Home Again

It's good to be back home

FINALLY, after two months, MSPs were allowed back into the debating chamber.

As you will remember, we had to evacuate the chamber in early March after a roof beam swung loose during a debate.

I must say that it was good to be back on the floor, as I feel that the chamber surroundings add something special to debates.

Also it meant that visitors could take their place in the public gallery and view proceedings from close quarters. After all, that is what our Parliament was meant to be - a People's Parliament.

Most of my colleagues agreed that gaining access to the chamber again was a real boost. Thanks to the public, the atmosphere was charged.

This week my party had the choice of debates, and we started on a subject that many people have raised with me: that of Council Tax and pensioner poverty.

The SNP believes, along with a majority of people, that the current council tax is unfair because it is based on neither income or ability to pay.

We believe that local taxation will be made fair only when Parliament introduces a local income tax.

We believe that the local income tax scheme should be based on the ability to pay.

A local income tax would have a number of clear attractions. As a new system for collecting local taxation, it would have the advantage of being local foremost.

This would enable local communities to be in control of how much they wish to contribute to pay for local services.

The income tax system already identifies those who are liable to pay income tax, and a local income tax would be a bolt-on to that system.

A local income tax would be clear and simple and would not involve the bureaucracy of council tax and the council tax benefit system.

At present, Scots pensioners aren't claiming what is rightfully theirs. Recent figures highlight that more than 200,000 pensioners in Scotland who are entitled to claim council tax benefit do not claim it - and therefore pay more council tax than they should.

That means that more than one in five Scottish pensioners pay an extra £540 every year. Scottish pensioners pay a staggering £118 million more than they should in council tax.

This fact shows that Scots have been over-paying into the system for years, and it should be seen as a great cause for concern, especially when we think that since Labour came to power in 1997, council tax has increased by some 50 per cent.

The council tax was introduced in 1993 under the last Conservative government as a result of the backlash from the dreaded poll tax.

But the Council Tax is now just as unfair and unjust. It hits working families and pensioners hardest.

The Executive should remember the echoes of the past: people who feel hard done by will take action.

The action that we have called for is for the adoption of a fair and balanced local income tax.

Fishing 2006

Comparisons

Just occasionally you realise that someone in government actually 'gets it' about fishing. The nearest we got in this year's fishing debate in the Scottish Parliament came when former minister, Jim Wallace, discussed the role of Norway in determining the access Scottish fishermen have to key fishing grounds and some of the history of the industry.

Jim harked back to his days in Westminster and to his saying in 1988, “I welcome the opportunity of this debate in advance of the meeting of the Council of Ministers ... It will help the Minister to understand how anxious hon. Members on both sides of the House are about the drastic cuts in the total allowable catch, particularly those for cod and haddock“.

Sixteen years later, the continuing failure of the EU's Common Fisheries Policy to address our needs, or the needs of conservation, leaves us still anxious about total allowable catches for cod and haddocks. More interesting, and a more significant revelation, was his understanding of the strength that Norway, a country with a smaller population than Scotland, has in its negotiations with the EU.

Jim Wallace described the talks between Norway and the Community as “fundamentally important” to the haddock quotas our industry ends up with. And of course he is correct.

But is very revealing of the nature of the Liberal – Labour coalition government that we have in Scotland that such a Liberal feels he can only speak when he has left office, the self-evident truth that independent Norway, outside the CFP, holds the whip hand. Such is the price that the Liberals pay for their ministerial Mondeos.

Such is the price that our industry pays because of it.

Our Northern Competitors

The end of February saw a further visit to the North-East by former Icelandic fisherman, now advisor to the Faroes, Jón Kristjánsson. I first met Jón at a fisheries meeting held at the Ban-Car hotel in March 2003 when he described the very different approach being taken by the very small, but important, administration in the Faroes.

Focusing on effort and not on quotas, they eliminate the hated discards and have seen their stocks rise. Sigurjón Thórdarson, an Icelandic MP, came with Jón to Peterhead and brought a sense of despair about Iceland's quota system all too familiar to our fishermen.

Even with a more hands on approach than in Scotland – and not many of our fishermen are asking for tighter controls – the diminution in stocks could be seen in the graphs that Sigi ran through with me.

The diagrams on the Faroes' fishing effort and stock were startling. A clear cyclical variation in stock levels could be seen over the greater part of a century.

Particularly interesting in support of his case that stopping fishing was not the answer, was the stock graph during the Second World War. With virtually no fishing between 1939 and 1945, we nonetheless saw no difference in the shape of the stock graph over, or immediately after, that period. It gave dramatic strength to the argument that the EU's policy of removing our fishing boats from the sea would not help stocks.

Sigi's concerns about Iceland's fishing industry mirror ours. He clearly hopes that new alliances across national boundaries can persuade governments to look to the Faroes for a new approach.

On Shore

The tensions that exist from time to time between different parts of the fishing industry are not surprising given the interdependencies between them and need for each to make a living.

A vibrant processing sector which produces 'ready meals' and 'added-value' products generally is vital to provide a market for the catchers' landings. The traditional 'wet fish' trade is no longer the staple that it once was and the fish-and-chip shops don't buy much of the new species being landed.

So if our processors hurt, catchers suffer. The resignation of Professor Alexander as boss of Scottish Water illustrates the conflict between government and that industry. And early signs of spill-over into fish processing are there. The key problem has been chronic under-investment in sewers and supply.

And the Liberal – Labour government's insistence on recovery of capital expenditure in just a few years. For processors it has meant that the increasingly high standards governing waste discharge from sewage plants, coming largely - as with the CFP - from Europe, simply cannot be met by Scottish Water with their existing systems.

And the necessary investment to build plant which can accept fish-processors' sewage and convert it to sufficiently pure output, cannot be afforded under government rules. The result? We may see boats having to be paid to take processors' waste 12 miles out to dump it!

Processors being compelled to solve a problem more properly Scottish Water's. This is one issue we deal with ourselves in Scotland. The Liberal – Labour government simply has to come up with a sensible program of support for our water industry that helps our vital shore-based fish processors.