NEWS RELEASE – ‘Draconian’ law could make anti-social behaviour worse

Green MSP Patrick Harvie today spoke out against a ?draconian?
new law which police will be able to use to disperse groups of
people who are committing no crime.

The MSP for Glasgow said that the new measure, which will allow
police to disperse groups of two or more people when their
presence causes ?alarm or distress?, risked making anti-social
behaviour worse.

?It is draconian to disperse people based only on their
presence and not behaviour,? said Mr Harvie. ?This is likely to
build up resentment against the police and the authorities. The
Executive is risking making anti-social behaviour worse.”

He also voiced concern over the use of tagging for children
under the age of 16.

?We have a moral obligation under the UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child to detain children only as a last resort.
If the Executive is now saying that tagging is going to be used
for some of those children, what is the Executive now saying
about its use of detention? Its policy on detention should be
made clear.?

Speech from ‘Building Better Cities’ debate

Patrick Harvie (Glasgow) (Green):

In the minutes that I have, I will try to respond to as much as I can of what has been said in the debate. I apologise to any members whom I miss out.

Andy Kerr has given us what looks like an holistic vision of our cities, which is greatly to be welcomed. However, we remain concerned that sustainability is not yet at the heart of urban policy. The minister spoke about Glasgow as a metropolitan city and about major regeneration projects. However, all the while the smaller aspects of urban policy have been missed out. I refer to the community assets that Robert Brown and I have discussed, which all too often are railroaded and bulldozed.

The minister?and Nicola Sturgeon in an intervention?recognised some of the appalling costs of economic growth. Those costs have not been addressed?they have merely been acknowledged. The issue of incapacity benefit has been raised. Thirty per cent of Glasgow’s working population is not in employment. Economic growth in itself does not address such problems.

Fergus Ewing (Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber) (SNP):

We are all concerned about people on incapacity benefit. Can the member demonstrate to me exactly how people are on incapacity benefit because of economic growth?

Patrick Harvie:

I am hoping to demonstrate that the economic growth that has taken place in Glasgow?and that neither the Labour Party nor the SNP has acknowledged?does not solve the problem. A bigger economy is not necessarily more socially just.

The minister talked about lifting our sights. Why can we not lift our sights beyond the narrow concept of gross domestic product growth and look to true quality of life?

I will now address some of Mr Ewing’s comments, which is bound to please him. He gives enthusiastic support to the single-issue politics of growth. Too often, improving our economy is seen as synonymous with growing our economy. A bigger economy does not necessarily create healthier places to live or more fulfilling jobs to do. Growth that undermines our health, freedom, dignity and relationships is not progress.

I will now respond to Brian Monteith’s speech. He began with what is becoming a familiar Tory theme?let us tax less and spend more on public services. Many of his comments were not connected with our cities, but those that were, were every bit as single issue as the speeches that preceded them. Again he called for growth, any growth, at any price: the same old single-issue thinking.

In his amendment to the Executive motion, my colleague Mark Ballard sought to connect the ways in which we live in our cities: the waste that we produce, how we get to work, where our work and homes are located and which businesses we buy our goods and services from. Do we buy them from local businesses that create and sustain the community strength of our cities, or from the soulless multinationals that undermine working conditions, social justice and the environment at global and local levels?

Robert Brown’s support for Glasgow’s crossrail scheme will, of course, receive my enthusiastic backing. However, we must go further and say that investment in public transport must be seen as an alternative to the ghastly, obscenely expensive, outrageous M74 northern extension project. Only a tiny fraction of the Executive’s transport spend is directed at walking and cycling. Public transport is also not prioritised. We need those forms of sustainable transport to be right at the heart of transport policy, not just squeezed in between the gaps in the traffic.

Many members have mentioned jobs. We must look to protect local businesses and to invest in public transport, community-owned renewables, community recycling and other social enterprises. All those green alternatives create more jobs than the grey policies that they would replace.

Although we support the attempt to take an holistic approach to urban development, there is something lacking at its heart. I urge members to support Mark Ballard’s amendment, to give up the single-minded, single-issue politics of growth at any price and to make true quality of life central, creating a healthy and sustainable green future for our cities. I support Mark Ballard’s amendment.

NEWS RELEASE – Rail Improvements

GREEN MSPs’ NEWS RELEASE

For immediate release 29 October

RAIL IMPROVEMENTS WELCOMED ?UNDER CLOUD OF M74?

Green MSP Patrick Harvie today welcomed plans to improve rail services in Glasgow and insisted that they should be seen as a logical alternative to the M74 Northern Extension.

