Senedd members lambast bluetongue response as 'total chaos'
Samuel Kurtz, who is from a farming family, expressed deep concern about the Welsh Government's handling of the disease, saying it 'falls far short of what farmers deserve'.
The Conservatives' economy secretary said Senedd members received no briefing from the deputy first minister nor the chief veterinary office on the science behind the decision.
Mr Kurtz warned: 'There has been no economic impact assessment despite the far-reaching consequences for our rural community.
'And perhaps most troubling of all, the decision was issued via a written statement on a Thursday afternoon – just after the Senedd week had ended, ensuring no scrutiny, no questions and no answers until today.'
He told the Senedd: 'We all understand the importance of protecting Welsh livestock from bluetongue but the measures imposed are not only excessive, they're unworkable.'
'Requiring pre-movement testing for all live imports, even vaccinated animals, might look reasonable on paper but – in the real world of Welsh farming – it's chaos."
He put the cost of vaccinating all livestock in Wales at £32m – £6 a cow and £3 for every sheep or goat – placing a 'staggering financial' burden on a struggling industry.
During a statement on the Welsh Government's approach to bluetongue on June 17, deputy first minister Huw Irranca-Davies said policy will be kept under regular review.
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Daily Record
an hour ago
- Daily Record
Perth and Kinross Council's SNP administration accused of "cutting short democracy"
Members of the public and several councillors are frustrated after Perth and Kinross councillors were asked to vote on the future of Perth and Kinross leisure facilities without debate. On Wednesday, June 18 councillors approved a £74 million proposal for Perth's new leisure centre PH20 to be built on Thimblerow car park as part of a £97m investment on leisure facilities across Perth and Kinross . But the crucial decision was pushed through at a meeting of Perth and Kinross Council on Wednesday, June 18 without open discussion. Around four and a half hours after the meeting started - and several lengthy recesses - council leader Grant Laing tabled a motion to "move straight to the vote with no further debate". He cited the council's standing order 17.1, a procedural motion which - amongst other things - can be used to propose "no further discussion or questioning take place". His motion was seconded by deputy leader Eric Drysdale and supported by the majority of councillors who voted by 23 votes to 15 to move straight to the vote on leisure facilities. Councillors had already had the chance to question several protestors - who made passionate deputations against the Thimblerow proposal and for Bell's Sports Centre to be reinstated as a heated multi-use sports venue - and council officers. But councillors had not yet had the chance to share their own views and/or comment on what they had heard. The Conservatives tabled an amendment, against the SNP leadership's motion, for there to be a debate - as is standard procedure. Labour councillor Alasdair Bailey, Liberal Democrat councillor Peter Barrett and Independent councillor Colin Stewart supported the Conservative group's amendment. Provost Xander McDade abstained. Following the meeting, Conservative councillor Chris Ahern accused the SNP of "cutting short democracy". The Perth City Centre councillor said: "I am extremely unhappy with the decision made today by the leader of the council and the administration in cutting short democracy and preventing debate. I can only assume they were scared to hear the truth and didn't want their excuses to be published for the public to see them for what they are." Blairgowrie and Glens Conservative councillor Caroline Shiers was "extremely disappointed" and added: "I don't recall many occasions when that standing order has been used before except when debates have been going on for some time and councillors are repeating the same arguments - not to stop all contributions before they even started." A PKC spokesperson said: "On the procedural point, Cllr Laing moved a motion under section 17 of standing orders, where under 17.1 it says that a procedural motion can be to propose that no further discussion or questioning takes place. 17.2 and 17.3 of standing orders sets out what happens when a procedural motion is made." Liberal Democrat councillor Peter Barrett took part in proceedings remotely. He supported the decision but described the way the meeting was conducted as a "shambles" and "an unedifying spectacle". Speaking immediately afterwards, the Perth City Centre councillor said: "The only good thing you can say about today's proceedings was that the right decision was made. The rest was a shambles. Anyone watching today's events of the PH2O and Bell's proposals in the council chamber unfold must have been left confused, disappointed and angry. "What an unedifying spectacle which dragged on for hours. Ages spent offline with the meeting in apparent suspension, the Provost announcing 'two minute recesses' which went on for more than 20, not a single word of debate exchanged, more points of order than a hedgehog has spines and almost as many totally opaque 'points of clarification'. "Chairing of the meeting is meant to facilitate the swift and efficient conduct of business, the standing orders of the council are meant to support that objective, you'd never in a million years guess either from the live-cast of today's council proceedings. Something has to change and change urgently." Gareth Thomas watched the entire day's proceedings from the public gallery and was "stunned" by what he felt was a lack of democracy. He said: "It's amazing to see democracy not at work. No data or evidence. I'm stunned." Ahead of the meeting, Perth and Kinross Community Sports Network drew up a business plan for how to run Bell's Sports Centre as a heated venue, with plans and revenue cost proposals. On Wednesday, councillors voted through a proposal for Bell's Sports Centre to be used as "an unheated, covered sports pitch/events space". Dr Thomas said: "I struggled to find any data for the proposed unheated G3 use for Bell's. "I fail to see how it can be sensible to commit to a multi-million pound integrated investment on what appear to be back of the envelope (mis)calculations about Bell's." Perth and Kinross Community Sports Network (PKCSN) chairman David Munro prepared a presentation, which he was unable to display during the meeting due to it being against council policy. The council protocol for deputations states: "Deputations are verbal only and any visual or written information should be circulated to members of the committee by obtaining their email address from the council website. It is not permissible for members of the public to display visual information on the day of the committee." His slides - which he later shared with the Local Democracy Reporting Service - compared the Bell's Sports Centre footprint with the Thimblerow site. It showed the six badminton courts - proposed for PH20 - dwarfed by the Bell's dome space in the main arena, which had 17 badminton courts. The PKCSN chair said they feel like the protests and deputations were "a worthless exercise" and