We are meant to be out of our present home on 31 March. On the day that the council announced its budget package, we were, effectively, dissolved. Others with disabilities and I have fought a long, hard battle. In 1998 we wrote letters to Tony Blair, to all the major leaders at Westminster, to all our councillors, to community councils in West Lothian and to Churches. We sent copies of all the replies that we received to the committee. We petitioned people and lobbied our MSPs.Fiona Hyslop and Tommy Sheridan are hoping to lodge a motion in Parliament. We have met our leaders in West Lothian Council—the provost, the deputy provost and the council leader. Only this morning we pleaded with them on behalf of our project. The deputy provost claimed that the local authority ruling group was not responsible for closing us down, which astonishes me.I feel strongly about the issue, because I have fought with a learning difficulty all my life. Thanks to this project, I am going to Newbattle Abbey College in September to do an access course so that I can go to university. Without the project I would not be going there. The project is a success story—it won a Scottish Television national award for its services to the disabled.Our local council will shut the project down on the grounds of lack of financial viability. That is not a fair yardstick to apply to a project such as ours, which helps disabled people to move on in their lives. It is a unique project. Learning packages are tailored to our needs and no other project in West Lothian does that. We would not have made our case to you if we did not feel so strongly about the matter. If the project is allowed to go, there will be holes in the lives of disabled people in West Lothian and that void will not be filled.I went through the education system and I was 16 when I was found to have dyslexia. I know the struggles that that brings, and I know that other people with disabilities suffer the same struggles and lack of confidence in their day-to-day lives. TAIC is a unique project that serves the whole county. If it goes, that will be devastating. I plead with you, as I did with Fiona Hyslop and Tommy Sheridan, to help us to stay open.We have no funding now and the council will not listen to us. The closure of the project flies in the face of social inclusion. The Government talks about the importance of bringing in from the edge people who have disabilities and problems, but the evidence on the ground is that that is not happening. Please make it happen for us. Help others in West Lothian to have the opportunity that I have had to become a more confident citizen and to go to study at Newbattle. Please help us—this is about people's lives. I urge the committee to help us in any way that it can. I rest my case.
Official Report · Committee
New Petitions
Speakers
Choose an MSP to read only their contributions- John McAllion Lab 81
- Christine Grahame SNP 36
- Sandra White SNP 28
- Margaret Smith LD 21
- Phil Gallie Con 20
- Helen Eadie Lab 15
- Andrew Stuart Wood 15
- Doreen Thomson 15
- Colin Williamson Training Adults in the Community 10
- Petra Biberbach Campaign for Borders Rail 8
- Mr Loughridge 8
- Mr Whittet 7
- Gil Paterson SNP 7
- Ian Jenkins LD 5
- Euan Robson LD 5
- Peter Fraser 5
- Mr Magennis 5
- David Mackey Campaign for Borders Rail 4
- George Fraser Campaign for Borders Rail 3
- Mr Kirkwood 3
- Councillor Cox 3
- Lorne Anton Campaign for Borders Rail 2
- Anna MacKenzie Campaign for Borders Rail 2
- Madge Elliot Campaign for Borders Rail 2
9 more speakers
- Mr Moore 2
- Murray Tosh Con 1
- Mr Archy Kirkwood MP for Roxburgh and Berwickshire 1
- Mr Michael Moore MP for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale 1
- Mr D W R Whittet 1
- Mr Frank Loughridge Longriggend Residents Association 1
- Councillor Sandra Cox North Lanarkshire Council 1
- Mr Denis Magennis Partick Traders Association 1
- Mr Andrew Stuart Wood 1
The record
326 contributions · showing 201–326That was very eloquently put. I am not defending local authorities, but I know that there is a background of cuts to the matter. We are not supposed to comment on the subject of the petition, but this is an education issue as well as a social inclusion issue, and it should be dealt with in an education budget, and not by the hand-to-mouth budgeting of local authorities. I do not know whether there are other projects like TAIC in Scotland, but they should be part of the education remit. This petition should go the Education, Culture and Sport Committee.
The project is for adults.
Does not that committee deal with adults? I meant to say the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee, but I mentioned the wrong committee—you know what I am talking about.The petition should go to a committee that deals with education, as well as one that deals with social inclusion. In that way, the matter can be addressed in relation to a national rather than a local budget.
