Politics
Labour peer supports full fiscal responsibility Staff Reporter
Labour peer and leading human rights lawyer, Baroness Helena Kennedy has said she supports full fiscal responsibility for Scotland. In an exclusive interview with Holyrood magazine, Kennedy, who was a founding member of Charter 88, the constitutional reform group which was set up in 1988 in response to growing concerns about the failure of British institutions to serve democracy, said she was in favour of a number of things her party would be “uncomfortable” with. She explained: “I think Scotland should be able to have borrowing powers and acquire
loans, should have full fiscal responsibility. I certainly think that unless you have money to do the business then you can’t exercise real power.” However, she said she wouldn’t go as far as separation. “Tere are many things where
the SNP and I do converge because I am a great devolver and I would increase devolution but I wouldn’t like to see a separating off. Why? Well, I think there is a sense of solidarity by being together and you can usually be more effective.”
Kennedy also talks of her “great disappointment” that Labour “lost its way” after 1997. “One of the terrible things that happened was that the whole New Labour, and I emphasise the ‘new’ bit, trajectory was just so out of kilter with that Scottish
Relationships Scotland is a national charity that supports a network of affiliated Local Services to provide relationship counselling, family mediation, child contact centres and other related forms of family support across Scotland.
Relationship conflict and family breakdown has increased with the pressure of modern life. Our work focuses on prevention and early intervention and is essential for maintaining the health, well-being and quality of life of adults and children. Individuals, couples, parents and families need high quality services to help them develop their own solutions to the problems they may face in their relationships and in the bringing up of their children.
All political parties recognise the importance of strong stable families to the health and well being of all citizens and particularly in the early years of a child’s life. We believe that politicians need to focus on how these services can be promoted and resourced so that every family that requires help will find the support they need wherever they live in Scotland.
Government action is urgently required to:
• Produce a comprehensive policy statement on relationships and the family which promotes relationship counselling and family mediation as key routes to resolving family conflict and breakdown
• Ensure that relationship counselling, family mediation and child contact centres services receive adequate stable long term statutory funding
• Acknowledge the reliance that the judicial and legal system have on family mediation and child contact centres and fund this accordingly
For more information visit
www.relationships-scotland.org.uk Relationships Scotland, 18 York Place, Edinburgh EH1 3EP t: 0845 119 2020, e:
enquiries@relationships-scotland.org.uk 27 June 2011 Holyrood 11 IN BRIEF
sentiment. Tat whole thing of basically buying into Tatcherism and seeing the politics as a continuum, romancing the rich, being in awe of big money, I didn’t want to be part of that. It was very much a Blairite thing, certainly not a Gordon Brown thing because Gordon is something of an aesthetic and is not interested in money, but there was a thing around Blair that was all about money; he was seduced by it, he was enchanted by it and he wanted it and he was also in awe of the men that made money and I don’t have that. I am not in awe of it. Tat was my great disappointment and I think that was a big disappointment to Labour voters in Scotland.”
Full interview page 14 Families Need:
• Access to relationship support services available to everyone experiencing relationship conflict or relationship breakdown
• Recognition by government of the need to support adult relationships to improve life chances for families and children
• Support for vulnerable and marginalised groups in greatest danger of relationship and family breakdown, including prisoners and teenagers at risk of homelessness
Scotland Needs:
• Counselling and Mediation to be seen as the primary routes for resolving relationship difficulties and family conflict
• Stable, long-term funding for relationship support services across all of Scotland
Warning over coastguard closures Government plans to cut back on coastguard centres should be scrapped amid serious safety concerns, a cross-party report by MPs has warned. The House of Commons Transport Committee report attacks plans – which would slash the number of coastguard centres open 24 hours a day from 18 to just three – as “flawed”. The committee said evidence it had received raised “serious concerns that safety will be jeopardised if these proposals proceed”.
WESTMINSTER
Concern for 28-day detention Plans to reintroduce 28 days’ pre-charge detention for terror suspects in an emergency are “unsatisfactory and unreliable”, MPs and peers have said. A joint committee said the proposed legislation might not work when it would be most needed. Police can hold terror suspects for up to 14 days without charge. The Home Office said alternatives,
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