the council's current system "lacks credibility and accountability". On Thursday, Cllr Laing said: "The provision under standing orders to move straight to a vote is rarely used, and indeed on the past two occasions I can recall them being used I voted against it because I felt there was still useful discussion to be had on those occasions. "However, yesterday's council meeting had already included several hours where elected members had been able to listen to information and ask questions of both deputees and officers to allow everyone in the chamber to form a decision on how they wanted to vote. It was clear to me from the framing of the questions that everyone in the room had already made up their minds and further discussion would only have taken up more time rather than usefully informing the final decision. "The people of Perth and Kinross have already waited long enough for a decision to be made. I stand by asking to move straight to that decision, and I am pleased that we can now get on with the job of developing the future of sport and leisure facilities in Perth and Kinross."
The Herald Scotland
5 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
The Tories are becoming two parties in one. Which one will prevail?
But for the two parties of the right, there are more existential issues to keep in mind. The Tory party in Scotland finds itself in the hottest water it has encountered since devolution began. The party bumbled along for the first few terms of Parliament in the mid teens in vote share, translating to the high teens in seat numbers. As the anti-devolution party, they spent a fair bit of the first decade just trying to convince people they actually wanted to be there, with their first leader David McLetchie also making a good fist of putting into place some sort of liberal, free-market policy platform as an alternative to the social democratic consensus which was emerging. Read more by Andy Maciver The theoretical high-point of the party was when, under Annabel Goldie, it struck up an informal agreement to prop up the minority SNP administration of Alex Salmond. In reality, though, the SNP got what it wanted out of that arrangement for pocket change, and the Conservatives were unable to use those four years to derive any kind of sustained shift in sentiment. At its lowest ebb after the 2011 election, the party was saved, not by something to argue for but by something to argue against; independence. In the wake of the independence referendum, with the Labour Party in the grip of Jeremy Corbyn – who had indicated his agnosticism towards Scotland's future in the UK – and with the SNP having won a landslide victory in the 2015 General Election on a ticket of promising another independence referendum, the Tories scored the open goal with which they had been presented. In elections in 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2021, with constitutional temperatures running hot, the core Tory vote in the teens was joined by a large number of unionists who held their noses and voted for the party they thought would stop another referendum. The trouble is, though, that the party's vote was built on sand. The Tories should, by now, have realised that they have been victims of their own success. The UK Government's belligerent "no, never" approach to granting a referendum led to the Scottish Government pursuing the case in the Supreme Court that led to the now-famous judicial decision that the Scottish Parliament cannot legislate for an independence referendum. With independence off the table, and the Tories heading out of office, those "transactional Tories" who backed the party for four elections over five years chewed them up and spat them out. Add to the mix the rise of the Reform party, and you have the story of why, at the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election, Scotland's primary party of the centre-right polled six per cent of the vote. We should understand what that means. Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse sits within the Central Scotland electoral region. In 2021, with over 18 per cent of the vote, the Tories returned three MSPs. In the neighbouring Glasgow region, its 12 per cent gave them two MSPs, and next door in West Scotland (where the party's leader Russell Findlay has his seat) a 22 per cent vote share gave them another three seats. Through east, in the other urban region of Lothian, a 20 per cent vote share gave them another three. That's 11 MSPs across those four urban regions – around one-third of the party's total. An outcome more like the six per cent the party polled in the by-election puts every one of those seats at risk. In all probability, there are enough rural areas in West Scotland and in Lothian to keep them in the game, but only just. There is angst within the Tory MSP group that the party's strategy amounts to no more than hoping Reform will implode. In reality, though, it's about the best strategy available to them in the short term. Cross your fingers, folks. This is not true, though, in rural parts of the country. It is interesting to look back at that 2024 General Election, at where the party kept its seats. The Tories have retained a good amount of land mass, up north and down south, still popular in rural areas. The Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election changed the political ground in Scotland (Image: PA) There is an underlying story here, of two parties under one banner. There is the Tory party of the blue-collar, hacked off, law and order urbanite, driven by concerns over community issues from anti-social behaviour to potholes, with unsubtle views about the impact of immigrants and even more unsubtle views about the distribution of welfare to them, and a sensitive radar to woke issues. That is the party of Mr Findlay, for sure, but the trouble is it is also a mirror-image of Reform. If there is a distinction between Mr Findlay and defectors to Reform such as Glasgow councillor Thomas Kerr, then it is a distinction I am yet to spot upon hearing the two men speak. They are fishing from the same pool and, in the by-election and in national polling, it is Mr Kerr's party which is catching the bulk of the fish. Then there is the Tory party of rural Scotland; the entrepreneurs and small business owners, the free-market liberals concerned about the pernicious economic environment; the hard workers impinged by dismal infrastructure. Ironically, this is very much the party of Mr Findlay's Deputy, Rachael Hamilton. This party does fairly well, and in truth is more in tune with the needs of rural people and rural businesses than any other, including the SNP. We may find, in May next year, that the party's Holyrood map looks more like its Westminster one; strong to the north and to the south, but gutted in the middle. Maybe, as we inevitably move into a fractious parliament and perhaps to a future with more new entrants into Holyrood, and as Scotland's productive economy becomes more focussed on rural Scotland, it is this version of the Tory party which will prove its longevity. Andy Maciver is Founding Director of Message Matters, and co-host of the Holyrood Sources podcast
Scotsman
5 hours ago
- Scotsman
The ultimate disruption: What if Reform promised a referendum on Scottish independence?
