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Tuesday, May 06, 2003
Edinburgh Evening News - Top Stories - Greens and SSP to get top Holyrood jobs The SSP's first choice would be the convenership of the social justice committee but, failing that, it would settle for the petitions committee, which was chaired in the last parliament by Labour left-winger John McAllion, who lost his seat to the SNP in the elections.
The SSP today promised to use its new strength in the parliament to make a serious assault on poverty. The party said it is already planning what legislation it can introduce to improve the lives of people in Scotland's most deprived communities. SSP leader Tommy Sheridan is determined to reintroduce his bill for universal free school meals, one of the core policies included in the election manifesto.
And the party believes attempting to get other redistributive measures on to the statute book should be its priority in parliament for the next four years. Politicians in other parties seized on comments by Rosie Kane, one of the new SSP MSPs, at the weekend that she hoped the parliament would become "a bit like the Big Brother House". People would be "amazed at all the madness and craziness that's going to happen in there", she said.
But today Lothians SSP MSP Colin Fox said the party would be setting about the serious business of promoting legislation to tackle poverty and inequality.
He said: " We are going to be more pro-active in putting forward legislation in parliament. After four years, we want to be able to point to certain things and say: 'We brought that in, it's not socialism, but it has made a real difference to the lives of people in Scotland'."
Mr Sheridan won a dramatic victory with his Bill to abolish warrant sales when he gathered enough Labour rebels to force the Executive to drop its opposition to the move. But his Bill to give free school meals to all Scots children - at a cost of £174 million - was defeated in June last year .
