NEWS RELEASE – Salmond urged to back deepwater oil ban

At today’s First Minister’s Questions, Green MSP Patrick Harvie pressed Alex Salmond to support European plans for a moratorium on deepwater drilling following the recent spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite agreement at the European Parliament on this issue earlier this week (1), the First Minister refused to back the measures required to protect Scotland’s economy and environment. Reports suggest a decision by UK Ministers on this issue could be taken as soon as this week. (2)

Patrick Harvie MSP said:

“The First Minister had an opportunity today to stick up for Scotland’s economy and environment, but instead he decided to put the short-term interests of the oil industry first. Like his UK counterparts, he apparently sees no contradiction between the proposals for deepwater drilling off Shetland, locking us into another generation of oil addiction, and his own environmental rhetoric. This country cannot afford the economic consequences of a spill, but even aside from that risk there’s no justification for chasing new oil reserves while pushing the idea of a “100% renewable” Scotland.

“Climate change isn’t some remote threat for the future. The evidence of the damage being done right now is unarguable. Similarly, a major and devastating spill isn’t an obscure theoretical possibility – just this year we saw millions of gallons of oil pour directly into the Gulf of Mexico from the same kind of deepwater wells being proposed for Scottish waters.

“Alex Salmond’s priorities are clear. His talk about renewables is just that – mere talk. His real view is that oil companies must have free rein, and no questions must be asked. It’s an attitude straight from the 1970s, not one fit for the 21st century. Scotland’s future simply isn’t safe in the hands of the oil-addicted SNP, nor the equally ill-advised coalition in London.”

Notes

1. The decision by the European Parliament’s Environment Committee is set out here: www.europarl.europa.eu

2. See: www.guardian.co.uk

Debate clip – drugs strategy

Here’s my contribution to last week’s debate on the Government’s drugs strategy. I knew that I was going to be taking a very different line from the rest of the speakers, and unfortunately Richard Simpson has just finished his speech by welcoming the mood of consensus which had characterised the debate up to that point… which should explain my opening line…

Woo?

For the second time since I was elected as a Glasgow MSP, there has been a proposal to close down Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital, also known as the Centre for Integrative Care. Last time this came up I took the time to visit and speak with staff, patients and a group of medical students on placement there, who had started out sceptical and changed their views after seeing the centre’s work.

Since that time, there has been a lot more attention brought to the issue of homeopathy, due largely to the work of campaigners for evidence-based medicine, many of whom want an end to NHS funding for anything remotely “alternative”. If a treatment actually works, they argue, there should be a clear scientific evidence base and it should be regarded as mainstream, not alternative. If it doesn’t then it’s just a quack remedy, and the NHS shouldn’t be peddling it.

The strictly rational viewpoint is one which I have a lot of instinctive sympathy for. I’ve been accused of being a fundamentalist follower of the church of Dawkins on other issues, so why would I support public funds being used for unprovable (some would say simply bogus) treatments? Over the last few days I’ve had a number of messages asking whether I’ve changed my view.

The short answer is yes, but perhaps not to the extent that some would like. Before I explain that, I should publicly thank the campaigners who have raised the profile of the issue. I’m willing to admit that my knowledge of the subject was weaker than it should have been, and I take responsibility for not having learned more in the past. Having said all that, in the context of an economic crisis, a climate and energy crisis, and the biggest attack on the welfare state since it began, I still can’t quite see how either promoting or attacking homeopathy gets to the top of anyone’s agenda.

(OK, that should get me a nicely outraged response from gimpy, if nothing else does!)

So what’s my current view? It still seems to me that the proper regulation of alternative medicine (maybe I should call it something else, but it’s the most widely understood term) is the best policy approach, rather than piecemeal support or opposition to individual techniques. Regulation should require a proper evidence-based assessment of treatments and put an end to undemonstrable claims, and deserves to be supported by many practitioners as well as sceptical critics. It may be that homeopaths would find it harder to clear the regulatory hurdles than practitioners in some other fields, perhaps even impossible, but if they are making specific claims about effectiveness it’s only reasonable that they should face the same standards as other schools of medicine.

If certain products can’t be shown to have objective evidence on their side, is it ever ethical to use them? Is it legitimate for doctors to use what they know to be a placebo effect to make patients feel better? I have mixed feelings about this, and no doubt others have considered the medical ethics in far more detail. But let’s be clear – it happens every day in ‘conventional’ medicine too. If it’s wrong to deliberately induce a placebo effect even in cases where ‘real’ treatment isn’t available or isn’t working, then we need a pretty fundamental examination of practices throughout the NHS, and my guess is that we’d come to regret taking so absolutist a stance.

