Pride of Scotland Lifetime Achievement Award awarded to Professor Sir Geoff Palmer

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That this House expresses its profound congratulations to Professor Sir Geoff Palmer on being awarded a Pride of Scotland Lifetime Achievement Award; notes that Professor Sir Geoff Palmer has made significant contributions to fields as diverse as brewing and human rights activism; recognises that he discovered the barley abrasion process, which was subsequently adopted by the UK’s biggest breweries; notes that in 1998, he became the fourth person to be honoured with the American Society of Brewing Chemists Award of Distinction; further notes that he became Scotland’s first black professor in 1988 and is now serving as emeritus professor in the School of Life Sciences at Heriot-Watt University as well as the University’s chancellor; understands that he lived in Jamaica until shortly before his fifteenth birthday before moving to England to join his mother, who had moved here as a member of the Windrush generation; commends his role over the past year as a powerful voice in the movement for change prompted by Black Lives Matter, including leading the successful campaign for a reinterpretation of the Melville Monument in Edinburgh honouring Henry Dundas.