IN 1997, 80 per cent of people in Clackmannanshire voted in favour of a Scottish Parliament and at a stroke.

The Tories, aided and abetted by Luke Graham MP, have undermined the twenty-year-old devolution settlement, which clearly identifies those powers to be administered at Westminster and those to be governed at Holyrood – a move that will have long lasting political repercussions.

The Sewel Convention established the long-held practice that the UK Government cannot legislate in devolved areas without the consent of the devolved parliament. In twenty years, no Westminster government has challenged this sensible consensus.

The Scottish Parliament voted overwhelmingly, by 93 to 30, to refuse legislative consent for Clause 15 of the EU Withdrawal Bill. The Clause would allow the UK Government to legislate in important devolved areas including the environment, food standards, agriculture and fishing.

The SNP were joined by Labour, Green and Lib Dem MSPs in voting to withhold consent – with only the Scottish Tories backing the power grab.

This convention has now been torn up by the Tory UK Government, as powers over a whole host of areas affected by Brexit from fishing and agriculture to food standards and regulation are to be grabbed back to Westminster, with only a vague vow made to return them at some unspecified point in the future.

This week, the SNP at Westminster forced an urgent debate on this matter, and given the outrage that the power grab clause received just 19 minutes of debate last week and that no Scottish MP was able to speak on it, emergency legislation is being called for to stop the power grab in its tracks. It will be interesting to see if Tory MP Luke Graham is prepared to support this call, or continue to help the UK Government sabotage the devolved settlement and undermine the Scottish Parliament.

Locally, I am pleased that the Stirling and Clackmannanshire City Deal saw its heads of terms finally signed off between the Scottish Government, the UK Government and the two local authorities involved.

I recently received a Tory leaflet calling on the Scottish Government to match the UK Government’s investment in the deal. The author seemed blissfully unaware that the UK Government’s contribution of £45.1million fails to match the £50.1m committed by the Scottish Government and is being spread over fifteen years instead of ten and I hope the same demands will be made of the UK Government.

Nevertheless, the City Deal does offer significant opportunities to the Wee County. Scottish Government investment of £17m will see the Scottish Environment Centre located in Alloa. This project will connect environmental research with business opportunities and training, alongside an Environmental Business Incubator to offer a boost to business start-ups and create sustainable local jobs. Clackmannanshire will also benefit from further share of over £28m from the Scottish Government to support tourism projects and active travel, to develop a digital hub and to improve skills and inclusion. The area will also benefit from £8.1m from the UK Government for, as of yet, unspecified projects.

This is all fantastic news for Clackmannanshire and as the local MSP, I look forward to working with the council and other partners to ensure that we, and the wider region delivers its economic potential.