As school pupils across Banff & Buchan start their summer holidays and many families head off for well earned breaks, it seems an appropriate time to consider the success that Homecoming Scotland 2009 is having in attracting visitors from all over the world to Scotland.
Thousands of people have already taken part in large numbers of events so far this year, with many more yet to come. Many annual attractions with a Homecoming theme all over Scotland have reported record attendances as visitors from across the globe flock to the wide variety of events taking place. The indications are that the Homecoming celebrations are proving to be highly successful, both with visitors and people from Scotland.
As well as being an extremely fitting way to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, the success of the Homecoming is also a timely economic boost to many businesses across Scotland. There is still much more to come this year, something confirmed when the First Minister Alex Salmond was able to announce that an additional 44 attractions were being added to the Homecoming programme while he attended one of Banff & Buchan’s key Homecoming events, the Portsoy Traditional Boat Festival.
The four day celebration of the traditional skills and boats that were historically common in the coastal villages of Banff & Buchan was an enormous success this year, having been expanded from its usual two days especially for Homecoming Scotland 2009, and has proved a wonderful part of the Homecoming calendar. Many residents of Banff & Buchan will have attended and I am sure that they will have found the experience thoroughly enjoyable.
I extend my warmest congratulations to the organisers of the festival and everyone involved in making this year’s event such an enormous success. Clearly the other Homecoming celebrations taking place in Banff & Buchan over the course of the year, such as the Peterhead Scottish Week or the Fraserburgh Heritage Fair, will have to work hard to meet the standard that the events so far this year have set.
Scotland’s dangerous relationship with the drink
While we may be celebrating many aspects of Scottish culture as part of the Homecoming festivities, statistics released recently reveal a disturbing picture of one side of our culture that nobody will be proud of. New research has shown that alcohol could be responsible for the death of up to one in twenty people in Scotland, a truly shocking statistic.
This number is twice as high as had previously been thought and could mean that one person in Scotland is dying from alcohol related causes every three hours.
This has massive cost implications for the NHS, the police and other relevant professions in financial terms, but an absolutely incalculable one in terms of the suffering endured by those who lose loved ones through circumstances relating to alcohol. Clearly something fundamentally has to change in our society.
The Scottish Government is determined not to shy away from this difficult issue and recently held an Alcohol Summit so that people from all political parties, retailers, health professionals, the alcohol industry and others could come together and discuss the problem and some of the ways to improve the situation that have been suggested.
While some of the solutions that are being discussed are not universally popular, it is clear that in order to confront the damage being caused by Scotland’s relationship with alcohol we must be prepared to go further than has previously been attempted. With so many lives at stake, inaction is simply not an option.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Deciding Scotland’s future
Ten years on from devolution and the reconvening of the Scottish Parliament, it is entirely fitting that discussion of the arrangements by which Scotland is governed should again be high on the agenda.
The Scottish Government’s National Conversation continues to engage with thousands of people across Scotland in discussing the future of our nation. A white paper on its findings and the case for independence will be published on St Andrew’s Day with a referendum planned for 2010. Meanwhile, the Calman Commission has reported ahead of schedule with a number of recommendations for changes to the devolution framework.
The Calman Commission’s report contains some proposals that people of all political persuasions can surely get behind. Devolving air gun legislation to Holyrood will allow the Scottish Government to address a problem that the UK Government has thus far failed to tackle. Similarly, devolving control of drink-driving limits would allow legislation to be tightened in Scotland in order to make our roads safer and save numerous lives every year.
Yet the most prominent recommendation that the Calman Commission has made is for a new system of financing the Scottish Government and sadly it is one that can only be regarded as a missed opportunity.
The report recommends a system of devolving the control of certain taxes generated in Scotland to the Scottish budget, lowering the income tax collected by the UK Government by 10 pence in the pound and then setting a Scottish income tax that would go directly into the Scottish budget. The block grant that makes up the Scottish budget would be lowered by £6 billion to reflect these changes.
