North Edinburgh's latest asset!

Amongst the gloom of most of the news pages, it's good to be able to say something positive! I was up this morning again at the new Community Football Academy opened a few months ago by local football club Spartans FC. Going along there at the weekend and seeing the hundreds of children (and some older!) playing football at what is one of the best community football facilities in Scotland restores your faith in what can be achieved if a few people with vision and leadership are determined to do something. I know that Spartans - a club, not a business - promised they would make the Academy a real asset for the community - and they have certainly done that, and I know that hundreds more young people from the local North Edinburgh community have been taking advantage of the new facilities. And in return, Spartans are now seen by more and more people in North Edinburgh as 'their' local team.

Unfortunately, my son's team didn't do so well - again! - but it didn't seem so bad, when you have a good pitch, decent changing rooms and facilities, instead of the awful pitches, uncut grass, and disgusting huts which too many youth (and older) football teams in Edinburgh have to cope with.

Edinburgh TV?

A year or so ago, Harriet Harman (in her role as 'Leader of the House of Commons') introduced the idea of having a weekly 'topical debate' - a short (90 minute) debate, without a vote at the end, but allowing members to debate issues as they came up, without having to wait until issues are no longer topical. I think it's been quite a success, and this week we had what I thought was a very interesting debate on 'Local and Regional News'. I took part, speaking mainly about the opportunities for local TV (although also referring to the difficulties facing the local press - briefly, because we were restricted to 5 minutes!). The link to the debate is here (my speech is the first one after the opening Ministerial speeches). Some MPs think the idea of local TV is a good one - others, although they didn't say so in the debate, clearly felt from what they told me afterwards that it wasn't.

As I pointed out, this means we could actually have an Edinburgh TV station - just like we have Leith FM community radio at the moment. I'd be interested in views - because a lot of important decisions about the future of TV and broadcasting are likely to be made fairly soon at Westminster.

Question time in the Commons

I've been spending a lot time on Parliamentary Committees and other work outside the Commons Chamber over the last few days, so I was quite keen to get into Question Time today. I was no.7 on the list for Scottish Questions, and made the point that there were many people in my constituency who worked in banks and financial services, some of whom were now losing their jobs and many more were frightened of doing so - and unlike some prominent bankers, they didn't have big bonuses or massive pensions. I am glad to say that Scotish Secretary Jim Murphy recognised this in his answer.

I tried a few minutes later to get into Prime Minister's Questions, but this time as I wasn't on the list of MPs who had been drawn from the ballot, I wasn't too surprised not to have got in. I had wanted to say something about the announcement from Gordon Brown yesterday about banning unsolicited 'credit card cheques' - it's something I've been calling for some time in my work as Chair of the All Party Group on Debt and Personal Finance, and in fact had called on the Prime Minister to do this only a few weeks ago! I won't claim all the credit! - but it's good to see issues raised like this getting a result.

Climate change - action even more urgent

As readers of my website and blog will know, tackling climate change is one of the issues in which I'm most involved at Parliament in Westminster. I know that sometimes I've heard a few whispers that I'm a little bit obsessed with the issue, but today I've taken part in four meetings which have for me underlined why it is the top issue (along, I believe, with nuclear proliferation, an issue I will try and say something about in a post shortly).

Four very different meetings, but with a common theme. First up at breakfast was a briefing at the Institute of Mechanical Engineering; they were looking at what needed to be done to adapt to climate change; and their view was that on current trends it might take 75 years or more to 'decarbonise' our society (if I understood them correctly). Sometimes looking at adaptation to climate change has been criticised as leading people to think we don't need to do as much to 'mitigate' cliamte change (i.e. try and stop it happening as far as we can), but that is a false choice, as was apparent from my next meeting that day. That was a meeting of the Environmental Audit Committee where we heard from the Tyndall Centre whose projections on climate change were some of the direst I have yet heard. They argued strongly that we still needed to aim for a maximum 2 degree rise in temperature, but should also adapt our societies to allow for a 4 degree rise as that might well be what happebns. What was scary was the fact that they felt the 4 degree rise could only be achieved with policies far more radical than anything done so far - and would probably need an economic 'contraction' on the scale of the Soviet Union's economic collpase; and even a 4 degree rise might have - almost certainly would have - catastrophic consequences.

The same themes came out at a meeting at No 10 Downing Street covering these issues which I chaired later in the day, and in a Friends of the Earth briefing for MPs later in the evening. None of these means we just give up - but it does highlight the nature of the crisis that faces us.

(But just to make clear, these weren't the only issues I was involved in today - I was also at meetings about the state of the mortgage housing market, the proposal from the Post Office union and others for a 'People's Bank' at the post office, and finally a presentation on the state of the Scottish economy. As well, of course, as the Welfare Reform Bill which is going through its final stages here in the House of Commons tonight.

Keeping it local!

One of the big issues in the constituency at the moment is the plan by two of the big supermarket chains to open up new stores - Sainsburys in Stockbridge, and Tescos on Picardy Place in Broughton. These proposals have caused a lot of concern, particularly to local food shops and off-licences who rightly fear the effect of these developments if they go ahead.

There are big campaigns against these proposed new supermarkets in both Stockbridge and in Broughton Street, and I've supported these. I've written to Saisnburys to support the local community council campaign, and I'll be doing the same to Tesco in the case of the Broughton Street plans.