We petitioned Wendy Alexander some weeks before we petitioned West Lothian Council. We also petitioned our local councillor, and we met Richard Wallace, a senior civil servant, which is how we came to know about the committee. I welcome warmly the recommendation that the petition be sent to the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee. The Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee could also help.
Yes—that is the obvious committee.
Thank you for putting your case, Colin. I agree with Christine Grahame that the petition should go to the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee and to the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee. You mentioned that the project is to close on 31 March, which is four days away. The letter that you received from Mary Mulligan, dated 15 March, says:"The project users have all been offered an individual assessment of needs together with alternative support."What does that mean? What is to happen to all those people who, on 31 March, will be thrown out of the premises? Have you been offered alternative support?
On the board of directors of TAIC is a manager of Craigsfarm Community Development Project Ltd in Craigshill in Livingston. He put forward a proposal that TAIC and his community project merge, but that proposal has collapsed. He has also offered a small room in his project, which we visited last week. He has known about our problems since January. The disabled users looked at the space, but it was a mess. There were cables hanging out of the walls and there were problems with the lips of the doors. The room is nowhere near ready for disabled students to enter. As a result, disabled users at the project have met—they want an emergency meeting of the board of directors of the project this Wednesday so that they can tell the board clearly that they do not want to go there.As I said to the provost this morning, this is a fifth-rate option. It is shoddy and adds insult to injury. There is also no funding imminent, so how would we survive if we moved there? It comes down to funding. Not only are we being moved from a fully accessible building into a room in a community centre that is not ready for us, but there is no funding. What is the point of going there? We cannot function on thin air.
What will happen to the building that you are using at present and that you are being put out of on 31 March? Do the users—you included—feel that they are being left in limbo?
The building that we are in is owned by the council, but the property manager claims that nobody is ready to fill it immediately. This morning, I asked the provost if we could have a one-month extension, because it would be a terrible struggle to move at the moment. I also wanted to see what the Public Petitions Committee could do for us. Fiona Hyslop has been pressing Alex Linkston, the chief executive of West Lothian Council, to allow us breathing space until we see what happens. The Scottish Parliament might be able to influence the council to give us some funding. We are in a difficult situation.
I congratulate you on your presentation. The material that you provided and your remarks have been helpful to your case. How many students have been involved in the training centre, and when was it established?
I have been involved with the project for four years, and it has existed for around seven years. Last year, 127 students went through its training programmes.
I will take a leaf out of Christine Grahame's book, and say that this petition should also go to the Equal Opportunities Committee, because that committee is supposed to deal with issues of disability and race, as well as gender. This would be a good petition to refer to that committee. You are right to say that it is vital that we send out the message that everybody in Scotland—whether disabled or not—is entitled to resources for training. That applies especially to disabled people, because not every college puts accessibility high on its agenda, which is a problem.
One of our users—on the ground of confidentiality I will not mention her name—self-harms. When she came to the project she stopped. Unfortunately, when she found out that the future of the project was in peril, she started again, and has ended up in hospital. I am sure that there are other examples of users of the project who feel a massive void in their lives, because there is no comparable project. We are facing a brick wall, despite the fact that Yvonne Grey—who is sitting behind me and is a stroke victim—and I have, as users, been fighting hard at local and national Government levels and using the democratic system as much as we can.
The case that Colin Williamson has put reminds me—it is safe to mention it now, after the Ayr by-election—of the situation we faced with Carrick Street halls, where a facility was being closed down by the council. Evidence has led us to believe that there is little that the Public Petitions Committee can do about that, because it is a matter for the local council. Having said that, and without wanting to raise expectations, would you like us to pass on the petition to other committees?
I would welcome any help that the committee can offer. Please take any steps that you can and use any powers that you have to help us to save our project. I would be grateful for that.
Before Colin Williamson goes—if the convener is inviting suggestions—I should mention that the Government has provided around £50 million for former mining communities for regeneration and training. Clearly, West Lothian has such communities. The contact person for those funds is Yvonne Lord, and she is based in Alloa. It is a new fund, and Scotland's allocation from it is approximately £5 million. Colin Williamson might wish to contact Yvonne urgently—my office can provide him with her number at the end of the meeting.
Yes, please. We would welcome that, and any help that the committee can give us.
