THE Scottish Parliament went into its summer recess last week.

During the two months the parliament is in recess, you will find MSPs in their constituency Monday to Friday as opposed to being in Holyrood Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

This is welcome as I much prefer being in Inverclyde meeting with people and local businesses.

However, the work we undertake in parliament is still extremely important.

The two committees I sit on, the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee (DPLR) and the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Relations Committee (CTEER) have both been very busy.

Currently, the DPLR Committee is scrutinising The Contract (Third Party Rights) (Scotland) Bill. It proposes codifying and updating the existing common law on third-party rights – i.e. the rules in case law which allow the parties to a contract to grant rights to third parties.

Meanwhile, the CTEER Committee has been dominated by one subject – Brexit.

Norman Hamilton, High Commissioner of Malta to the UK, gave evidence to the committee last week. Malta recently ended its six-month presidency of the council of the EU.

The UK should now be taking over and starting its presidency, but due to Brexit our turn has gone to Estonia.

AS you will have seen in Monday’s Tele, I also attended the fifth anniversary of Inverclyde Foodbank on Friday.

What a fantastic job the staff at the local foodbank do, however, they should not have to be carrying out the work they undertake. The UK is among the richest countries in the world, which should mean that nobody in this country should have to go without food.

ON Thursday, I attended the National Autistic Society’s event in parliament, pictured. I was happy to pledge to help my autistic constituents by raising autism issues in parliament. I am pleased to support The National Autistic Society Scotland’s campaign and I hope that people across Inverclyde will take time to learn about autism, a condition which affects around one in 100 people.

IT is now less than two weeks until I begin my Pipeathon 2017.

Firstly, thank you to the Tele for giving my charity event such great coverage in the paper. I am the Scottish Parliamentary piper and I want to take full advantage of this role.

So over the course of five days, I intend to pipe at all 42 senior football grounds in Scotland.

For more details, or to donate, got to www.facebook.com/pipeathon2017 or www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/pipeathon2017