A report from Shelter Scotland estimates that almost 6,000 children in Scotland will wake up homeless and in temporary accommodation this Christmas. This is a real tragedy and is why housing must be further up the political agenda with a national house build strategy being a must in 2018. If you add to those […]
The UK Government has gone ahead and rolled out Universal Credit in Fife despite all the evidence that it is causing widespread misery for tens of thousands of people across the country. Both the Scottish Government and Fife Council are taking action to mitigate the worst elements of this flawed legislation and changes but […]
The highly respected Scottish anti-poverty network, ‘the Poverty Alliance’ has issued a brief to Scottish parliamentarians before this weeks budget and their main proposal for the budget is to increase child benefit by £5 a week. If we are to tackle poverty then we need actions that focus on doing so otherwise all the political […]
“Blacklisting is still going on in Scotland and we need a full public inquiry to get to the bottom of this destructive practice that wrecks lives and victimises workers for seeking to do the right thing”. That was the message from Neil Findlay MSP this week as union members came to the Scottish Parliament […]
Many organisations and groups have used the lead up to this year’s Scottish Budget being published to highlight the specific issues they would like to see addressed. NUS Scotland have set out their keys issues through a campaign they call ‘Budget for Better’ and they say the current student support system is broken. You […]
Many have been saddened, if not shocked, by the latest round of branch closures announced by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). I have been a member of that bank since my teens, mainly because it was the only bank based in the village where I live, and I have always stayed with it because […]
This week we saw a report published by the Social Mobility Commission “State of the Nation 2017: “Social Mobility in Great Britain”. The Commission say Britain is a deeply divided nation. Those divisions take many forms. Class, income, gender, race. In recent years, each has been the subject of much scrutiny. But one form […]
This week at FMQs I questioned the First Minister on the release of a new Audit Scotland report on the state of Scotland’s health service. This report raises massive concerns for the state of our NHS. It shows the failings in budgets and the financial management of health and social care, the shortages of […]
I was pleased to join with campaigners from Scotland Against Fracking, the Broad Alliance, WWF Scotland and Friends of the Earth Scotland outside the Scottish Parliament today calling for support from the Parliament to end fracking in Scotland. I supported the Government motion which due to a Labour amendment effectively bans fracking from taking […]