Thank you, Mr Williamson. Your presentation was very effective.
Thank you once again for allowing me to speak. This is a wonderful example of democracy at work in Scotland. I was always a great supporter of the Scottish Parliament, and it is marvellous to be here and be part of the new democracy.
It has been excellent. Thank you.As Phil Gallie said, our powers are fairly limited. The problem with referring this petition to other committees is that their timetables are such that the project will be closed before they consider the matter. I have no objection to passing the petition on to other committees, but that will not help the petitioners, because the decision has already been made by West Lothian Council. One suggestion is that we contact the council directly.
That is part of the suggested action. Given that—as Colin Williamson said—the premises are not being used, cannot we plead for TAIC to be given a one-month or two-month extension to find out whether other funding is available? Helen Eadie mentioned regeneration funding. Surely the council should contact the relevant body for funds to help the project. We should ask for a month's extension.
We have a precedent, because we asked the local authority to maintain the status quo on Carrick Street halls, although I do not know what happened. There is an issue about how such projects are funded. We should ask the local authority for a deferment. I would then like the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee, or whatever other committees are involved, to look at the funding of such projects. The committee should look at whether those projects should be centrally funded as part of the education budget, rather than through local authorities. One hundred and twenty-seven people will pass through the project this year and will go on to lead a positive lifestyle, as well as benefiting from the other knock-on effects that Colin Williamson so eloquently expressed—I cannot believe that you had difficulties, Colin; you are terribly eloquent. That fact should be borne in mind, because the project makes a positive contribution to Scottish society.
I support Christine Grahame. This is fundamentally an equality issue. That is why I would like the petition to go to the Equal Opportunities Committee as well as to the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee.
I am quite happy with that. However, the full title of the social inclusion committee is the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee. I am a member of that committee. At some point in the future, we will address the organisation of voluntary organisation funding across Scotland. That work would deal with precisely this issue. The petition may therefore be of interest to the committee from the perspective of the voluntary as well as from the perspective of social inclusion.
There are two sides to the issue. Immediate action is one.
The Public Petitions Committee can write to West Lothian Council asking it to consider a month's extension to allow further consideration to be given to saving the project. In the interim, we will refer the petition to the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee, the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee and the Equal Opportunities Committee. We must be honest though. The Scottish Parliament cannot pull the project out of the fire. It is not in our power to do that. It is really a matter for local authorities.
In the letter to the local authority in which will we ask it to defer for one month, would it be appropriate to say that we are passing the petition to those committees, asking them to examine how such projects are funded? We should let local authorities know that we are sympathetic to their funding problems and are asking the Parliament's committees to examine other funding for such programmes. Perhaps it is time that funding was shifted to the education budget or whatever.
I want to qualify that. We need to emphasise to the voluntary group, which is here today, that it ought to contact the regeneration trust without delay. All the other bodies will take time. That will give the group the breathing space to get a more principled, strategic decision on the way forward. We are talking about disability issues and the next 50 years, not just about today.
Okay. The best way forward is to write to West Lothian Council to ask it to consider an extension for the project to allow alternative sources of funding to be explored. We should also draw to West Lothian Council's attention the fact that we have referred the petition to various committees of the Parliament.
To allow assessments to be continued and to consider the possibility of alternatives.
Is that agreed?Members indicated agreement.
The next petition is PE137 on bus corridors in Glasgow. I believe that Mr Magennis from Partick Traders Association is here to address us.
Convener and members of the committee, I first heard about the Faifley to Baillieston bus corridor in November 1999. I also heard that an £8 million grant had been obtained by Glasgow City Council prior to any consultation. I was aware that other bus corridors had been laid down elsewhere in the city, in Maryhill Road and Victoria Road. I was also aware of the detrimental effects that those bus corridors had had in those areas. I was determined that the same thing would not happen in Partick. That was when Partick Traders Association was formed with the main purpose of objecting to bus corridors citywide. In December 1999, I attended a publicity caravan arranged by the city council. All the information seemed to be biased towards bus corridors. I was informed that the intention was to deter traffic other than buses from using Dumbarton Road. No survey work was done on the effects the proposed bus corridors would have on business, residents or the general environment. The bus corridors would be the death knell for traders in the area, leading to boarded-up premises and a slum environment. We met local councillors, who seemed to be unaware of retail developments proposed for the Partick area. It was obvious to us—the traders—that the intention was to remove through traffic from Dumbarton Road to service the proposed new retail developments. At that point, we realised that we were getting nowhere with the city council and our petition to Parliament was started. There are in excess of 200 small family businesses in the area. The petition has in excess of 9,000 signatures, which indicates that not only businesspersons, but the public, do not want a bus corridor.Thank you for your kind attention.
