Te experience of working in Parliament
coupled with the four years she now has under her belt as a councillor have helped her to make the transition to MSP more easily than it perhaps is for some of the others. “I’ve just found the council experience
invaluable, just in terms of a lot of the public engagement and public speaking and so on and just getting used to dealing with constituency enquiries. “You also better appreciate how local
and national government could work well together; very often in the council chamber you’re hearing debates where people are saying, ‘we’re having to cut our cloth like this because we haven’t had x from national government’ and then in the chamber yesterday there were a couple of comments about how ‘local authorities really must not cut these vital services’. Tere are a lot of cross links and I think it’s useful to understand how they both work, but obviously, I’m on a learning curve in here.” Harper’s approach to politics has rubbed
off on Johnstone after more than ten years of working with him. “I do feel it’s a huge responsibility as well as a
great privilege to follow in Robin’s footsteps,” she says. “His was never a confrontational style;
everybody was always absolutely clear about what Robin believed in but I just think he was very straight and forthright and honest but never aggressive about his politics. I just think if he came back in – and he will in a couple of months – to see where we are now, he would get the warmest of welcomes from across all parties because of the way he carries himself and the way he is.” Te most important lesson that Johnstone
feels she has learnt from Harper is never to take things personally and never to give up on ideas, no matter how much resistance they might be met with. She also feels his enthusiasm helped him from getting too “sucked in” to politics. Keeping perspective will be essential if
Johnstone and fellow MSP Patrick Harvie are to make a success of this parliamentary session, and Johnstone feels her experience with local-level politics will help her to do this. Since she was elected as an MSP, she has waived her council salary as she feels it would not be appropriate to take it at a time when others in the public sector are losing their jobs. Following on from the election campaign
which saw the Greens question the need for Westminster cuts to be passed on, Johnstone says the party will now focus on giving a voice to those on the receiving end. However, the planned approach is to be co-operative, constructive and supportive wherever the
IN BRIEF
Napier named Scotland’s greenest university Edinburgh Napier University has been ranked Scotland’s greenest university in People and Planet’s annual Green League. Napier came 13th out of all the universities in the UK while Aberdeen and St Andrews were next at a joint 31st. The worst performing university was the University of Abertay, which was ranked 130th out of the 142 UK universities that provided statistics. WWF Scotland’s Head of Policy, Dr Dan Barlow, said that the results showed the picture on cutting climate emissions was “clearly mixed” and universities must “up their game”.
Johnstone worked in the office of Robin Harper,
who stepped down at this year’s election
party sees agreement with government. One issue Johnstone would personally like to see progress made on is childhood obesity. “I really would like to see us making sure
that young people are having the opportunity to walk and cycle safely to school from an early stage because I think Scotland’s health record is something that we need to be focusing on. We need to make sure that we’re doing all that we can in preventative terms because that makes good economic sense too in terms of saving on that budget,” she says. Encouraging children to take part in sport
is also something she would like to see happening in schools across Scotland, and sees progress toward a minimum of two hours PE a week as a good place to start. “I’m very hopeful that we’ll make the most
of the Olympic Games in 2012 and the Commonwealth Games in 2014; that we’ll come out the other end and we’ll totally have got it,” says Johnstone. “I just think [sport] just gives so many opportunities to build self-esteem, self- confidence, keep yourself fit and you get to meet lots of people.” So far, her love of sport seems to be rubbing
off on nine-year-old daughter Laurie, who is a keen tennis player. Does Johnstone wish that athletics was Laurie’s passion too? “I’m kind of trying to…I’m backing off. She
knows that I run and she and I have done the Sport Relief mile together and she enjoys running, she absolutely loves it. She’s been playing tennis now for a couple of years and I’d say at the moment that’s her big passion and that’s fine,” she says. “I’m making sure she gets the chance to do
everything. She swims, she plays tennis, she can come out if I’m going out to do a session and do a couple of little things but I think it’s really important as well at her early age not to be doing too much but getting the chance to do lots and lots of different things.”
Energy partnership for wind project A new partnership between Spanish oil company Repsol and Portugal’s EDP Renováveis (EDPR) is expected to deliver up to 2.4 Gigawatts of offshore wind projects. The companies confirmed their collaboration following Repsol’s purchase of SeaEnergy Renewables Ltd, the offshore wind unit of Aberdeen- based SeaEnergy Plc. First Minister Alex Salmond said: “Today’s announcement of a joint venture involving two of Europe’s major energy companies is a massive vote of confidence in Scotland’s offshore wind sector and in the significant opportunities that are available for leading utilities and developers.”
UK ‘underestimates’ solar power potential UK Energy and Climate Minister Greg Barker has said that the UK has underestimated the part that solar power can play in meeting climate change targets. Responding to a report from the Solar Trade Association which claimed the costs of solar have been overrated while the benefits have been underrated, Barker said that the Government needed to look again at the technology due to falling costs. He said: “Solar is now going through an extraordinary stage of development. It’s not just for enthusiasts. It has potential to be a significant source of energy.”
Hybrid engine halves fuel consumption Researches at Aalto University in Finland have found that using hybrid engines in construction machinery can halve fuel consumption. The HybLab research network added an electrical power transmission into heavy construction equipment, capturing energy that is otherwise lost. While this has already been carried out in cars, it is the first time the energy generated by construction machinery as it carries out work tasks has been captured.
Council to monitor sewage stench Edinburgh Council has announced that 18 council officers will be involved in a new regime to monitor the stench from the Seafield waste treatment plant. The one-year monitoring programme began on 1 June and the officers are now available to respond to and investigate complaints about smell from the plant. Odour complaints will be assessed to determine: type, strength, persistence, frequency, wind direction, weather conditions and proximity to works site boundary.
13 June 2011 Holyrood 57
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