Parliament comes to us

Edinburgh’s loss is the North-East’s gain this week. Parliament has to move out of its temporary home in the Church of Scotland’s Assembly Hall because the church needs it for – its annual Assembly.

So this week we’re much closer to home in King’s College, Aberdeen.

For me that is a return to the 1960s. And yes, I was there and yes, I do remember them. In fact if I remember correctly I shall be in my old mathematics lecture theatre when I meet local school students.

Because Banff Academy will be visiting Parliament on Wednesday and Mintlaw Academy comes in on Thursday. But it is not just a passive experience. They will be grilling MSPs, including me, as part of their visit.

Our week in Aberdeen is also an opportunity to look at North-East issues.

So my colleague Richard Lochhead has secured a debate on the drugs problem in our area. Aberdeen has the highest level of drug injectors in Scotland. Although we are rather luckier - so far - in Banff and Buchan, we share a real problem with the rest of Grampian.

Although there we have this serious drugs problem, we only get 4/5ths of the Scottish average funding to tackle it. So Richard’s debate will be a key opportunity to bring our special issues to a wider audience.

And how many of us have been trapped, frustrated by traffic in Aberdeen. Not just an Aberdeen problem. Not one that can simply be solved by the increasing number of ‘park and ride’ facilities.

So I wasn’t well pleased by Labour’s motion for debate on North-East transport. Not a single word about the much needed bypass. But the good news is that they have responded to pressure and broadened the terms of their motion so that we can debate that issue.

We won’t be alone in Aberdeen. You may have seen a number of foreign leaders speaking to the Scottish Parliament over the last three years. No you haven’t actually.

They have spoken to MSPs in our debating chamber – but we’ve not been in formal session. Why so? Well protocol rules that the first leader to speak to the Scottish Parliament must be the Queen.

So the Queen’s Tuesday visit to speak to Parliament sorts that one.

A big week for Parliament. But an even bigger one for the North-East.

French Justice

I send out a regular newsletter to constituents who request it. And for the last six months there hasn’t been a single edition without an article on the ever evolving Peterhead Prison story. But the uncertainty has hung over staff there for over two years now.

So as we approach the end of the consultation period on the Scottish Prison Service proposals for our prison, the pace of work on the subject has stepped up.

Parliament’s Justice 1 Committee has sat for three straight days taking evidence, a record for any committee. And it has emerged that despite a wide range of people saying how expensive it would be to upgrade the existing prison buildings, no one actually knows – because no one has done that work.

This is so characteristic of the whole exercise. A narrow and incomplete view of buildings and little thought to the critical job actually done within them.

The Prison Service have not looked one key option for Peterhead’s future – funding of a new prison by private funds with operation by the existing staff. And they even deny that any examples exist. Curiously that is exactly what the French do.

So next week I will find myself in the curious position of visiting a French prison to ask the questions not yet asked by prison bosses. And carrying with me questions our government want me to ask!

If you were ask me I would say that government ministers are pretty fed up with their civil servants at the Scottish Prison Service.

Our Health Service

Politicians of all parties spend quite a lot of time commenting on our health service. And not much of our recent comment has been favourable.

But I have been reminded, not that I really needed it, that once you are in the hands of our nurses and doctors, you place your trust in the best staff in the world.

My dear mother-in-law, Isabel Pirie, was nursed through her final illness last week. We miss her dearly.

But our loss is made much easier by the knowledge that she could not have been better cared for. The staff in St. John’s in Livingston even found a wee nip of whisky for her at night. So it was a home from home.

She was grateful for their attention, and so were Sandra and I.

Thank you health service workers everywhere. Thank you from us and from Isabel.