Unfortunately, the recommendations expose the Scottish budget to the uncertainty of fluctuations in how much tax is generated without the financial levers to fully affect economic policy. The income tax being proposed would be a flat rate across all the tax bands with no opportunity to make it progressive or alter the banding thresholds. The proposals have been branded as ‘seriously flawed (if not illiterate)’ by one of the financial experts involved in the Commission, Professor Andrew Hughes Hallet, demonstrating the level of disquiet they have caused amongst experts. With the Scottish Government only gaining the power to borrow for capital projects rather than short term revenue shortfalls under Calman’s recommendations, the inevitable result of income tax takes falling – as they currently are – would be for schools and hospitals to close.
Scotland certainly needs more responsibility for generating the money that is spent here, but the proposals the Calman Commission have made are the worst of both worlds. What is needed for Scotland is full fiscal autonomy, something that only the SNP will deliver through independence.
Ultimately the decision on whether to adopt the Calman Commission’s recommendations or not, or indeed to move towards the status of a normal independent country, must be ones taken by ordinary people not politicians. The referendums on whether the Scottish Parliament should be reconvened and whether it should have limited tax varying powers firmly established the principle that it is for the people of Scotland to decide their constitutional arrangements.
There can be no question of making the kind of changes that Calman recommends without giving people in Scotland their chance to have a say in another referendum. The SNP Government is determined to put the decision on our preferred option of independence in the hands of ordinary people through a referendum. If the unionist parties believe in the strength of the recommendations made by the Calman Commission, they must be prepared to do the same.
The Scottish Government’s National Conversation continues to engage with thousands of people across Scotland in discussing the future of our nation. A white paper on its findings and the case for independence will be published on St Andrew’s Day with a referendum planned for 2010. Meanwhile, the Calman Commission has reported ahead of schedule with a number of recommendations for changes to the devolution framework.
The Calman Commission’s report contains some proposals that people of all political persuasions can surely get behind. Devolving air gun legislation to Holyrood will allow the Scottish Government to address a problem that the UK Government has thus far failed to tackle. Similarly, devolving control of drink-driving limits would allow legislation to be tightened in Scotland in order to make our roads safer and save numerous lives every year.
Yet the most prominent recommendation that the Calman Commission has made is for a new system of financing the Scottish Government and sadly it is one that can only be regarded as a missed opportunity.
The report recommends a system of devolving the control of certain taxes generated in Scotland to the Scottish budget, lowering the income tax collected by the UK Government by 10 pence in the pound and then setting a Scottish income tax that would go directly into the Scottish budget. The block grant that makes up the Scottish budget would be lowered by £6 billion to reflect these changes.
Unfortunately, the recommendations expose the Scottish budget to the uncertainty of fluctuations in how much tax is generated without the financial levers to fully affect economic policy. The income tax being proposed would be a flat rate across all the tax bands with no opportunity to make it progressive or alter the banding thresholds. The proposals have been branded as ‘seriously flawed (if not illiterate)’ by one of the financial experts involved in the Commission, Professor Andrew Hughes Hallet, demonstrating the level of disquiet they have caused amongst experts. With the Scottish Government only gaining the power to borrow for capital projects rather than short term revenue shortfalls under Calman’s recommendations, the inevitable result of income tax takes falling – as they currently are – would be for schools and hospitals to close.
Scotland certainly needs more responsibility for generating the money that is spent here, but the proposals the Calman Commission have made are the worst of both worlds. What is needed for Scotland is full fiscal autonomy, something that only the SNP will deliver through independence.
Ultimately the decision on whether to adopt the Calman Commission’s recommendations or not, or indeed to move towards the status of a normal independent country, must be ones taken by ordinary people not politicians. The referendums on whether the Scottish Parliament should be reconvened and whether it should have limited tax varying powers firmly established the principle that it is for the people of Scotland to decide their constitutional arrangements.
There can be no question of making the kind of changes that Calman recommends without giving people in Scotland their chance to have a say in another referendum. The SNP Government is determined to put the decision on our preferred option of independence in the hands of ordinary people through a referendum. If the unionist parties believe in the strength of the recommendations made by the Calman Commission, they must be prepared to do the same.
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