One of the difficulties in both these cases is that both proposed stores will be on sites which already have retail planning permission, and that may make it difficult for the Council to turn down these plans even if they want to. I still think it is worthwhile to campaign as strongly as possible on these issues, and the local community in both places has been doing a good job. You can find more details about the Stockbridge community campaign here. Please give it your support!

What this episode shows to me, however, is the need for a real strategy to support our local shopping centres (important both to protect jobs, but also now to back up the increasing concern about climate change - because using local shops, as opposed to regular trips by the car to big supermarkets is normally a good way of reducing the carbon footprint; and vibrant local shopping centres also help make local communities stronger as well).

The issues are complex, but the growing dominance of the market by a few supermarkets - one (Tesco) in particular - is in my view wrong.

Perhaps it's time for Scotland to have legislation like the 'Sustainable Communities Act' which now applies in England - and as planning is an issue where the law is devolved to the Scottish Parliament and Government, our MSPs have the chance to change the planning laws. (And of course, these examples from here in the heart of Edinburgh have their parallels in many parts of England as well).
LATEST: public meeting about Stockbridge Sainsburys, Thursday 26 March, Edinburgh Academy Senior School, Henderson Row, at 7 pm. I'm one of the speakers.

Back from Scottish Labour conference

Like many political animals, I enjoy going to Party conferences - not so much for the formal business in the hall, as for all the political gossip ('networking' as we now call) and the social side - and when you have been in an organisation as long as I've been in the Labour Party, you meet up again with people you maybe haven't met all year, and sometimes longer. And that was true for me in Dundee this year, particularly as I wasn't able to get up to Dundee on Friday as I had some really busy MP advice surgeries, and didn't finish until well after 8 pm.

But I was able to get there first thing Saturday, and the highpoint was Iain Gray's speech. Of course, you'd expect me to say it, but I genuinely thought it was a major success. Iain needed to make his first big speech to confrence as party leader work, and this one did. Inevitably, this one had to concentrate quite a lot on Iain as a person, because as a new leader he has to get the Labour member as well as the public to know him, but for those who prepared to look, it also gave a lot of pointers to the direction he wants to see Scottish Labour go as a party. (Good atmosphere as well provided by the film introducing his speech - I see that it has annoyed some of the Nationalist bloggers because it ended with the Saltire - good! - about time we challenged the SNP claim that they speak for Scotland!)

Here's a link to another blog with more about Iain's speech and also the Youtube site with the film.
And also glad I was able to get into the debate myself to speak on the climate change issue - highlighting the way amongst other things in which the SNP Scottish Government is currently watering down the Scottish Climate Change Bill (first proposed by Labour 2 years ago before the Scottish elections), and the slow speed at which it is being taken forward. It will almost certainly not become law until 2010, two years later than the Labour Government's Climate Change Act became law.

P.S. On the issue of flags, I was at a meeting in Commercial Street in Leith this morning, and I noticed that the Scottish Government HQ was, for the first time I've seen it, flying the Saltire and the Union Jack - the SNP stopped flying the Union Jack as well after they took over the Scottish government. Is this significant?!

Leith saved - again!

The news came through recently that Forth Ports had decided to drop their plans to use the name ‘Edinburgh Harbour’ to market their proposed development in Leith Docks. This came as good news to the thousands who signed a petition protesting at the change, and to the local elected representatives like myself who joined in the campaign to save the name of Leith.

It’s not the first time we’ve had to fight to save the name of Leith – only a few years ago I launched a campaign to stop the name of Leith being removed from the parliamentary constituency which covers the port. We were successful then as well, and I am sure that if anyone tries to do the same in the future, we will fight that as well!

To be honest, I thought that the choice of Edinburgh Harbour was a mistake even for the marketing people at Forth Ports. The name is nothing special, and sounds like just another of the waterfront developments that have grown up in every part of the world – with not much to tell them apart. ‘Leith’, by contrast, immediately puts the development as part of a vibrant, special community.

And that’s something which business and those concerned with economic development in the current tough times should use to their advantage!

I saw a good example of that recently. A few days ago, I attended the launch of the Leith Business Exchange, designed as the name suggests to provide, amongst other things, a place for local businesses to make contact with each other. I met a lot of people with businesses they were keen to grow and develop – and for many of them, the fact that Leith had a strong sense of community was very important for them. They felt it made it easier for them to build up business contacts, get to know potential customers, and also made it an enjoyable place to do business in. So, for this reason and for so many others, let’s speak up for Leith!

Why the secrecy?

Odd happenings last night in the House. We were just finishing the debate on the Political Parties & Elections Bill, when up popped Tory MP Julian Lewis to demand a vote on his amendment to the Bill, which would make it possible for candidates to choose not to have their home address on election ballot papers. To the surprise of most of us, the Deputy Speaker put his amendment to the vote, and thanks to a lot of cross-party support, his amendment was carried by quite a big majority. I voted against the amendment, and found myself at the front of the queue in the voting lobby with LibDem Vince Cable and Tory Nigel Waterson - with Jack Staw's deputy just behind!

I suspect that very few candidates will make use of this new provision - most would-be MPs are desperate to show off links to their constituencies, even if somewhat tenuous, but nevertheless I don't see there is any need for this extra secrecy. I do worry that some of my colleagues seem to have a 'default position' of opposing greater openness. If we don't require MPs to show where they come from when they stand for election, then for all we know a candidate might be a tax exile in the South of Spain or Belize, or somewhere else.