Members' Business — S6M-10199 Liz Smith: Save Our Pools Campaign

That the Parliament recognises what it sees as the importance of swimming as an essential basic skill, particularly among children, the obvious health and fitness benefits for the population at large, and its importance in reducing the life expectancy gaps between different communities; notes what it sees as the need to prevent accidents in Scotland’s vast array of popular rivers and lochs and to enhance the wider social benefits that swimming pools provide as community hubs enjoyed by people of all ages; acknowledges what it considers the huge part that swimming pools play in attracting and developing talent at the highest levels of Scottish and British sport, most notably swimmers such as Duncan Scott, who was trained and brought up in the Mid Scotland and Fife region and who became the most successful British Olympian at a single Olympic Games, in Tokyo, and one of the most decorated Team GB medallists of all time; expresses, therefore, its profound concerns at the reported number of swimming pool closures that are planned across Scotland, and notes the calls on the Scottish Government to urgently act to reverse what it sees as this unwelcome trend, as called for by Scottish Swimming in its campaign, #SaveOurPools.