Dundee Liberal Democrats - www.dundeelibdems.scot

Speaking ahead of the Ministerial Statement, due to be heard in the Scottish Parliament tomorrow, on the tragic M9 crash where John Yuill and Lamara Bell lost their lives six years ago, Willie Rennie MSP said:

"The Scottish Government have a lot to answer for tomorrow.

"Ministers drove through a rushed centralisation of Scotland's police service, paying little heed to the concerns of those on the ground. It was evident in yesterday's judgement that those decisions had consequences.

Responding to today's Scottish Parliament update from the First Minister, Scottish Liberal Democrat Leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has urged an emergency recruitment drive to fix the broken Test and Protect system.

Today 5,810 new cases of Covid were reported, 82 more Covid positive people were admitted in intensive care yesterday, and 17 people lost their lives to the virus.

Responding to the publication of the Programme for Government 2021-22, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole Hamilton MSP said:

"The pages of this programme do not contain hope for a better future for young people, patients or the climate. Instead, it is old hype, reheated and rebadged.

"For the fourth year in a row, Scottish Liberal Democrats have listened to the First Minister promising to bring down waiting times for mental health services. Each year the waits for children, young people and adults increase.

Commenting in response to a blog published by Audit Scotland, where the Auditor General Stephen Boyle reports a "mismatch" in SNP policy delivery, explaining that "audit work consistently shows a major implementation gap between policy ambitions and delivery on the ground", Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said:

Scottish Liberal Democrats have today requested an Urgent Question be heard in the Scottish Parliament in response to record breaking waits in A&E departments for the fourth consecutive week.

In the week ending 29 August 2021, 7,105 people waited longer than four hours to be processed after attending A&E, breaching the SNP's waiting times target for 25.8% of patients.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton today said the Scottish Government must show it has "an ironclad plan" to bring down mental health waits after new statistics showed 2,138 children waiting over a year for mental health treatment.

Quarterly Public Health Scotland statistics also show 5,000 adults waiting over a year.

The Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to send in the Army to deliver food to supermarkets, as immigration chaos fuels a growing shortage of lorry drivers.

The country has endured a summer of shortage chaos with empty supermarket shelves, restaurant food shortages, and even delays to flu jabs.

Responding to the news that Police Scotland have admitted "corporate criminal liability" for the M9 crash in 2015, Scottish Liberal Democrat Willie Rennie MSP, who has sought answers for the past six years, said:

"Political decisions have consequences. This is one of the darkest.

"The Scottish Government were cavalier about their centralisation of the police, rushing it through despite all the warnings. Experienced staff were replaced with officers from the frontline who didn't know how the call handling systems worked.