ALTHOUGH summer is upon us and the Scottish Parliament is in recess, the work of an MSP does not end. Surgeries continue, business visits and charity visits all carry on.

Last week I had the pleasure of meeting one such charity, Action on Hearing Loss (AOHL) Scotland, a charity who work to help the nearly one million Scots who are either deaf or suffering from hearing loss.

They do brilliant work across the west of Scotland helping people with maintaining their hearing aids, taking the pressure off NHS services.

Unfortunately, they’re facing a loss of funding in the next couple of weeks as South Ayrshire social partnerships, which manages the delivery of hearing services across the three Ayrshire councils, has not confirmed their funding.

Although this is a different local authority to our own, these funding decisions still impact our services so it’s right we do our bit to protect them.

They also provide this service in Inverclyde and many other parts of Scotland.

I have co-written a letter with fellow Scottish Conservative MSPs Brian Whittle and John Scott to the relevant authorities so I’m hoping we can bring a timely resolution to this issue.

Moving over to the salient issue of transport, it’s come to my attention that there are growing concerns over train delays in the west of Scotland.

As a local MSP, and newly promoted Shadow Transport Minister, I will be raising these concerns with the Scottish Government and the Transport Minister Humza Yousaf MSP.

I’ve always said that transport needs to be something that benefits us, not something that gets in the way of our ability to commute, travel and connect.

Since taking up this new political brief I’ve been hard at work studying the details of our transport system, chatting to relevant organisations and setting up meetings with the key stakeholders in Scottish transport across rail, ferry, ports, buses and aviation. It is clear that it will be hard work but a challenge I am really looking forward to.

I’m excited to get started and hit the ground running as soon as the Scottish Parliament begins sitting again in September!

I do urge people across the region to contact me with if they have any specific concerns with trains, road, bus routes or ferries and I will take these up with the Transport Minister. 

In the meantime, I may try to take a short summer break to recharge the batteries and take stock of my new role in the Parliament. 

It’s been a tumultuous year so far but an ongoing pleasure to be able to represent my region in Holyrood and be part of a growing Scottish Conservative team in Scotland.