“The women’s committee is looking at running webinars for women members with plans for the first webinar to be on pregnant women in Gaza.”
Lauren Harper
- By Lauren Harper, Scottish Labour’s Executive Committee (SEC) Youth Representative
This was the first meeting of the Scottish Executive committee since the February conference. As always it began with Anas Sarwar’s leadership report during which he thanked all staff and delegates for what he deemed our biggest conference yet.
He noted the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and his wish to see a free and secure Israel alongside a free and secure Palestine. He also noted Starmer and Lammy stating that any arms sales to Israel should cease if they are being used unlawfully; it was here that Sarwar raised the deaths of international aid workers. Aside from the crisis in the Middle East it was noted that it was very hard to win a values argument against Nicola Sturgeon and while we still have work to do to be ready for 2026 we lead on key voter issues according to the Pulse analysis published last week.
It was noted that local authorities see very high rates of students missing from school and child poverty is too high, as are waiting times in the NHS, especially for issues such as ADHD where the waiting time is now five years. It was also noted that police are not investigating issues such as burglaries and issues such as sex and misogyny are not included in the new hate crime legislation.
The Scottish Parliament report highlighted the work being done by the Scottish Labour MSPs. It was noted by a member of the SEC that Paul Sweeney asked a question about bus franchising when the argument should not be moved away from municipal ownership.
We then moved on to the Westminster report in which the Labour party’s call for a humanitarian ceasefire was noted again. The report observed that the deadline has now passed for Sunak to call a May 2nd general election. It was also detailed in the report that the New Deal for Working People will be an integral part of the Party’s manifesto for the general election despite recently coming under fire.
The women’s committee report raised their activity with multiple meetings being held between now and the previous SEC meeting. The current focus is on the next general election and their plans to support women candidates who have been selected. They are also looking at running webinars for women members with plans for the first webinar to be on pregnant women in Gaza.
The General Secretary’s report was given by John Paul McHugh during which a general election overview was given. It was stated by McHugh that he will be looking at the by-election in Kilwinning very closely in the run up to polling day.
I asked a number of questions during the general secretaries report, during the report it was touched on that a number of seats are yet to have a candidate selected and given this has been observed by the media I asked for clarification on when these will be announced. These seats should be announced imminently as we gear up for the election but due diligence must be performed and some of the remaining candidates are awaiting approval.
I also raised concerns of a number of young members across three seats, who each raised separate concerns about the respective seats, one of which was for a council seat. I was told that the SEC will not discuss individual cases so this will be raised in an email with the General Secretary. However, relating to one of the young members’ concerns a separate SEC member noted that there is a lack of support for unsuccessful candidates and this leaves Scottish Labour open to being a victim of our own success after a general election as it leaves a small pool of people from which we can select candidates for Holyrood.
The next SEC meeting is scheduled to take place on the 8th of June.
Should young members have any questions or concerns that they would like to be raised please get in touch by email at radicalfuture26@gmail.com.
- Lauren Harper is Youth Representative on the Labour Party’s Scottish Executive Committee (SEC). Any questions or issues young members would like raised at future meetings, please contact Lauren by email.
- You can follow Lauren Harper here.
