 That's our business to be the business debate on motion number 15790 in the name of Margaret Mitchell on Hamilton Ackeys exemplary community work. The debate will be concluded without any questions being put. I would like those members who wish to speak in the debate to such and put in a press that requests to speak buttons now or as soon as possible and Mr Mitchell, if you're ready, I would call on you to open the debate. You have seven minutes or thereby, please. It is a particular pleasure to open this evening's debate on Hamilton's acys, exemplary community work, and to have the opportunity to highlight the community initiatives being championed by the club. By way of background, Hamilton Academicals or Acys, as they are known locally, was founded in 1874 by the rector and pupils of Hamilton Grammar School. In 2001, the club moved to its current grounds in New Douglas Park, and it returned to the Scottish Premiership in 2014, so whilst being very much aware of Ackies as the local football club, until I visited the club recently and presented certificates to the club's apprentices as part of Skills Development Scotland's Apprentice week, I had no idea of the extent of the youth engagement, community work and the services that the club provides for the local area. For example, as part of the club's modern apprenticeship programme, run in conjunction with SDS, the apprentices take part in community coaching, a programme that runs three days a week for children and young people aged four to fourteen. The coaching programme connects with young people locally who may for various reasons be struggling to cope. It then provides the opportunity for the young people to access and receive support from the enterprises and organisation that the club supports. Other benefits and tangible achievements that the programme provides are increased fitness, discipline and, crucially, mechanisms for coping with difficulties that the young people may be facing either at school or at home. Approximately, a staggering 80 to 120 children take part in the programme each week and they also have the opportunity to attend coaching camps in school holidays. However, the activity does not stop there and the in-house community outreach team oversees and helps to co-ordinate a diverse range of projects that are run from the grounds of the club. Members of the outreach team include Colin MacGowan, George Cairns, Gary King, Lisa Kerr, Katrina McRoberts and Lynn Shaw and I am delighted that so many of the outreach team have managed along to the Scottish Parliament to listen to tonight's debate. For it is abundantly clear to me that, as in any successful organisation, a key factor to that success is the people involved. The Hamilton Ackies outreach team is living proof of that fact. Beyond the football page, the club houses a rich variety of community activities including men's sheds, which were first launched in Aberdeen and are now located in many areas of Scotland. That initiative provides the social area and is in place for men, many of whom have recently retired or become unemployed, to gather and enjoy male company in their local community. It also provides the opportunity to learn new skills in a workshop environment. The Hamilton one, which is located and operated from within the stadium grounds, is the first men's shed in South Lanarkshire. Here men can try their hand at woodwork, gardening and electronics. There is also space to play board games, share hobbies or simply socialise and enjoy the free refreshments. It is to be hoped that, following the positive experience of the Hamilton men's shed, more will be established in South Lanarkshire. The club also works with families affected by autism. The weekly parent's carer support groups bring together a network that is established by the club of practitioners, third sector businesses, local charities and the NHS in order to provide resources and support for families affected by autism. Here, once a week, parents and carers get some real respite and feel less isolated by sharing advice and from the offer of support. Furthermore, for over eight years the club has been running the training for freedom programme, which supports prisoners prior to their being released. Those prisoners undertake working days at the club, which help to develop social skills and increase their self-esteem. Participation in the programme also provides useful evidence of a commitment and a desire to work when the prisoner's review is being considered by the parole ward. Taking part in the programme prior to their being made eligible for parole helps those individuals to reintegrate into society. Since 2011, soldiers of the street Scotland have been helping ex-service personnel who become homeless. An estimated 10 to 12 per cent of rust sleepers in the UK are British armed forces veterans. Here again, the club has stepped up to the plate and supports those homeless veterans in Hamilton. Finally, the football club grounds also hosts addiction programmes that are well known to operate throughout Scotland. Those include Alcoholic Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous, Gambler's Anonymous, Al-Anon, which is a support group for friends and families of alcoholics, Narcotics Anonymous and the most recent addition is Families Anonymous, which supports the families and friends of those with drug addiction. With the family in mind, the blameless charity was formed at the club to provide a space for fun and hope for the future for children and families affected by alcoholism and addiction. The charity operates from the grounds of the stadium and has facilities to accommodate our community and recovery days, open days, including festivals, play days and away days. I think that the chamber will therefore agree that the community work being carried out at Hamilton Ackies is truly exceptional. Also, I consider it important to stress here where other charities have struggled to engage with those vulnerable individuals in need of support. Football has acted as a hook to encouraging and actually seeing those hard-to-reach individuals take that first crucial step of walking through the club's doors to access help. There is no doubt that Hamilton Ackies has put in place a model of community involvement that, with the goodwill and commitment of key personnel, could and I hope will be replicated in football clubs across Scotland. In the meantime, the Ackies are most certainly to be congratulated. I would like to welcome this evening's debate and congratulate Margaret Mitchell for securing it. Hamilton Ackies are more than deserving of having the invaluable contribution that they make to the local community in Hamilton and across South Lanarkshire, recognised by having this debate. Margaret Mitchell's motion identifies the wide array of organisations that benefit from the support of the club, from self-help groups through partnership organisations with local and national government agencies to charities that the club has established in order to support a need that has been identified. There