Thursday 30th October was an exciting day in the Scottish Parliament. The excitement was such that Perth SNP MSP, Roseanna Cunningham, managed to break the podium on her desk. She said in Parliament. “So exciting was the debate…. ”. and she added “I hope that we can all calm down a bit now”.

So the question is what caused the excitement? What cause the stir? Was it Jimmy Purvis (Liberal Democrat) MSP motion to reduce tax by 2p in the £? Was it the HBOS debate that suggested that HBOS should stay Scottish? Was it any of the debates that John Park spoke at but did not cast a vote?

You have guessed it. It was none of these. The debate was about Non-native Invasive Species brought by Richard Lochhead. Richard in his opening remarks said “There are about 1,000 non-native species in Scotland. Most of them are currently benign, but a minority cause serious problems. People tend to be aware of the big-problem species, such as the grey squirrel, Japanese knotweed and American signal crayfish. Unfortunately, those might be the ones that are difficult to eradicate completely. However, it is important that we take whatever steps we can to manage them. More important, we need to raise awareness about the issue, so that we can prevent future problems. I emphasise the threat that invasive non-native species pose to biodiversity here in Scotland and around the globe. The International Union for Conservation of Nature describes their impacts asimmense, insidious, and usually irreversible."

The debate was exciting and roused many MSP’s emotions. Did Richard Lochhead achieve his objective. Well here is the resolution.

“That the Parliament welcomes the Invasive Non-Native Species Framework Strategy for Great Britain; notes that this is one of the first comprehensive strategies on invasive non-native species to be developed in Europe; further welcomes the Scottish Government's commitment to work in partnership with governments and organisations across these islands to implement the strategy; acknowledges that continued efforts are required by all partners to progress the key actions of the strategy; asks the Scottish Government to review existing legislation and report back to the Parliament on whether it considers that current legislation requires to be strengthened to ensure that the issue of non-native species is addressed more effectively; recognises that prevention and early intervention are vital in protecting native species, habitats and ecosystems, and therefore calls on the Scottish Government to work with local organisations with a remit for the protection of Scotland's natural environment to find ways to expedite the timeous implementation of measures at a local level and to report back to the Parliament with the findings”.

All sounds very supportive but is there any meat in it?

(Article by Charles Litster)