Scottish Labour to formally commit to rail renationalisation
SNP Westminster leader’s plea to help child refugees
SCOTTISH Labour will formally back rail renationalisation at the party’s conference as SNP ministers and ScotRail’s owner come under fire for the “truly abysmal performance” of the service.
In a motion to be debated at the conference in Perth this week, the train drivers’ union Aslef demands “rail services must be placed under a system of public control and public accountability”.
Scottish Labour’s leadership said it will back Aslef’s call to strip Dutch firm Abellio of the ScotRail contract it took over in 2015 in a 10-year deal worth up to £6 billion.
The motion adds that “Abellio has caused chaos for millions of passengers by failing to meet the required standards and service levels, notwithstanding the appointment of a new managing director on January 23rd 2017”.
Scottish Government ministers have claimed that Holyrood does not hold enough powers to renationalise rail .
However, the claim will be challenged during a debate on protecting Scotland’s rail services on Saturday, the second day of the Labour conference.
Scottish Labour transport spokesperson Neil Bibby said: “Passen- gers in Scotland are paying over the odds for overcrowded, late-running trains. There’s a better way to run the railways in Scotland and that is with a People’s ScotRail.”
An Abellio spokesperson, in response, said: “We are investing £475 million in Scotland’s railways, the biggest investment since the Victorian era, delivering more seats and faster journey times for passengers.”
A spokesperson for Transport Minister Humza Yousaf pointed out that Labour had failed to act over rail renationalisation when it was in power at Westminster and Holyrood.
The spokesperson said: “For a party that claims to be in favour of a publicly-owned ScotRail it does beg the question why Labour sat on their hands and chose not to stop franchising when they had a golden opportunity to do so.”
THE SNP’s Westminster leader has called on Theresa May to show “moral and political leadership” by reversing the decision to end a scheme for bringing lone child refugees to Britain.
Angus Robertson has written to the Prime Minister on behalf of the party’s 54 MPs seeking an urgent meeting on the closure of the scheme to take in unaccompanied refugee children from other countries in Europe.
The Moray MP’s intervention came after it was announced that just 350 children will be given a home in the UK under the so-called Dubs amendment – far fewer than the 3,000 originally expected.
Robertson said: “The Prime Minister cannot continue to remain silent in the face of growing pressure from the public and Parliament to reverse this shameful decision.
“We are in the midst of the worst humanitarian crisis since the Second World War – it will not just go away, and the UK Government must not shirk its moral responsibility to receive our fair share of unaccompanied child refugees.
“These are some of the most vulnerable children in the world – we can and must do more to protect them. Tory ministers have been far too slow and reluctant to act throughout the refugee crisis. The relatively weak commitments that they have made must now be kept – and instead of closing down key routes to sanctuary the UK Government should be stepping up its resettlement efforts.
“Theresa May must now show some moral and political leadership by scrapping plans to end the Dubs scheme and by stepping up the UK Government’s refugee resettlement efforts.”
However, a UK Government spokesman, in response, said: “We are committed to supporting vulnerable children who are caught up in conflict and danger.”