are also private companies that have facilities based in the stadium that deliver such things as employment services and other commercial enterprises that serve the wider community. The club's support for the campaign against the Scottish Government's decision to permit an incinerator to be built only a short distance away from the community of Whitehill, beside which the club itself resides, was a welcome boost to those who had been so badly let down by that decision. All in all, Hamilton Ackies are a credit to the town, regardless of whether they are proving successful on the field of play or not. At the local constituency MSP, I can state with confidence that, although they may not be the biggest, they are among the best at being the lead of a community-based football club. Unlike Camden, there may be no roar to greet the teams on match days on occasion. Unlike Wembley, there may be no huge app to replace the old twin towers of their former stadium. There may be no sliding roof, as they have at the Millennium stadium in Cardiff, but any visitor to New Douglas Park or any viewer following a game being broadcast on television cannot fail to recognise the stadium's own iconic feature. I speak, of course, about the iconic red bus, which is a permanent fixture behind the goal. The bus is used by several community groups and is now a recognisable feature within the stadium. More importantly, it is a major aspect of the club's community trust. The Hamilton Academical Community Trust allows the club to engage with many charities and local organisations and provides a suitable venue to host events, which means that the local and wider community can use the stadium and allows ever-increasing partnership working to deliver ever more partnerships between the club and the community. The trust was created to recognise the important role that the club has within the local and wider community and, using football as a platform in which to build a close association and working relationship with many organisations across the local and wider community, is a vital component of what it does. Being the only SPFL registered club within South Lanarkshire makes it uniquely placed to make that link between senior football and those who are in need. Children and young people are among those who can be most affected by the effects of addiction, abuse or poverty, and, unfortunately, in the community in which the club is based, there is such an existence. It is good to know that the aces recognise that they can use their position in the community to work with South Lanarkshire Council, the police and others to support the disadvantages and the vulnerable through initiatives that support the community as a whole. Hamilton aces have earned recognition for that, and I commend Margaret Mitchell for allowing us this evening to offer praise to the club's merits. Clare Adamson, after which I will move the closing speech from the minister. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I am very pleased to speak in this important membership debate that Margaret Mitchell has brought to the chamber this evening, especially as a mother-wild girl who is not often in Hamilton football park. I am not a football fan at all, Presiding Officer, so I do not go very often. I am much more of a rugby fan, but, nonetheless, in my community in Motherwell across Scotland, I am so aware of the wonderful work that football clubs provide and help in our communities. Indeed, I have met two Hamilton academics players, Michael Devlin and Gramot's Kurtash, in Motherwell at Park Springs care home. They have feds twice a year, and it is a very great pleasure to go along and to help them into a bowl of that. I have been delighted to meet the young men from Hamilton supporting that activity in their communities and being there for people. I have also heard particularly about the wonderful work of the women's football team from my colleague Christina McKelvie. Christina had a previous engagement this evening, and I am sure that she would have wanted to speak in the debate this evening, but she spoke so highly of the work that the club does in those areas. Football is such a unique way of engaging with people. I know from the dementia café that runs out of Motherwell Football Club that the links to football clubs, the loyalty, the feeling that is there is so important, and it makes it so much easier for people to engage in some of the most difficult challenges that they may be facing. Just looking through Hamilton's website, I noticed the commitment to the support of addiction programmes, particularly the blameless charity where they are helping children and families affected by addiction and doing as much as they can to alleviate those problems in the community. Another venture that I know that is happening across Scotland and has been gladly taken on by Hamilton is the soldiers of the Street Scotland charity, which is helping those who have served their country and have come back to ensure that they have a place in society and helping them through some of the many problems that they have. Yes, I will take an intervention. I thank the member for taking the intervention. The soldier of the Street Scotland one is particularly interesting because although it is based in Hamilton, there has been some interaction in my constituency in Paisley with the individuals involved. They have come over and I have seen some of the great work. They have a van where it effectively goes out throughout Scotland and it is all voluntary led. They go throughout Scotland and they give the opportunity to try to trust former veterans and get them back into their van to have some food, warm clothing. It is just a perfect example of something that we maybe should look at more in using football clubs as the base, as the member already says. I thank George Adam for that intervention. As a dedicated St Myrran fan, I know that he is very, very close to his own football club. However, I think that that comes to the heart of the debate this evening. I really do thank Margaret for bringing it this evening. There is that community connection there. There is also the connection between rival fans. That cannot be denied, either. It is a sport that people have a passion and a love for. It is something that can really reach out to people in the most difficult of circumstances. I am delighted, especially as a steel woman, to be allowed to speak in the debate this evening. I wish Hamilton academics all success in their future endeavours in working in their community. I now call on Minister Jamie Hepburn to close the debate and half of the Government. Minister, seven minutes are thereby pleased. