March 2002

POST OFFICE PRIVATISATION THREATENS MORAY POST OFFICES

Thursday, March 28, 2002

Westminster Member of Parliament for Moray, Mr Angus Robertson, delivered a stark warning about the future of postal services if the Government’s privatisation plans are allowed to continue. This comes at the same time as Consignia, the new name for Royal Mail, has announced plans to cut 15,000 jobs in a first wave of redundancies with the potential for 40,000 job losses in total throughout Scotland and the UK.

Mr Robertson compared the Scottish situation with the Sweden, where postal services were privatised in 1996.

SWEDISH SITUATION:

- Prices have increased by 72 per cent
- Deliveries in rural areas are not made to the door; residents collect mail from
cluster points on the route of the postman.
- The number of post offices has more than halved from 1900 to 900 between 1990
and 2000
- Swedenpost’s profits peaked in 1999, but are now running in a deficit exceeding
£20m

Commenting the Moray MP said:

“ As far as postal privatisation is concerned, we have seen the future and it’s frightening.

“ The Swedish lesson is that privatisation means higher prices, fewer post offices, and an end to door to door delivery; for areas like Banffshire it’s the death-knell for local services.

“ At the moment we have a postal service that we can be proud of. Daily delivery, direct to the door, and easy access to the postal network are guaranteed. As far as the Post Office is concerned , the message is, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! It needs investment and support, not privatisation. The prospect of having to go out to collect mail, rather than have mail come directly to your door is appalling. The impact on elderly or infirm people will be horrendous.

“ I will be writing directly to postmasters throughout Moray seeking their own views on this important issue in order that I am best informed when pursuing the matter in the House of Commons. I can assure my constituents that my SNP colleagues and I will fight these changes every step of the way to ensure that our rural postal services in Moray remain accessible and reasonably priced.”

e-mail Parliamentary Office

MP focuses on Forres bus links

Wednesday, March 27, 2002

Member of the Westminster Parliament for Moray Mr Angus Robertson has been involved in discussions about improved bus services for Forres and Kinloss.

In a meeting between Mr Robertson and Stagecoach managers which took place at the Moray depot the SNP MP raised concerns about ticket pricing and service frequency on routes serving the Forres and Kinloss areas.

Commenting after the meeting Mr Robertson said:

“ I am very pleased with the outcome of my recent meeting with Stagecoach. A number of constituents had raised concerns with me on various issues from fares and timetabling through to bus stop maintenance and I was impressed with the company’s positive attitude in dealing with the matters raised.

“ During the meeting Stagecoach indicated their willingness to meet with Community Councils and discuss any suggestions or concerns about services that bus users may have. They also outlined significant fare improvements for regular rural users and families, which will be introduced later this year.

“ Of particular importance was the need for general improvements in the frequency and coverage of services and Stagecoach appeared keen to be able to deal with this in the near future.

“ Overall the meeting was very positive and the company has assured me that they will be widely publicising developments as they take place.”

e-mail Parliamentary Office

Jobs Blow

Monday, March 25, 2002

The past week in Westminster was dominated by what was billed as ‘Black Monday’. Government ministers made announcements that tens of thousands of people are to loose their jobs in the postal service and naval dockyards and then to cap it all there was a major u-turn on Railtrack.

I was in the chamber as a Cabinet member confirmed that 15,000 post office workers are to be made redundant in a first round of cuts, and that total could rise to as much as 40,000. This comes after the government agreed to ‘liberalise’ the postal services, which are a lifeline for many rural and urban communities.

There are very real fears that we could soon see the consequences of the same policy, which was introduced earlier in Sweden. There prices have increased by 72%, deliveries in rural areas are not made to the door, residents collect mail from cluster points on the route of the postman and the number of post offices has more than halved. If that weren’t bad enough post office profits have turned into a deficit and there has been a 20% cut in staffing levels.

Massive job losses were also announced this week affecting MOD staff at the UK’s naval bases. The brunt of the redundancies and posts privatisation are going to be felt in Scotland. Perhaps the news was already bad enough on Monday, but Ministers didn’t even make a statement on the naval job losses to Parliament. Instead they did a briefing for journalists. I raised a point of order with the Speaker who agreed to look into the matter, because major announcements are supposed to be made in the House of Commons.

These latest job losses are latest in a recent series to hit people in the defence sector.
The number of MoD civilians employed in Scotland has fallen by 20 per cent in 8 years.
Over the same time period the number of uniformed personnel has fallen by 17%. Sadly it seems pretty certain that the privatisation of a large part of the remaining work force will inevitably lead to further job cuts. This will also affect the RAF in Moray with the planned privatisation of the Defence Fire Service.

Defence matters were also the subject of discussion with a special debate on the 1994 Chinook crash in the Mull of Kintyre. As the Scottish National Party's Westminster Defence Spokesperson I co-sponsored the Opposition Debate together with MP’s from all parties

We were calling on the Government to exonerate the pilots who were blamed for the crash. The Defence Minister confirmed in the debate that he is getting new legal advice on the case, which is a glimmer of hope that justice can be done.