Mr Harvie said that he was encouraged by Strathclyde Passenger Transport?s hopes of creating a north-south rail link across Glasgow, and emphasised the fact that these plans would create many more social benefits than the proposed M74 extension.

Mr Harvie also said that he was pleased with the Executive?s announcement that platforms at stations in the city will be lengthened to allow new, six-carriage trains to be employed.

Mr Harvie said ?I am encouraged by any effort to improve rail services in Glasgow. The new fleet of trains and platform upgrades should make rail travel far more attractive to those who currently face the daily trial of overcrowding?.

He went on to praise Strathclyde Passenger Transport?s proposal to develop a north-south rail across Glasgow which would be of both regional and national benefit. However Mr Harvie said he found it ironic that the project is estimated to cost £38m ? whilst building the M74 extension is expected to cost over £500m.

Mr Harvie said ?Whilst yesterday?s announcement is welcome news, the people of Glasgow would have much more to celebrate if the Minister would prioritise the cross-rail link between Queen Street and Central Station. The Executive?s current priority to fund the M74 extension, costing even more than the Scottish Parliament building, is simply wrong?.

?The social and economic advantages of better passenger transport across the city are obvious. The cross-rail plans would particularly benefit the Gorbals area of Glasgow. The M74 development however would slice this community in half and displace local business. I need not even point to the amount of pollution motorways cause in comparison to rail services?.

He further explained ?At present there are no through rail services from Edinburgh to the West beyond Glasgow ? one of the key traffic flows that the motorway would carry. New cross-Glasgow rail services are a practical alternative which should be introduced as soon as possible.?

Ends

For more information contact: Fiona Barnes,
Constituency Support Worker for Patrick Harvie MSP
Tel: 0131 348 6363
Email: fiona.barnes@scottish.parliament.uk

Notes to Editor

Yesterday the Scottish Executive announced that they are providing £7.4m towards the cost of lengthening platforms at 25 railway stations in Scotland. Another £8.2m needed for the project is coming from the Strategic Rail Authority.

Strathclyde Passenger Transport yesterday submitted a request for £500,000 to the Scottish Executive for plans to develop a Cross-rail link in Glasgow.

NEWS RELEASE – Human rights in Zimbabwe

GREEN MSPs? NEWS RELEASE

For immediate release Tuesday 28 October

HARVIE JOINS CALLS FOR MUGABE TO STAND DOWN

Green MSP Patrick Harvie today backed calls for Zimbabwean
president Robert Mugabe to stand down.

He joined MSPs from across the political spectrum in supporting
the political editor of the Daily News, Sandra Nyaira, who was
in Edinburgh today. Ms Nyaira?s newspaper has been banned by Mr Mugabe.

Mr Harvie said: ?I am proud to be joining colleagues from all
parties. The UK government has a poor record of promoting human
rights in its dealings with other countries, and for Tony
Blair’s government now to divert development money from Africa
is unacceptable.

?I am looking forward to working with the Parliament?s
cross-party group on human rights to promote the human rights
agenda here in Scotland. We’re honoured to have the chance to
meet human rights campaigners from around the world, and to
offer them our support.?

The publisher and three directors of the Daily News, which is
highly critical of the Mugabe government, appeared in court in
Zimbabwe today, accused of publishing without a licence. The
paper was banned by Mr Mugabe earlier this month.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, contact the Green MSPs? press office
on 0131 348 6360 / 0131 348 6376.

ends

NEWS RELEASE – Sewel motion

GREEN MSPs? NEWS RELEASE

For immediate release Tuesday 28 October

CIVIL PARTNERSHIPS OFFERS CHANCE FOR PARLIAMENT TO MATURE, SAYS HARVIE

Green MSP Patrick Harvie today said that proposed legislation on registration of civil partnerships could set a precedent about the authority of the Scottish Parliament – and help it mature.

He said it was apparent that the Executive wanted to use a Sewel motion, which would mean that legislation on civil partnerships would be formulated in Westminster and adopted in Scotland.

But he said that the Executive should ensure that the Parliament scrutinised Westminster?s proposals – and called on MSPs to assert their authority.

?If the Scottish Parliament can gain scrutiny of this legislation, even though it is being steered through Westminster, we will have set a precedent about the authority of Parliament,” said Mr Harvie, who has launched his own proposal for a Civil Partnerships Bill.

