MSPs Linda Fabiani and Christina McKelvie took part in a historic church service and ceremony last week to unveil a new memorial to four Lanarkshire men who were executed in 1666 for their part in defending the National Covenants of Scotland.

The memorial plaque in Hamilton Old Parish Curchyard is the work of the Scottish Covenanter Memorials Association, which is dedicated to preserving and maintaining Covenanter graves and memorials and to raising awareness of this era of Scotland’s history. The plaque is placed next to a stone marking the site of the burial of the heads of four Covenanters, Gavin Hamilton of Carluke, James Hamilton of Glassford, John Parker of Busby, and Christopher Strang of Lickprivick in East Kilbride.

Strathaven-based MSP Linda Fabiani, who tabled a motion in the Scottish Parliament to mark the occasion of the plaque’s dedication, said:

“This was a fascinating and moving event, which really brought to life this incredible period in Scotland’s history. These four men, including two from the East Kilbride area, showed great courage and determination in defending Scotland’s National Covenants and suffered a brutal fate as a result – as we can clearly see from the fact that it is only their heads that are buried in Hamilton Old Parish Churchyard.

“The Covenant movement was hugely important in securing Scotland’s distinctive identity as a nation at a time when it was under attack. The Scottish Covenanter Memorials Association is to be congratulated for their excellent work, not only in preserving these vital historical monuments, but also in ensuring that future generations continue to learn about the Covenanters and their role in Scotland’s national story.”

Fellow Lanarkshire MSP Christina McKelvie said:

“Lanarkshire was one of the heartlands of the Covenanting movement, as today’s service and dedication in Hamilton have shown. I’ve learned a great deal today about the Covenanters and their historical significance, and I’m delighted that this new memorial will help others to do the same – as well as preserving the memory of four brave sons of Lanarkshire.

“The original stone memorial is both a chilling and fascinating insight into this historical era and I would definitely recommend that local people and visitors to Hamilton pop into the Hamilton Old Parish Churchyard to see it for themselves.”

Christina McKelvie MSP has congratulated Lanarkshire Rape Crisis Centre (LRCC) on being voted South Lanarkshire’s Voluntary Organisation of the Year for 2010.

Central Scotland MSP Christina said:

“This is a fantastic achievement by Anne McGuire and her staff and one which is thoroughly deserved.

“I have long been a supporter of LRCC and I know from my own experience of the unstinting dedication and commitment of the team to providing their hugely important services for women and girls in Lanarkshire.

“The job the LRCC staff do is a difficult and sensitive one but the emotial and practical support and advice that they provide to women and girls who have been subjected to all kinds sexual violence is invaluable. I congratulate them wholeheartedly on this award and pledge my continued support for their future work.”

Contact Lanarkshire Rape Crisis at 01698 527003 or go to http://www.lanrcc.org.uk/ for more information.

MSP CONGRATULATES TOP REFLEXOLOGY STUDENT ON VQ AWARD

Christina McKelvie MSP has congratulated Coatbridge-based holistic therapist Maria Hanley on being the only Scottish student to make it to the UK finals of the Worldskills UK reflexology competition finals, which take place in Derby this weekend.

Christina attended Scotland’s national VQ (Vocational Qualifications) Day ceremony, held at Motherwell College yesterday (Wednesday), where Maria was presented with a VQ Learner of the Year award by Scottish Government Skills Minister Keith Brown. Maria has already been awarded Holistic Therapies Student of the Year 2009 by Coatbridge College and, having been crowned as Worldskills Reflexology Regional Winner for Scotland 2010, will travel to represent Scotland at this year’s UK skills competition final.
Congratulating Maria on her achievements, Christina said:
“It’s lovely to meet someone like Maria who has qualified as a complementary therapist, but who is dedicated to continuing to learn and develop her skills and professional abilities for the benefit of her clients. Her very positive attitude to lifelong learning is inspiring.
“Maria is a credit to Coatbridge College and I wish her every success at the Worldskills competition finals this weekend. I’m sure that she will do Scotland proud.”