Thank you very much, Mr Magennis. Are there any questions?
Thank you, Denis, for sitting through the whole afternoon, which has been long, although important. There have been some good presentations. Denis, I think you were in the public gallery last Wednesday when this issue was debated during members' business. We have also had a reply to the Shettleston traders' petition. Openly and honestly, what are the feelings of the people in the Dumbarton Road, Byres Road and Partick areas regarding the bus lanes?
I have a shop in Dumbarton Road. I get customers from Maryhill Road who signed the petition because they do not want what happened to them to happen to Dumbarton Road or to any other road in the city. The bus corridors are killing business and pulling down communities. We will fight until we stop them, because they will be the ruination of the district and of business.
I have a practical question. There are bus corridors in Edinburgh—in Corstorphine, for example. There are bays at the side where cars can pull in so people can do shopping. Has there been any investigation into how the bays have affected local shops in parts of Edinburgh where bus corridors are already in operation?
We have not communicated with Edinburgh shops, but in Maryhill Road, since the bus corridors have been introduced, an awful lot of businesses have shut down. If you drive up Maryhill Road, it is all for sale and to let signs. You had another point.
I mentioned the bays, which allow people to pull in, park and do their shopping. There are half-hour limits.
Originally, they wanted to remove the traffic from Dumbarton Road. A bay would be hopeless. If there is no through traffic, we do not get business.
I see.
I want to pick up on Christine Grahame's point about the bus lanes in Edinburgh, particularly in Corstorphine, which is in my constituency. It would be fair to say that the jury is still out on greenways and bus lanes in Edinburgh. The response has been quite mixed. For my constituents who use the bus to commute into work every morning, the bus lanes have shaved 15 minutes off the journey time from the Drumbrae roundabout, through Corstorphine and into the city centre, which has really increased the number of people using the buses. However, if you were to speak to traders in Corstorphine, Leith Walk, Tollcross and Gorgie, where bus lanes have been introduced, you would get a very mixed response. Changes to the bays and the length of time people could stop were made in response to representations to the city council by some traders on Leith Walk. The situation is not uniform across Edinburgh. Some bus lanes operate all the time, whereas the Corstorphine one operates only for part of the day and seems to have had less impact on traders than some of the others. There is not a uniform council strategy. The situation varies across the city and changes have been made as a result of representations, usually by traders, having seen how the bus lanes work. For the travelling public who use the buses and the bus companies, bus lanes have had a certain amount of success. It is a mixed situation in Edinburgh. I am not necessarily giving the full picture, given the time, but hopefully that is a useful bit of information.
No one has said that there has been an improvement for business because there is a bus corridor. They have said that the situation is not as bad as it could have been—that things could be worse—but no one has said that the bus corridor will bring more business and that everything will be rosy.
Mr Magennis, I know that the traders and the petitioners have had a wee bit of bad press, particularly from Glasgow City Council. There was a phone-in on BBC Radio Scotland yesterday. I was listening to the programme and phoned in, but did not get on. Can you tell us about the reactions of the people who phoned in?
The programme was the Lesley Riddoch show. It was on for about 40 minutes and not one person phoned in to support the bus corridors. The people who live in Glasgow outnumber the shopkeepers by many thousands to one, yet there was not one phone call to support the bus corridor. The problem is that the idea of the bus corridor is to move people from outwith the city into the city centre. The people who live in the corridors do not have that problem, especially in Partick, where we have a train and an underground service, so we do not use buses. We are being put out of business to speed the flow of traffic moving through.
