Family Life

In Scotland we are faced with a considerable number of challenges in public life. Recent years have seen our population shrink and within the decade we are likely to us cross the 5 million barrier – downwards.

At the same time we have, like other EU countries, an aging population. A challenge for any country wanting to prosper. And a subject now receiving cross-party political attention.

So it came as a great challenge to me personally when a visitor to one of my surgeries brought me an unpleasant letter he had received from “Jobcentre Plus”.

To divert for a moment, I find many of the “brand” names which government adopts quite baffling. Just what would a visitor from Mars make of names like “Jobcentre Plus” or “The Power of Well-Being”? You will be hearing more about the latter in the next year by the way – you have been warned.

Now back to the letter.

My constituent is someone with a range of skills, a pleasant and articulate manner and a wife. Besides sharing a desire to live in our area, they share a pre-school age child.

As a “Jobseeker” he has been actively looking for work – he showed me his letters – while his wife looks after their family. A familiar division of effort and a commitment to the next generation of Scots that we need if our population is to grow.

So he was baffled to receive a threatening letter requiring his wife to attend an employment interview – or else.

She has not been “signing on” and had planned to take five years out from here working career to see their child into school. But it seems that our “big brother” government have decided that it is “abnormal” to make child-rearing a priority for part of one’s life.

If this is not an attack on family values I do not know what it is. And like this gentlemen who sought my help, I wanted to know more.

My research has found that in fact there is no compulsion to work. But there are “sanctions” for those who fail to attend an interview designed to “sell” the benefits of employment. None of this is properly explained in the letter sent.

It is time this Labour government realised that they are there to serve our needs and to support families. Our community is not simply cannon fodder for their political “project”.

Life Challenges

For people who have planned to supplement their state pension with a personal one, life has been desperately hard of late.

The collapse in stock market confidence – and prices – has hit hard many of the funds in which people’s pension nest eggs have been invested – and hit hard.

But the news that Standard Life is paying off people sends out a wider message about our economy and the government’s stewardship of it.

Because the first action of Gordon Brown when Labour came to power in 1997 was to change the tax position of ordinary people’s pension funds.

Since then he has taken nearly £40,000 million – or about £5,000 million each year – out of our pension funds. Some mess you’ve got us into Gordon. And the next payoff is Scottish staff employed by one of major companies.

Like many others I have a personal interest in Standard Life. I have a “with-profits” policy with them. And with Gordon Brown nibbling at it the profits ain’t what they were.

But the real tragedy is the prospect of this nearly 200-year-old company being sold off. And that could mean further loss of control and the loss of yet another head office.

A shrinking economy coupled with policy to shrink our population – a deadly combination.

Olympic Hopes

I have long campaigned for more lottery money to come to the North-East. So the news that Scotland is lose £70 million of our money to pay for London’s bid for the 2012 Olympics is hardly welcome.

With our sporting record in recent years we can hardly afford the £30 million that out sports clubs will lose. And another £40 million lost to “good causes” hardly seems like a good idea.

But we are told that we would all benefit. Even the most imaginative of us would be hard pushed to add up all the benefits that Scotland could get from the London Olympics and come to £70 million.

And for this corner of Scotland, it translates into a near £1 million loss. An average of £14 for every person in the country.

With the concerns raised by the House of Commons select committee about the costs, funding and benefits of the London bid, there no guarantee that it is only £70 million.

But they are pushing ahead regardless of the impact that it could have on Scotland and on Scottish sporting and community activities.