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I say that I am very happy to have this opportunity to close this debate. I begin by joining with others and congratulating Margaret Mitchell for bringing forward this motion this evening to help to not only raise the profile of Halton Actable Football Club generally, but especially the community work that they are undertaking. I begin by welcoming those representatives of the club who have joined us in the public gallery this evening. I wish Hamilton academics all the best for the rest of the season. Let me caveat that, Presiding Officer. I hope that that begins after Saturday when they play partic thistle in my own club. I should say that that is a personal view rather than an official Scottish Government position. Football is our national game. Clubs are at the heart and soul of community throughout Scotland, but professional clubs are at the top level to the junior amateur or youth teams that we have throughout the country. I recognise that there are issues and challenges in football. I think that everyone in the chamber would be aware of that, but I firmly believe that football is a powerful force for good. I welcome the opportunity today to focus on the positive impact of football in general, and Hamilton Achies in particular is making. Sport has been shown to improve both physical and mental health as well as bringing communities together regardless of age, gender or religion as minister. For sport, health and mental health, I have been in the fortunate position to visit a number of clubs across the country, which are cornerstones of their local community. George Adam, in his intervention on Clare Arnson a few moments ago, talked about the use of football clubs as an anchor for community activity. I have to say that I was a little surprised that he did not manage to make a mention of his own clubs. It is most unlike him, but I can say to Mr Adam and other members that my clear experience of having gone round many of those clubs is that activity is already happening in many parts of the country. I would like to take the opportunity to commend Hamilton Achies for the service that he provides, as well as allowing other bodies to have access to carry out their good work. The clubs commitment, as we have heard, is wide-ranging, including addiction programmes, helping families affected by alcoholism and addiction, developing social skills and self-esteem in young people, working in the field of autism, supporting carers and men who are retired or are thinking of retiring. It is clear that commitment is genuine and long-standing and woven through the fabric of the club. It is ethos and released to their sporting prowess. I think that it would not go a mist to mention their track record in developing young players and, crucially, giving them an opportunity. That is particularly exceptional in that regard. Hamilton Achies' contribution to rehabilitating and reintegrating people with convictions back in the community is very positive. It gives the president's approach in the end of long sentences a chance to prepare for their release and can help them to return to the community ready to be productive members of society, both Hamilton Achies and Motherhood Football Club. I would be the first to recognise the perilous dangers of mentioning the steelman in a debate in Hamilton Achies, but they should be included in being mentioned. They are working in partnership with the Scottish prison service to provide useful opportunities for prisoners to begin getting used to everyday life again by undertaking a normal daily work routine of general maintenance duties at the club. The SPS continues to assess those involved during this time to ensure that they are conducting themselves properly and demonstrating their readiness to transition to the open estate that we have in our prison system and, eventually, for release. The football fans in training initiative, which is run by the SPFL Trust and funded by the Scottish Government, is a hugely successful lifestyle programme that was originally aimed at men aged 35 and over, with a waist size of 38 inches or more. We know that the programme is designed to increase the knowledge of diet and nutrition and to improve lifestyle choices and to increase physical activity among participants who have reduced weight and waist measurements and increased engagement in other physical activity. I know that Hamilton Achies have used some of the funding provided by the SPFL Trust to deliver a programme of the charity Blameless, which has been mentioned and is working to raise awareness of the dangers of alcohol and drugs to educate or advance the education of alcoholism or addiction to young people and families. That is a very welcome development. Tally is very closely with the Scottish Government's wider work in this area. I understand that my colleague, the Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs, Paul Wheel, has visited the project in January and I know that he was very impressed with the work being progressed there. As Minister with responsibility for policy regarding autism, I welcome the work of Hamilton Achies in supporting people with autism, their families and carers. The Scottish Government has committed to improving the lives of people with autism and learning disabilities, their carers and families. The Scottish strategy for autism was launched in November 2011. It is a 10-year programme designed to meet the needs of people with autism in Scotland. Its core ambition is that people with autism should be able to participate in all aspects of community and society in which they live, work and socialise. Of course, we cannot achieve that. I recently met the autism group myself and Siobhan McMahon and the autism group that meet in Hamilton Achies. They spoke openly about the problems that they are having, especially around transition from school to adult services. Is there anything that you have said in your programme that would directly support improvements in that area? It is something that that group in particular has identified to us as an issue. I welcome his intervention. I recognise that, as with many aspects across the spectrum, the transition phase is always a difficult period. I know that I would be the first to concede. There is probably more that we can and should be doing. The strategy for autism, its core purpose, is to empower people. I recognise that we do not get the transition phase right for people. We are not going to realise that ambition. Yes, that is something that we are aware of. We are looking to do further work on, but, of course, if Mr McMahon is wanting to contact me regarding his specific engagement with the particular project at Hamilton Achies, I would be very happy to hear what he and he have to say. The point that I was going to make is that, to realise our ambitions around the strategy, the Scottish Government will not be able to achieve it. Alone, we need others working in this area. In that regard, it is very welcome that Hamilton Achies are involved in that work in their community. I thank Margaret Mitchell once more for bringing forward this topic to the chamber, to all those who have contributed to providing such a useful and thoughtful contribution this evening. Finally, I commend Hamilton Achies on their community involvement programmes. Let me assure Margaret Mitchell and those at Hamilton Achies that their efforts are sincerely appreciated.