Report to the People
12th November 2007
A Great Deal of Democracy?
Just
as money, and what you do with it, is the cause of more family arguments than
anything else, so it is at the root of most political rows.
Last
week, for example, there was a furious argument in the Scottish Parliament over
the impending budget.
Fears
have been expressed that, because the SNP government does not have a
parliamentary majority, it is doing secret deals with the Tories to get the
Budget Bill passed.
The
Scottish Parliament was founded on principles of openness and of the government
being accountable to parliament. And
to try and determine Scotland’s public finances through a series of backroom
stitch-ups is an affront to those principles.
I
therefore joined my parliamentary colleagues in calling on the government to
hold proper debates to let us scrutinise how much each Cabinet Secretary would
spend, on what and, most importantly for us, where.
Our community cannot afford to lose a penny in this budget process and a
full parliamentary debate would allow me as your elected representative to probe
their plans and how they’ll affect us.
As
I told MSPs in the Chamber, not only is the parliamentary process being
circumvented, even the government’s own backbenchers are being kept in the
dark. I would never have stood for
this when I was a government backbencher and nor should they.
The
public already regard politicians with suspicion. And, by behaving as if they’ve got something to hide, the
government aren’t doing themselves any favours.
Back to Current Reports to the People
[ HOME ] [ News ] [ Report to the People ] [ Interact ] [ Links ] [ E-Mail ]
[ Copyright ] [ Directgov ] [ Scottish Parliament ]