After long resisting the call to make land ownership transparent in Scotland, the Scottish Government has finally said that it will make provision for ‘a public register of persons who control land in Scotland’ – but the details remain unspecified and, with the Holyrood parliamentary session ending on 23 March, there may be no time to review or amend the proposals. We need the Scottish Government to fulfil their belated promises on transparency of land ownership. In 1617, James VI of Scotland (& I of England) brought in the Register of Sasines Act to counter fraud in land transactions by creating a register of title to record who had sold what to whom, but today in Scotland – four hundred years later - the owners of at least 3.45 million acres (22.1% of all rural land) cannot be identified, largely because the owners shelter behind nominees, many registered in offshore jurisdictions (eg the British Virgin Islands). It is clear that the prime reason for concealing ownership is to avoid tax (eg Land and Buildings Transaction Tax and Inheritance Tax) and to ‘launder’ ill-gotten cash. Parliamentary committees (and the SNP 2015 Conference) have urged the Government to make radical improvements to the law and ensure transparency in land title, so that the people of Scotland can know who owns Scotland. But the Government resisted all changes to its Land Reform Bill until mid-February, when the Minister relented and stated that she would be making provision for ‘the creation of a public register of persons who control land in Scotland’ so that they could no longer ‘hide behind obscure company titles or trust arrangements.’ The belated conversion of the Minister is welcome, but it may come too late to implement the measures in full before Holyrood breaks up on 23 March. We are now very short of time and we need to get it right in this Parliamentary Session: a four hundred year delay is enough!

Because the government is telling us we are all in it together.Prove it by Using the same method as public workforce pay is set by.

Having watched PMQs for decades, today, 24th Feburary 2016, underlined what a farce it has become. The Prime Minister has now fallen so low as to mock the way people dress. Although this may be common behaviour on the playing fields of Eaton, it completely debases his high office and our great country. Despite some wonderful innovations from the leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, the Prime Ministers behaviour has worsened, and he continues as he did in 2010 to not answer straight questions to which the British public deserve straight answers. There seens to be a misconception from the Prime Minster that PMQs is a time for levity whereas it performs an essential constitutional function for British citizens to get information directly from the Prime Minister. In short it is time the Prime Minister grew up and lived up to his responsibilities to the people of Great Britain.

Parliament is shown to a worldwide audience, who see abusive behaviour and verbal noises on a daily basis, of a type usually only heard in a farmyard. You may be able to laugh it off but the rest of us cringe with shame. You represent 60 million people in this country but look like football hooligans on a piss-up. Any similar behaviour on the part of any other one of us would result in instant dismissal, rather than the support of his colleagues and a thumbs up from the boss. Have a little pride in your position as the Speaker of the House and do the right thing, and stop the embarrassment of PMQs every week.

Democracy is a farce if cheating in an election is permitted regardless of how late the wrong doing is discovered and whether or not police action is possible. Political parties that gain office through electoral fraud should not be allowed to continue with impunity, they must demonstrate that they have legitimate support of the electorate.

Because justice needs to be done both these men are totally innocent and have been wrongly convicted of murder.

£3.30 per hour is not a wage that can be lived on, in fact a person earning this amount of money cannot afford to rent in most places and would even struggle to afford transport to get to where they are doing their apprenticeship. A person working the same 40 hours, as most apprenticeships stipulate, could earn up to four times as much as those who are in apprenticeships, for the same amount of work. It is preposterous that a person on an apprenticeship working 40 hours a week should earn only £120.00 on average.

At present there is no cohesive or structured information. The information we do get is all from persons, politicians or companies with vested interests or emotional feelings of one kind or another. At present coverage is hotch potch and it's pot luck to whether you get information or not. Many times it is only one point of view. If we all knew that we would get sensible information at a certain time on a certain channel , I feel that many of us would benefit enormously. This would enable us all to vote more intelligently. It might even be better to be on many channels.

