Today Colin Beattie, MSP for Midlothian North and Musselburgh, welcomed the Scottish Government’s financial support for local families to negate the effects of the ‘bedroom tax’.

The support so far this year comes to £384,481 for East Lothian, resulting in an average award of £432 across 891 families.

Colin remarked: “Any right-thinking person would consider the ‘bedroom tax’ to be an abhorrent method of punishing those in our communities who need the most support.

“If ever further proof was needed to display the differences between how the SNP Scottish Government want to help people, and how the Tories want to take from the poor and give to the rich, then this is it.

“I am proud to be a Member of the Scottish Parliament for a party that wants to help the poorest in our communities. We will continue to do what we can to mitigate the constant barrage of cuts to the welfare state that the Tories are thoughtlessly deploying.”

Local MSP Colin Beattie is today welcoming funding of £300,000 for Midothian to improve the learning environment in our schools and allow for greater partnership working between schools and colleges.  The funding will be used to create four Learning Spaces of the Future – a “state of the art” learning space which would be incorporated into existing vacant classrooms within schools.

Commenting, Colin Beattie MSP said:

“This latest funding underlines the SNP Scottish government’s commitment to ensuring every child receives a world class education and will create the modern and creative new learning spaces we need to achieve this.

“The SNP already has a strong record of delivery on schools - since 2007, 520 schools across Scotland have been built or refurbished.

“But we know that we need to do more to ensure every child has an equal chance to succeed – that’s why the First Minister has made closing the educational attainment gap a priority. If re-elected in 2016, the SNP will continue to build on our strong record on education and will deliver in the face of harsh Westminster cuts.”

Labour should apologise for the their shameless scaremongering in the midst of this year’s school exam diet as the results published today reveal a pass rate consistent with previous years.

Speaking as it is revealed that 70.8 per cent of candidates passed the exam, SNP MSP George Adam, applauded the hard work of young people and teachers but called on Kezia Dugdale to apologise for her deliberate attempt to scaremonger. 

Ms Dugdale used FMQs and media articles to raise fears over the exam including stating in May that the results were a “coming storm”.  Her approach was slated by her leadership rival Ken Macintosh who branded Ms Dugdale as “obsessed with the SNP, almost rabidly anti-SNP” and ridiculed the attacks on the Scottish Government saying: “At FMQs every week we stand up, take whatever the issue of the day is and say it is all the SNP’s fault.  Take a few recent examples: the Higher maths exam or Scottish students’ inability to learn more than one language – are we really saying that is the fault of the SNP?”

Overall, young people across Scotland have achieved a record number of Higher passes with 156,000 attaining A to C qualifications this year, including Higher English up 17.7 per cent and Higher Modern Languages up 15.2 per cent compared to 2014.  

Commenting, SNP MSP George Adam said:

“These figures are great news for Scotland’s young people but disastrous for Kezia Dugdale. 

“She set out to scaremonger and deliberately ignored the simple fact that the exam varies in difficulty between years. The system then accounts for that fact in deciding what grade to award. Instead of recognising this reality, she attempted to use the exams for political purposes even while they were still going on. 

“Even Ken Macintosh realised how badly wrong she had got this. Now the figures are out and we can see that her scaremongering for the shabby political posturing it was. She owes the young people of Scotland an apology.

“Candidates have delivered a record number of Higher passes. And this comes against a background of a record percentage of school leavers in employment, education or training.  

“These results are down to the hard work and ability of school pupils, the support of their families, the dedication of their teachers and the professionalism of the Scottish Qualifications Authority. Politicians of every stripe should back their efforts. I hope Labour learns that lesson in future.”