Lords Reform Vote
In March the House of Commons was faced with 9 consecutive votes on Lords Reform. In the first vote I supported a ‘unicameral’ chamber which means in effect the abolition of the Lords and Parliament being a single elected House of Commons. This was the position of Keir Hardie and the Labour Party as far back as 1910.
This was defeated so I then supported a 100% elected second chamber as I don’t think it tenable to have a legislature that isn’t fully elected in a democratic country in the 21st century.
My own view is that this was approached the wrong way round. We should have addressed reform of the Commons first, with more pre legislative scrutiny and powers to Select Committees to initiate legislation, like the Scottish Parliament system. This would have made the case for abolition of the Lords much stronger

A Budget for Scotland
Budget 2007 is a milestone for Scotland. In it the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, has radically reformed the tax system and built on a decade of economic strength and stability to deliver for Scottish pensioners, children, families and business.

The 2p cut in the basic rate of income tax creates a clear dividing line between ourselves and the SNP. While we are cutting basic rate tax for hard-working families, the Nationalists want to raise the basic rate by at least 3p and hit Scottish families with a tax bill of more than £5,000.

While they seek to make Scotland the most taxed part of the UK, our reforms mean more than 50,000 pensioners will be lifted out of paying income tax.

And with the reforms to the child tax credit more than 220,000 Scots families are better off and in all 604,000 families will be better off thanks to the increases in child benefit.

At the same time, the Chancellor’s measures have boosted the budget of our Labour colleagues in the Scottish Executive by almost £2 billion to invest in the people’s priorities of health, education and infrastructure over the next four years.

The choices which Scotland face are clear – stability and growth within the UK, or an agenda of tax rises and constitutional conflict

Every time I read the carping criticism of Gordon Brown from sections of the media, retired Civil Service mandarins or disgruntled former government ministers I am even more certain what an outstanding Prime Minister he would make

A Duty of Care to all our Troops
It has been highlighted again in the media that there are insufficient resources to care for troops returning from Iraq or Afghanistan suffering from stress related illnesses. I have campaigned for better support for Hollybush House run by Combat Stress and will be raising questions yet again on this.
I was pleased to be able to arrange a meeting recently between local woman, Agnes Hunter, who runs Save our Soldiers Campaign, and Secretary of State for Defence Des Browne after they both appeared on BBC1’s Question Time.

Girvan Gateway Project
I recently met with Girvan Community Developments Ltd to discuss their Girvan Gateway Project which aims to bring new life to the harbour and the local economy. As the Lottery is a reserved matter for the UK Parliament I intend to raise Girvan’s case at Westminster  to ensure as high a profile as possible for its bid.

I also raised their Living Landmarks Lottery bid with First Minister Jack McConnell. I wanted to lend my support to the excellent work already being done by local MSP Cathy Jamieson in advance of their planned meeting with Deputy First Minister Nichol Stephen. Applications to this fund can be made by both public sector bodies and community based organisations. However, it is much harder for genuine community based organisations to secure the required match funding needed to unlock the lottery money, although in Girvan’s case South Ayrshire Council are helping by donating the land. I was delighted to hear how well the meeting with the Deputy First Minister went.  Girvan’s bid is one of three in Scotland to have made it past the development stage to the final stage of assessment for funding. The kind of support the Scottish Executive have indicated would help establish a level playing field for Girvan alongside the other two Scottish projects and be a big step towards ensuring that at least one of the three Scottish Living Landmark Projects gets Lottery Funding.  Let’s hope it’s Girvan!