April/May column

Published on Wed 2nd May 2007

Malcolm Bruce chats with Ethiopian villagers about sanitation and water

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Lack of sanitation kills millions

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Poor sanitation kills millions of people across the developing world yet progress to remedying this is so slow that it will take until 2076 to meet the millennium development goal to reduce by half the proportion of people without access to improved sanitation by 2015.

So concerned were members of the International Development Committee, which I chair, that we changed the title of our report from Water and Sanitation to Sanitation and Water.

Much of the answer to the problem lies in basic education and practical measures. Providing individual pit latrines rather than communal ones or using the bush combined with washing hands with soap could reduce illness and save lives.

Of course access to clean water is vital too and achieving it can be a big challenge. It requires much better water management in areas where water is often allowed to run away and easily becomes polluted.

Yet achieving these objectives on sanitation and water present immense challenges and failure undermines all the other goals on education, maternal health and elimination of diseases and poverty.

Populations that are weakened by lack of clean water and basic sanitation are more susceptible to diseases such as malaria and TB as well as HIV/AIDS infections.

Women and girls do most of the fetching and carrying of water making them susceptible to rape and abduction and preventing them from attending school or caring for other members of the community.

As more people move into towns and cities the problem of providing waste and sanitation becomes even more expensive.

Expertise is lacking and it is our committee's contention that UK aid money should be directed to building up skills in developing countries to enable them to produce solutions appropriate to their needs.

Meldrum Academy is an invaluable addition for the young people in Oldmeldum's growing community

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Private sector has boosted Gordon services

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There has been some debate on the role of public private partnerships in providing new public services - notably schools and health clinics. People generally want public buildings to be publicly owned and operated although in reality they have nearly always been built by private companies.

The real issue is to ensure that we continue to replace, modernise and improve our schools, clinics etc.

Here in Gordon we have built a new academy at Oldmeldrum, which has also benefited from an upgraded primary school. At a previous election I was harangued by a lady in the post office in Kintore about the state of the school - yet before the next election a new school was built.

Rothienorman has seen its school rebuilt and Strathburn School destroyed by fire was rebuilt using the conventional capital funding from the council.

Oldmeldrum is a growing community which has also benefited from a new health clinic which now houses a range of GP led services as well as a surgery for an NHS dentist.

The key to all these developments is willingness to be flexible and use appropriate financing methods to meet local needs.

In the case of Meldrum Academy I cannot restrain from pointing out that it was opposed by the Conservatives and the SNP even demonstrated against it when it was opened.

Other schools such as Ellon and Inverurie Academies and Newmachar and Markethill, Turriff are high on the list of priorities for further investment. If the present leadership of Aberdeenshire Council continues I believe these will move forward.

If new ways of financing public investments are introduced I sincerely hope it will not disrupt progress. We need a range of options - not constant changing of the rules.

The all too familiar image of a car bomb attack in Iraq

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Iraq gets bleaker

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The situation in Iraq gets bleaker by the day. The headlines in the UK media highlight the death of British soldiers but thousands of Iraqis are dying every month and the country appears to have degenerated into anarchy.

I recently heard from a constituent of one man who had been determined to stay in Iraq throughout but has now been forced to leave because one of his young sons was kidnapped and the others were being targeted and threatened.

I opposed the war because I was not persuaded that there were weapons of mass destruction or that Iraq posed a threat to the UK. When the invasion went ahead, 'shock and awe' led to the deaths of many innocent citizens and the destruction of civil administration across the country.

Disbanding Saddam Hussein's army, police and civil service may have seemed sensible but it left the country ungovernable and allowed sectarian rivalry to erupt and opened the door for Al Qaida terrorists which had previously been kept out of the country.

This has been the Bush-Blair war and both of them will carry its scars into history with them. It is difficult to predict where it will end but continuing occupation looks more part of the problem than the solution.

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A warning from Quebec

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One local resident I met recently was passionately opposed to nationalism. She is a Canadian from the prairies who watched the damage done to Quebec and Canada by the rise of the separatist Parti Quebecois.

They won control of the province and promoted a referendum which was lost by the tiniest of margins. The process paralysed the province for years, led to a flight of investment and had knock-on effects for the rest of Canada.

Quebecois have clearly tired of this and a few weeks ago relegated the PQ to third place in provincial elections. Could Scotland learn from this?

The SNP have already indicated that they want to confront London over a number of issues including the allocation of oil and gas licensing and the oil revenues. Leaving aside the relative merits of the case, and I favour the transfer of some tax revenues to the Scottish Parliament, the process is likely to sour the business climate between Scotland and England.

This in turn could damage markets for many small and medium sized enterprises whose main markets are south of the border and may suffer a backlash from their English clients.

Scots thrive on a large stage. Scotland's identity is not in question. Tens of thousands of people living in Scotland have moved here and retain strong family ties to the south.

Many tens of thousands of Scots have set up home and prospered in the south.

Scotland's history is not Ireland's and the island of Great Britain will thrive best when there is clear recognition of the diversity on which it is based and the strong toes that bind us together.

I do not detect strong support across Gordon for separatism or independence. Most people reading this column will have cast their votes by the time they read it. I hope that most will have voted to keep the team they have, not create a political battleground for the survival of the Union.

Is there any reason why MPs should not abide by the principles of Freedom of information?

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MPs should not hide their expenses

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The progress of a private member's bill to exempt MPs expenses from Freedom of Information legislation has been extraordinary.

The Government introduced FoI legislation and, while publication of expenses details is uncomfortable for some MPs, there should be no going back as this bill seeks.

Yet the Government appears to be tacitly supporting this Tory led effort to undermine its own legislation.

Whether the public thinks MPs and their expenses are too much or too little it is in the public interest to know what they are and what individual members claim.