SSP Research, Policy & Media Unit
Press Release: 02/03/04

Scottish Parliament to debate Nursery Nurses dispute

The Scottish Socialist Party has tabled two motions for debate in the Scottish Parliament on Thursday 11th March, one on the council tax and the other on the nursery nurses dispute.
Carolyn Leckie MSP, the SSP’s representative on the Parliamentary Business Bureau said;
“We are using some of our very limited parliamentary time of one and a half mornings per year to discuss two extremely important Scottish political issues, the council tax and the nursery nurses dispute.
“5,000 nursery nurses have been taking industrial action for 10 months and the Scottish Socialist Party places itself squarely on the side of these low paid, undervalued and overwhelmingly female workers.
“We need to force the Executive off the fence over this dispute.
“On the one hand the Executive tell us they cannot discuss important political issues like Dungavel and the Iraq war because they are reserved issues.
“The nursery nurses dispute is clearly within the domain of the Scottish Executive and yet they do not want to discuss this issue either.
“The truth is that the devolution settlement is nothing to do with the Executives willingness to speak out but rather it is fear of sticking their neck out on anything that actually matters.”
[ends]

SSP motions for debate on Thursday 11th March, 2004
Council Tax
Parliament agrees that the council tax should be abolished and replaced with an income based alternative.
Nursery Nurses
Parliament agrees that the Nursery Nurses have a just claim and that there should be a fair, nationally negotiated settlement to their current dispute.