PA Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... It was billed as a new forum to pose 'the big questions' about Scotland's future, and in fairness Tuesday's Scotland 2050 conference offered a decent line-up, with an intriguing pairing of economy secretary Kate Forbes and Cherie Blair and keynote speeches from First Minister John Swinney and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar. They are, of course, always 'keynote' speeches, shorthand for a solo spot without interruptions in which little of any note, key or otherwise, is said, and judging by transcripts and subsequent coverage, the presentations at Edinburgh's Assembly Rooms lived down to expectations. 'We were expecting great visions of the future and what we got were stump speeches,' said one attendee who knows about these things. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad But it received extensive coverage, so those who bankrolled the free event, presumably the property companies who put up panellists, will have been satisfied with their investment. However, it was who was not there that was most revealing. The faces and names might have been different, but the line-up was drawn from the same sort of bien pensants who have dominated the Scottish Parliament since its inception, and before that the Scottish Constitutional Convention and other 'Civic Scotland' talking shops. 'Scotland 2050 will be Scotland's most inclusive one day conference,' said the blurb, 'We believe that new thinking is required to reimagine what can be achieved to deliver a new enlightenment'. Perhaps, but whether by accident, absence or design, Scotland's most inclusive one day conference did not include anyone from the Scottish Conservatives, and there was no-one from Reform, the party which won 26 per cent of the vote at the Hamilton by-election. I was, however, at an event that evening which was attended by four of the emerging party's leading figures, some of whom I doubt are even household names in their own households, but all the same they are people who are making the political weather; disruptors, bogeymen, crypto-fascists, denigrate them however you like, but poll after poll indicates there will be around 15 Reform MSPs in the Scottish Parliament. While plenty of their more prominent candidates are former Conservatives, as a party Reform is unburdened by a past political record, and while a clean slate, blue-sky thinking or whatever might produce quite bonkers ideas like Nigel Farage's suggestion that a Reform government would re-open South Wales coal mines, it does reveal a party prepared to think the unthinkable in the quest for votes. The other side of the Hamilton coin was the trouncing of the SNP, finishing second in a seat it had held, with vote share down nearly 17 per cent, compared to the Conservative loss of 11 per cent. Speaking separately to two prominent Nationalists this week produced the same analysis; that the SNP is a hollowed-out party in which critical thinking has been crushed, controlled by a failed hierarchy unable to produce workable ideas to take Scotland forward economically and advance the independence cause. Both saw opportunities arising around the time of the next general election, in the next ten years certainly, but with the party as it stands incapable of taking advantage, a spent force in a state of financial and intellectual collapse. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad I am not close enough to vouch for its accuracy, and of course the SNP leadership would claim it's fighting fit, but when the number of people who say they currently favour independence is about 20 per cent higher than those who say they will vote SNP, then something is badly wrong. The failures of the UK Labour government so soon after a general election victory based on hope is making no difference to SNP support, but even if independence is less of a priority for most voters than the cost of living, NHS, immigration, schools and crime, Unionists can have no cause for complacency. In the run-up to a general election in 2028-29, what if an ostensibly Unionist, but ultimately opportunist UK party like Reform were to make a manifesto commitment to offer the chance of a referendum with few strings attached? Maybe if independence support polling at 55 per cent for a year. No other Unionist party would match it, and neither could the SNP because it can never be in power in London. There is an obvious risk some Conservative defectors would return to the fold ─ and one, but not all, of the Reform folk on Tuesday night was quick to say it won't happen ─ but Nigel Farage could easily promise Reform would campaign for the Union while agreeing a referendum, as did David Cameron when signing the Edinburgh Agreement in 2012. He could argue that the principle of sovereignty and self-determination is consistent with the position taken by UKIP and the Brexit Party, and there would be no shortage of ordinary English voters who would be quite happy for Scotland to depart and for the Barnett Formula billions to stay south of the border.
