The Rt Hon Malcolm Bruce MP

June Column

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Local campaign for Malawi orphans

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They say all politics is local and this week started with a very local event with a very international flavour.

The daughter of one of the teachers has established an orphanage and a number of nursery schools in Malawi and the whole school went on a sponsored fancy dress walk around the village to raise money for the project.

As Chairman of the International Development Select Committee I spend a lot of time learning about tackling poverty in some of the world's poorest countries.

Malawi is certainly one of those and the prospects for the future are bleak. Economic activity in the country is very limited and the population is growing faster than what little there is so that poverty is unabated.

The huge number of orphans derives from the high incidence of HIV/AIDS. This can be tackled but it requires cultural changes and a health care infrastructure to deliver testing and distribution of drugs.

Yet for trained health care professionals their very skills offer an opportunity to advance their own families needs by leaving for richer countries who can pay more for their skills.

Our own Department for International Development is helping this by paying a health salary premium to encourage health workers to stay in the country. However, although it is a substantial premium, salaries in neighbouring countries to Malawi are higher so it is a constant battle.

Scottish projects, which employ local Malawians to look after orphans and provide training and teaching for the youngsters, are essential to their survival and well-being.

In the longer run Malawi needs a boost to the regional economy that can provide opportunities for its people to earn enough to build their own way out of poverty but this will not happen any time soon. So our children will keep on walking.

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Sad death of tourism promoter

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I was very sad to hear of the sudden death of John Begg of Newburgh. I have known John and his wife Pat, a former Gordon District Councillor, for many years.

I have been to their home on numerous occasions and have always been made very welcome. I knew John when he was in the aviation business locally and I was particularly impressed at the way John subsequently built his tourism business.

Many obstacles were put in his way and on occasions I tried to help get some of them removed. John, resourceful in every way, found his own solutions and worked enormously hard to win loyal customers. His was a very personal business.

My sympathies go out to Pat and their two sons. John is irreplaceable and will be missed by many.

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More questions than answers on carbon capture

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The Government's decision to delay further the evaluation of support for a carbon capture demonstration project and the highly predictable decision by BP to announce the immediate cancellation of the Peterhead project raise a whole host of issues.

BP were looking for a substantial contribution from the UK taxpayer for a project which would have squeezed more oil from the ageing Miller field and tested a potentially important new technology.

The Treasury attitude towards oil companies is that they are rich enough to fund their own projects and pay big contributions to the Treasury. Given the Labour Party's history it is clear they would prefer to support a coal fired demonstration project that could rehabilitate some of our coal potential and be exported to countries like China and India. The trouble is they won't say so and raise expectations only to dash them.

Now Professors Alex Kemp and Joe Swierzbinski of Aberdeen University have called on the Government to adopt a clear strategy towards carbon capture technology so that oil companies can make a realistic evaluation of risk and invest with more confidence.

The problem at the moment is that the Government seems to be content to let a thousand flowers bloom and then watch them all wither and die for lack of nurture.

Tony Blair says his former friend Vladimir Putin will use oil as a political weapon (some of us have been trying to tell you that for years, Tony) and that means we need to build new nuclear power stations.

The truth is we need to encourage many technologies. Nuclear has been given massive subsidies (by the taxpayer and electricity consumers) over the years). Now is the time to give others a chance and that includes carbon capture.

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Clash over transport issues

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It is interesting that the first political clash in the new look Scottish Parliament was over transport issues. There was cross party support for abolishing bridge tolls but the SNP's wish to scrap the Edinburgh Airport rail link was the subject of a vote which the SNP then said it could choose to ignore.

Certainly here in the North East people are rightly looking for support for a number of important transport projects - notably the commuter rail link, the Western Peripheral Route, upgrades to the A90 and the A96, a third Don crossing etc., etc.

Resources need to be found for these and many of us will be looking for the Transport Minister to find them either through direct Executive support or improved funding to local councils or more likely both.

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Hope over expectation

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One of the difficulties the new Scottish Executive faces is the raised expectations of an electorate who treated the difficulties all Governments face as unacceptable excuses that a new broom should be able to solve at a stroke.

It is already clear that pressures in the health service are not just a matter of money but skills and organisation that ministers cannot instantly provide.

I also come across people who believe their particular difficulties, for example over planning, regulation or immigration will instantly be resolved. Of course some of the issues are reserved to Westminster but political parties campaigning for votes have been more than happy to blur the distinction so that in the months ahead some chickens may come home to roost.