Since my last column I have been trying to do my bit for local businesses. I have held a series of meetings with local firms who have a lot of concerns about unnecessary red-tape. This was also top of the agenda when I spoke at the UK conference of the Federation of Small Businesses in Aviemore, which included a delegation from Moray.

The Easter recess has now begun, which gives me more time to do things in the constituency. First port of call was at Speyside High School, where sixth year pupils asked a series of testing questions. The school has a fantastic atmosphere with the staff and pupils committed to success in their studies and after-school activities. A number of the pupils have taken part in the Moray Music Festival together with budding musicians from throughout the Moray. Congratulations to them all.

e-mail Parliamentary Office

Moray Parliamentarian slams government’s public services record

Monday, March 18, 2002

In the wake of recent high profile public service disputes, affecting many public service workers in Moray, and many more constituents, Angus Robertson MP has outlined the failures of successive governments that have fostered discontentment and low morale among public servants and resulted in predictable disputes with their employers.

Speaking on the growing problem Scottish National Party Member of the Westminster Parliament for Moray Mr Angus Robertson said:

“ There is now hardly a person in Scotland that has not been affected by public sector disputes in one way or another. This is not a criticism of the employees involved but of the successive government’s that have failed to implement policies giving transparency and confidence in our public services.

“ At present there is an ongoing dispute between Job Centre staff and the Department of Work and Pensions over safety concerns relating to the implementation of the ‘Jobcentre Plus’ programme. Our police have been offered a pay package that would drastically cut overtime payments and increase their hours of service; over 90% of policemen and women in the Grampian and Northern force areas have voted to reject the proposals. Following rejections on a similar scale from throughout Scotland and the UK an unprecedented 10,000 police attended a rally of the Westminster Parliament calling on MPs to reject the proposals.

“ In other areas of public service there are disputes in the rail industry following the highly flawed privatisation of the rail network by the Tories and Royal Mail staff are on the verge of striking over privatisation proposals for the Post Office.

“ The list is seemingly endless.”

“ The current Labour/Liberal government has squandered huge amounts of public cash on PFI/PPP and other private industry projects that have already proved to be ineffective in improving public services. Examples include hospital cleaning contracts that are not keeping our hospitals clean, road maintenance contracts that have resulted in badly maintained and treated roads throughout Scotland and an enormous resentment among both the public sector workers and the general public.

“ I have had a number of recent meeting with representatives of Moray Police, local representatives of the Public & Commercial Services Union, who represent the majority of Job Centre employees, and the TGWU regarding MOD support services privatization and I am in no doubt about their concerns and worries.

“ What we are seeing the symptoms of a managed decline of our country’s wealth and a failure to invest revenues wisely. In an independent Scotland the SNP would implement a policy of Public Investment Trusts that would provide much better value for money than PFI/PPP and maintain public assets rather than pay private companies to take them away.

“ John F Kennedy once said ‘Public service is a noble profession’ but what we have now in Scotland are public sector workers that are undervalued and who are having their conditions of service eroded and their pension entitlements hammered following the transfer of their contracts to private companies.

“ We cannot allow this destruction of Scotland’s assets to continue unchecked and the government must rethink their strategies. Labour and the Liberals must listen to our Police, our health workers, our postal workers, our transport workers and other public servants. Continuing to ride roughshod over their rights and concerns is a recipe for disaster and consultation and discussion should be entered into before making proposals.

“ Both the Scottish and Westminster Government’s have taken to presenting a ‘fait accompli’ in their proposals for many of our public services, in most instances putting private profit before public provision. This is unhealthy in the extreme and needs to be stopped.”

e-mail Parliamentary Office

Public Sector Concerns

Tuesday, March 12, 2002

An important part of the job for members of parliament is to listen to concerned public sector workers and during the last week I have met with representatives from the police and job centre staff.