S3M-06601 Christina McKelvie (Central Scotland) (Scottish National Party): MND Scotland’s Field of Hope— That the Parliament declares its support for MND Scotland’s online Field of Hope campaign, which is scheduled to take place during Motor Neurone Disease (MND) Awareness Week from 21 to 27 June 2010; notes that the campaign aims to plant a virtual field of blue cornflowers by encouraging people with a Facebook page or Twitter feed to incorporate a Twibbon of MND Scotland’s blue cornflower logo in their profiles, which will link to a fundraising page; further notes that MND Scotland believes that each £1,000 raised through this campaign will be enough to provide a year of specialist care for one of the 373 people in Scotland who currently live with MND, and encourages everyone with a Facebook page or Twitter feed to plant their own cornflower in MND Scotland’s Field of Hope from 21 June.

Christina spoke in the debate on 17 June:

“Two hundred and forty-four million pounds in one year—that is how much money was siphoned out of local authority education budgets straight off last year, before authorities had bought even a pencil. Some £244 million was siphoned off and wasted on paying the private profits of bankers who run the special delivery vehicles of PPP and PFI projects. Nearly quarter of a billion pounds a year has been stripped out of the scarce resources that are available to local authorities for education. The money has been lost as a result of the credit card mortgages that Labour took out on Scotland’s school estate, yet Labour members have the brass neck to swan into Parliament with a motion that complains about the scarcity of resources—and that is before we face the cuts that will be imposed by the Lib Dem and Conservative Government as a result of the massive economic failures of Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling.

“The biggest irony of all is that PPP/PFI was supposed to be a fantastic way of moving the risk of large-scale capital projects away from the public sector and into the private sector. Somehow it did not turn out that way; what little risk transferred came thundering right back at us when the UK Government started firing our money at the banks. Now we are in the interesting position in which public money is being used to prop up private financing of public projects in which private profit is the overriding concern. The public purse is paying through the nose for the privilege. Some 5 per cent of the education budget has gone. One pound in every £20 has vanished from education resources and the situation will only get worse.

“Revenue expenditure on education has increased massively under the SNP Government and is more than double the level when Donald Dewar was First Minister. We spend £5,000 per primary school pupil per year, compared with less than £2,000 in 1999, and we spend getting on for £7,000 per secondary school pupil per year, compared with just £3,000 in 1999. The Government has ensured that Scotland’s schools are well resourced, and has done so in partnership with local authorities. It respects councils and values their position and their right to run their areas. The resources will help to deliver the important changes that are coming in Scottish education, as will dedicated staff members and committed parents.

“…I speak to teachers regularly, most of whom tell me that they are ready to implement the curriculum for excellence and that they are looking forward to doing so. However, they are increasingly telling me that they are sick fed up of hearing politicians talking them down, saying that they are not able to implement the new curriculum and suggesting that they are not professional enough to do their jobs well. They tell me that morale is being affected by the constant onslaught on their professionalism. They say that teachers are feeling the pressure and that parents and pupils are being unnecessarily worried by the harpies’ continual wailing, which they want to stop. Politicians should stop talking down Scotland’s education system and stop blighting children’s lives with petty point scoring and instead get on with the job of delivering improvements in Scottish education.”

Read the full debate at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/officialReports/meetingsParliament/or-10/sor0617-01.htm

Christina spoke in the Stage 1 debate on 16 June:

“The children’s hearings system has been an important aspect of the Scottish legal system for nearly 40 years now, and has been examined and copied by other nations. It is a welfare-based system that supports children and families in the most difficult of circumstances. The purpose of the bill is, of course, to enhance and modernise the system rather than to replace it. As the committee report has it:

“The Committee also recognises, however, that the children’s hearings system is not perfect. It has to be modernised to ensure that it can provide a consistent service across and respond to the needs of a modern society.”

“We are preparing the system for the next four decades of use to protect and nurture children and young people, and we are ensuring that the bill meets the twin challenges of updating the system while not compromising any of its key principles…

“Another change that comes in with the bill and for which I congratulate the minister is the extension of legal aid provision. It is an excellent move to allow children and other relevant persons the right to apply for legal aid. Additionally, allowing applicants for legal aid to choose their own lawyer from the Scottish Legal Aid Board’s list of lawyers allows choice and continuity of representation as well as addressing issues of access to legal assistance in emergency situations. It offers choice, dignity and support to children and young people who are involved with the panels, and to their parents, carers and other relevant people who are involved. It certainly goes a long way towards addressing our responsibilities on human rights legislation and the embedding of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is a particular interest of mine.

