While every MSP enters the Scottish Parliament hoping to make a positive impact on the lives of people we represent, I doubt many expected to face as emotional and bitter debate as we have experienced this week over the Gender Recognition Reform Bill.
To be condemned as a “phobe” of any kind for having the temerity to stand up for a woman’s right to safe spaces free from sexual predators shows what a dark country Scotland has become. There are times when rights clash, and it is wrong not to seek safeguards against unintended consequences, no matter how well-meaning intentions may be.
There are no reliable figures for the number of Scottish trans people, but a 2018 study revealed around 1800 adults and 600 children accessed Scottish Gender Identity Clinics’ services, which is approximately the equivalent to the population of Ratho where 2,300 people live, 500 of them school age.
And as so much heat and light has been spent on trans rights this year, plenty of other rights are routinely overlooked which to those affected have significant impacts on their lives.
In Ratho, it’s the right to a decent public transport system, something everyone living in built-up Edinburgh takes for granted, but in Ratho it’s potluck if a bus turns up to take villagers to and from work or school.
In the recent cold snap, people were waiting hours for services which never showed up, some forced to walk to the A71 to pick up a West Lothian service, and the viability of the community centre is under threat because the janitor who lives on the other side of Edinburgh cannot get home unless someone gives him a lift from Sighthill and back. That could mean night-time activities like Brownies having to cease.
Snaking through Newbridge, the No 20 service was always poor, but significantly deteriorated after McGill’s Buses took over First Bus’s Scotland East operation in September and the number of complaints has become overwhelming.
Perhaps not surprisingly, there aren’t even timetables in the bus shelters, but then what’s the point if the buses never show up anyway?
Bread and butter issues like this fill most MSPs' in-boxes, but sometimes it feels like big debates of high principle are relatively less challenging because they do not deal with the detail of practical delivery.
Too often, what should be straightforward solutions seem impossible to achieve, and McGill’s have told the community council it could take two years to give Ratho a reliable bus connection. That’s simply unacceptable; the service relies on subsidy from Edinburgh Council, but Ratho people pay their Council Tax, and are as entitled to the same level of amenity as everyone else without waiting that long.
Thanks to the expertise of a retired transport professional, the community council has produced practical solutions, and I have written to both the bus company and Edinburgh Council leader Cammy Day to seek assurances that Ratho’s public transport guessing game will be ended forthwith.
On one level, communities are being failed by inadequate basic services, but on another they are being failed by MSPs voting to allow male sexual predators more rights than female victims of sexual assault.
This should be a season of good cheer, but somehow it doesn’t feel like it.
