Northern Scot Column
Posted on Wednesday, September 26 2007
Labour ConferenceThe coverage of this week's Labour Conference has certainly been the major political story of the week, although I'm not sure how far that interest extends in Moray's households!I'm sure that some, like me, will be hugely interested and others will feel that it doesn't affect them. Of course both points of view are entirely reasonable. With my Defence & Foreign Affairs hat on I have been keeping a close eye on how the Labour Government's Foreign Policy is developing, given the importance that will have on future involvement in Iraq & Afghanistan and, indeed, the way the UK responds to future world security issues. The other major issue of concern and, arguably, the biggest, is the government's plans to tackle emissions and, by extension, climate change. There will be a number of major proposals and decisions to be made by parliament in the coming year and I am already receiving large quantities of mail from constituents on the Westminster Government's agenda. Conversely the view that the issues raised in the Prime Minister's conference speech are of little interest in Moray is also accurate, at least for large sections of the speech. All the issues raised about health, education, crime, transport and housing – the key everyday issues affecting constituents – are devolved, therefore the bulk of the Prime Minister's comments do not apply for Scotland, where we have different priorities and a different government to tackle them. It is important to remember that the amounts spent in Scotland on different policy areas differ significantly from England, for example we spend more on health. Additional money announced by the government for individual policy areas does not necessarily mean the same for Scotland. We do of course get a share of UK money but how we spend it is entirely up to the elected Scottish Government and not Westminster. Given all of the above the point I am making is that it is important to understand the powers and remit of the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government because I still meet many constituents who are either annoyed at a Westminster Government decision or want to know why a Westminster Government decision has not been implemented. The reason is, of course, that the decision does not apply in Scotland. Broadcasting...and that brings me nicely to the issue of broadcasting. Why are the SNP government spending money on reviewing Scotland's television broadcasting structure and function? The answer being that we do not have a proportional output to the rest of the UK i.e. we are punching under our weight and the news programmes we receive do not provide the UK news in a Scottish context which leads to the misunderstanding of UK and Scottish issues that I have mentioned. It is not, as some would suggest, some kind of separatist notion to have the so-called 'Scottish Six' news programme but rather a proposal to ensure that people living in Scotland receive important current affairs information in the proper context. A recent example would be the top billing given to school examination procedures, which does not apply in Scotland. It will be of interest to people in Scotland and a Scottish based news programme could report the issue in that context but it is probably not the main headline news for Scotland given that Scottish examinations are dealt with by an entirely different body.
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