Thursday, February 17, 2005
Calum's achievements deserve credit
Writing in his parlimentary report in January 2003, Calum advised us of "My local priorities for 2002 - update". A wonderful hostage to fortune, so let's revisit the claims and promises - my comments are in red.
Last January, I said that I would have 3 priorities for 2002 – a new housing programme for the islands, the relocation of jobs from the Department of Work and Pensions to the islands, and a new Gaelic digital broadcasting service in the Western Isles. Good progress was made on all these over the past 12 months. Really?
On 16th December Margaret Curran MSP, the Scottish Housing Minister, made a welcome repeat visit to Stornoway to announce a doubling to the house-building programme for 2003/4. This was an excellent result from over 2 years of lobbying and a great credit to the MSP, to the Council’s Housing officials and Councillors, and also the local housing association movement. Margaret’s announcement last month, however, is not the end of the matter – we need a sustained programme of new house-building over the long term to boost the construction industry and to tackle the Council waiting list. Under 30 houses built - with a waiting list of 600! I am convinced that new house-building is as important as new jobs in tackling depopulation and retaining and attracting back our young people. When our young go away to college and university on the mainland, they gain experience of living in their own accommodation. Most of them want to continue to enjoy the same freedom after they graduate. That is not feasible if they return to the islands, however, because of the housing shortage. That is one of the reasons why a new house-building programme is so important. If your Government hadn't prevented Councils from building new houses for over 10 years, we wouldn't have this problem would we?
As regards the relocation of jobs, recruitment has already begun for the proposed new debt centre and the Minister (Malcolm Wicks) recently repeated his commitment to me to have created at least 70 new jobs by the end of 2003. It's now 2005, and we have lost (sorry 'relocated') as many jobs as we gained - estimated at 30. We now process debt collection, and local pensioners have to contact Motherwell for advice.
Finally, the campaign for a Gaelic TV channel took a giant step forward last week with confirmation from the Government, in response to a Commons debate I initiated, that the Communications Bill will set up a new Gaelic Media Service with the power to hold a broadcasting licence across the whole UK and also to distribute its programmes over the internet to the Gaelic diaspora abroad. I am now devoting my efforts to the campaign for additional funding so that we can make the new service a job-creating reality in the Western Isles. Outcome - silence and no progress.
So there you have it - who said Calum doesn't achieve anything?
Last January, I said that I would have 3 priorities for 2002 – a new housing programme for the islands, the relocation of jobs from the Department of Work and Pensions to the islands, and a new Gaelic digital broadcasting service in the Western Isles. Good progress was made on all these over the past 12 months. Really?
On 16th December Margaret Curran MSP, the Scottish Housing Minister, made a welcome repeat visit to Stornoway to announce a doubling to the house-building programme for 2003/4. This was an excellent result from over 2 years of lobbying and a great credit to the MSP, to the Council’s Housing officials and Councillors, and also the local housing association movement. Margaret’s announcement last month, however, is not the end of the matter – we need a sustained programme of new house-building over the long term to boost the construction industry and to tackle the Council waiting list. Under 30 houses built - with a waiting list of 600! I am convinced that new house-building is as important as new jobs in tackling depopulation and retaining and attracting back our young people. When our young go away to college and university on the mainland, they gain experience of living in their own accommodation. Most of them want to continue to enjoy the same freedom after they graduate. That is not feasible if they return to the islands, however, because of the housing shortage. That is one of the reasons why a new house-building programme is so important. If your Government hadn't prevented Councils from building new houses for over 10 years, we wouldn't have this problem would we?
As regards the relocation of jobs, recruitment has already begun for the proposed new debt centre and the Minister (Malcolm Wicks) recently repeated his commitment to me to have created at least 70 new jobs by the end of 2003. It's now 2005, and we have lost (sorry 'relocated') as many jobs as we gained - estimated at 30. We now process debt collection, and local pensioners have to contact Motherwell for advice.
Finally, the campaign for a Gaelic TV channel took a giant step forward last week with confirmation from the Government, in response to a Commons debate I initiated, that the Communications Bill will set up a new Gaelic Media Service with the power to hold a broadcasting licence across the whole UK and also to distribute its programmes over the internet to the Gaelic diaspora abroad. I am now devoting my efforts to the campaign for additional funding so that we can make the new service a job-creating reality in the Western Isles. Outcome - silence and no progress.
So there you have it - who said Calum doesn't achieve anything?