Thank you. This petition is very like the one we received from Shettleston Traders Association, which we passed to Glasgow City Council to be included in its consultation exercise on bus corridors. A response from the council has been received and is in the pack that was sent to members before this meeting. The clerk has spoken briefly to council officials about the Partick petition. It appears that much of the response to the Shettleston petition applies equally to the proposals for the Partick area. Page 2, paragraph 2 of the letter from the council makes it clear that a workshop has been held in relation to the Shettleston area proposal. The letter advises that "there was agreement that neither bus gates nor bus lanes at the shops in Shettleston were options which should be considered in any more detail. A further workshop meeting will be convened to discuss other possible enhancement measures in more detail."That seems to rule them out, and it would appear from the letter that they will be ruled out in Partick as well. I want also to put on record the fact that there was recently a debate on this matter in the Scottish Parliament. In responding to the debate, Sarah Boyack, the Minister for Transport and the Environment, said:"Bus lanes cannot be introduced regardless of public opinion, which is where the key issue of consultation comes in. The comments of many members present about the consultation in which they have already been involved are extremely important. I stress that this is pre-consultation that is taking place in advance of the statutory procedures. The councils should be commended on the extent to which they have been prepared to engage with individual members of the public and the business community. Significantly, a number of workshops have been held. Those are not about signing on the dotted line, but about enabling members of the community—of the business and shop communities in particular—to express their views on the detail of the proposals."—Official Report, 23 March 2000; Vol 5, c 1034.The council and the Scottish Executive have taken the issue on board. We should pass the petition to Glasgow City Council to ensure that it is taken into account as part of the consultation. We should also send the letter from Glasgow City Council to the petitioners for their information. Sandra, did you want to suggest something?
No, convener. I was going to agree with you. I wonder whether it would be wise also to send Sarah Boyack a note of the petition, as this is the second that we have had from Glasgow. In defence of the people who submitted the petition, who have had a bad press, I hope that what Sarah Boyack has said does not come back to haunt her. The only reason the council went for consultation was that people knew nothing about the proposal. The idea was mooted in August last year, yet the council spoke to people only in December. That is why there is so much concern. I would like to send copies of this petition and the one from the Shettleston Traders Association to Sarah Boyack—if that has not already been done. I hope her words will not come back to haunt her. Consultation will take place and something will come out of this.
There is no problem with doing that, but the key thing is for the petition to be included in the consultation exercise that Glasgow City Council is undertaking. We can send it to Sarah Boyack too. Is that agreed?Members indicated agreement.
Sarah Boyack has emphasised that we are at the stage of pre-statutory consultation. This is an informal consultation. It is very commendable that the council is doing informal as well as statutory consultation.
The next petition is PE138 from Mr Andrew Stuart Wood who, I believe, is here. I thank Mr Wood for his patience. Would you like to address the committee?
Good afternoon. I want to thank the convener and committee members for sparing the time to go over this issue. As most of you will be aware, everybody who produces goods must have a good promotional body. Scottish agriculture has had a good promotional body, called the Scotch Quality Beef and Lamb Association—SQBLA. For reasons that we do not know, Ross Finnie and the National Farmers Union are trying to drive through a new promotional body. Indeed, they have already started, naming it first the Scottish quality meats council. They then decided that that name was not good enough, so it has been changed to Quality Meat Scotland. While all that has been going on, the new body still does not have a new chief executive, nor is there a chairperson. Why should I be concerned about the situation? Because there are 69,000 farmers in Scotland, of whom 12,000 are members of the Scottish quality assurance scheme. Of the 12,000 farmers who are members, approximately 4,000 are members of the National Farmers Union of Scotland. Why is the NFU being given so much say in something that is so important for the industry? The moneys that are collected by the Meat and Livestock Commission, and which go towards the promotional body, are collected through levies. Those levies are applied to every animal that is produced in Scotland, including more than 5 million lambs and more than 560,000 cattle. All the farmers I have spoken to who are members of SQBLA but not of the NFU agree with me that there is a silent majority who do not wish things to proceed as they are now set to. They are more than happy with the present situation; all they wish is that now there is a devolved Parliament, there is no requirement for the MLC to collect the levies and that that is done through our own Scottish quality assurance scheme.
Hello, Andrew. I am trying to get my head round this: you are saying that, at the moment, the levy is from the Meat and Livestock Commission, but that you want the levy to come through SQBLA.
That is one point, yes.
The second point is that the negotiations or discussions about setting up the new body are not democratic.
That is correct.
Because 8,000 who are in SQBLA but not in the NFU are kept out.
That is absolutely correct.
