Village Law

Every change – in business, in technology, in life – brings some new words into general use. I doubt that ‘Unicameral’ will ever grace the front page of every newspaper but it is a word much more used than in days of yore.

And its meaning? It describes the system of government provided by the Scottish Parliament. It means that we have one chamber of parliament.

At Westminster, the House of Lords revises legislation passed by the Commons. It is a ‘second house’.

In the USA they have a House of Representatives and a Senate. A system of checks and balances.

But in Scotland we review and revise proposals for changes to our law with our committee system.

And sometimes that is an onerous task for a small number of people.

The Justice 2 Committee, of which I am one of seven members, is ploughing its way through the government’s Land Reform Bill. It puts into law our right to access the countryside and creates a legal framework for community and crofting ‘buy-outs’ of land.

And to date it seems to have attracted the largest number of amendments of any Bill before Parliament so far.

So when we started our debate four business days ago it was on a schedule that said we would reach clause 12 on day 1. Well when we finished day four we had only completed four pages of a sixty-nine page Bill.

Time for desperate measures.

Have you heard of the clock being stopped at five to midnight at important international conferences? That way they can reach agreement before a deadline expires.

We have adopted a similar tactic. Day 6 of our debate took place over the 24th and 25th September and day 7 will cover two days the following week.

But even so the flood of suggested amendments continues.

Friday is my ‘surgery day’. I am scurrying from town to town across the North-East. And my mobile phone rings.

I have been talking to Aberdeenshire Council officials about the ‘local authority’ part of the Bill. And I have put forward a number of their suggested amendments.

But COSLA, the association representing most of Scotland’s councils, is running late with its list of changes. And hasn’t yet found an MSP to put them forward.

So, strange but true, they have asked the Ramblers Association if they can help. And it’s from them that my phone call has come.

Sure, I will submit the changes in my name if I can get to a ‘landline’ telephone and connect my portable computer to the parliament’s system.

If you saw me risking indigestion as I rapidly gulped down my egg, bacon, sausage and chips in the “Four C’s” café in New Pitsligo last Friday, this was why.

The email with the suggested changes reached me at 1 p.m. and the deadline for submission to the parliamentary clerks was one hour later. And checking and understanding twenty-one amendments to a complex piece of law is not that easy.

Unless I had told it here, I don’t think many people would have realised the key role the community café in Pitsligo will have played in framing an important change to our country’s laws.

A Parliament for all of Scotland indeed!

The Sporting Life

Plans for Fraserburgh and Banff to have better community facilities are being strongly promoted by members of these communities. And I support both.

After a false start for Banff, the Princess Royal seems to getting the attention and support that their complex project deserves.

And I enjoyed the Vale vs. Buckie match. Especially as my father used to tell me of his times playing in the Highland League for – whisper it – Ross County. My loyalties will be sorely tested again this year if Fraserburgh and Vale are once again competing at the top – and I hope they will be.

But is it not a paradox that in an area dominated by proximity to the sea, not all our secondary schools have access to swimming pools.

I hope that we can find a way to ensure that ‘access for all’, a recurring theme in the government’s policies, actually includes the North-East.

But with a drop in Lottery receipts, and it is payouts from there that have become core to so much of our leisure life, we may have to work even harder to catch up with the rest of Scotland and get our share.