Staying strong in 2018

The promise of ‘stable government’ from Westminster burst into a cloud of dust during the year past.

Not only has Theresa May failed to secure a meaningful majority in Parliament, she is looking more like an injured bird than a trustworthy Prime Minister.

Scotland’s determination to have a say in the Brexit negotiations has been ignored, as has our own government’s determination to remain within the Single Market and the Customs Union.

It will be a miserable victory when it comes, when the Brexiteers begin to really digest what they’ve done. We began to see it over Christmas, as food prices soared and the value of the pound fell. Lidl and Aldi are giving the other supermarkets serious competitive pressure, but an average Christmas meal this year will have cost you about £3 per person more than last year. To be proven right in this context is a victory I would prefer not to be facing.

There has been good news for Hamilton, Larkhalll and Stonehouse. We won the argument to keep the main UWS campus in Hamilton, to which the First Minster gave her support.

The SNP government has hugely improved the availability of broadband, from 81.5 per cent to 95 per cent. Our government’s determination to see the whole of Scotland like this by 2020 is a big ambition that we will surely achieve.

We are working together on the regeneration of Hamilton’s town centre following last year’s consultative report, led by Angela Crawley MP and myself. The council is now examining unpopular parking charges and changes to the one-way system. Let’s hope for constructive change here.

We are hoping to see a new tenant for the Bairds building, though no decision had been made at the time of writing. We welcome investment and the jobs that go with it. Our towns – Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse – all want and deserve the increasing prosperity that new investment brings.

Teacher numbers are rising and our kids are moving on to better destinations when they leave school. We now have 80 more teachers in South Lanarkshire than we did this time last year, and an additional 543 across Scotland. With this record of delivery, it is no surprise that pupils are performing strongly across reading, writing, listening, talking and numeracy. The proportion of S3 pupils achieving Curriculum for Excellence Third Level or better now runs between 88 per cent and 91 per cent for each skillset.

We got rid of those dodgy mosquito devices at our stations, leaving teenage hearing less shocked. We are looking for other ways to tackle the kind of anti-social loitering that can lead to the kind of behaviour that leads to both damage and danger.

I have, as you will know, been fighting the constant Tory attacks upon those who are vulnerable already. You will also know that in spite of repeated calls for a pause on Universal Credit rollout, we in Hamilton are now under its grip and my constituents are sharing the grief and misery that comes with it.

The Hamilton District Foodbank queues grow longer as people wait up to three months for a payment. The con of offering a loan to get you over that period – you will have to pay it back as a deduction from your eventual benefit award – doesn’t solve the problem. At best, it delays it.

I was really pleased to work out a deal, along with colleagues, offering help from Scottishpower. Their customers will be able to get a voucher at the Foodbank that will give them £49 worth of energy. It is not a loan.

I am now writing to the five other main suppliers to ask them to replicate the deal. I am delighted Scottishpower has shown itself to have a sense of social responsibility by sharing with those who most need that support. I hope the other suppliers will do the same.

As I look forward, I continue to be as determined as ever to do everything I can in every way to help constituents to resolve the problems and issues they face. I will keep fighting in the Scottish Parliament for the rights of those who are disadvantaged in particular, for our young people and for the ordinary folk in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse who just want to have a decent income and decent public services.

I hope you will have a happy and prosperous 2018. With a strong community, we will do well.

Scottishpower customers will be able to get a voucher at the Foodbank that will give them £49 worth of energy