You’ll have been hard pressed to avoid the frenzy about the latest GERS (Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland) published recently.

GERS was introduced in the1990s by Tory Ian Lang MP, then Scottish secretary, to persuade the Scottish people that we were too wee, too poor and too stupid for devolution. There are issues with GERS but the most troubling is in regard to the supposed debt.

If you happen to live in Scotland, your individual share of the debt is £2,472 and if you live in England it is £159 per person. No serious person would accept this without question.

I was pleased to speak at the Clydebank Asbestos Group AGM about my SNP colleague Stuart McMillan’s proposed Bill on the recovery of medical costs for industrial disease.

If the Bill passes through the Scottish Parliament successfully it would enable Scottish ministers to recover certain costs incurred by the NHS, to provide care and treatment for those suffering industrial disease, from the party responsible for causing the disease.

A system has been in place for many years allowing the recovery of NHS costs where injuries are caused by negligence so it seems only just that a similar scheme should be in place for industrial illness.

We live in turbulent times watching with dismay as the Tories bring us closer to a no-deal Brexit. Any Brexit will harm the Scottish economy but a no-deal Brexit will be catastrophic. In the UK Tory government’s vision of a post-Brexit Britain, Scottish Government powers over agriculture, fisheries, health and safety, immigration and trading standards will be grabbed by Westminster. These powers are needed in Scotland to support jobs and to grow our economy for everyone.

Despite our Scottish Government’s attempts to discuss implications of Brexit on the Scottish nation they have been obstructed at every turn by intransigent Tory UK ministers.

In Westminster only 15 minutes were allocated to debating the effect of Brexit on Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland prompting a protest to the Speaker of the House of Commons - our MPs were forced to walk out over this total disregard for Scotland.