Speaking today after a visit to Inverclyde Community Development Trust and Port Glasgow Business and Training Centre, Scottish Labour MSP and candidate for Deputy Leader, Alex Rowley said: ‘Labour must put full employment at the heart of its policy for skills in Scotland.’ He said: ‘I believe that we must be ambitious and support […]
I had the great pleasure of attending a performance of ‘Sole Searching: A Hootenanny’ which is a socially engaged theatre project by Inverkeithing Community Initiative in partnership with Tiny Fragments Theatre and Fife Council. A Hootenanny: ‘a celebration, a gathering, a party, an occasion which people assemble for’ is a performance where 4 women question […]
In Parliament I asked the Health Secretary Shona Robison how many unfilled consultant posts we had in NHS Fife and would have to say I was surprised that the number of unfilled posts has actually risen over the last year. She stated that “Out of an establishment of 281.9 WTE consultant posts in NHS […]
Today I met with campaigners from enable Scotland to support their stop the bus campaign. The #stopthebus campaign aims to give more people who have learning disabilities to access bus travel by improving access to the concessionary travel scheme. Right now too many people with learning disabilities are struggling to get a bus pass. A bus […]
I had the great pleasure of sponsoring a Nordic Horzons event in the Parliament this week that was chaired by Lesley Riddoch and where Kristina Lemon from the Swedish Elections Authority gave a very informative and interesting presentation about how they do voting and elections in Sweden The recent UK General Election where we […]
I had the great pleasure of hosting a visit to the Parliament of this year’s recipient of the STUC Helen Dowie Award for Lifelong Learning. Helen Dowie, a Trade Unionist, a socialist and a wonderful person lived in Crossgates, Fife, worked in Rosyth Dockyard for 20 years and was taken far too soon but is […]
Speaking last weekend at a conference of Labour members in Fife, Scottish Labour MSP Alex Rowley called for support for ‘a transformation of Labour and how it functions within the UK, with the party in Scotland having an autonomous voice for Scotland’. Mr Rowley said; “Scottish Labour should build a new partnership and work with […]
Last week I spoke in a debate on the report ‘New Powers for Scotland: An Interim Report on the Smith Commission and the UK Government’s Proposals’ produced by the Devolution (Further Powers) Committee. You can access this report by going to; http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/S4_ScotlandBillCommittee/Reports/dfpr-15-03w-rev.pdf The Committee on a unanimous basis have raised many issues and […]
Below is a link to a discussion paper which I have written outlining what I see as the way forward for Scottish Labour. The paper which has been distributed to all members of the Cowdenbath CLP can be opened and downloaded as a word document file. Labour Scotland – The Future. A discussion paper, by […]
This week I had the great pleasure to visit Glacier Energy Services at Ross Offshore based in my constituency in Dalgety Bay where I met with management and two first year apprentices Ellis Duncan and Jordan Devlin. It was interesting to speak to them both about the level of support and encouragement they had received […]