McConnell rules out extra tuition

By John Knox
BBC Scotland political correspondent

"There will be no top-up tuition fees for Scottish higher education students as long as I am first minister."

The first minister ruled out top-up fees

Thus Jack McConnell marked another difference between Labour in Scotland and Labour in the rest of the UK.

It had to be squeezed out of him, however, at question time by the Scottish National Party (SNP) leader John Swinney.

Mr McConnell did not want to be too triumphal.

He was breaking free, quietly, of the Blairite line in London that top-up fees are good for you.

Scottish Labour MPs are, after all, going to have to toe that party line at Westminster next week.

Mr McConnell told Mr Swinney he was proud to have abolished tuition fees at universities in Scotland.

"But I also believe that students making a contribution, once they have graduated, is an important part of the overall mix of spending on higher education," he said.

More people believe in the Loch Ness monster than believe that tuition fees have properly been abolished in Scotland David McLetchie Conservative leader

Students in Scotland have to pay £2,000 into an "endowment fund" when they start earning more than £15,000 a year.

The Conservative leader David McLetchie said: "The truth of the matter is that more people believe in the Loch Ness monster than believe that tuition fees have properly been abolished in Scotland."

He said graduates repaying their "endowment" by instalments have a marginal tax rate of 42%, higher than the richest millionaire.

Whatever happens down south, Mr McConnell and the Liberal Democrat leader Jim Wallace have promised that their coalition administration will not allow Scottish universities to fall behind, either in salaries or research, if universities in England and Wales get extra income from top-up fees or from increased government funding.

In a way, Scotland is still being persuaded to take action by the elephant living next door.

Some fishermen plan to defy the quota cuts

Inevitably, fishing was the next big item on the menu at Holyrood this week.

The Liberal Democrat George Lyon called on Mr Swinney to resign over his statement that he would support any fisherman who breached the new regulations on fishing for haddock in the North Sea which come into effect on 1st of February.

The SNP brushed such criticism aside and, in a special debate on Thursday morning, challenged the executive to renegotiate the fishing deal.

Curiously enough, this is what is happening.

Officials have been meeting in Brussels to "tidy up some unintended consequences" of the deal. A haddock war may be averted yet.

We have had full scale debates on education reform and waste management. They made depressing listening.

Education Minister Peter Peacock admitted "the tail of under-performance has remained stubbornly long".

Homeowners are being encouraged to recycle

Environment Minister Allan Wilson admitted the Scotland still needs "a fundamental shift in public attitudes towards waste" if it is to achieve its target of 25% recycling by the end of the decade.

We also had a member's debate, led by John Swinburne of the Senior Citizens Unity Party, on what he called "kinship care".

He argued that many grandparents had become full time foster parents for their grandchildren, especially in cases of drug or alcohol abuse, and they should be given special support payments by local authorities.

Down in the committee rooms it has been a busy week.

The chief executive of Scottish Enterprise, Robert Crawford, told the audit committee that the new central controls on his organisation must not be allowed to stifle its willingness to take risks.

The chief executive of Network Rail, John Armitt, told the transport committee that the integration of the rail network with the rail companies was not on the agenda.

This was despite a review of the whole rail system announced by Transport Secretary Alistair Darling just the day before.

Sarah Ner wants tougher sentences for offenders

The petitions committee heard from its youngest ever petitioners.

Three 14-year-old girls from St Columba's High School in Dunfermline called for tougher sentences for adults found guilty of assaults on children.

Sarah Ner, Raylene Ford and Kerry Feeney were outraged by a recent court case in Falkirk where a man was jailed for just three years for a series of assaults on children.

"The punishment should fit the crime," said Sarah. "Sheriffs need to wake up and see what children our age are going through."

There was victory for the health committee this week with the news on Friday that the UK government is to set up a special fund to help the victims of hepatitis C.

The committee was one of the first to champion their cause.

It persuaded first the Scottish Executive and then the Westminster government that some sort of no-fault compensation payment was needed.

The 600 NHS patients in Scotland who contracted the liver disease from contaminated blood products back in the 1980s will receive a payment of between £20,000 and £45,000 each.

Patients were infected through blood products

And while on health matters, it is worth recording that the Liberal Democrat MSP John Farquhar Munro has introduced a bill to make organ donation automatic.

Doctors would be free to take a liver or a kidney from a dead person for transplant unless he or she had previously "opted out".

Twenty members have already signed the bill.

The BMA has long campaigned for it.

But Jack McConnell told MSPs at question time that the executive has still to be persuaded it is the best way to improve donation rates, currently standing at just 15%.

Finally, in celebration of Burns Night, the SNP's Alex Neil asked Culture Minister Frank McAveety if he would re-name Prestwick Airport the Rabbie Burns Airport.

Mr McAveety replied that the executive was on the case of promoting Robert Burns worldwide but warned that the "best laid schemes o' mice and men, gang aft a-gley."