Mike MacKenzie: No, I am sorry—I have only two minutes. Business excels at investing in new technology, and if we are to fulfil those targets and achieve all the benefits that come with that, we will need the massive investments that only big business can provide. We can do that while ensuring that our communities also benefit by undertaking their own renewable projects or by collaborating with business in...
Mike MacKenzie: Will the member take an intervention?
Mike MacKenzie: Will the member take an intervention?
Mike MacKenzie: Will the member give way?
Mike MacKenzie: Patrick, do you agree that it would be very helpful if the big society extended to Scotland’s islands with regard to fair transmission charges?
Mike MacKenzie: I recently visited the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney, which enabled me to gain a first-hand insight into the remarkable progress that it is making in testing wave and tidal energy generating devices. The centre is at the exciting cutting edge of world-leading technology, and I was delighted to see the impressive rate of development there. I was also pleased to speak to a number of...
Mike MacKenzie: Sure, and I remain optimistic. I point out, however, that it is truly lamentable that it has taken this length of time to get anywhere near approaching the right solution. It will also be greatly in the interest of the public if we realise sooner rather than later the huge economic opportunity that the technology brings to Scotland. I am disappointed at the suggestion in Mary Scanlon’s...
Mike MacKenzie: No, I am sorry, but I am running out of time. Ken Macintosh’s suggestion that the Scottish Government should dig into its budget to pay the onerous transmission charges is similarly misguided. Scotland already pays more than its share of UK taxes. Despite Liam McArthur’s suggestion, it is difficult to see how the transmission charges, in their current form, can be seen as anything other...
Mike MacKenzie: 8. To ask the Scottish Government what advice it provides to towns and villages whose historic built environment has fallen into disrepair. (S4O-00896)
Mike MacKenzie: Does the cabinet secretary share my concern at the long-term neglect of the historically important burgh of Inveraray? Will she join me in encouraging Argyll and Bute Council to apply for the generous funding that the Scottish Government has made available through the conservation area regeneration scheme in order to tackle that long-term neglect?
Mike MacKenzie: Will the member give way?
Mike MacKenzie: Is it often not the case that the people who complain most about mobile phone masts are those who are also asking for 3G and forthcoming 4G broadband in rural areas? Does the member agree that that is unlikely to be delivered without an adequate provision of mobile phone masts?
Mike MacKenzie: Was it Margaret Thatcher who said that any person over the age of 30 who used a bus could consider themselves a failure?
Mike MacKenzie: I am pleased to contribute to the debate, although I am puzzled that the Conservatives have come so late to the subject. This Government has been advancing a policy of localism since 2007, and the SNP has been preaching localism for much longer than that—since long before 2007, when we were able to form the Scottish Government and put the principles of localism into practice. Perhaps the...
Mike MacKenzie: Through the innovation and investment fund a number of housing associations have come up with some really good, innovative housing projects that have delivered far better value for money than we ever dreamed of under the previous Administration. It is perhaps worth going through some of the localism policies that this Government has implemented. We have heard about the concordat with local...
Mike MacKenzie: Of course, Jamie McGrigor will know that a number of independent candidates are secret Tories who are frightened to admit it. Jamie McGrigor rose— I return to planning—
Mike MacKenzie: I point out that I did not accept a second intervention from Mr McGrigor. To accept one was quite generous. Local planning authorities now have full powers to deal as they see fit with smaller local applications, which are generally no longer subject to appeal to the Scottish Government. Instead, we have local review bodies. Even on larger planning applications that the Government deals with,...
Mike MacKenzie: No. I have taken enough interventions from the Conservatives. The current consultation on planning proposals suggests taking the existing approach further by freeing local authorities to develop local development plans without fear that reporters will subsequently alter them. What the Tories in Scotland talk about in planning terms is not really localism, but nimbyism. I will talk about other...
Mike MacKenzie: I only hope that, now that they have succeeded in driving our economy back into recession down in Westminster, members will use their power in Westminster to ensure that the Westminster Government invests in our local shovel-ready projects in order to kick-start our local and national economies.
Mike MacKenzie: I am pleased to speak in the debate, because few of the subjects that are debated in the chamber are as important, in these difficult times, as the Scottish Government’s growth strategy. Within the limited powers that are available to it, the Scottish Government is doing its utmost to shelter Scotland from the worst effects of the Westminster Government’s disastrous austerity...
