Dave Thompson MSP

Last month Transport Scotland announced a programme of measures to ease congestion while maintenance work is carried out on the Kessock Bridge early in 2013. £1.8m of improvements will be in place before the work begins on the bridge, and includes plans to reopen Conor Bridge rail station, set up traffic lights at the Longman and Rose Street roundabouts, create a dedicated slip road from Stadium Road to the A9 south, double the number of carriages on peak times trains to and from Inverness, increase the number of parking spaces at Beauly and Dingwall stations and increase the number of buses.

Transport Scotland oversaw the temporary closure of the Kessock Bridge earlier this year which I feel was very well managed, and none of the traffic chaos that was predicted actually came to pass. I am extremely encouraged by the preparations that have been made so far to provide alternative modes of transport for commuters who will be affected next year.

While there were calls for a new park and ride to be built at Tore, it would not be viable to set this up in time for the construction work to begin, and I feel that Transport Scotland’s chosen strategy of working with Network Rail, Stagecoach and First Scotrail offers the best chance to minimise the disruption from this essential improvement to the Kessock bridge.

On the 15th October, the First Minister and the Prime Minister signed a historic agreement that grants legal powers to the Scottish Parliament to hold a referendum on Scottish Independence. This is but one step in Scotland’s Home Rule journey and, importantly, the Edinburgh Agreement ensures that the Scottish Parliament will design and deliver the referendum for the people of Scotland.

The signing of this agreement marks the beginning of the end of the campaign to secure independence for Scotland. The Scottish Government will present a positive, ambitious vision for a flourishing, fairer, family friendly, progressive, and healthier Scotland, and I am confident that we will deliver a yes vote in Autumn 2014.

Until a few weeks ago, there was a broad political consensus in Scotland that elderly people shouldn't be charged for their personal care or bus passes, that medicine should be free at the point of need, that access to university education should be based on the ability to learn not the ability to pay, and that the council tax should remain frozen to relieve the pressure on family budgets.

But that consensus was shattered when Labour leader Johann Lamont said that all of these policies should be reviewed. Johann is wrong – not wrong to say that budgets are under pressure, but wrong to conclude that the people who should bear the brunt of Tory cuts are pensioners, the sick, hard-pressed families and working-class kids who aspire to a university education.

Using the phrase ‘something for nothing’ is not only factually incorrect – these universal benefits are paid for by all taxpayers, but it is also provocative. It is right and proper that the state does all it can to enhance the lives of elderly people who have contributed for generations, that the state covers the cost of prescriptions so that the sick aren’t financially penalised, and that education remains free and open to all children.

Johann Lamont suggests a return to means testing, but the consequence of this would not only be an expensive bureaucracy, but past experience shows that the application process will put off many folk who need and warrant the benefit, the very people Ms Lamont professes concern for.

Johann Lamont’s comments are as distasteful as Ruth Davidson’s disingenuous statement that 88% of Scottish households are unproductive. Apparently these two party leaders believe that all public sector workers – policemen and women, teachers and nurses – do not contribute to our society, or at least not enough to warrant the state covering the cost of prescriptions.

It is quite remarkable that both Tory and Labour leaders now share the same soulless and disparaging political position.