Summer Surgery Tour

It’s been good to spend the last couple of weeks getting out and about in the constituency. Among the highlights so far have been meetings with Rothes Juniors FC, Fife Gingerbread and the new Chief Executive of Fife Council, as well as the first couple of days of my summer surgery tour. The vagaries of the “summer” weather were on display when there way glorious sunshine for the Magnus Drive fun day in Collydean and the next day’s Buckhaven Gala started dry but finished with the rain stoatin’ aff the grun. Well done and thank you again to the volunteers who give so much of their time every year to organise these events.

A few weeks ago the Public Accounts Committee published yet another damning report on the HS2 rail link between London and other English cities. Despite seeing one section scrapped completely and two others “under review” with not guarantee they will ever happen, the costs of the project have more than doubled and could top £100 billion. Now the UK Government’s own official watchdog has said the project is unlikely to be deliverable. Yet another example of the Tories pouring away vast amounts of money while claiming they can’t afford to help people during the cost of living crisis.

There’s been a furious reaction from within the Labour Party to a series of u-turns by their leader Sir Keir Starmer, overturning promises he made in order to get elected. Perhaps the worst has been the betrayal of his earlier promise to abolish the vile “two child cap” or rape clause which even one of his own senior MSPs has said is a policy that looks like it came from the oppressive regime in China. Just like the Tories, Starmer claims there’s “no money left” to get rid of this awful rule yet his party remains committed to spending over £200 billion on nuclear weapons of mass murder. It’s no wonder people are asking what the Labour Party is for if all they’re going to do is copy Tory policies everywhere.

A new report has found that around £1.7 billion is sitting unclaimed in bank accounts under the “Child Trust Fund” scheme. These accounts were set up with government support for anyone born between 1 September 2002 and 2 January 2011. The young person is allowed to withdraw the money from their account any time after they turn 18. It’s very likely that most of the money that hasn’t been claimed belongs to young people from less well off backgrounds, exactly the people who would really benefit from the money as they make the move from school to college, uni or work. If you know a young person born between the qualifying dates make sure they know that money is sitting somewhere waiting for them. My constituency team have contact details for legitimate organisations that can help people to track down where their Child Trust Fund is and how they can claim it