“Given that the work of the panel involves repairing the lives of children who have been damaged by circumstances, events or, indeed, by the very people whom they should trust to protect them, offering that dignity and legal support is an important step in the right direction. It sends a message that the state is not about to turn its back on those in need, that the weakest members of our society will be protected as far as possible, and that Scotland sets great store by ensuring that the wheels of justice turn for everyone, even if in some circumstances they turn slowly. Being given that measure of choice and support may be part of the process that helps a young person to begin to rebuild their life.”

Read the full debate at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/officialReports/meetingsParliament/or-10/sor0616-01.htm

Christina led the Member’s Business Debate on 10 June:

“I pay tribute to the man who inspired the motion—Duncan Brown, who is in the public gallery tonight. When I say that he is an amateur historian, I mean that in the best sense. He pursues his passion for Scots history out of sheer love and an unshakeable belief in its importance and not for income or recognition. He is not attached to any academic institution and he undertook his research under his own steam, with painstaking dedication.

“Duncan was lucky enough to count as a friend the late Nigel Tranter, whose books opened my eyes and those of many of us to the endless thrills and excitement that are to be found in the tales of Scottish history. Duncan continues to work in that tradition today. He is also a talented artist and a piper, by the way—I become exhausted just thinking about his talents.

“Scotland has a long tradition of chroniclers such as Duncan—I lean often on my copy of Blind Harry’s work to look back at Scotland’s history. Such chroniclers work in local history and archaeological groups or just beaver away on their own to add layers and nuggets of fact and detail to our nation’s story. They are sometimes small and sometimes monumental, but they all enhance our understanding and our enjoyment of Scottish history. It is often said that such amateur historians have provided us with the tales of ordinary lives in towns and villages throughout the land—those of the farmer, the weaver, the rent striker, the dominie or the soldier—that bring depth, richness and colour to Scotland’s story.

“I realise that it is a bit unorthodox to plug items in the chamber, but I hope that members will not mind if I recommend to them all Duncan’s book—”My Hero, My Soldier Laddie”. The title comes from Robert Burns and the book is in the best tradition of the history that I have described. Half of all the proceeds of sales will go to the Erskine veterans charity.

“Duncan’s search for Scotland’s Victoria Cross recipients began by chance when he played the pipes at a wedding in Cheltenham, of all places. A guest mentioned that she believed she had a Scottish ancestor—a David MacKay who had been in a Highland regiment and was awarded the Victoria Cross.

“Duncan has painstakingly pieced together MacKay’s life story. He discovered that MacKay not only took part in the famous thin red line during the Crimean war, but went on to be among the first group of men ever to be awarded the VC for the heroism he displayed during the siege of Lucknow in 1857, having been nominated by his fellow Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders for the honour.

“MacKay was badly wounded but survived and returned to Lesmahagow, where Duncan eventually traced his remains to an unmarked pauper’s grave. Discovering that sad fate of a man who should still be recognised as a Scots hero, regardless of our feelings now about the role of the British empire in India, prompted Duncan to go on to uncover the details of 172 Scottish VCs. He found that no fewer than 14 among them hailed from the towns and villages of Lanarkshire.

“Before I speak about Lanarkshire, I pay tribute to Thomas Peck Hunter, a Royal Marine who received the Victoria Cross and who happens to be the uncle of a proud John Swinney.

“In fact, one VC in every 100 awarded has gone to a Lanarkshire man—an astonishing record for our small county. Three recipients came from Carluke alone. I wish that I had time to talk about every one of them but, having spoken about the first, I also want to say something about the last VC recipient, Bill Reid, whom Duncan Brown was able to meet and talk to before his death in 2001. I feel a particular affinity with Bill, because he was originally a Baillieston native and that is where I live now.

“In November 1943, the Lancaster bomber that Bill was flying across the Dutch coast towards Germany twice came under attack. His navigator and wireless operator were killed, he himself was badly wounded, the plane’s oxygen system ruptured and the hydraulics were damaged. However, instead of turning back, Bill fought his plane back under control, flew on and completed his mission.

