Mar12017

Sturgeon quizzed on her retracted ‘attack on devolution’ claims

Scottish Conservatives
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1 Mar 2017

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The Scottish Conservatives have today written to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon urging her to clarify her comments on devolution at last night’s David Hume Institute event.

In a pre-released excerpt from her speech, the First Minister was due to say that the UK’s decision to leave the EU amounted to “an attack on the very foundations of the devolved parliament”.

However, amid criticism from opposition parties over her comments, she then failed to deliver the line itself.

Scottish Conservative constitution spokesman Adam Tomkins has written to the First Minister this morning urging her to say whether she stands by the claim, or has retracted her stance.

In his letter, he said:

“Yesterday, your official Scottish Government spokesman briefed excerpts of your speech to the media prior to your speech at the David Hume Institute.

“In a passage about the impact of Brexit, it included this, rather bizarre, sentence: ‘So what we have is in effect an attack on the very foundations of the devolved parliament we voted for 20 years ago.’

“Given the fact that the UK Government has made it clear that ‘no decisions currently taken by the devolved administrations will be removed from them’ and that it intends to ‘use the opportunity or bringing decision making back to the UK to ensure that more decisions are devolved’, this claim appears to be utterly without foundation.

“This is something you appeared to recognise yourself, given that you did not then actually repeat the words, despite it having been reported widely in the media.

“Given the confusion created by your briefing note, I would therefore be grateful if you could clarify your position.

“Do you believe that our departure from the European Union is ‘an attack on the very foundations of devolved parliament’, or do you now accept, in hindsight, that this suggestion was simply scaremongering on the part?”

A copy of the letter is here:
http://www.scottishconservatives.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Tomkinsletter.pdf

In last night’s speech Nicola Sturgeon was supposed to say the Brexit vote was “an attack on the very foundations of the devolved parliament”.

However, she failed to deliver the line during the speech itself:
https://twitter.com/kathsamsonitv/status/836666813895360517

An audio clip is here. She omits the key part at 27 mins 30 secs:
http://www.davidhumeinstitute.com/nicola-sturgeon-tory-brexit-actions-attack-foundations-devolution/

Mar12017

New expert healthy relationships group to advise on curriculum

Welsh Government
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The panel will provide advice and support on issues relating to the delivery of healthy relationships education within the curriculum. This includes a range of areas including improving understanding of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues, violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence, respect and consent, sexism and bullying.

Emma Renold, Professor of childhood studies at Cardiff University’s School of Social Sciences has agreed to chair the Group.

As well as teaching on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in the field of childhood studies, Professor Renold has recently collaborated with Welsh Women’s Aid, NSPCC Cymru and the Children’s Commissioner to develop the online resource AGENDA: A Young People’s Guide to Making Positive Relationships Matter.

Kirsty Williams said:

“Providing good quality learning for children and young people on healthy relationships is essential to tackling a range of important issues and I want to have the best expert advice to help us achieve this.

“I am delighted such an experienced figure such as Professor Emma Renold has agreed to chair the group as she brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to this new role.

“She is internationally recognised for her work on gender and sexuality in childhood and youth across a wide range of areas including bullying, violence and sexualisation and I look forward to working with her.”

Professor Renold said:

“It is both a privilege and an honour to help support the effective delivery of sex and relationships education within the curriculum in Wales.

“Chairing this panel is an incredible opportunity to draw upon research evidence, and collaborate with experts, including young people, to identify the most effective resources and practices that will address and enhance children and young people’s gender and sexual well-being.”

The panel will be made up of individuals and organisations with relevant experience and expertise.

Mar12017

One month to go until new vehicle tax rates come into force

DVLA
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There’s only one month to go until the way vehicle tax is calculated will change.

As the changes will only affect new cars and some motorhomes, we thought we’d have a look to see which areas registered the highest number of new vehicles last year.

Top 10 postcodes for new vehicle registrations in 2016

The Birmingham postcode area was busiest buying new vehicles, with over 200,000 being registered.

Birmingham was followed by Milton Keynes and Guildford.

It’s no great surprise that postcodes in densely populated areas made the top 10, but it’s interesting that Glasgow (67,780), Manchester (32,177) and Liverpool (26,756) were just outside.

Not everybody will be affected by the changes immediately. The changes only apply to brand new cars and some motorhomes registered with DVLA on or after 1 April 2017. But we still wanted to make sure that everyone is aware at the same time, so we’ve been blogging regularly to let you know what DVLA’s been doing to get ready for the changes. We’ve been busy in other ways too, including:

  • working very closely with stakeholders to make sure that they’re aware of the changes, including several webinars, such as for the fleet industry
  • developing a new service to register new vehicles which will launch later this year.
  • launching a publicity campaign that’s being run across social media, blogs and messages on DVLA literature
  • getting our contact centre ready, who have an automated telephone service to quickly answer your questions

The changes take effect from 1 April 2017, so make sure you have a look at the new vehicle tax rates to see if they affect you.

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