I suppose this has a bearing on my reasons for arguing six years ago that the GHH should remain open, and why I still feel that way. The staff there aren’t untrained quacks, they are fully qualified medical professionals, who offer a range of ‘alternative’ techniques in addition to mainstream medicine. Ending the use of homeopathy, if that was to be the result of a fair and evidence-based regulatory approach, would mean closing one cupboard. Shutting the whole hospital on the other hand would mean losing something far bigger than just the treatments which have been criticised. Whether it’s because of the individual staff there, or the one-to-one time that’s spent with patients, or the way the wards are organised, or the shade of the damn curtains, the place is getting something right. Patients with complex conditions who have been on multiple drug regimens for years are finding it easier to live without those drugs. That saves money, but it also reminds me that for all the medical wonders which science has achieved, some people still have to live with untreatable pain and suffering. Helping them to get through that and to face their life should be a part of their treatment, and it’s something that the NHS often falls down on.

Change the place, sure. Regulate the field, absolutely. But keep hold of what’s good about the hospital and learn from it. I don’t want to keep the GHH because of sugar pills, and ditching them would be no loss that I can see. But I do want to keep the high quality care that’s being delivered and the trust which the patients have in it.

NEWS RELEASE – defence cuts

Patrick Harvie MSP attended this morning’s cross-party gathering convened by the First Minister to discuss the carrier contracts. The Greens are also stressing the wider Strategic Defence Review, the impact of public sector cuts on Scotland, and the prospects for renewables fabrication on the Clyde.

Patrick Harvie MSP said:

“The Scottish Government is right to argue that the economic implications of cancelling the carriers or scaling back the project must be taken into account. However, to listen to some politicians one would think that these were the only factors, and that defence issues should be ignored in a defence review. Let’s remember that these two aircraft carriers will cost more than the entire programme of Liberal/Tory cuts across Scotland.

“The SNP support our view that Trident should be scrutinised as part of the Strategic Defence Review, so any attempt to suggest that the carriers should be exempted from this scrutiny looks more cynical than strategic. If the letter the Scottish Government circulate later for signature seeks to remind UK Ministers that their decisions on defence spending and cuts must take account of social and economic impacts, we may be able to sign up. Even in employment terms, this goes beyond one defence project if we’re to see a more sustainable long-term future for the affected communities.

“It seems plausible that the Strategic Defence Review may conclude that the Government has ordered this new class of carriers to a design far larger and far more expensive than the armed forces need, but that it is now too late to make significant savings and that the Government will press ahead with the contracts. Even if this happens, the long term future of engineering jobs on the Clyde must be protected, and that does not mean simply squabbling over the Ministry of Defence’s shrinking budget for years to come.

“Make no mistake, the UK is likely to reduce defence spending following this review, and as a party which opposes the aggressive projection of military power we see that as no bad thing. But it must be done without leaving economic wreckage behind, and for the Clyde this means shifting our engineering skills from military hardware to the industries of the future, such as renewable energy. If the UK and Scottish Governments act urgently and with some long term vision that can be achieved.”

There is a better way

“Vote blue, screw you”. That was the message Tory voters should have been given in the recent election campaign, Caroline Lucas told the Green Party conference this weekend. As for LibDem voters, they must be wondering what happened to the Clegg pitch of progressive values and honest politics.

Certainly the reality of the public service cuts which the Liberal/Tory coalition has planned is only just beginning to dawn on many people, including those who are already struggling to deliver services to meet the increased demand which the recession has caused. At a meeting this week called by Unison’s Glasgow branch there was a mixture of personal testimony about the impact on local services and determination not to accept the Government’s planned vandalism of the welfare state.

Naturally, the difficult question came up after I’d addressed the meeting – what will I do when the Scottish Parliament debates the devolved budget?

I won’t easily forget my experience in the week when I was accused of ‘bringing down the budget’ back in 2008. It’s a big decision to vote against a budget, even more so when you know the Government doesn’t have a majority and the vote is more than a symbolic stance. Back in the days of Labour/Liberal coalitions, we sometimes voted in favour of the budget, sometimes against, and sometimes abstained if we felt the arguments were finely balanced. But that was when we all knew that Ministers had the votes in the bag already; we all knew what the outcome would be.

