Parliamentary Contributions

Oral Contributions:

• 26.11 – Budget Resolutions – I made various interventions in support of the budget, highlighting the additional capital that has been assigned to Scotland, in particular.

Written Questions Answered:

• Internet: Safety – potential impact of the Online Safety Act 2023 on children’s exposure to harmful content online.
• Civil Servants: Workplace Pensions – assurance mechanisms to ensure that delays experienced under the current MyCSP contract are not repeated.
• Aviation: Employment – steps to increase access to careers as pilots and in aviation generally.
• Eye Cancer: Medical Treatments – steps to ensure timely access to chemosaturation for patients with metastatic ocular (uveal) melanoma.
• Sepsis: Death – steps to help reduce sepsis mortality in patients with leukaemia and other cancers.
• Asylum: Children – number of children subject to removal under plans to remove families from the UK.
• Immigration: English Language and Voluntary Work – thresholds to evaluate integration metrics such as volunteering and proficiency in English.
• Nitrogen Dioxide: Pollution Control –  plans to achieve and progress on compliance with legal nitrogen dioxide limits on all roads.
• Asylum – processes for asylum seekers whose home countries have been deemed safe but that are not personally safe for them to return.
• Asylum – caps on the number of asylum seekers accessing the new legal work or study paths.
• Asylum: English Language – English as a Second Language provision to encourage asylum seekers to enter new legal work and study routes.
• Asylum: Finance – value of personal assets which asylum seekers will be required to contribute to their accommodation and living expenses.
• Refugees: Resettlement – if those arriving in the UK via safe and legal routes to seek asylum will have to wait for 20 years for indefinite settled status if they are recognised as refugees.
• Refugees: Resettlement – whether the plan to offer permanent settlement to refugees only after 20 years residence in the UK will apply to people currently in the asylum system and those who already hold refugee status.

EDMs:

• Space at The Broomhouse Hub 2025 Report

Media Mentions:

• 26.11 – Plans drawn up for new cross-agency effort to tackle the misuse of offroad vehicles in Edinburgh parks – Deadline News covered my response to the council’s decision to convene a CIP to address the dangerous use of bikes. This comes on the back of a recent community meeting I held on the topic, at Broomhouse Community Hub.
• 01.12 – Council to review if data centre requires environmental assessment – The Edinburgh Reporter covered my response to the lack of an environmental assessment as part of the planning permission process for the two new data centres that Apatura is planning to build in Edinburgh. I was disappointed that an EA was not initially considered, and am pleased to see that the council now plans to review this.
• 02.12 – TAXI LICENSING INQUIRY: MPs challenge operators over driver earnings, fatigue risks and the pressures of multi-app working – Taxi Point, an industry publication, covered my contributions in a recent Transport Committee evidence session focused on taxi and private hire licensing. I pressed Uber’s Director of Public Policy on whether their median earning figures take into account unpaid time idling between bookings.