Yesterday the Court of Appeal in London ruled that an expansion to Heathrow airport was unlawful because a former UK Government Transport Secretary had failed to take into account the Paris Agreement on climate change when he was drawing up the National Policy Statement approving a third runway at the airport.
Today (27th February) the Court of Appeal ruled against building a third runway at Heathrow Airport. Having campaigned tirelessly on this issue for years, my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I are delighted with the decision.
This third runway would make it almost impossible for the UK to achieve net-zero, and we have a responsibility to lead the word in tackling the climate emergency.
Following the publication of the Government's Brexit negotiating strategy this morning, Scottish Liberal Democrat Education spokesperson Beatrice Wishart MSP has warned that abandoning the Erasmus scheme will be a disaster for Scottish students and universities.
Section 21 of the document reveals that the UK will "consider options for participation in elements of Erasmus+ [after 2021] on a time-limited basis, providing the terms are in the UK's interests."
This suggests that the UK may seek looser membership of Erasmus as a 'partner country', which would mean less funding for British universities and colleges to offer student and staff exchanges. Instead, they would be reliant on their partners in EU member states to manage projects and funding on their behalf.
Universities have warned that partner country status will mean fewer opportunities to study abroad, higher costs, less influence over the future of the programme and a possible cap on the number of students who are able to take part.
Beatrice Wishart said:
"This will be a disaster for Scottish students and universities.
During the 2016 referendum campaign, Boris Johnson, Priti Patel and Michael Gove issued a joint statement promising to automatically guarantee the rights of EU citizens.
They declared: "There will be no change for EU citizens already lawfully resident in the UK. These EU citizens will automatically be granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK and will be treated no less favourably than they are at present."
A year on from the beginning of the protests in Hong Kong, the Chinese government haven't budged. Beijing continues to systematically violate the human rights of people in Hong Kong, and deny the region democracy.
But Hong Kong is not giving up. The people of Hong Kong are not going to back down from this fight.
UK passport maker De La Rue left at risk and laying people off, as twice as many UK companies set up operations in the Netherlands in 2019 compared to a year earlier and the UK Brexit job and brain drain continues.
Past comments by our Prime Minister have underlined what he thinks about British business and we have highlighted on numerous occasions through this website the continuing post Brexit trend for UK firms to move their base or some operations away from the UK to Europe. The soon to arrive new UK Blue Passports from Poland underlines just how 'taking back control' is going to pan out in reality for British businesses.'
Scottish Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP has today said that the Scottish Government should radically overhaul their drug policy, stop sending those caught with drugs for personal use to prison and instead ensure that medical services are available to assist those who misuse drugs.
Liberal Democrats have long demanded fundamental reforms to the distribution of power: proportional voting, decentralisation, an elected second chamber.
Sadly, electoral reform has been lacking entirely from the Labour party's leadership contest. That's why, this week, I've written to the three remaining Labour leadership candidates, urging them to ditch our broken voting system in favour of proportional representation.
The NHS should be at the heart of the case for United Kingdom according to the Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats.
Willie Rennie will tell the These Islands Conference in Newcastle that the case for Scotland's place in the United Kingdom should show how caring and compassionate the people of our country have been collectively. He will say that the pro-UK campaigners should not be shy about our common achievements like the NHS and should reach out to talk about issues beyond the economic strength that comes with a single UK market.
Responding to the news that the Scottish Government will now support Monica Lennon's bill on free period products, despite previously withdrawing its support, Scottish Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said:
"People inside and outside the SNP told them that their opposition to the bill that would tackle period poverty was unjustifiable and I'm glad they've seen sense and caved. A lack of period products shouldn't be getting in the way of women's lives or education.