So you are making two points.
That is right.On the first point, if sections 13 and 14 of the Agriculture Act 1967 can be repealed, that would give the power to the other promotional body—to the Scottish quality assurance body.
So we would require legislation to be changed?
That is absolutely right.
I am trying to deal with terms that I was not familiar with. Is everybody who produces beef and lamb automatically a member of SQBLA?
No. It is a voluntary promotional body. People have to meet high standards, and there are set criteria.
What percentage of producers of Scotch beef and lamb are members of SQBLA? Do you know?
I honestly do not know.
The particular label that is currently in use has been in place for some time.
That is correct.
Do you consider it to be successful?
Yes, and I believe that a lot of other farmers do—12,000 other farmers certainly do. SQBLA is continually taking on members. Since the BSE crisis, farmers have been focusing on the promotional element, and there has to be accountability and traceability. This is one way to do it.
Do you feel that the pressures for a change of name have come from the Scottish Executive rural affairs department, or have they come from the NFU? If so, why?
There are concerns that the change has been partly driven through by the rural affairs department. The MLC may end up with no remit in Scotland. The NFU is losing membership like snow off a dyke. It requires to get subscription or moneys from somewhere. There are concerns that those moneys may come through the back door through the new body. I do not know whether that is fact or fiction, but it is certainly something that the committee should consider.
You have talked about the change of name and mention that the Meat and Livestock Commission has driven the likely forthcoming change to Quality Meat Scotland. Forgive my ignorance—I am not a farmer and you have enlightened me about some of the things that you think will take place—but how will the MLC drive that through? Will it be through a vote? How will the change of name take place?
The change of name has more or less taken place, but I do not know how. No consultation with the ordinary farmer who is not a member of one of the organisations that sit on the board of the new body has been permitted.
You are saying that the change of name has taken place, or nearly taken place, but that nobody knows how it has happened that way. You are also saying that if you do not get a change to legislation to enable SQBLA to get the moneys in from the farmers who are paying the levy, all the money will go into the new body. Is that what you are saying?
No, sorry—I had better try to explain myself more clearly.
Sorry about that.
At the moment, because we have the MLC collecting the levies, some levies—in the region of £4 million to £5 million—go out of Scotland and go down south into MLC for match funding. Only approximately £2 million to £3 million comes back to Scotland. I am suggesting that I want the money produced in Scotland to stay in Scotland for the promotion of Scottish products.
That is clear.
And you would need the legislation changed for that?
Yes.
Thank you very much, Mr Wood, that was excellent.
Thank you very much for your time.
The recommendation that has been made is, I think, the right one: that this matter should go to the Rural Affairs Committee to consider the merits of the proposals in the petition. It should be for that committee to decide how to approach the Scottish Executive. The petition seems to have merit and is well worth referring to the Rural Affairs Committee. Is anyone otherwise minded? If not, that is agreed. I do not think that anyone is here to speak to petition 139, from the Platform Adult Learning Centre, about translation services in the Scottish Parliament. It calls"for the Scottish Parliament to provide translation services for meetings of the Parliament and Committee meetings for the deaf, deaf/blind people and for people with hearing difficulties."I think that the Scottish Parliament already has a contract with the Edinburgh and East of Scotland Deaf Society to provide interpreting services at meetings of the Parliament and at committee meetings in cases where a specific requirement has been identified. Those services were provided for the members' business debate on British Sign Language, which was held in the chamber on 16 February. Parliamentary staff have met the society since the debate to obtain feedback from deaf people who attended that debate, with a view to fine-tuning arrangements for future debates or meetings. An induction loop system is installed in the chamber, which can be used by the hard of hearing at any time. The proposal is that the clerk should write to the petitioners, providing details of all the services that are already available, which I suggest go some way to meet the aims of the petition. It will have to be made clear in the letter, however, that there are currently no plans to make sign language translation facilities available at all meetings of the Parliament. Whether we want to put that on the agenda of the Parliament is another matter, but is anyone opposed to the line of action that I have outlined?
My mind was ticking there—I do not know why, at this time of night. Would it be possible to make approaches to the broadcasters? I am not sure whether the questions at question time appear on screen. They have advance notice of the questions. That might be quite useful. It would at least be something.
