‘It is in our hands to decide’

IF YOU know me, you know that I don’t pick arguments just for the sake of it – but if there is a choice between having another referendum in two years’ time and replacing the Gilbert Bain hospital, that is an argument worth having.

This is the choice we are facing in Shetland on the 7th of May. The Scottish Liberal Democrat manifesto is clear that we need a full rebuild of the Gilbert Bain and more besides.

I am disappointed that the SNP manifesto confirms they will spend more time and money fighting another independence referendum in 2028 – but they will not commit money to rebuild our hospital.

If you have seen the Gilbert Bain recently, you know as well as I do that a full rebuild is the only option here. If we put this off, as the SNP intend, it will only cost more in the long run and harm local services. That is why the Liberal Democrat manifesto has higher ambition on the issues that matter to people in Shetland. Our priorities are:

• Replacing the Gilbert Bain and introducing a new Fair Deal for Rural Healthcare to rejuvenate local healthcare facilities

• Re-writing community benefit rules so that local people get proper benefit from renewables projects, with money off their bills – delivering the Shetland Tariff that we have been campaigning for

• Getting tunnels built for the Shetland, with meaningful support from the Scottish Government – not just warm words

• Helping you with the cost of living by insulating cold homes with an emergency £100 million insulation programme, driving down household bills and increasing support for unpaid carers by £400 a year

•Keeping the north boats on track, restoring the option of shared cabins and building on the scrapping of peak ferry fares secured by Liberal Democrats in the Scottish Budget

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• Investing £400 million into social care over the next three years to let people leave hospital on time and free up bed space. As a former social care worker this is an absolute priority for me.

Shetland has so much going for it but the SNP Scottish Government has let us down for 19 years, putting issues like the Gilbert Bain at the back of the queue. The SNP ferries fiasco is a complete embarrassment – we don’t want to end up with a service like the SNP-led west coast.

We won’t fix these issues with an SNP majority that is fixated on having another independence referendum within two years, as John Swinney confirmed is their plan.

It is in our hands to decide. If we come together we can stop an SNP majority and force the Scottish Government to listen to us – so that rather than another referendum, we get the Gilbert Bain rebuild that we need.

The candidates standing in May’s election are, in alphabetical order: Alex Armitage (Greens), Douglas Barnett (Conservatives), Vic Currie (Reform), John Erskine (Labour), Hannah Mary Goodlad (SNP), Emma Macdonald (Liberal Democrats), Brian Nugent (Alliance to Liberate Scotland) and Peter Tait (independent).