Drew Hendry
Main Page: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
Covid-19 has meant severe challenges for so many, but it has also given us the opportunity to witness extraordinary acts of kindness, generosity and heart, and I believe that that has been exemplified across Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey. Lockdown gave rise to many heroes across our public services and our NHS, but there are many who will never be, or seek to be, acknowledged. They are right across our communities —people who give but do not feel they have given. They are those who always feel that they should do more, all the while never noticing the vastness of their gifts to others, such is their selfless drive and love for their place, their ain folk.
Those in need in my communities have been helped by Glenurquhart Helping Hands, Fort Augusts covid community group, Voluntary Action in Badenoch and Strathspey, and Nairn residents help. Covid community response groups have helped people in Nethy, Boat, Grantown, Aviemore and across Badenoch and Strathspey and Loch Ness.
Across the city of Inverness, our people gave time and heart to groups that help people. Shelley Gill of the Acts of Kindness group in Inverness provided emergency care packs for those in need, and has vowed to continue that work. MFR Cash for Kids provided more than 8,000 local children with a hot meal, thanks to generous public donations. Its efforts are boosted by volunteers from Inverness Foodstuff, and Our Place also works to provide hot meals. The RoKzKool initiative provided parcels and support. They are the light in dark times that has helped many to steer a safer path through lockdown.
Businesses have also played their part, with efforts made locally to deliver for those unable to get out. They include the Storehouse, Swansons Food and Williamsons Foodservice, along with Inverness Taxis, Graham’s Family Dairy in Nairn, Ashers Bakery, Inverness Auction Centre and many more.
I must also highlight the work of the Highland welfare team, led by Sheila McKandie, providing help and support to those struggling to make ends meet. Along with their colleagues in other departments, they made sure that, through the Scottish Government’s funding for free school meals our weans were fed and offered over 4,000 children’s food vouchers. From the staff collecting refuse, week in, week out, to the social workers working tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure that the most vulnerable children in our communities were safe, staff across Highland Council stepped up and I know that in the highlands we thank them all.
We would have seen people in distress, too, had it not been for Citizens Advice, the Highland Homeless Trust, Women’s Aid and Mikeysline. I also want to mention Macmillan CAB, which along with Marie Curie and MND Scotland supports those diagnosed as terminally ill. They are angels for the affected and their families, but they still have to manage their help alongside the UK Government’s DWP six-month rule.
People are still being asked to prove that they will die within six months in order to access full UK-controlled social security, such as universal credit. I thank the hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) for introducing her ten-minute rule Bill to support scrapping that six-month rule. Over a year later, with thousands of people having died waiting, the UK Government still delay. My message is, get a move on. End this needless suffering: scrap the six-month rule.
In Highland, we have tried to get back to business. High Life Highland was particularly vulnerable to the effects of covid as it runs the leisure facilities, and yet it stood by its staff and our people, even delivering online tuition. I say to everyone at home who does not have High Life membership but has the means, now is the time to buy one.
We are, of course, open for business now. At Castle Stuart, Nairn, Inverness, Kingussie and across the constituency, our beautiful golf courses are open and, of course, well above par. People can now visit. They can visit for whisky tours, including Dalwhinnie and Tomatin, and they can sample Spey whisky too. Whether it is Jacobite Cruises or Cruise Loch Ness, dolphin tours, Culloden battlefield, Fort George, the Highland Folk Museum, Cawdor Castle, Nairn beach and dunes, the Caledonian canal, the Cairngorm Mountain, the Strathspey steam railway or one of our great places to eat and drink, they will be given a safe highland welcome when visiting.
Yes, people in Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey have shown their love for their friends, neighbours and all who live and visit, but they do that while still being ignored by the Westminster Government on paying for universal credit and paying over the odds to have goods delivered. They produce the energy and yet they pay more for it, and they see the UK Government’s hostile environment and a Brexit imposed on them that they did not want or vote for. It is no wonder that local support in Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey is at an all-time high for us to take control of our own affairs and to become an independent nation.