Are there any views on that? Are you suggesting, Christine, that we approach the broadcasting unit of the Scottish Parliament and ask it if questions can be put on screen?Christine Grahame indicated agreement.
I appreciate that the broadcasting unit would have to be approached, but I want to consider the last part of the recommendation. It says that it will have to be made clear in the letter that there are currently no plans to make sign language translation facilities available at all meetings of the Parliament. Is there anything we can do to hurry that up and to ensure that plans are made in the not-too-distant future? Is there any committee that we could refer this too? Perhaps the Equal Opportunities Committee?
It could be an idea to refer this to the Equal Opportunities Committee, and to ask it if it wishes to pursue the matter further with the authorities of the Parliament. That would be the appropriate committee.
I would be happy about that.
Are we agreed?Members indicated agreement.
The final petition is from Doreen Thomson, on behalf of ancillary workers at Border general hospital, about resources in the national health service in Scotland. Doreen has come a very long way this afternoon. Laughter. She has been very patient—thank you very much for waiting so patiently, Doreen. Perhaps you would like to address the committee now.
Thank you for staying so long as to hear me. I am here today to hand over a petition with more than 6,500 signatures regarding the low pay in the NHS. We are the forgotten people; we feel that we are a big cog in the wheel of all hospitals. If we were not there, hospitals would be closed because of infection and dirty wards. There would be no movement of patients between departments; there would be no food and no clean laundry; no rubbish collections would be made from wards or departments; internal mail and patients' records would not be delivered. The list is endless. All we are asking for is a fair wage for a fair day's work. In the past, there have been substantial wage rises for nurses and doctors—but what about the low-paid, forgotten people? We do not want or expect the same wage as trained staff. However, I have had a rise of only 12p this year, which brings my hourly rate to £4.01. Since 1997, our hourly rate has gone up by only 21p. I received my backdated money three weeks ago from April. I worked 1,350 hours and took home £110. Is that all we are worth? Since we started our campaign in February, petrol prices have risen twice, mortgages have risen three times, council tax has gone up by 8.2 per cent and the cost of TV licences has also gone up. How are we expected to pay for those rises out of our wage?In last week's budget, the Government has put another £2 billion into the health service. Does that money include help for the low-paid workers? Will it increase our level of staff, as well as that of nurses? We have also had big staff cuts.
Thanks very much, Doreen.
I congratulate Doreen on her efforts to draw this matter to the attention of local politicians and to that of the general public in the Borders. The response by the general public has been tremendous, and I believe that the number of people who have signed the petition is now 6,500.
Yes, there are now more than 6,500 signatures.
As we all know, the ancillary workers at hospitals provide a vital service, but I was not clear about how vital that service is or about the range and extent of activities that ancillary workers undertake. When my colleagues and I recently spent a day at Borders general hospital, we saw exactly what is done. I went around the hospital with someone who delivers blood specimens. If specimens get mixed up, we can imagine the impact on patients. The tasks that are undertaken are responsible and important. The low pay for that group of workers is reflected in the local economy. If we can boost the purchasing power of local residents, particularly by increasing the pay in the public sector, that will help the local economy considerably. Something that was brought home to me forcibly during our visit to the hospital was that ancillary workers often deal with patients, and are there at critical moments. I will give members a flavour of the sort of situation that ancillary workers have to deal with. They have to cope when someone in a ward is in distress and no medical staff are around. The ancillary worker has to go and find the medical staff. As if to emphasise that, as I was talking to one of the petitioners, Gill Shiel, very sadly, someone on the ward died at the very moment we were speaking about that aspect of the ancillary workers' work. The stress that can be involved in the job should not be taken lightly. Often, ancillary workers have to deal with bereaved relatives, who may be under stress. They also talk daily to the patients on the ward. No counselling or training to prepare ancillary workers for that aspect of the job is apparent—Doreen will correct me if I am wrong. That alone shows that there is little recognition of the role ancillary workers play.A three-year pay deal has been agreed, and a ballot has taken place. However, that ballot was held in the context of pressures on public expenditure and a squeeze on health service spending. Now that there has been a change of climate and a change of view, and Gordon Brown is releasing resources into the health service, it is important for the Scottish Parliament to make a case for some of those resources to go into that vital part of the health service.Thank you for allowing me to make that brief statement and for accepting the petition. If the committee wishes to refer the petition on, I suggest that it should be referred to the Health and Community Care Committee.