“We are seeing the relationship between Parliament and Executive develop. If we are to avoid the undermining of Parliament which has been seen at Westminster, the Executive must not be allowed to use Sewel motions as a way of ducking issues.

Speaking after hearing evidence at the equal opportunities committee, Mr Harvie said: “This is not a party political issue. I call on MSPs of all parties to assert their authority as parliamentarians, and insist on their right to scrutinise legislation on devolved issues. To do otherwise flies in the face of devolution.”

Mr Harvie welcomed evidence given to the Parliament?s equal opportunities committee which called for the best legislation on civil partnerships for Scotland, whether that happened at Westminster or in Scotland.

Acknowledging the need to get the best legislation possible, Mr Harvie said: “It’s clear that the Sewel motion is the route the Executive intends to use. The committee today heard arguments for making that process more open to scrutiny here in Scotland. There is no reason for Parliament to accept that Sewel motions relieve us of the duty to scrutinise, to get the best law for Scotland at the soonest opportunity.”

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, contact the Green MSPs? press office on 0131 348 6360 / 0131 348 6376.

ends

‘Condemn Harvie’ London Mayor urged!

It’s good to know that the Labour Members of the London Assembly are keeping busy by reading the Scottish Parliament’s Official Record. One of them has put down this question for tomorrow’s Question Time with the Mayor:

1777 / 2003 – Resilience
Diana Johnson
Will the Mayor join me in condemning Patrick Harvie, the Green MSP for Glasgow, who has spoken out against the recent emergency services resilience exercise in London as a “propaganda exercise”?

This all relates to comments I made in the antisocial behaviour debate earlier this month. I decided to write to ‘Red Ken’ to make sure he doesn’t get hold of the wrong end of the stick. You can read the letter here.

Motion on sexual health

I have lodged the following motion on sexual health misinformation, and asked other MSPs to sign it.

It relates to misinformation which has been known to circulate in Scotland, not just in Africa. Background material can be found here.

Or you can learn more by watching Panorama this Sunday at 10:15pm on BBC1.

*S2M-486 Patrick Harvie: Sexual Health Misinformation

That the Parliament notes the publication of pamphlets stating that condoms are not reliable in preventing the spread of HIV, as discovered by BBC Panorama researchers working in Kenya and other areas of high HIV prevalence;
opposes the spread of such misinformation in Scotland;

condemns those who publish, promote or endorse such life-threatening propaganda, whether abroad or in Scotland;

notes the opinion of the US National Institutes of Health and other expert opinion worldwide that intact latex condoms are essentially impermeable to even the smallest sexually transmitted virus, hepatitis B;

notes the intention of the Scottish Executive to publish the report of the Sexual Health Strategy expert group in the near future;

and believes that any effective sexual health strategy for Scotland will include the promotion of condom use and safer sex practices among other approaches.

Letter to Tony Blair

Rt Hon Tony Blair MP
10 Downing Street
London
SW1A 2AA

Dear Prime Minister,

A friend has just emailed me a link to the website www.thankyoutony.com and expressed the hope that this site is a bad joke. I am sorry to find, after reading the site, that it is no joke. Apparently you have been sent thousands of ‘thank you’ messages from American citizens through this site, in books of 250 at a time. If you have read any of these you will know that they contain simple-minded, fatuous and fawning admiration of your decision to lead this country to war against its will.

After reading just some of these messages, I felt the strong need to send you a message of my own. I have no illusion that you will read it yourself, but my need to express my disgust outweighs my sense of pointlessness in the act.

You, I hope, are under no illusions either. Your decision to lend support to an illegal and immoral war in Iraq had neither the support of the people you govern nor the weight of common sense. The fact that it was done in support of a far-right US president and his neo-conservative regime – unelected, unsound and unashamed to make explicit its ambition for world dominance – only served to deepen the feelings of betrayal and outrage felt by myself and millions of others in the UK.

I hope that you will read no more messages from thankyoutony.com (if indeed you have read any) since they can only serve to reinforce your arrogant self-satisfaction, and prevent you from seeing the truth of the military occupation in Iraq which your government is propping up. Your time would be better spent in visiting another website brought to my attention today, www.controlarms.org which offers real solutions to the violence which your government and others inflict on the Earth’s people.

