BANFFSHIRE and BUCHAN COAST Liberal Democrats

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP has today (January 18th) urged the Health Secretary to take "immediate measures" as Public Health Scotland's newly published statistics showed that only 67.4% of A&E attendances were seen within four hours. This is the lowest percentage ever recorded since this publication began in February 2015.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP has today (January 18th) urged the Health Secretary to take "immediate measures" as Public Health Scotland's newly published statistics showed that only 67.4% of A&E attendances were seen within four hours. This is the lowest percentage ever recorded since this publication began in February 2015.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has today filed a motion in the Scottish Parliament calling on the Prime Minister to resign.

At the time the motion was filed, the Conservative party were facing 17 separate allegations of parties at a time when the rest of the country was facing heavy restrictions but this will probably have risen by the time you read this.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has today set out his party's expectations for the forthcoming Covid public inquiry, including calling for initial findings to be reported within a year.

The Iraq Inquiry took seven years from when hearings first began to the publication of the Chilcot Report. The Penrose Inquiry into the contaminated blood disaster was set up by Nicola Sturgeon in 2008 and didn't report until 2015. The Edinburgh Tram Inquiry was announced by Alex Salmond in 2014 and is still to report.

Willie Rennie MSP has expressed anger at the prospect of a more than £100 million cut to the core school budget and disbelief that the Cabinet Secretary for Education has dismissed the concerns.

While questioning the Cabinet Secretary for Education during a meeting of the Scottish Parliament education committee, Willie Rennie explained that figures showed there would be a real-terms cut of £268 million to local authority budgets. Local authorities spend approximately half of their budget on education, leading to fears of a significant impact on schools.

Speaking after Prime Minister's Questions, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said:

"Boris Johnson's so-called apology was the worst acting I have ever seen.

"The Prime Minister doesn't believe it was a work party and he isn't sorry for attending. He's just frustrated he got caught.

"He's been lying to us for months because he thinks the public are stupid and rules are beneath him.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader and health spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP has today reiterated his call for extra staff support and an immediate Burnout Prevention Strategy, after new A&E figures showed that only 71.6% of attendances at A&E services were seen within four hours.

Public Health Scotland data for the week ending January 2nd shows 1,200 patients waited more than 8 hours to be seen, and 251 waited for more than 12.

New Scottish Liberal Democrat analysis has shown that 275,000 scheduled operations have now been lost to the pandemic and the party has called for an urgent new Burnout Prevention Strategy for NHS staff as the backlog continues to grow.

In November only 20,587 operations were scheduled in the theatre system -30% below pre-covid levels of NHS activity.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has today challenged Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross to submit a letter of no-confidence in his party leader, after fresh revelations of a Downing Street garden party undermined the Prime Minister's claim to have no knowledge of parties taking place in his official residence during lockdown.

Scottish Liberal Democrat economy spokesperson Willie Rennie has today called on the SNP Government to follow the UK Government and provide grants for guest houses and B&Bs in the hard-hit tourism and hospital sector.

Scottish Guest Houses and B&Bs have been excluded from the recent grant support allocated in Scotland, while similar businesses in England have been told they will be receiving up to £15,000.