4. Stewart Stevenson (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP):
To ask the First Minister whether the Prime Minister has responded to his letter calling for a moratorium on the privatisation of the Royal Mail. (S4F-01587)
The First Minister (Alex Salmond): I am disappointed that I have not yet heard from the Prime Minister. It is clear that the people of Scotland resoundingly do not want this misguided privatisation and that the moratorium should be confirmed as soon as possible.
Stewart Stevenson: It is surprising that the First Minister has not had a response.
Yesterday, Labour Party members, at their conference in Brighton, overwhelmingly backed a resolution that called for the renationalisation of the Royal Mail should the sell-off go ahead. Will the First Minister urge Mr Miliband to back the position of the Scottish Government by publicly endorsing the views of his party, which could render the privatisation infeasible?
The First Minister: It is true that I have not had a response from the Prime Minister, but I seem to have got a response from the Labour Party conference, which is all to the good. Now that, after six months, the Labour Party has followed the Scottish National Party policy of repeal of the bedroom tax, we should welcome the Labour conference’s endorsement of our call to take the Royal Mail back into public hands.
I am told that the resolution was passed overwhelmingly. I hear that it might even have been passed unanimously. I presume that that means that the Scottish delegates at the conference, such as Johann Lamont, voted for the renationalisation of the Royal Mail. [Interruption].
I do not know why Johann Lamont is pointing; I am just saying that if the resolution was passed nearly unanimously, I assume that she was there, speaking for the majority wishes of the unions and Labour Party members. That makes the attacks that I had from MSPs following First Minister’s questions last week all the more strange. So, which is it: the response to public ownership that we saw so resoundingly from the Labour conference, or the back calling at the SNP that we saw from Labour MSPs last week?
.
About Stewart Stevenson
Born in 1946 and brought up in Cupar, Fife, I was educated at the local school - Bell Baxter - and studied Mathematics at the University of Aberdeen, graduating with a modest degree in 1969. That's also the year Sandra & I married. Her family comes from the North East.Thirty years later I retired from Bank of Scotland as Director of Technology Innovation and was elected to the Scottish Parliament in 2001 as member for Banff & Buchan having first joined the SNP in 1961.
I then represented the new constituency of Banffshire & Buchan Coast Constituency in our Parliament. I retired as an MSP on 5th May 2021
I was also previously (2007-2010), Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change and (2011-2012), Minister for Environment and Climate Change.
I hold the honorary posts of President of the Scottish Association for Public Transport
and Vice-President of Railfuture UK.I am a Fellow of The Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, a Member at The Institution of Engineering and Technology, a Professional Member of the Association for Computing Machinery, a Member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists and an Associate Member of the Highland Reserve Forces' and Cadets' Association.
Scottish National Party Links
Stewart Stevenson
does not gather, use or
retain any cookie data.
However Google who publish for us, may do.