Most sincerely,

Patrick Harvie

Speech from Scottish fire and rescue service debate

Patrick Harvie (Glasgow) (Green):

The motion invites us to welcome
“the Scottish Executive’s commitment to working with stakeholders to develop a fire and rescue service that is modern and effective”.
The point cannot be made too often that there is no suggestion in that statement that our fire brigades are archaic and ineffective. Ministers and members from all parties will agree that the fire service is a professional body deserving much credit for its performance.
There is much in the proposed package of legislation for the fire and rescue service that deserves similar credit. The FBU has been among the first to acknowledge that Scotland needs an updated statutory foundation for its fire service.
The placing of fire prevention on an equal footing with firefighting is to be welcomed, as is the move to recognise that the fire service has carried out many life-saving activities, such as assisting after road accidents, without statutory backing. Less clear is whether the fire and rescue services will be able to have a voice in road accident prevention or whether they will be able to pick up the pieces that our car-oriented lifestyles generate. It seems inconsistent to place prevention at the core of fire duties while, each year, three times as many people in Scotland die in road accidents as do in fires. The Executive’s determination to sit back as ever more cars crowd our road flies in the face of a consistent approach. If we seek to prevent fires, why not also seek to overturn the car culture that will inevitably lead to ever more road traffic accidents and that prevents emergency vehicles from moving about our towns and cities?

Fergus Ewing: Does Patrick Harvie accept that a lot of firefighters could not get to work unless they drove by car?

Patrick Harvie: I am sure that neither the Greens nor green-minded members of other parties would seek to reduce road traffic congestion by limiting the right of those in the emergency services to get to work. We object to the unnecessary use of cars, as I am sure Mr Ewing understands.
Col 2430
The shift in focus from the protection of property to the protection of people and the prevention of loss of life?whether of firefighters or members of the public?is, of course, welcome. It is a sound principle but, as other members have made clear, we must be assured that the requirement to provide best value will focus primarily on improving services, not on cutting costs. It is encouraging that best value is mentioned in the consultation document after fire prevention, reduction of loss of life, reduction of the number and severity of injuries and reduction of the risk to the environment and heritage. Corners must never be cut in the fire and rescue services.
The prospect of reduced cover at night seems dangerous. Under the proposals, in addition to fire duties, the fire and rescue services will have statutory national resilience duties, including dealing with the aftermath of terrorist attacks. Would those duties also be restricted to daylight hours? The significant additional equipment, training and infrastructure that will be required to enable the service to be prepared for the risk of terrorist incidents are noted in the proposals. As any increase in the likelihood of terrorist incidents in the United Kingdom is clearly due to the UK Government’s actions, will we receive additional resources from London to ensure that Scottish services are ready for the potential consequences of UK actions in the international sphere?

Speech from antisocial behaviour debate

Patrick Harvie (Glasgow) (Green):

Nicola Sturgeon mentioned fear and I will speak more about it. Fear is at the heart of the issue. On Monday, I and other members of the Communities Committee went to Stirling as part of our pre-legislative scrutiny of the Executive’s proposed antisocial behaviour bill. We spoke with people about their fear of going out on the streets at night, of speaking to strangers on local streets and even of knocking on a neighbour’s door. Their lives were made a misery by fear, as much as by the reality of the situation.

What is the fear? Where does it come from? How proportionate is it? As a society, we are becoming more accustomed to living in fear. We allow our television screens and our newspapers to engulf us in fear. The ideas of neighbours from hell and child crime waves have almost become clich?s, but the hype of the fear is not limited to antisocial behaviour.

How many more times must I see clips of police officers in biohazard suits marching through the empty streets of London? How many more times will those clips be reused, usually as moving wallpaper to a report on what is called the international terror threat? The clips never come with a disclaimer explaining that the image was nothing other than a little propaganda exercise. If one paid attention to our news media, one might be forgiven for thinking that the country was under regular attack from deadly biological weapons.

Of course, that activity is taking place in the aftermath of a war that was justified, at least half of the time, on the basis of fear. Should we not fear a vicious dictator with weapons of mass destruction?sorry, let me put that another way?weapons programmes, or evidence of programmes, or the potential capacity of the vicious dictator to pretend not to have quite got rid of all of his programmes?

Cathie Craigie (Cumbernauld & Kilsyth) (Labour):

I am sure that Patrick Harvie will move on to talk about the meeting that we had in Stirling on Monday, where people told us that some of the fear that they felt was real. People could not get into or out of their own homes because of their fear of the actions of an antisocial neighbour. I am aware that he is dealing with the exaggerated aspect of fear, but can we move on to discuss the real fears of people in our communities?

Patrick Harvie:

The point that I want to make is that the perception and the reality of fear are not always the same. In a few moments, I will move on to address aspects of the reality of fear.

Johann Lamont