our flags have different colours but are the same. We are different but the same. My late dear mother migrated from Jamaica to London in 1951 and saved £86 to pay my fair to join her in 1955. She got me a job in a shop but was told by the authorities that I had to go to school until I was 15 years old. I was 14 years and 11 months old. One school rejected me. They said I was educationally subnormal. A secondary modern school took me and later in 1955 I was transferred to a local grammar school because I was good at cricket. I left school in 1958 and worked as a junior laboratory technician at a college in London. My boss, Professor Chapman, allowed me to improve my qualifications but had to help me to enter Leicester University in 1961. I left Leicester University with an honest degree in botany in 1964. The only job available was peeling potatoes in a restaurant. My potato peeling ended when Professor Anna McLeod at the Herotwatt College offered me a PhD place in 1965 and in 1967 I gained a joint PhD degree from Herotwatt College and Edinburgh University. I worked in a research institute from 1968 to 1977 and returned to the Herotwatt University as a lecturer in 1977. It has been a privilege to have contributed to the science and technology of serial grains, taught many gifted students and helped in 1989 to set up the 1.3 million international centre for brewing and distilling at the Herotwatt University. I started my charitable work in Scotland in 1965. Recently I contributed to a video made for this parliament called We Are Scotland. We are Scotland indeed. My DNA says I'm in part a Viking from Shetland. Sadly, the past has given us racism and I'm honoured to be chairing various groups which are examining Scotland links with race, slavery and colonialism. Although we cannot change the past, we can change consequences such as racism for the better using education. Finally, it is a great honour to be Jamaica's first honorary council in Scotland and I must thank my mother for investing her 86 pounds in my education. Education works.