13 climate protesters are facing prison to silence protest against new runways which would wreck Government policy to protect us from catastrophic climate change. The Paris agreement underlines the need to cut emissions now. Aviation is the fastest growing source of carbon emissions and the only way to reduce emissions from aviation to a safe level is to reduce the number of flights. Despite David Cameron’s ‘no ifs, no buts’ election and manifesto promise to not build a new runway following massive public outrage at the proposals, the Government is now breaking its promise. There is more than enough aviation capacity for people’s annual holidays and the declining number of business flights. Airport growth is driven by a minority of frequent fliers who take the majority of UK flights to second homes and tax havens. Meanwhile, emissions from aviation are destroying people’s lives. People in the Heathrow area, who already have to breathe illegal levels of air pollution and suffer intolerable noise, would now see their homes destroyed. People across the UK have been flooded at Christmas, and every year hundreds of thousands more people die due to climate change - mostly in poor countries in the Global South, the people least responsible for emissions. The Government is expected to make its decision on whether to expand Heathrow or Gatwick – or neither, if we are successful – this year. It’s one or the other: build new runways or protect us from climate chaos. The people in the Global South who are dying due to climate change already have no voice in the debate. We can show them that jailing peaceful protesters will not silence those of us who do.

1. It undermines families: Introducing a state employed Named Person for every child in Scotland – by definition – undermines the role of parents and carers, the vast majority of whom do an excellent job raising their own children and have no need or desire for third party involvement of this sort. 2. It wastes resources and jeopardises child safety: It is almost inevitable that by stretching resources to police the wellbeing of all children, attention will be diverted away from genuine cases of child neglect or abuse. 3. There is a serious risk of the powers being mis-used: By granting the Named Person sweeping legal responsibility to monitor the wellbeing of all children, there is a very real danger of families being needlessly embroiled in ‘the system’ because a Named Person takes issue with a particular parent. 4. It may be in breach of European Convention rights to privacy and family life: Leading QC Aidan O’Neill says the policy: “may not be lawful on the basis that the blanket nature of this provision constitutes a disproportionate and unjustified interference with the right to respect for individual families’ private and family life and home.” 5. It may breach EU law on data confidentiality: The Named Person legislation lowers the threshold to make it easier for officials to pass around confidential data like children’s medical reports. This may breach EU law on data sharing. 6. A broad coalition of organisations, individuals and newspapers have raised very serious concerns about the Named Person including: The Scottish Parent Teacher Council, The Christian Institute, CARE for Scotland, The Tymes Trust (for young ME sufferers), Schoolhouse (representing families who home-school), The Faculty of Advocates, The Law Society of Scotland, The Scotsman, The Press & Journal, The Daily Mail and The Daily Express.

Jeremy Hunt has made no secret of his opposition to the NHS as founded on the principles of the 1942 Beveridge report. His intransigence in the face of the current negotiations has to be read in this context. The NHS has the support of the whole country; it is now time for us to act in unison to support the junior doctors as part of a wider commitment to the principle of a free at the point of service, publicly funded and owned NHS. We call for the TUC to weigh into the current pay and conditions dispute by calling a general strike against the imposition of the proposed contract on junior doctors. The contract is a mark of the hostility that the current Health Secretary has for the NHS as it is currently instituted. It does not serve any ends but those of a government fundamentally committed to the run down and decline of the NHS. We must unite in its defense and send a clear message that the country will not tolerate the piecemeal destruction of the NHS.

Because charging struggling families up to 55p a minute to claim vital benefit payments by phone is extortionate. Universal Credit, families will be forced to call an 0345 number, incurring charges of up to 55p a minute to claim their benefits. It’s difficult enough as it is living on disability benefits without being charged 55p/ minute to call the DWP. More often than not it’s their mistake you’re rectifying when you call, I don’t see why anyone should be charged such an extortionate fee for simply making a phone call.