Over 5000 police officers, including local representatives lobbied Westminster on Wednesday to highlight their unhappiness about pay and condition proposals by the government.
Officers have already voted by a 10-1 margin against the reform plans, which would cut their overtime and remove a range of allowances.
The Scottish Police Federation, which joined colleagues from England, Wales and Northern Ireland in the lobby believe that the reforms will leave staff worse off, and has called on its members to register their frustration.
I have pledged to police officers in Moray that I will continue to support their campaign and will do anything that I can to change the governments proposals.
A second group of workers that has been lobbying me are the staff at our job centres. At the present time there is a very serious dispute involving staff in the former Department of Social Security and the Employment Service. The dispute is about protecting members against serious physical assaults.
A new agency will shortly be created, called Jobcentre Plus, combining benefit offices and jobcentres on the same sites. The agency wants to remove safety screens from nearly all the new offices. For over a year now, their union the PCS has been trying to get agreement on proper protection for staff against assaults at work. This comes after assaults in benefits offices doubled last year.
Again I support the staff involved in this dispute. It is a sad reality that there is a small minority in our society who are prepared to resort to violence against public servants. Workers in job centers have a vital task to perform in maintaining our society’s safety net and they deserve the best personal safety measures.
Issues of personal safety are also important to MPs and their staff. A few years ago a mentally ill man killed an MP’s assistant and severely injured the MP in his office. Only recently an extremist group sent dangerous packages to MPs and their staff. Taking these unacceptable and sad examples into account I am pleased to have moved into a new parliamentary office in Wards Road. It combines ease of access for constituents and has a range of security features that were not present in the last office.
In the chamber this week we saw a debate about a new tax which could severely affect the Scottish quarrying and construction industry and add extra costs to building projects including an eventual Elgin bypass.
The Aggregates Levy has been described as "the most anti-Scottish tax since the poll tax". From next month, the Treasury intends to levy a blanket fixed-rate sum on every tonne of sand, gravel and crushed rock waste. It will lead to a dramatic rise in the cost of aggregates in Scotland, and could put thousands of quarrying and construction jobs at risk.
The levy, which is payable on virtually all construction aggregates, will increase costs in Scotland by 35% - compared to 12% in south-east England. The Treasury has delayed phasing in the levy in Northern Ireland because of the economic damage that it threatens there. My colleagues and I in the Scottish National Party are arguing for the government to reconsider the levy and as a minimum implement a similar delay to the new tax in Scotland.

e-mail Parliamentary Office

Moray MP leads Grand Committee Defence Debate for SNP

Monday, March 4, 2002

Westminster MP for Moray Mr Angus Robertson today [Tuesday] led the Scottish Grand Committee Defence Debate for the Scottish National Party. The debate on the future of defence in Scotland was an opportunity for Mr Robertson, who is also the SNP’s Defence Spokesperson at Westminster, to highlight the important work done by the RAF in Moray as well as the SNP’s defence plans in an independent Scotland.

Speaking during the debate Mr Robertson said of our service personnel:

“ Moray contains two of the most significant RAF bases in the UK: RAF Kinloss and RAF Lossiemouth. I’m certain that all members will agree that the service men and women at those bases do a first class job.

“ They have played significant roles in the campaign against terrorism and in current training exercises in Nevada and more recently in Oman. The service community also plays a welcome key role in the economy and wider society of Moray. More generally I would like to completely associate myself and the Scottish National Party with the praise of all those who serve in all branches of the armed forces.

On the future of defence in Scotland and its associated industries he went on to say:

“ In January 2001 the government was asked how much of the defence budget was spent in Scotland in actual terms. The reply was that the Defence Bills Agency had spent only 4.6% of its £15 billion pound budget in Scotland, representing a shortfall of £600 million to Scottish taxpayers.

“ We should be working together with our colleagues in England and elsewhere within the emerging European context. We should be playing a peacekeeping role as a country not tainted by the highest mega tonnage of nuclear weapons per head in the world. We can do better than acting as an aircraft carrier for those who support a first strike nuclear option.

“ Independence provides the opportunity through current level of per-capita expenditure to secure expanded armed force manpower levels (both regular and reserve). It would mean that all of our current tax contribution spent on defence procurement would be of benefit to the Scottish economy.

“ It would also secure a defence diversification fund and guarantees for levels of service personnel and expenditure at current bases including Lossiemouth and Kinloss. In fact the SNP was the only party who pledged our bases a future at the last election.

“ This is the positive vision that I have for Scotland and defence: democratically controlled in Scotland without the need for nuclear weapons, playing a full role in the European and international community in our own right together with our neighbours and friends.”
Ends.

e-mail Parliamentary Office

Moray MP Focuses on Film Funding

Sunday, March 3, 2002

Moray’s Westminster Member of Parliament Mr Angus Robertson has backed calls for extra money to be pursued on the back of film industry interest in the North & North East. His call comes after the upsurge in interest in the film ‘Garden of Angels’, which is about Moray’s Findhorn Community and recent announcements of a possible film studio development in nearby Inverness.

Commenting the SNP’s Mr Robertson said:

“ I am delighted that Moray is already getting good publicity on the back of these film industry developments and we must ensure that the benefits are maximised for the region. I am sure that there will be a tourism boost associated with the filming of ‘Garden of Angels’ and this can be to the benefit of many in Moray, however the marketing of this opportunity must be managed properly with appropriate funding for the local tourist authority.

“ Most recently there has been news of a potential film studio in Inverness, which would also be billed as a new tourist attraction. With Scotland becoming an increasingly popular subject matter for filmmakers there is huge potential for attracting new visitors to the North and North East. There are opportunities for assistance from both the Scottish Parliament and Westminster and my SNP colleagues and I will be pursuing these issues in the coming weeks and months.



Ends.

e-mail Parliamentary Office