Business of the House

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend is a great advocate for her constituency of Redditch. All this talk of food is making us all hungry. Small Business Saturday is a grassroots, non-commercial campaign that highlights small business successes, and encourages consumers to shop locally and support small businesses, which is something that everyone across this House seeks to do.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

May I actually congratulate the Government—and the Scottish Government, just to make that clear—on something that they have done this week? There has been a change in blood donation rules for gay and bisexual men, as the ban has come down from 12 months to three months. That now means that thousands more gay men can give blood than could previously. But can we have a statement on this? The excellent news does not seem to have caught the attention of the media this week, and we need to discuss how we can make it much more widely known to encourage people to donate blood.

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman has just made sure that this news will receive some media attention, and I congratulate him on doing so. He raises the matter of a valuable and important contribution to the country’s blood stocks. I am sure that many who were previously unaware of the news will be delighted.