Wednesday 12^th November  2025 | Citizen Theatre, Glasgow

Making her debut on the show, in front of a lively audience in Glasgow’s redeveloped Citizen’s Theatre, Marie joined host Stephen Jardine along with the Scottish Conservatives’ Murdo Fraser MSP,  Scottish Labour’s Paul O’Kane MSP, SNP councillor Alex Kerr and entrepreneur and Great British Dewing Bee host Patrick Grant.

Commenting, Marie said:

“It was a pleasure to take part in Debate Night, especially in such a great venue and in front of a fantastic Glasgow audience.

“It was a valuable opportunity to discuss some of the key issues of the day, including the crisis facing the BBC, migration to Scotland and the need to kickstart economic growth to help create jobs and regenerate our communities.

“I was particularly pleased to be able to talk about how the issue of immigration and to address the way in which it has become so bound up with toxicity in the way it is discussed. As I made clear, Scotland has benefited hugely from successive waves of migration from all around the world over many generations.

“However, the political toxicity which the issue now generates is such that it needs to be tackled. That is why I was happy to use my appearance on Debate Night to highlight the work of Glasgow University’s John Smith Centre in taking forward a unique initiative aimed at showing young people how politics can be conducted in a constructive and respectful way.

“The Political Conversations initiative, which I am proud to have helped launch at my old school, Kilmarnock Academy earlier this year, is now being rolled out a cross other schools and can help lay the ground to improve political discourse among the next generation of voters and politicians.

“On the economy, it was great to see such passion from all members of the panel, despite differing political standpoints, when it comes to what we need to do to make Scotland an economic success story. I made clear that I want to see urgent action from both the UK and Scottish Governments, including steps by the latter to quickly reinvest £500 million in underspend in ways that can kick-start entrepreneurship.

“Overall, it was great to take part in Debate Night, under Stephen Jardine’s excellent compering, and I look forward to appearing on the programme again in future.”

View the programme on iPlayer now: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002m8pq/debate-night-series-7-12112025

You can view a showreel from the programme below…