Blogging for Bethan

I was recently asked by Bethan Jenkins (pictured), the youngest member of the Welsh Assembly, and a Plaid Cymru representative for South West Wales, to write a piece for her blog. Because I am being lazy I am going to just reproduce it here, but if you want to read it at her site then you can get it at:

http://bethanjenkins.blogspot.com/2007/10/bethans-guest-bloggers-1-jamie-hepburn.html

Anyway, it is a piece about where Scotland is going with the SNP government and is perhaps quite timely following the weekend's SNP conference in Aviemore.

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Anyone who knows their Shakespeare will be aware of the question posed in Macbeth; “stands Scotland where it did?”

If someone had fallen asleep before the Scottish Parliament election this year and awoke today and posed that same question, the answer would have to be a resounding no. You would need to have been asleep not to have noticed the changes taking place in Scotland.

The Scottish writer and artist Alasdair Gray once wrote “work as if you were in the early days of a better nation”, and our hypothetical Rip Van Winkle would be able to wake from their slumber to find that by virtue of the election of an SNP government these are the early days of a better nation.

The SNP is already pursuing its distinctive social democratic agenda, designed to bring about a more prosperous, fair and socially just Scotland. For my part it is a huge honour to serve in the Scottish Parliament at a time when we have the first ever SNP government. Indeed, not only is this the first ever SNP government, I would contend that it is the first ever Scottish government. Our predecessors in the shape of the Labour-Liberal pact which was in place for eight years could be accused of many things, but acting as a government is not really one of them. Their local council mentality would only ever allow them to be described as an administration at best.

However, since Alex Salmond and his cabinet were put in place we have seen a series of announcements that are impressive in their intent and reach. In just five months announcements have been made that will see the abolition of tuition fees for university students, and a return to the principle of free education; plans to follow the Welsh example and abolish prescription charges for all Scottish citizens; one of the most ambitious targets for carbon reduction by the middle of this century of any country on the planet; the creation of a new entrants scheme for Scottish farming; a review of the right to buy policy in council housing, with the suggestion that this will be scrapped entirely for newly built homes; two local accident and emergency departments earmarked for closure have been saved; a decision that no more private prisons will be built in Scotland; work begun on creating a viable alternative to New Labour’s PFI madness; the most ambitious programme of railway infrastructure improvements for decades; a decision to allow asylum seekers the same rights in higher education as the rest of Scotland’s people; the freezing of the unfair council tax with a view to replacing it with a fairer local income tax based on the ability to pay; and a summit held to discuss nuclear disarmament – the first ever government organised summit in the UK to discuss such.

This indicates a government that is progressive and outward looking. It reflects a programme of a real government rather than that of an administration following orders from London.

This is not to say that we do not face difficulties. The SNP are a minority government, with 47 members of the Scottish Parliament out of a total of 129. The maths clearly indicates that it will be difficult to pursue some of our agenda. That will mean that, on occasion, we will have to build loose alliances with other parties on a one off, policy by policy basis.

Furthermore, the comprehensive spending review conducted at Westminster has announced that the SNP government can expect to get the lowest annual increase to the Scottish block grant since the advent of devolution, with a miserly 0.5% increase.

This makes things financially tight for the SNP government, but in John Swinney MSP, we have a Cabinet Secretary for Finance who is equipped with all the abilities that his predecessors have lacked necessary for the task at hand, and I remain confident that the government will be able to cope with this financial settlement.

So, things are going well just now. I remain confident that they will remain to go that way so long as the SNP remains in power. The challenge for the SNP is to ensure that after four years we win the next Scottish Parliament election in 2011.

My hope is that when we do so, it will be the first elections to a Scottish Parliament in an independent Scotland. The SNP government has launched a “national conversation” which it wants all citizens and all of civic society to engage in about the future constitutional direction of our country. We will clearly set out our belief that Scotland can be a hugely better country to live in with independence, and I think we can convince the people of the merits of that case.

The plan is to hold a referendum in 2010, where we will provide the Scottish people with the chance to move to independence. If we can hold that referendum, then my hopes that the SNP election victory in 2011 is in the context of Scottish independence stand a very real chance of being fulfilled.

Right to Buy Shake Up

Nothing for weeks from me, and then two posts in one day!

However, the announcement that the SNP government is to consult on bringing forward changes to the right to buy legislation for council houses is an excellent development.

I believe that the right to buy policy has had long term consequences of creating real pressures on the availability of socially rented homes across the country.

I understand that many families have personally benefited by the policy as individual units. Indeed, I know, and am related to many people in that category. But taken as a whole, I think it has left us with a vastly depleted number of council houses available for rent today, which given the huge numbers of people registering as homeless in Scotland each year (over 50,000) as well as the huge waiting lists that exist for the limited number of available properties gives us huge problems today.

In short, as wider public policy and leaving the individual benefits to individual families (as important as they are) to one side for a moment, the right to buy policy has been limited in its effectiveness.