I have done pretty well. We have dealt with a number of petitions, and only one is coming to me.Doreen, you said that your increase amounts to 12p.
Yes, for the past year. Since 1997, my wages have increased by 21p an hour.
What is the take-home pay for people in the jobs that you are talking about?
I work 30 hours a week and take home £120.
Do you agree with Euan Robson that the public perception is that, while the jobs of auxiliary staff are not stress free, they are not particularly responsible? That is not really the case, is it?
Definitely not—we have a lot of responsibility. Even giving someone a cup of tea can be a responsible job. If someone is a severe diabetic and an auxiliary gives them sugar, that could make them really ill. We must ensure that we know who takes what, right down to a cup of tea.
People have said to me that, at that level of pay, people continue to work for the health service almost despite the money. They do those jobs because they feel that they are worth while. People have to make ends meet by taking other jobs as well.
Yes. A lot of people have a second job or try to get double shifts and so on.
Those are dreadful wages, whatever job is involved. I know that you do responsible work.Mercifully, I have been in hospital only a few times and ancillary workers have made the time—to use a broad term—to talk to me, when I did not want to pester a busy nurse for something simple, such as a glass of fresh, cold water. They would come in to hoover under the bed and would ask, "Would you like something?", which was wonderful. I know that those workers still give patients a big psychological boost.In the broad, economic situation in the Borders, do you think that, given those dreadful rates of pay, people would work elsewhere in the Borders rather than stay in their present job, if better work were available?
Working in a hospital is a job that one either can or cannot do. During the past three or four weeks, five new people started on the day shift that I am on, but three of them left, because of the wages, the travelling expenses or stress. People come into a hospital to do a cleaning job like mine and think that they will dust and hoover the carpet and that that is the end of it. They do not realise that the work involves a wide range of duties.
That raises two issues. Are you saying that the wages are too low, which is indisputable, and that people may come into those jobs for the wrong reasons, because there is nothing else? You are quite right to say that there is more to cleaning in a hospital ward, with new babies and so on, than cleaning in a domestic situation.
Some people have worked in cleaning jobs in factories, offices and so on, and expect to do the same work in a hospital, but they are two completely different kinds of work.
I agree.
Thank you, Doreen, for hanging on.I am pleased to see your petition before the committee—it is a pity that it addresses the issue in the Borders only and not in the rest of Scotland.
Well, actually—
That was one of my questions. Are similar petitions being submitted?
In a fortnight, I will be going to speak at the health conference. Unison has now decided to back us, after we have done the legwork. I hope that the Borders will be treated as a pilot scheme for Scotland.
Great.If we were to send your petition to the Minister for Health and Community Care, rather than just to the Health and Community Care Committee, would that be beneficial for you, for the workers in general and for the hospital?
Definitely. The more people we can get to listen to us, the better.
The covering letter that you sent with your petition has been sent to Susan Deacon. I must advise members that Doreen Thomson is a formidable lady.Borders general hospital is not easy to get to—can you tell us more about the travelling costs? People who take home only £130 or £120 have to consider travelling expenses. What are the travelling expenses for going back and forth between the hospital and Galashiels?
Travelling from Galashiels to the hospital, leaving in the morning and returning at night, costs more than £10 a week. The bus fares have risen recently by an extra 10p a day.
Do some people travel further than that?
Definitely
Forgive me, convener, as my next point is not a question. I visited Borders general hospital with Euan Robson and spoke to people who feel that they should be part of a team—that they are all in it together. Doctors and consultants supported that point of view. When Susan Deacon says, "I wish to pay tribute to NHS staff—this is no ordinary service and these are no ordinary staff", I hope that she does not mean only doctors and nurses.
I hope so, too.
A lot of people think of a hospital as a place full of nice nurses, where doctors go about wearing white coats. They forget about the rest of the staff.
We will not forget. Thank you for giving evidence and for being so patient waiting for us.
Thank you.
The recommendation is that the petition should be referred to the Health and Community Care Committee. It has also been suggested that we refer it to Susan Deacon, for her information. Is that agreed?Members indicated agreement.
I am happy to progress the petition, as those workers do an essential job. The problem of low pay in the health service affects not only ancillary workers, but many others, such as those who work in laboratories.
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