The Dundee Courier has an article today which claims Scottish MEPs are not giving value for money. According to a damning new TaxPayers' Alliance report now Scottish MEPs have been criticised for their work-effort - although the Scottish Labour Party has said it is the product of a "shadowy right-wing campaign group."
The TaxPayers Alliance has graded all UK MEPs on the number of parliamentary questions asked, their campaigning activity, voting activity on issues important to the pressure group - such as spending controls and anti-corruption legislation - and the transparency of their expenses to give an overall percentage score.
Only 16 MEPs scored more than 50%. The highest score of 79% was achieved by Northern Ireland MEP Jim Allister, who was elected as a Democratic Unionist but now sits as an independent. Two English Tory MEPs came bottom of the survey with 0%.
Scotland's top-ranked MEP, Struan Stevenson, only scored 36% followed by the SNP's Alyn Smith with 35% and Labour MEP Catherine Stihler with 32%.
Labour's David Martin had a score of 25% while Conservative John Purvis achieved 24%. Elspeth Attwooll, Lib Dem, scored 20%. The SNP president Ian Hudghton is the lowest ranked Scottish MEP. He is joint 67th out of the UK's 78 MEPs with a score of just 11%.
A recent survey conducted by votewatchEU.eu, an independent monitor of European Union politics, found the two SNP MEPs had the worst attendance records of Scotland's sitting MEPs. Ian Hudghton attended 81% of plenary sessions (243 out of a possible 299) while Alyn Smith attended 82% of them. However, Ms Smith asked 305 questions at the European Parliament between 2004 and this year, second only to Ms Stihler who asked 320. By comparison Mr Hudghton asked 13 questions.
A spokesman for the Scottish Labour Party said the results of the TayPayers Alliance survey favoured those parties that have similar goals to the press ure group. He said the votewatchEU.eu survey was a more accurate reflection of the work of his party's MEPs.
A spokesman for the SNP said, "Our campaign is going well. We are trying to fight a positive campaign."
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10 comments:
SR,
Let's hope they pull the finger out the whole bunch of them and do what is right for Scotland. I must say if these facts are true I'm disappointed in the SNP's commitment.
Perhaps I'm fortunate enough to ask my mother not to vote for me ra morra. Meanwhile I shall enjoy getting stuck in to Field Gun 2009!
Kind regards madame,
Crazy D
I heard the "hustings" this morning on GMS, and i thought what an uninspiring bunch. Between the 4 representitives of the main parties, none of them could give good substantive reasons for 1) voting and 2) for their party. Having Glen Campbell interview them probably didn't help.
CD I'm not doing the proxy business either owing to what I think is laziness but am told it's overwork :)
Enjoy your wee escapade won't you?
I listened to bits Allan but like you wasn't impressed at all. Then I read the Courier article and wondered about posting it. Decided it was only right that all opinions/articles are aired.
I don't want to instantly leap to Ian's defence (but I shall). This is mainly to do with how you frame the question. An 81% attendance of any member in the Westminster parliament would qualify for nothing short of sainthood (or possibly a lynching depending on the paper you read).
What sort of questions are they being expected to ask? And what would satisfy the TPA as an adequate question? Personally I would be asking my constituents what issues to raise. (Is "fish" a bad subject..?)
Doesn't hurt though to keep 'em on their toes. Can't help thinking that this is the only day of the year that this story would have any 'pique'...
Don't know much about the politics of British Isles but very disturbing to hear about the current scandal going on amidst the resignation of ministers etc in Britain. Wishing you guys the best :)
Morning Ailurophile, yes we're in rather a mess here at present. We all need to clear out debris now and again though.
Morning Mek. I was in two minds whether to post the article but then thought it only fair that I did. Equality and all that.
I shall vote today but to tell you the truth I have little idea why. It's about time MEPs issued some form of newspaper to let the hoi polloi know what Europe means. Unless you're very into the EU then the average person is quite uninformed and lots of what I read on the web is written by those with a great knowledge - thus rendering it quite useless for me as it floats over my head.
Roland thanks for your comment. I don't allow porn site links so I've taken down your comment because of the link. Shame because your own blog is interesting.
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