The Rt Hon Malcolm Bruce MP

Christmas Column

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Winning a promise from the Prime Minister

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Chances to question the Prime Minister do not come up every day but sometimes like buses three come along together. Last week gave me three such opportunities.

I had a rare question at Prime Minister's Question Time. These are balloted for very week but it is a year since I last featured and the gap can be several years.

I raised the issue of British Sign Language. I estimate that Gaelic and Welsh get support reaching around £100 million a year. In spite of the fact that around 60,000 deaf people in the UK use BSL as a first language and up to 200,000 use it regularly there is no comparable support.

I asked Gordon Brown if he would meet a delegation consisting of myself and sign language users. His reply was," I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising that issue, and I will be very happy to meet him. It is a very important issue, and we will see what we can do together."

This is really encouraging. There is a lot that needs to be done. For example, Finland, with a population similar to Scotland's, has 20 times as many sign language interpreters.

The Welsh Assembly is leading the way in training interpreters - almost certainly because as a bilingual country they understand the importance of languages.

Welsh and Gaelic now have legal recognition under the European Convention on Human Rights and I would like something similar for sign languages. That would ensure that parents of deaf children had the chance to learn sign language and deaf adults would have the right to an interpreter in many more situations.

The Prime Minister really could make a difference if he wants to.

I also asked the Prime Minister to ensure people both in Afghanistan and the UK understood that while we are engaged in a military action in Helmand we are trying to provide services and development to the whole of the country.

The following day Mr Brown made his first appearance before the Liaison Committee. His style contrasts sharply with that of Tony Blair. My role was to chair the foreign affairs section where we challenged him on dealing with the Taleban, Iran, Kosovo, our armed forces and the new European Treaty where he used our committee as an excuse to miss the plenary signing ceremony. The ploy fooled no-one.

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Tourist information needs new vision

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The re-opening of the Inverurie Tourist Centre is a welcome development and a tribute to the organisations and volunteers who have helped to make it happen. However, it doesn't meet the long term needs of a tourism strategy for Scotland.

A similar situation arose in Ellon a few years ago but it wasn't possible to sustain it - partly because the then tourist board - now VisitScotland - kept changing the criteria for what was required and actually started to oppose tourist information centres that did not meet their criteria.

Tourism promotion in Scotland needs a complete rethink. For example, tourist information centres should not be required to pay their way through booking fees, or ancillary business. Nor should they only publicise businesses who subscribe. Many small start up businesses find the charges too high for the benefits. Tourists want to know what there is in the area not just tourist board members.

Promotion of the North East by Visit Scotland is disappointingly poor and the website can be pretty near dysfunctional. In the competitive world of international tourism where we need to attract and retain visitors from throughout the UK and abroad Scotland needs to raise its game.

I have heard this from many local businesses and will be happy to hear more so that I can take it up with the tourism authorities.

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No justification for court closure

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Meanwhile all efforts to save Inverurie Court have fallen on deaf ears. Despite the fact that the population of Aberdeenshire is rising and that of the city is falling the court service has gone ahead with closure.

Aberdeenshire Council has made strenuous representations as have I and Alison McInnes MSP to no avail.

The effect of this is that police and other witnesses will be inconvenienced wasting time travelling and trying to park and adding to the overall cost and efficiency of delivering justice - but no doubt saving the courts administration money by offloading their costs onto others. No wonder they don't want to talk about it. They have no good justification.

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Schools and leisure - how long must we wait?

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Aberdeenshire has the fastest growing population in Scotland. Schools are bursting at the seams or in urgent need of refurbishment. Many of the community education facilities are thirty years old and need modernising and enlarging.

Aberdeenshire Council estimates the cost of bringing everything up to modern standards and needs is in excess of £400 million. Of course, to implement this would require a programme over several years.

The trouble is the new Scottish administration has delayed any further capital expenditure by local authorities for at least a year. Meanwhile pressure is building in communities like Kintore, Ellon and Inverurie for new schools, swimming pools and leisure facilities.

It is becoming increasingly urgent that this pressure is recognised and responded too by recognising that Aberdeenshire has particular needs and must be allowed to start fulfilling plans to meet them.

The same applies to local transport pressures. Anyone caught in traffic through the airport roundabout or Bridge of Don or the Haudagain roundabout clearly wants to know whether and when the Western peripheral route will be built and why there are no firm plans for a commuter rail service from Inverurie to Aberdeen at least. These things have been progressed over the past few years but now seem to be waiting indefinitely until the new administration works out whether it can find new ways of financing capital and infrastructure projects.

Frankly it would be appropriate to prioritise some of these while the administration sorts itself out.

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Trump - let process get started

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I support the Trump application for a golf development at Menie Park and always hoped it would be primarily determined by Aberdeenshire Council. After the infrastructure committee's decision I know efforts were in hand to change the procedure to allow this to happen - not least because that was what the Trump organisation said it preferred.

The call in by the Chief planner came as a surprise. After all Trump had a right of appeal, a local council taking steps to change procedures and strong local support. It is not clear why time was not allowed for this as it may still prove to have represented the quickest process.

Also it is difficult to appreciate why Trump is so enthusiastically happy about call-in by ministers but was so unwilling to lodge a formal appeal to ministers.

If everything that took place in the hectic few days between the committee's decision and the call-in is in full accordance with correct procedure -for example ensuring all sides had equal treatment - then there is no reason for any party's concern or for threatening to abandon the project.

At the moment there are unanswered questions but a process has also been started to determine the application and it can be progressed. It would now be preferable if all the affected parties got on with this without further ado.

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Christmas

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Our youngest is anticipating Christmas with great excitement for the first time, so we will all enjoy a family Christmas at home, after the fun of all the nativity plays, Christmas parties and present wrapping. I'd like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Peaceful New Year.