“After recovering from his wounds, Bill joined the 617 Squadron with Leonard Cheshire and, on his first flight, he fouled up his landing and knocked the tail off his plane. He had an endorsement put in his logbook and later joked that he was surely

“the only pilot to get a Victoria Cross on one trip and a red endorsement on the next.”

“Bill Reid was an extremely modest man and modest about his bravery. I am sure that some other men would have used it as a great chat-up line but, when Bill got married in 1952, he had not even told his wife.

“Explaining later how he had been able to act with such heroism, Bill simply said:

“When you lost people who were your closest friends, the danger certainly came home to you. If you’d thought it would happen to you, too, you’d simply never have been able to fly again.”

“People such as Bill did not perform great acts of bravery for Queen and country but usually performed them for their band of brothers or the man standing next to them. That is an important piece of history that all our young people should know about. Reading stories such as his brings home not only how much we owe men such as him and his fellow VC recipients, but how important it is that those of us who live in Scotland now and in future generations continue to read and hear those stories and do not forget the extraordinary contributions that ordinary people made to secure our freedom and democracy.

“If members are ever in Hamilton, I encourage and invite them to visit the memorial to the Lanarkshire VCs in the town square, which was unveiled in 2005 after a campaign by Duncan Brown and a public appeal by the Hamilton Advertiser. The poem inscribed on the memorial is by 12-year-old Anna Smith from Our Lady’s high school and it captures the spirit of tonight’s debate for me. It reads:

“You are heroes in our hearts, and that you’ll always stay
Courageous and heroic in every possible way.
You sacrificed so much for us – a debt we can’t repay.
You fought for us and bled for us and we thank you on this day.”

Read the full debate at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/officialReports/meetingsParliament/or-10/sor0610-01.htm

Christina spoke in the debate on 3 June:

“It was a good day for Scotland, a good day for Scottish education, a good day for Scottish students and a good day for the principle of egality when the SNP Scottish Government finally abolished tuition fees in Scotland by getting rid of the graduate endowment tuition fee. That was some eight years after the Lib Dems had said that the removal of tuition fees was non-negotiable, just before they negotiated it.

“I will take a second or two to quote Jim Wallace, speaking in the chamber on 17 June 1999. At the time, he was the leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats. He is now a member of the Westminster Government, so his comments were pertinent then and still have resonance now. Mr Wallace said:

“The Labour Government at Westminster opted for means-tested student loans and means-tested tuition fees. My party accepted that maintenance grants should be turned into loans, but the Liberal Democrats opposed the introduction of tuition fees—means tested or flat rate. That remains our position.”—[Official Report, 17 June 1999; c 592.]

The Lib Dem manifesto for the recent election contained a commitment that stated, very simply:

“We will scrap unfair university tuition fees”.

“In what I am about to say, I do not ignore Margaret Smith’s passionate confirmation in her speech that the Liberal Democrats in the Scottish Parliament support free education. However, the question is what the Liberal Democrats consider to be an unfair university tuition fee. Do they think that there might be fair university tuition fees? If so, are they prepared to impose them?

“At the end of April, on a visit to Oxford Brookes University, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said that he would abolish tuition fees but, during his party’s conference in September last year, he made clear that he had already decided to dump that pledge as part of his “savage cuts”. It has sometimes been said that the Liberal Democrat is the only animal in the world that can sit on the fence and keep an ear to the ground on both sides. I think that that is unfair and would like to believe that there is a firm commitment somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of the Clegg bunker.

“I wonder whether the position of the Advocate General, Baron Wallace of Tankerness, remains the same as it was in the good old days when he was Jim Wallace MSP. Do the Lib Dems still oppose tuition fees, as he suggested they did when we were all young—or maybe when some of us were young—or do they now oppose only unfair tuition fees? Do they believe that there might be fair tuition fees somewhere? Is it the Clegg of the campaign or the Clegg of the conference? Might we see Baron Wallace fix another fudge like the graduate endowment? That is the UK Government’s tail. The dog, of course, is the Conservative party.

“David Mundell is part of a Government that will raise the top-up fees at English universities because that will be Government policy and because the loyal Opposition at Westminster is the shower that introduced tuition fees in the first place. Increasing top-up fees is a Labour policy from before the election. The Conservatives will push through the increase in university fees with the support of the Labour Party and the Lib Dems will abstain so that they can say, “It wisnae me, guv. A big boy done it and ran away.”

