Bill Wilson MSP

A letter to the Scottish Government from Dr Bill Wilson MSP has elicited reassuring information about the support and treatment offered to sexual abuse survivors in Scotland.

Dr Wilson said, “I have been following the blog of Angela Bayley, the pseudonym of a sexual abuse survivor.  She is suing Nottinghamshire County Council (NCC) for the abuse she suffered from paedophiles when in NCC’s care as a child.  She was recently sectioned for three weeks following NCC’s accusation that she was ‘mentally unstable’.  The apparently insensitive and inappropriate treatment she suffered while detained, as reported in her blog, prompted me to write to the Scottish Government to seek reassurance that abuse survivors could not suffer similarly in this country.

“Ms Bayley wrote that far from being consulted about her care and ongoing detention, she was consistently silenced and ignored, to the extent that a meeting was arranged to discuss her case to suit everyone but her – she had to cancel a scheduled operation as the judge did not let her speak. She has a lot more to say about the inadequacy of her treatment, and I refer people to her blog.

Dr Bill Wilson MSP has highlighted Public and Commercial Services Union claims that the UK is significantly damaging the public services of developing countries by fostering corporate tax dodging.

Dr Wilson said, “I lodged a motion in the Scottish Parliament to draw attention to a report in the PCSU’s magazine, View, which pointed out that because many of the world’s tax havens are based in the British Isles, and the City of London supports an army of lawyers and accountants dedicated to helping people dodge tax, the UK can be considered to some extent responsible for poor public services in developing countries.

“If we attack developing countries’ tax bases, which is effectively what results from our lax tax laws and poor enforcement, we are attacking some of the poorest people on the planet.  The colossal sum involved – £250 billion lost from developing countries through tax dodging, of which the UK is responsible for a significant proportion – makes a mockery of our much-vaunted aid budget, which will increase to £7.8 billion by 2010/11.

“If we want to help the poorest on the planet we should concentrate on promoting truly fair trade and on eliminating tax avoidance and evasion.  Furthermore, as I have often pointed out, the latter would help the poorest in our country too.”