Therefore, the possibility that any new homes built for social let may be excluded from right to buy legislation is a very sensible one.

One of the reasons that local authorities have been reluctant to build new council houses was the realisation that as soon as they were built and let they were likely to be bought by tenants at huge discounted value under the right to buy legislation presently in place. You can understand the reluctance of local government to spend money on new properties that might be quickly whipped from under their feet.

Therefore, with this possibility removed, it is much more desirable for local authorities to get back into the house building game.

In itself, this proposal will not revolutionise socially rented housing in Scotland. It might just be the first step to doing so however.

At a time when Gordon Brown's Labour Party and David "just call me Dave" Cameron's Tories get sucked into a Dutch Auction on inheritance tax (something that effects only 6% of heritable estates it is worth noting), it is useful to remember that there are those who will not ever have to "worry" about falling into the taxable bracket in relation to this tax. They are the countless numbers of people who neither can afford or want to buy a house and are desperately waiting on a housing list for a council house.

They will welcome the idea being floated by the SNP government.

SNP Government Pursue End to Nuclear Weapons

Today saw a quite amazing event take place in Glasgow. For the first time in our country's history, we have had a government sponsored summit on nuclear disarmament.

This simply would not have been possible without the election of an SNP government. It is quite unthinkable to envisage at any stage a UK government of either Labour or Tory hue sponsor such an event such is their addiction to the nuclear weapons game.

Some will argue that this falls outwith the constitutional competence of the SNP government. You may argue that this is the case under the terms of the Scotland Act, although clearly in relation to planning, transport and environment one might argue that there is a degree of competence.

Whatever the case may be, I have to say that I am not bothered. Of course the unionists want us to confine Scotland to its own wee devolved kailyard on this and every other subject. Their small minds cannot comprehend Scotland's democratically elected government expressing a view that falls outwith this scope.

However, it can't come as that much of a surprise that the SNP is determined to act on this area. We have a long standing opposition to nuclear weapons, and naturally we don't see Scottish government as having to be boxed in by the Scotland Act.

However, this has not been the only criticism levelled against the SNP in relation to this issue.

David Cairns MP, a Scottish Office minister (my, he must be busy!) came out with the downright bizarre assertion that the SNP was pursuing a "loony left" policy in relation to nuclear disarmament.

Well, maybe he genuinely believes so. However, then many ordinary people will be surprised to learn that they belong to the loony left such is the breadth of opposition to nuclear weapons in this country. Indeed, I understand that it is actually somewhere within the deep darkest recesses of Labour Party policy to oppose nuclear proliferation. However, I suppose Mr Cairns gets to square that seeming circle by the fact that the Labour government is ignoring that policy of their own party and is intent on renewing the Trident nuclear weapons scheme.

Indeed, not only does this ignore Labour Party policy, but goes against the internationally agreed Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which the United Kingdom is a signatory.

This brings me onto another area of attack on the SNP, expressed by Eric Joyce MP on Newsnight this evening.

Alex Salmond has written to all signatory states of this Treaty asking for Scotland to be given observer status at the next discussions surrounding this treaty. Apparently for Mr Joyce this amounts to Alex Salmond "cavorting with despots and dictators".

Let me say that there are a number of international leaders in the world who perhaps do fall into this category and are less than savoury characters. However, Alex Salmond has quite correctly written to each and every signatory of the Treaty. So it would just be as easy to characterise this as cavorting with democrats and statesmen given the number of liberal democracies that are included on the list. Of course that wouldn't make for the snide soundbite that Mr Joyce and the Labour Party are looking for.

The fact of the matter is that Alex Salmond and the SNP government are pursuing, by combination of today's summit and writing to the signatories of the non-proliferation treaty, the stated objective of the Scottish government, and something widely supported by the Scottish people; the removal of nuclear weapons from our country.

The Big Blockade

I don't seem to be doing too great a job at keeping this blog up to date! I must try better.


Anyway, today I managed to make it along to the "Big Blockade" protest at the Faslane nuclear submarine base on the Gareloch (picture below).


I considered it important to be there today as I totally oppose the existence of these immoral weapons that if used would incinerate men, women and children indiscriminately. I have always thought it the ultimate irony that one of the supposed reasons for war in Iraq was the existence of weapons of mass destruction there. Of course none were found there. If one wanted to find weapons of mass destruction they could find them quite easily and much closer to home, at Faslane.


I was delighted that the Scottish Parliament voted against the renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system. I was also pleasantly surprised when a majority of Scottish members of the Westminster parliament also expressed their opposition.


This counts for little though until we have powers over defence repatriated to Scotland so we can legislate against nuclear weapons. So despite todays "Big Blockade" being touted at the culmination of a years long activity by the Faslane 365 organisation, the work goes on until we can get rid of Trident and nuclear weapons from Scotland.