Dave Thompson MSP

ARDNAMURCHAN is making a habit of getting mentioned in the main debating chamber of the Scottish Parliament.

Recently MSPs have heard about concerns over changes to the way medical assistance is offered in the area and have been enthralled by details of The Ardnamurchan Viking and the historic treasures found in his boat but this latest mention was perhaps the strangest yet.

During a debate on Coastguard cuts to be imposed by Westminster, I posed the question to fellow MSPs, “Where is MacLean’s Nose?

MacLean’s Nose, as I am sure many WestWord readers will know, juts out into the Sound of Mull from the southern edge of the Ardnamurchan Peninsula about halfway between Kilchoan and Ardslignish.

My reason for asking this seemingly obscure geographic question was to highlight the concern that this is just one of thousands of pieces of local knowledge that risks being lost or diluted when Clyde Maritime Rescue Centre is closed and its duties moved to Belfast.

Sadly, control over maritime safety has been retained by Westminster and such concerns, even when expressed in a hard-hitting report from that Parliament’s own Transport Committee, were over-ruled by Transport Minister Mike Penning, the Tory MP for land-locked Hemel Hempstead, so two of Scotland’s five Coastguard rescue co-ordination centres are to be closed.

Similarly, wider UK concerns seem to have clouded calls for a relatively straightforward solution to the problem of cripplingly high fuel prices for motorists in the country which produces more oil than any other in the EU.

Despite Scotland’s abundant oil reserves, motorists in this country are subject to an aggressive taxation policy from Westminster which means that those in rural areas pay some of the highest prices at the pump in Europe.

The SNP’s solution to this is simple: a regulator to reduce the level of tax as oil prices rise, giving stability in forecourt prices, and a reduction for rural motorists for whom a car is a necessity; not a luxury.

Unfortunately the former policy has been rejected by Westminster and attempts to introduce the latter have slowly stuttered towards a situation where shortly discounts will be available only to motorists at some island filling stations.

Nearby mainland garages, in some cases just 20 miles by road away from competitors who can offer the discount, are forced to rely on the support of loyal customers to keep their businesses afloat.

It is hard to see how Danny Alexander, who pledged to reduce petrol prices for his constituents if they elected him, can continue to justify his refusal of my call for the petrol discount to be rolled out initially to cover mainland stations close to the Skye part of the discount area, before applying this policy across Scotland’s rural areas.

Refreshingly, not all politicians behave in this way and I was recently delighted when my call for discounted ferry travel, a subject under the control of The Scottish Government, to be expanded to cover a greater area of the West Coast was granted by Keith Brown, our transport minister.

The cost of ferry travel on several routes from Mallaig to Armadale and the Small Isles, between Kilchoan and Tobermory and between Lochaline and Fishnish will fall by a third to a half with the expansion of the successful Road Equivalent Tariff initiative, where the expense of ferry travel is reduced to the equivalent cost of making the same journey by road.

I hope that not only will this make life less expensive for locals but, once news of the removal of this financial barrier gets round, the area will soon see increasing tourist trade and a resulting boost to the fragile economies of the Small Isles and other West Highland communities long regarded as being too far off the beaten track for most holidaymakers.

Finally, I wish all readers a happy and safe Christmas and New Year and look forward to updating you again in m y next column in 2012.