Latest news with #TheScottishParliament
Edinburgh Reporter
18-05-2025
- Politics
- Edinburgh Reporter
Pride Edinburgh ban politicians from this year's event
Pride Edinburgh is due to hold their 2025 march on 21 June through the city centre, but they have just announced that all politicians will be banned. it is customary for politicians of all parties to make impassioned speeches from the top of the Pride bus outside The Scottish Parliament before the march then proceeds up the Royal Mile and eventually to The Meadows. This year however the organisation says that it cannot have any politicians in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling on the Equality Act 2010. In a statement which you can read below the organisation says: 'The organising team is alarmed by the ongoing rollback of protections and support for the transgender community driven by those in power across both the Scottish and UK governments and political parties.' The statement continues: 'It is clear those in power and the combined voices of political parties across the UK by their silence and inaction, are not hearing the voices of our community and it would be wrong for Pride Edinburgh 2025 to give political parties a platform at our event.' © 2023 Martin McAdam Like this: Like Related
Edinburgh Reporter
14-05-2025
- Health
- Edinburgh Reporter
Red Alert for ME rally at parliament on Wednesday
Red Alert for ME: Belle and Sebastian's Stuart Murdoch will join campaigners at The Scottish Parliament on Wednesday calling for urgent action on pledged funding Campaigners living with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) fear vital, long-awaited funding could be lost because of delays in allocating money to deliver specialist support projects. The 2025-26 Scottish Budget included – for the first time – £4.5m to fund work across the country to support people with ME, Long Covid, and other similar conditions. But campaigning group #MEAction Scotland is concerned that decisions between the government and health boards over the way the funding will be spent is not moving fast enough – and that could mean nothing moves forward in the budget year, or worse still, the money goes unspent. #MEAction Scotland is to hold a rally outside the Scottish Parliament during ME Awareness Week to demand that funding pledged for people with the condition is spent urgently. One of the speakers will be Stuart Murdoch, lead singer of Scottish indie band Belle and Sebastian, who lives with ME himself and is a long-time advocate, publishing an autobiographical novel about his experience with the illness last year. Janet Sylvester, Trustee, #MEAction Scotland, said: 'We're raising a red alert and calling on the government to get plans in place so that funding can start going out to health boards and begin to make changes to the dire situation in Scotland. 'We welcomed the budget commitment but it won't mean anything if the money isn't actually spent. Now that the budget year has started, the clock is ticking. 'Our major concern is that it will take so long to allocate the funding that the health boards will not have time to spend it in this financial year, as has happened with past Long Covid funding.' The rally is taking place on 14th May during ME Awareness Week and is part of the Millions Missing movement – events organised by the ME community to draw attention to the millions of people around the world missing from society. #MEAction Scotland supporters have been contacting their MSPs and asking them to support the rally at Holyrood. ME is a complex, energy-limiting disease affecting multiple systems in the body, which affects approximately 58,000 Scots. However, there has been a frustrating lack of recognition and support to help those with the condition. The Scottish Government's first outline for ME services was published by the Chief Medical Officer in 2002, just three years after The Scottish Parliament was formed. Subsequent reports were published in 2010 and 2020, which reinforced previous recommendations and found that little progress, if any, had been made. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, numbers living with the condition have grown due to overlaps with Long Covid, and an increasing number of people with Long Covid are now also being diagnosed with ME. Karima Rahman, an #MEAction volunteer who lives with the condition, said: 'We've had 20 years of reports on ME which haven't led to change. Sadly, we saw previous funding for Long Covid services go mostly unspent by health boards – that can't happen again. 'Scotland has no ME medical specialists, despite there being more people ill with it than other conditions such as MS and Parkinson's. The government's warm words must turn into urgent action.' Protesters have asked MSPs from all parties to join them outside parliament this ME Awareness Week to listen to those affected and show their support for swift investment in services. Many people with ME will be too ill to join in person and will instead show their support online. Photos below show scenes from a similar rally in 2022. Like this: Like Related
Edinburgh Reporter
13-05-2025
- Health
- Edinburgh Reporter
Edinburgh MSPs on the Assisted Dying Bill
Amid planned protests this morning outside The Scottish Parliament, The Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill will reach Stage 1 on Tuesday afternoon in The Scottish Parliament. This is a Member's Bill promoted by Liam McArthur MSP who has put forward the motion 'That the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill'. He has said that 'an overwhelming majority' of people in Scotland support the draft legislation. On Tuesday in the Chamber, the bill will be scrutinised by MSPs in detail, and a vote by a majority is required to allow the bill to move forward. The bill is intended to allow someone to request a procedure to end their life as long as two doctors confirm they have a terminal illness. John Swinney said he will vote against the bill, and former First Ministers Humza Yousaf, Kate Forbes and Nicola Sturgeon have also said they will do the same, but supporters of the bill say they believe they have enough support to get the bill past today's stage one. MSPs are to have a free vote on this legislation. Foysol Choudhury MSP for Lothian has said he will vote against the bill. He said: 'After having considered my position, I will be voting against the bill. 'The bill uses a broad definition of terminal illness which would include people with disabilities and those with years to live. This has been raised by constituents and disabled people's groups as sending the message that their lives are less valuable and opening them to potential coercion. These concerns are compounded by experiences in other jurisdictions, which have seen the law widened following legal challenges. 'I am also concerned that assisted dying would place undue pressure on terminally ill people to end their lives as to not be a burden on their families, and do not believe proposed safeguards protect against this. 'I understand some may be disappointed, this has been a difficult decision to make. 'In any case, our priority should be ensuring every person can access palliative care, and those with terminal illnesses are well supported.' Sue Webber MSP for Lothian said on X: 'I have received thousands of emails on Assisted Dying. Tomorrow I will vote against the Assisted Dying Bill. The risks to vulnerable people are real and once we cross this line, there's no going back. No amendments will ever mean the legislation has satisfactory safeguards.' Jeremy Balfour MSP for Lothian has spoken out against the bill along with two other MSPs, Pam Duncan-Glancy and Emma Roddick. Mr Balfour said on X: 'We come from different political parties. We do not always agree. But on this we speak with one voice: the Scottish Parliament must reject the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults Bill.' In September 2024, Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western told the Liberal Democrat conference why he supported the bill. He said: 'My father-in-law slipped away from us six years ago, on a day not unlike this one. 'He succumbed to a kind of liver cancer that was mercifully painless and took him very swiftly after diagnosis. We'd managed to get him home from hospital and when it was clear the end was coming, Gill and her siblings moved back into the house to support their parents through the final week of his life. 'I would go out there whenever I could, it wasn't a chore, it was lovely. They had created a bubble around him filled with love and light and laughter. We took turns to spend precious time with him. There was such unexpected joy in those days and then one morning he was gone. It was a very gentle passing. 'If I could choose the manner of my own death, it would certainly be that. 'But we don't get to choose. 'All too many people are denied a good death and depart this world in pain and in distress. 'Endings matter, in stories and in life, and I want to know that if I am dying in agony, beyond the reach of palliative care or I know that moment is coming, then I'll have the right to say 'this far and no further' and leave this world in dignity. 'We have human rights designed to protect and safeguard every aspect of our life, save one and that is our departure from it. 'That's why I support the Assisted Dying for Terminally ill Adults Bill currently before the Scottish Parliament.' The debate on the bill will begin after Topical Questions on Tuesday afternoon. The Scottish Parliament Like this: Like Related