“We know that increased tuition fees will not result in increased funds for the institutions; we know that they are a means of reducing public investment in education; and we know that they will just result in lower public investment in English universities. They might have a knock-on effect for the Scottish budget, as the NUS and others fear. Universities in England are about to be on the end of yet another funding squeeze and another hard round of cuts…

“Fortunately, we have a different set of circumstances here in Scotland. While the Labour Government in London in the shape of Peter Mandelson was cutting £398 million from the English universities’ budget for the current financial year, the SNP Government was increasing the Scottish universities’ budget by £40 million. In 2008, Universities UK produced research called “Devolution and higher education: impact and future trends”, which showed that, in 2006, Scottish universities had a funding advantage over English universities of some £454 per student per year. The fact that that gap will now have widened is evidence that the SNP Government has served Scotland well. I wish for England’s sake that it had a Government as committed to high-quality provision.

“We cannot be complacent, though. We are already in a tight financial situation and the news from south of the border suggests that it will not be getting better any time soon. I do not believe that any party in the Parliament will be able to guarantee any future budget without reservation. Access to education should be based on the ability to learn and not on the ability to pay. I am delighted to be in a country that still has free education, but we have a hard task ahead of us to ensure that it remains. I am clear that we should ensure that the principle of free education remains in Scotland.”

Read the full debate at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/officialReports/meetingsParliament/or-10/sor0603-01.htm

MSP MCKELVIE’S MOTION RECEIVES CROSS-PARTY SUPPORT

Members of the Scottish Parliament will this Thursday take part in a debate inspired by a new book which details the stories of the fourteen Lanarkshire men who won the Victoria Cross.

The debate was initiated by Christina McKelvie MSP, who tabled a motion in the Scottish Parliament after reading My Hero, My Soldier Laddie by Larkhall-based author Duncan Brown. SNP MSP Christina, whose motion received cross-party support, said:

“Having been to the memorial to Lanarkshire’s Victoria Cross recipients in Hamilton, I already knew that the county had its fair share of military heroes but until I read Duncan’s book I didn’t realise quite how significant that contribution was. One in every 100 VCs ever awarded went to men from Lanarkshire communities, an incredible record.

“Duncan’s research has uncovered the personal stories of each one of the fourteen Lanarkshire VC recipients. These are incredibly moving stories of ordinary men who fought and died for their country, showing extraordinary bravery as they did so. The book brings each of them to life again, complete with Duncan’s great portraits.

“Their inspiring stories deserve to be known across Scotland and I hope that my Members’ Debate in Parliament will go some way to achieving that. The timing is very appropriate, as events take place across the UK in the run-up to Armed Forces Day on 26 June, when we show our support to the serving forces members and veterans of today.

“The work of local historians like Duncan Brown also deserves to be celebrated – it helps to bring Scotland’s past to life and makes it accessible to everyone.”

S3M-06437 Christina McKelvie (Central Scotland) (Scottish National Party): My Hero, My Soldier Laddie, Commemorating Scotland’s VC Recipients— That the Parliament welcomes the publication of My Hero, My Soldier Laddie by artist and writer Duncan Brown, the illustrated story of Scotland’s 172 recipients of the Victoria Cross (VC); notes that the book tells the individual stories of each of the 14 VC recipients who came from Lanarkshire, one in every hundred of all VC recipients ever awarded; further notes that, in 2001, Duncan Brown was instrumental in securing the raising of the monument that now stands in Hamilton Town Square to the memory of these 14 men, David Mackay of Auchenheath, Frederick Aikman and John O’Neill of Hamilton, William Gardner of Bothwell, Willie Angus, Thomas Caldwell and Donald Cameron of Carluke, David Lauder and John Carmichael of Airdrie, James Richardson of Bellshill, William Milne of Wishaw, John Hamilton of Cambuslang, William Clamp of Craigneuk and Bill Reid of Coatbridge; believes that the type of oral and social history found in My Hero, My Soldier Laddie plays a crucial role in uncovering, illuminating and preserving Scotland’s past and the lives of ordinary Scots who made extraordinary contributions, and congratulates Duncan Brown on his considerable achievement in this respect.