With the SNP in minority government we’ve tried to take the same stance – looking at each budget on its own terms, engaging constructively, but casting our votes in the way most consistent with a Green agenda. So far, we’ve voted for them once, against once, and stayed neutral once. On the day the budget fell it wasn’t because we voted against it of course; it was because precisely half the Parliament did so. Nevertheless, in many people’s eyes we carried the can. The fact that one week later Labour and Liberal MSPs trotted into the chamber and voted Yes to exactly the same budget was absurd, but given the Government’s unwillingness to work constructively I still think we made the right choice. The underwhelming implementation of the policies at stake bears that out.

This year though, the situation is compounded by the Liberal/Tory cuts. If the budget falls, it will mean that public services will be even more vulnerable as every Council, health board and public employer immediately takes the ‘worst case scenario’ plans off the shelf.

The hope must be that a budget can be constructed which is supportable. But the principle policy levers which we need if we’re to avoid the cuts are all held at a UK level – decisions on the timing and pace of the deficit reduction; the balance between tax and spending; fairness in the economy; the benefits system; these are all in the hands of Ministers who are pushing the cuts agenda. What can Scotland do to protect services?

The answers are hard to find – and they will be hard to persuade people to vote for too – but they do exist. Could there be a case for raising income tax by a penny in the pound? I’m not yet convinced, but we do need to ask whether people would be willing to share the load in this way if the alternative is seeing mass redundancies in the public services. Could we broaden the tax base despite the strict terms of the Scotland Act? I think we can, but I don’t yet know which other parties would be willing to allow Councils to raise a Land Value Tax or road user charges as well as an addition to the Council Tax. Crucially, we’d need to find a progressive way of doing this so that the well-off pay more. Can we pull back from some big-ticket spending decisions which were made before the UK coalition began its assault on spending? Absolutely, and in some cases those decisions were made on pretty shaky grounds anyway.

Over the next few months we need to work hard to put together as much of an alternative agenda as possible if we’re to see a budget develop which can gain the support of the Parliament. There’s also a huge job of advocacy to be done, in defence of the values which underpin the welfare state itself.

Some people have fallen into a habit of refering to the Independent Budget Review as the Beveridge Report. This should be a moment when we instead recall the original – the report which identified the five giant evils of society. Squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease. The welfare state has made great progress against these evils, and the language we use for them has changed too. But they have not been defeated, and each one of them will be made worse by the Liberal/Tory cuts agenda. If we’re going to challenge that agenda successfully, and make sure that voters have the chance of a progressive Scottish administration which will find a better way, we need to recapture the values which were strong at the birth of the welfare state, and which have been under continual assault in the recent decades of free-market, consumerist, shallow and selfish politics. For too long Governments have behaved as though they’re running a sort of hotel – we each pay our bills, and we each receive our services in return. But this is a society, not a hotel. If we can recapture and communicate the idea that we pay for things collectively because we’re all better off if we care for one another, the wreckers of the welfare state will be fail, not just in Scotland but throughout the UK.

Bus station plan ditched!

Good news – Buchanan Galleries have scrapped their ambition to build a multi-storey carpark on top of Buchanan Bus Station – a victory for common sense, though perhaps one motivated more by the financial climate than a sudden conversion to the value of public transport over private interests.

In my meetings with Scotland’s major bus operators over the last year to discuss the plans, it was made very clear that the enclosed environment that would have been created would have been deeply damaging to the service for bus passengers – and that’s before you even think about the two years of congestion chaos that that would have clogged up the city centre during construction work.

Buchanan Galleries are now looking to build their new car-park on Cathedral Street which is far preferable to the original scheme. However, I am still very concerned about other aspects of the plans – not least of which are the plans to scrap the Royal Concert Hall steps and replace these with a new “entrance feature” in the form of a “focal point” entranceway to the shopping centre and Concert Hall.

While the Royal Concert Hall steps would benefit from better maintenance and improved accessibility, I believe the steps are popular, and even beloved, by many Glaswegians. They form a civic space that the people have made their own. A rare space to sit and watch the world go by, to eat your pieces in peace and to rest your legs without having to pay £3 for a cup of coffee!

I will be looking carefully at any revised plans for this major development. I will also continue to call on the Council to “Save Our Steps!”

If you’d like to help out the campaign or to be kept in the loop, get in touch – patrick.harvie.msp@scottish.parliament.uk or join me on Facebook.