Feb282017

Greens help secure historic vote on tax dodging

Green Party
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28 February 2017

Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for the South West, has welcomed a historic vote on clamping down on tax dodging, as committee members in the European Parliament today voted for a number of key Green demands [1]. By an overwhelming majority (87-1), MEPs voted for a revision of the Anti-Money Laundering Directive, which will tighten rules on trusts and transparency. Molly Scott Cato is a member of the Economics committee in the European Parliament. She said:

“There is growing outrage about the way wealthy people are able to offshore their money so they can avoid paying tax. A strengthened anti-money laundering law – which requires transparency from financial and legal companies in the management of the assets of the wealthy – will help to tackle this immoral and often illegal activity.

There was strong support for a Green proposal for a public register of property ownership to show who is the beneficial owner of land and property. Dr Scott Cato said:

“This is a significant win for the Greens. In London and elsewhere dirty money is laundered through the purchase of property so it is crucial to have public information on who benefits from its ownership.”

Molly Scott Cato has challenged the UK government to declare their support for the measures as the country prepares to leave the EU. She said:

“We have already seen that Amber Rudd was involved in offshore trusts in the Bahamas and now we have had the Chancellor and Prime Minister suggesting the UK will take on even more of the character of a tax haven after Brexit.

“As a British MEP I will be keeping my eye on the UK government in the European Council, where the decision will be taken by qualified majority so they will not have a veto.”

“But the government needs to realise that refusing to follow these strengthened EU laws on financial transparency could increase the destructive impact of Brexit on The City. This is because in order to register trusts in EU member states, or for clients in those countries, British legal and financial firms will still need to stick to these laws.”

Dr Scott Cato concluded:

“Today’s votes show that it is Greens that are leading on key agendas concerned with social justice and economic accountability.”

Notes

[1] MEPs on the European Parliament’s Economic & Monetary Affairs Committee and Civil Liberties Justice & Home Affairs Committee 

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Feb282017

Scottish Labour outlines plan to lift thousands of children out of poverty

Scottish Labour
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Scottish Labour exists to improve the lives of people who struggle every day to make ends meet.

That’s why this weekend we unveiled a policy that will take thousands of children out of poverty.

Our pledge is to use the new welfare powers of the Scottish Parliament to top-up child benefit. Our plan would see families £240 a year better off by 2021.

As Kezia Dugdale told Scottish Labour’s conference this weekend: “Our plan would mean help for the majority of families across Scotland, and would mean 18,000 fewer children living in poverty in the first year, and up to 30,000 once these changes are fully implemented.

“It would mean starting to reverse the fall in the value of child benefit that families have seen over the past five years.

“And it would send a strong message, that Scotland will not allow hard working families to bear the brunt of Brexit.”

Anti-poverty charities such as the Child Poverty Action Group have already backed Scottish Labour’s support for the plan.

Their director, John Dickie, said the policy “would make all the difference to hard pressed families”.

This policy is in the great tradition of our Labour Party.

Under the Blair and Brown governments, Labour lifted 120,000 children in Scotland out of poverty.

But after we lost power at Westminster in 2010, that progress was halted by a callous Tory government.

While David Cameron governed, with help from the LibDems, the proportion of children living in families below the poverty line reached one in five.

It is a national scandal that 220,000 children today across Scotland are living in poverty.

That is why this policy is so important and we will urge the SNP to include the plan in the Child Poverty Bill that is currently making its way through Holyrood.

If that is rejected, then Scottish Labour will find other parliamentary mechanisms to bring the policy into effect.

Feb282017

New figures reveal years of SNP failure on waiting times

Scottish Conservatives
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28 Feb 2017

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New figures released today have shown how NHS performance on waiting times has nosedived under the SNP.

Tables published by ISD Scotland have revealed the alarming slump since 2010 on both referral-to-treatment and new outpatient waiting times.

In December, just 83.8 per cent of patients were treated within 18 weeks of being referred, well below the target rate, and significantly poorer than the 92 per cent rate of five years ago.

Performance varied across health boards, with one in three patients in NHS Ayrshire and Arran breaching the target timeframe.

It means, at the end of last year, more than 15,000 patients were waiting longer than they should following a referral.

The official data also showed new outpatients in Scotland were receiving a far poorer service than in 2010.

One in four people were waiting longer than the 12-week standard for care for their first appointment, with many of them being forced to wait longer than 16 weeks.

In NHS Highland, nearly half of all outpatients weren’t being seen to on time, while in NHS Lothian that figure was one in three.

It’s the latest set of statistics showing the SNP’s mismanagement of the NHS, and clear evidence of a drop in service levels for patients since 2010.

Scottish Conservative shadow health secretary Donald Cameron said:

“This shows very clearly that in two important areas performance has declined sharply in the last few years.

“This is all on the SNP’s watch, and it has to explain the disastrous slump in these crucial waiting times, given it’s been running the NHS for almost a decade.

“It’s well-documented that the sooner someone begins treatment, the better chance they will have of recovery.

“Instead, the SNP hasn’t bothered to try and make improvements in this area, and that will be having a very direct impact on the health and wellbeing of vulnerable people.

“The Scottish public are getting increasingly sick of an SNP which, almost on a daily basis, is found wanting on the day job as it obsesses about the constitution.”