Report to the People
21st May 2007
Uncharted Waters
Well, it
might have taken a fortnight, but the Scottish Parliament has at last managed to
appoint a new First Minister, who, in turn, has appointed his Executive.
After eight
years of coalition, this is the first minority government at Holyrood and, as we
are sailing in uncharted waters, all sorts of questions are being asked about
how exactly it is (or is not) going to work.
Will the
various parties cooperate and find common ground where possible?
Or will bickering and point-scoring bring the parliament grinding to a
halt? Like many, I hope for the
former but fear the latter.
Here in
Greenock and Inverclyde, there important questions on which we need cast-iron
answers now.
Is, for
example, the future of the waterfront regeneration guaranteed? Key
to this regeneration is helping more young families stay in the area - and that
means making sure they can get the right sort of house, in the right place and
at the right price. We therefore
need assurances that the massive investment which the last Executive committed
for new affordable homes is safe, as are the hundreds of millions of pounds for
which tenants voted overwhelmingly in the housing stock transfer ballot.
And, in Gourock, we need to know the £20million transport interchange
will still be funded.
We might not
be sure what this new Executive’s priorities will be, but we know what ours
are. Our demands that these vital
projects are not put to one side will be the first thing on the new Ministers’
desks.
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