BANFFSHIRE and BUCHAN COAST Liberal Democrats

Commenting on today's rural economy and connectivity committee at which it was revealed that two delayed CalMac ferries are "significantly less than half built", £100m over budget and likely to be three years overdue, Scottish Liberal Democrat transport spokesperson Mike Rumbles MSP said:

"This has been a catastrophic failure. For £110m we have got two half finished hulks and a lot of red faced officials.

Willie Rennie, Scottish Liberal Democats leader, has today announced the Scottish Liberal Democrats official endorsement of the national Fight Fatigue campaign, a joint initiative of the Association of Anaesthetists, the Royal College of Anaesthetists and the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine. The campaign aims to raise awareness of the impact of fatigue and shift work on our NHS workforce.

Commenting on Nicola Sturgeon's planned statement calling for another independence referendum, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said:

"Yet again the Scottish Parliament is being used to showcase Nicola Sturgeon's separatist agenda when it should be discussing how to tackle crises in education and mental health.

Responding to the news that the percentage of people living in Fuel Poverty increased between 2017 and 2018, Scottish Liberal Democrat energy spokesperson Liam McArthur MSP warned of the "mammoth" task ahead.

619,000 households were estimated to be in fuel poverty in 2018, compared to 583,000 in 2017. Levels of extreme fuel poverty were again higher in rural areas (17%) compared to urban areas (10%) in 2018.

Commenting on the new Audit Scotland briefing paper on student loans which shows that student debt has more than doubled between 2011 and 2018-19, Scottish Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Beatrice Wishart MSP said:

"The SNP were elected on a commitment to replace loans with grants and to "dump the debt". These statistics confirm the very opposite has happened. Student debt has soared on the SNP's watch while bursaries and grants have been decimated, hitting people from lower-income backgrounds hardest.

Commenting on the new briefing from Scottish Trends which shows that between 2006 and 2018 Scotland fell five places in the Index of Social and Economic Wellbeing, a change which is attributed to "the relatively poor Scottish performance, in terms of education and health", Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said:

Scottish Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Beatrice Wishart MSP today revealed that almost 30,000 attacks on teachers have occurred in the last three years, describing the figures as "incredibly concerning".

Freedom of information requests by the Scottish Liberal Democrats have found that since 2016/17 there have been 29,439 attacks on teaching staff.

Commenting on HIAL's planned centralisation of air traffic control services, Orkney MSP Liam McArthur said:

"It is no secret that the plans to centralise air traffic control services have faced overwhelming resistance in communities across the Highlands & Islands from day one.

"Yet HIAL's decision to press ahead with these plans appears to have been predetermined from the start, despite serious concerns being raised over cost, reliability and safety. The views of local air traffic control staff in Orkney, and across the network, have been disregarded throughout this process.

Police Scotland have issued a call for a legal framework to govern how to manage images held by the force - a problem that has been repeatedly highlighted by the Scottish Liberal Democrats.

In the Scottish Parliament's Sub-Committee on Justice, Temporary Assistant Chief Constable Duncan Sloan said that the current rules around what the police can do with images of the public are "not as clear" as the rules around fingerprints and DNA, and that new governance arrangements would be "absolutely valued and very much welcomed".

Scottish Liberal Democrat Leader Willie Rennie has today called on the SNP government to "see sense" and immediately withdraw its longstanding support for Heathrow's expansion after it was revealed that the extra flights to Scotland alone would pump out an additional 600,000 tonnes of emissions by 2040.