The Queen's Speech

Another Queen's Speech – my twentieth – not really anything to get exited about. This is hardly the agenda of a Government with a clear sense of momentum. A high proportion of it is English law and order bills and there are conspicuous omissions.

Gordon Brown seems to believe that the relatively benign economic climate can continue yet even a superficial look at the economy shows that it is unbalanced.

We have a major balance of payments deficit, falling productivity, a severe downturn in investment and recession in manufacturing and a weak stock market. In reality, the only thing that is keeping the economy afloat is the boom in property prices. If that ends the Government's agenda will be in tatters. No wonder Gordon Brown wants to relax the stability pact to enable him to borrow if the need arises before the next election.

The other uncertainty is whether, if and when the UK will join the euro. The Queen's speech confirms they Government will declare the result of the five economic tests next year. The fact is that four of them probably have been met and the key one – the rate at which we join - is unlikely to be determined until a definite decision in principle is made.

Farming and food processing, tourism and manufacturing are all suffering from an over valued pound and will all benefit from being inside the euro zone. In any case, ending the uncertainty would be in almost everyone's interest.

Sadly, it seems likely that the runes for winning a referendum will not look that good by the mid term of this Parliament so once again Britain will drift in its relations with the rest of Europe and finish up being late and reluctant joiners.

I continue to be involved in a number of campaigns on behalf of deaf people. The Institute of Public Health for Scotland has just published a report which confirms that the provision of hearing aids in Scotland has fallen well behind England and Wales.

On any measure hearing aid clinics in Scotland are simply inadequate with staff needing retraining in the application and use of digital hearing aids. In addition hardly any staff in Scotland's audiology clinics use or understand sign language.

Of course the majority of Scotland's 650,000 plus deaf people do not use sign language but all sign language users need to use hearing aid clinics.

The report estimates the cost of catching up with England and Wales at between £30 and £50 million – a substantial sum but it must be found if Scotland's deaf people are not to be severely disadvantaged still further.

I am also preparing a report on the protection and promotion of sign language throughout the countries of Europe. I will be visiting Scandinavia next month to look at what I am told is the best practice in recognising and encouraging sign language.

I hope this will enable me to produce a report which can be used to increase understanding of sign language and ensure it is more widely recognised and supported.

Along with Nora Radcliffe and Argyll and Bute MP Alan Reid and his MSP colleague George Lyon, I made a very interesting trip to Kintyre and Islay last week to look at two important developments in renewable energy.

First port of call was the Vestas wind turbine factory at Macrihanish. This is a state of the art facility for the Danish world leader in this technology.

It is sad that the Scottish company Howden's were the pioneers in this technology but without the support of a home market such as Denmark has enjoyed they were unable to stay the course. The Macrihanish plant demonstrates that this is a sophisticated technology which nevertheless lends itself to mass production techniques.

Now that wind energy is taking off it is at least welcome that many of the turbines will at least be manufactured in Scotland, albeit in a branch factory.

Then potential of onshore and offshore wind energy from Scotland is very substantial. The cost of erecting turbines is competitive and once operating the fuel (wind) is free and can replace environmentally damaging alternative fuels.

Next port of call was the Rhinns of Islay where an Inverness based company Wavegen has a prototype generator installed in the rocks and powered by the waves. The company is also working on offshore generators.

This technology is not yet competitive with the current market but has great potential, again using a free source of energy.

The question that arises and should be urgently addressed is how to ensure the benefits accrue to the host communities and the economy of Scotland. That requires the increasing use of Scottish based technology but perhaps also some kind of royalty which will enable rural communities and the Scottish economy to get a direct stake in the revenue for the electricity produced and not just from the generating and distribution equipment.

For the third year I have completed a successful competition with local primary schools to design my Christmas card. I really enjoy this and thank the pupils of all those schools who took part.

There were a lot of colourful, imaginative and amusing entries on the theme of a Christmas song or carol. Favourite songs seem to be When Santa Got Stuck up the Chimney, Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman.

However the winning entry from Finlay Donald of Fisherford was a picture of the carol “While humble shepherds watched their flocks” featuring shepherds and sheep on a green hillside with a very cheery angel appearing above them.

Runner up was Kathryn McGlone of Forgue School and third was Rhys McWilliam of Cairney School who have produced a winner, runner up and now third in each successive year.

The winning entry will be printed as my Christmas card over 1000 of which are sent out.

The entries were judged by Andrew Sutherland, Head Teacher of Meldrum Academy and Mark Gask and Kim Curson of the Picture Framing Workshop, Garioch Centre, Inverurie, who have also kindly offered to frame the winning entry from each school and put them in a pre Christmas window display.

I spoke in the debate on the Queen's Speech as it gave me an opportunity to highlight a number of concerns on behalf of constituents.

I pointed out the damage to confidence in the oil and gas industry by the unexpected imposition of a ten per cent tax surcharge. I complained that the promised abolition of royalties which will help older fields has not yet happened and pointed out that this did not encourage new exploration and development.

As things stand there is a real risk that significant reserves in the North Sea may never be recovered.

I also raised concerns about energy conservation specifically combined heat and power, renewable energy such as wind, wave and biomass. I am in favour of its development but believe the host communities should share in the benefits.

After all, if Scotland and our rural communities are to support this kind of environmentally beneficial development should they not get a share of the benefit?

Fifteen years on from the privatisation of telecoms, gas and electricity we have not worked out how we can ensure the private companies created can fully serve the public interest. Upgrading and extending the gas and electricity supply and including rural communities in the benefits of broadband telecommunications are real issues which are not being adequately addressed.

Yet the Queen's speech is silent on these key areas. I was not and will not be.