Press Release

 4^th Jan 2006 immediate

There must be very few MSPs who have not been contacted by members of their constituency asking them to support making the Charter for Grandchildren legal, yet the response was very negative. In fact zero from the Labour party.

Imagine the shock when our group had 3 Labour MSPs as honorary patrons and the justice minister herself supported us strongly before becoming a minister plus another minister who pledged us his full support. In fact we had quite a few Labour MSPs supporting us. They have all reneged. What makes it so galling is they were to vote on such an important issue on their own initiatives.

At the 2^nd debate the Justice Minister gave Rosemary Byrne MSP the assurances she was looking for on putting the Charter for Grandchildren on the bill which was cancelled by her deputy.

It appears all this is empty words from the Labour party who obviously put politics before the welfare of children and the wishes of their constituents. They dropped their support at the last moment. At least the other MSPs who did not support us were honest enough to say so rather than being told not to.

By our reckoning, if it was a conscience vote, without the labour party whip intervening we would have been successful.

It is obvious that grandchildren/grandparents will never have legal contact while a Labour government is in power.

Ends

Grandparents Apart Self Help Group Scotland

Jimmy Deuchars.  0141 882 5658

jimmy@grandparents.co.uk