PARLIAMENT was busy again this week with me sponsoring two events in addition to my other duties.

The first event was the Cross-Party Group on Visual Impairment of which I am the convener. 

After our meeting we also held a short celebration event for the 100th anniversary of the Scottish Council on Visual Impairment (SCOVI). 

SCOVI is the umbrella body working with and for all organisations assisting people who are blind and visually impaired.

The second event I sponsored was held on Wednesday evening for River Clyde Homes’ 10th anniversary. 

This was an opportunity to not only look back at the past decade but, more importantly, to the future. 

RCH is one of Scotland’s largest housing associations and the event enabled MSPs to join with me in commending the achievements of the last decade but also to hear about their ambitious plans for the next five years.

Yesterday, I also spoke during the Liberal Democrat’s debate on justice, where they ironically tried to do our serving police officers an injustice by claiming both Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority are incompetent.

This flies in the face of the tireless job police officers and staff carry out each and every day to keep us safe, and can be seen by the fact that crime in Scotland remains at its lowest level since 1974. 

It was quite apparent that the Lib Dems didn’t want to mention their outstanding bill to PoliceScotland to pay for the policing of their conference in Glasgow a couple of years ago.

While I’m in no way ignorant to the ongoing investigations surrounding senior figures within our police service, until they are complete, further comment on or speculation about individual cases and officers involved would not be appropriate.

The Lib Dems also didn’t want to hear the progress that has been made – such as 1,000 more police officers in Scotland since 2007 when the SNP first came to power. 

The Scottish Government has also been tackling the underlying causes of crime, and has committed to supporting policing in Scotland by protecting the police resource budget in real terms in every year of this Parliament — meaning an increase of £100m in the budget by 2021.

They could get more if the VAT paid to the Tory UK Government is actually now repaid.

It would be remiss of me however to not address the Brexit chaos that has, once again, overshadowed the news this week as Theresa May’s attempt to ‘buy’ the DUP’s support with their £1bn deal to prop up her government has come back to haunt her.

The Northern Ireland DUP MPs have refused to back a solution to the Irish border question.

Quite rightly, the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon has stated that if Northern Ireland can get a separate deal, then so can Scotland. 

As a nation, Scotland voted Remain, and if that vote is ignored simply because the SNP wouldn’t bunk up with the Tories, then the Prime Minister will have a lot to answer for — even more than she does currently.