Working on the Day Job

The Scottish Parliament is now back in full swing after summer recess with the announcement of this year’s Programme for Government.

There is much to be proud of what’s contained in the pages of this ambitious document, including pledges to make improvements on the environment, education and health.

I was delighted that an area I am passionate about, that of organ and tissue donation, was also included.

The Organ and Tissue Donation Bill will establish a “soft” opt-out system for the authorisation of organ and tissue donation and is designed to allow more lives to be saved by organ donation.

It is an issue I have written passionately about before in these pages.

Ambitious targets were also set out for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions while low emissions zones will be placed in Scotland’s four biggest cities by 2020.

There was also an announcement by the First Minister regarding my own constituency of Banffshire and Buchan Coast.

St Fergus will benefit from a new Scottish CCS (Carbon Capture Initiative), the Acorn Project, which has secured €1.9million under a European Union science funding stream for ACT (Accelerate CCS Technologies) to take forward the feasibility phase of a CCS demonstrator project at the site.

Since more than £1billion of funding was suddenly pulled for CCS funding at Peterhead Power Station by the UK Government in 2015, there has not been any indication of when, if ever, the plans might be resumed.

The Minister for Business, Innovation and Energy Paul Wheelhouse told me that the UK Government are now developing a new policy on CCS and are in regular contact with UK counterparts to press for a robust policy framework on the technology.

It is hoped the fresh look will create a deliverable programme for this technology.

As we move towards a low carbon economy, we must look at alternative energy technologies to meet these targets.

The muted plans for Peterhead Power Station would have brought huge investment to the local economy and potentially hundreds of jobs.

At a time when the oil price was continuing to drop, the project would also have gone some of the way to mitigating losses from the industry.

So we must look with excitement at the plans by the Scottish Government at St Fergus for it is a positive step in the right direction towards capitalising on this technology in the North-East.

We must be working with Westminster to deliver a sustainable energy supply for both Scotland and the UK.

And finally, I was delighted to note the Aberdeen City Region has been selected by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) as one of only six pilot areas within the UK – and the only one in Scotland – to share £10million of funding towards gigabit fibre broadband to business premises.

It is imperative we improve broadband for all, including in Aberdeenshire too, which will go a long way for residents in rural towns in particular.