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 closure of the Glasgow-to-Edinburgh canal link has resulted in dozens of cancelled boat trips and neglects one of Scotland’s “tourism treasures troves”, the Scottish Conservatives have said. Continue reading Canals in crisis as Edinburgh – Glasgow route shut
Refugees can now organise financial support for family members before they are reunited in Scotland. Up to £100,000 in Family Reunion Crisis Grants will smooth the path for new arrivals, bridging the gap before they can be assessed for benefits entitlement. Continue reading A welcoming country: support for refugee families ahead of arrival in Scotland
BANK ‘NOT LISTENING’ TO ANGER OF CUSTOMERS AND BUSINESSES
SNP MP Deidre Brock says RBS ‘failed to answer‘ many questions as three senior executives appeared before the Scottish Affairs Committee (SAC) at Westminster yesterday. Continue reading RBS ‘failed to answer’ questions, says local MP
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.”
The Scottish Affairs Committee will take evidence from Ross McEwan, CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland on Tuesday (8 May). The session will examine the reasons behind the decision to close 62 branches of RBS in Scotland, subsequent temporary reprieve for ten branches, and the long term future of local banking in Scotland. The Committee will also hear from the Lending Standards Board, the self-regulatory body for the financial services sector. Continue reading Scottish Affairs Committee to quiz RBS chief on branch closures
Lothian MSP Miles Briggs has met with former nominees and winners of the Sunday Mail Young Scot Awards to encourage other people from Lothian to make a nomination. Continue reading Briggs backs Young Scot Awards
The life expectancy gulf in Scotland’s capital city is now 21 years, experts have said, DOUBLE the previous estimates. Tory health spokesman Miles Briggs says he is “staggered” by Edinburgh’s inequality gap and has urged the SNP government to take action to address poor health in deprived communities. Continue reading Mind the Gap: poor in Edinburgh die 21 years earlier than rich neighbours
NHS Lothian accounts for almost a quarter of Delayed Discharge in Scotland
Delayed discharge costs our NHS over £100 million per year, with NHS Lothian accounting for £28 million of the total. That means less money to spend on treating patients who require medical attention, while patients awaiting discharge are being kept in hospital for longer than they need to be, says Tory health spokesman Miles Briggs. Continue reading Briggs: NHS Lothian accounts for almost a quarter of Delayed Discharge in Scotland
Figures from the Trussell Trust, showing that 17,328 people in the City of Edinburgh and 21,443 people in Lothian were provided with three-day emergency food supplies from this one food bank charity alone, highlight the urgent need to implement the Scottish Greens’ ten-point plan to tackle poverty, says Lothian MSP Alison Johnstone. Continue reading Rise in food bank use is national scandal, say Greens
