24th May 2021: A Week in Parliament

Rural Surgery

Copying my virtual street surgeries, I took the chance to do a virtual rural surgery. With the best will in the world, my constituency is too large to do any meaningful door knocking in the rural areas. When I was a councillor I tried doing personal leaflet deliveries to the rural area for the Irvine Valley ward. Three full days and I didn’t quite complete the task, so the entire constituency is impossible timewise. Instead, I was able to do one online/by telephone. It was good getting feedback that people appreciated me making myself available in that way.

Australia Trade Deal

While I was trying to engage with the rural community, news broke about the UK signing a trade deal with Australia which will be tariff-free. What this means is ultimately cheap Australian lamb will edge out Scottish (and Welsh) farmers. Another case of the UK Tory Government being obsessed with free trade and do not care about the livelihoods of our farming sector. Sadly, I have long argued this would happen – the EU have strict quotas on Australian and New Zealand lamb which actually protected Scottish farmers while helping us export to the EU. Alistair Jack, the Scottish Secretary owns vast tracks of farmland so he should understand the risks. He really needs to step up. He may get a concession such as a phase-out of tariffs but in reality, that means a slow death for many farms. Also, it does nothing in terms of fighting climate change.

Covid Updates

It is great that we have moved into level 2 with premises and facilities opening up. We still have to be careful as the spikes in Glasgow and Moray have shown. The Glasgow spike is been driven by the Indian variant which is spiking in many areas in England. Yet again, this is a dereliction of duty by the UK Government – taking so long to put India on the red list. It is inconceivable that the variant didn’t arrive here without it coming from people travelling from India via England which meant avoiding quarantine hotels. That’s not to say they were deliberately flouting the Scottish rules, as travelling via Heathrow is often forced on us due to the limited direct flights from Scotland. The key issue though is the UK Government not reacting quick enough, while they put Bangladesh and Pakistan on the red list much earlier. Yet again, economics and chasing a trade deal would appear to have been prioritised over health.

DWP

My office has been dealing with a case where the DWP wrongly paid a constituent universal credit. They were notified about a change of circumstances and they were queried several times. A court ruling found the DWP were wrong on several counts. As a result of this ruling, they (DWP) admitted it was a mistake on their part for paying the money. The ruling? The law states any overpayments must be recovered so the constituent is now haunted by a large debt. The law can be an ass and I will continue to fight this.