Is enough being done to support Scotland’s local businesses? A new inquiry by the Scottish Parliament’s Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee will explore just this.
Continue reading Supporting our small businesses: Holyrood Committee launches survey
A Green MSP is challenging the Scottish Government’s housing minister to clarify if the government still plans to build 50,000 new, affordable homes, as promised in its election manifesto. Kevin Stewart wrongly told a Holyrood committee yesterday that his party had only pledged to “deliver” 50,000 affordable homes. Continue reading Minister is causing confusion over new homes promise, say Greens
Scotland’s live music venues should be given greater protection from noise complaints which can ultimately threaten them with closure, according to a Holyrood Committee.
Continue reading Protect music venues from noise complaint closures, says Holyrood committee
Continue reading Mundell welcomes fall in jobless figures … and has a dig at Holyrood
Prisoners serving custodial sentences should be given the right to vote, according to Holyrood’s Equalities and Human Rights Committee. Continue reading Prisoner voting backed by Holyrood committee
Change the World! – Saturday 12 May from 2 – 3.30pm (GABI URY EVENT)
The Scottish Parliament is offering a unique opportunity to attend a FREE interactive session with world-renowned negotiator William Ury (above) and his daughter Gabi. Continue reading Change the World! Free event in Scottish Parliament
Do some schools present university as the main path to take when college, training and work are equally valuable routes? This is just one question the Scottish Parliament’s Education and Skills Committee will explore in a new inquiry that will also look at whether information about other pathways, such as work and training, is offered in school. Continue reading Young people set the agenda for Holyrood’s Education and Skills Committee
The chronic, neurological condition myalgic encephalomyelitis (M.E.) affects more people in Scotland than MS and Parkinson’s combined – but doctors receive almost no training on the illness. The urgent need to change this is the focus of a special event at the Scottish Parliament tonight, hosted by Gail Ross MSP and supported by UK charity, Action for M.E. Continue reading Edinburgh patients and professionals to show MSPs: This is M.E.
The Scottish Greens will today outline distinct plans for the proposed Scottish National Investment Bank to have robust policies on ethical investments, a push towards a zero carbon economy and overall greater scrutiny.
Green MSP Andy Wightman will attempt to win backing from Holyrood’s parties for his amendment to provide the new bank with better “social and environmental outcomes”, including an obligation to deliver strategic housing investment.
Wightman is also expected to challenge Scottish Labour to ditch its proposals for a bank focussed on “increased growth” and to instead put forward a strategic programme in line with the left-wing ideology embraced by the party’s leadership.
Mr Wightman, a Lothian MSP, said: “As a national financial institution, we all have vested collective interests to ensure that this bank will invest in projects and programmes that deliver a sustainable future. With our proposals, the bank will be required to have a strategic focus on the future of the Scottish economy by investing in new low-carbon technologies to build energy resilience.
“It’s surprising to see Labour insist that the bank’s main focus should be for it to ‘drive increased growth’. It’s far from being even remotely socialist and their insistence on profit being the bank’s key goal is disheartening. No economy can be sustainable when growing numbers of its young people cannot afford basic, affordable and warm homes. With social renting off-limits to all but the most financially challenged and affordable housing not worthy of the descriptor, an investment bank has a key role to play in providing the kind of strategic housing investment that is desperately needed.
“We also want Holyrood to have a key role in establishing the bank’s ethical investment code, which in our view should be enshrined in the primary legislation establishing the bank. We also propose that the bank could provide a Scottish payments company to reduce the costs to small businesses of processing payments. This cost reduction will lower GDP, but increase productivity. Currently around 2% of the value of payments is lost to the Scottish economy – some £1 billion per year at a rough estimate.”
He is known as the ‘go-to man’ in resolving major international conflicts, is currently working on historic new relations between North and South Korea, and was a leading mediator in the Middle East, the Balkans and former Soviet Union.
