 The next item of business today is a member's business debate on motion number 14721 in the name of Christine Grahame on the continuing success of the Coalfields Regeneration Trust. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put, and I would be grateful if members who wish to speak in the debate could please press the request to speak buttons now. I call on Christine Grahame to open the debate seven minutes, please, Ms Grahame. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I take this opportunity to thank all who supported this motion, those who have stayed behind as members take part and those in the audience from the Coalfields Regeneration Trust. Sorry, Ms Grahame's point of order, Mr Findlay. My understanding is that there are people outside waiting to come in for this debate, Presiding Officer, and I wonder if it would be an order for us just to delay slightly for some of those people to come in. Ms Grahame, do you want to make a comment on that? Yes, I think I'm very grateful to the member for that. I'm in the same position. I have people coming in, and when people are filtering out, it means those who wish to hear a member's debate at this time don't get the opportunity to come in, so I'm very grateful for that point of order. Thanks very much. Yes, it can be difficult with members in the gallery leaving and other people trying to come in at what is one of our busiest times, but I will suspend the Parliament for a few minutes. Right. Thank you. I'm going to now reconvene Parliament and can I just say to members before I do that, if there are a number of members coming in for a debate, then if the parliamentary authorities are alerted, they can come to some arrangements for specific people to get in in different ways. I now call on Christine Grahame to open this debate. Seven minutes, please, Ms Grahame. Thank you very much. I'll rewind. I take this opportunity to thank all who supported this motion, those who stayed behind, as members to take part, and those in the audience from the Coalfields Regeneration Trust, in particular Carol Douglas, who has been of great help to me. I could not have predicted that decades on from the early death of my Welsh maternal grandfather, a man I never knew who died in his forties from injuries sustained down the pits in Derbyshire, I'd be privileged to represent three former mining communities. His early death left a large family as orphans, including my own late mother, and led to her being sent on orphanage to a life at first separated from her brother that she loved dearly and then into the care of elder sisters. She was one of the many families that suffered from the hardships and hazards of the pits, and that sadly has continued through the decades, but from it grew an individual resilience and a community spirit, undaunted by adversity. Pennycook came into my constituency in 2007 and followed in 2011 by Gorebridge and Newton Grange. Newton Grange, home of Scotland's Mining Museum, formerly Lady Victoria Colliery, was dating from the 19th century closing production in 1981. Crossing high above the A7 in Newton Grange is the conveyor that carried the mine coal and the symbolic wheel that lowered the miners' cages dominates Main Street. There are orderly rows of miners' cottages from 1st Street to 10th Street, whose very streets and houses have coal lanes for ease of the delivery of the miners' allocation of coal into their yards. The fingerprints of that mining community, even to the Dean Tavern—a Gortenburg Tavern—touch every corner of this community and the Knitten Folk. Gorebridge, too, when initially the industry was gunpowder production, later mining took over with the sinking of the Emily and Gore pits in 1847, and just as in Newton Grange, the run of the streets in the old part of Gorebridge, an indebible mark of that industrial past. Then there is the tragic history of the Morris we pit disaster in Penicook on 5 September 1889, when a fire in the mine led to the loss of 63 lives of the 77 men underground. Today, the Shotston Miner's Welfare Club in Penicook is another marker of that past mining life. Why am I telling you this potted history? Because, while the community landscape in its streets and houses is a visible reminder of that mining past, the spirit of the mining communities is in their DNA. They all have their brass, their silver bands, their galadais, welfare clubs and a proud and protective sense of community. That nowadays will also be evident in their development trusts and their other voluntary organisations. That, if you were wondering, is where the Coalfield Regeneration Trust comes in. Funded by the Scottish Government, its purpose in life is improving the quality of life for people in Britain's former Coalfield communities. It takes the role of a sort of beneficial Goliath helping the Davids of this world, encouraging small voluntary charitable and other organisations in those communities to expand their scope, build new partnerships and tackle more ambitious projects. Grassroots is where it starts working and where it belongs, at the heart and soul of Coalfield communities, delivering on the community empowerment bill, land reform, the regeneration strategy and social justice, ensuring local people in those communities are able to fulfil their potential. Funding programmes are from the bottom up with involvement from the community that it aims to serve. It helps communities to get things done and the things that they want to be done. A particular aspect of the Coalfield community futures programme is the participatory budget fund. That is a mouthful, but important as it is a small fund offering small grants to groups and projects in each area. Community representatives are on the steering group and it is they who decide on who receives awards and how much. It kick-starts the implementation of each plan with priority given to those contributing to actions identified in each plan. That is real grassroots in action. Then there is the Coalfield community futures programme, which is an approach to local community planning and sustainable community development, aiming to encourage active citizenship and build local democracy. It enables communities to devise a community action plan, which makes a case where things that community thinks are important and wants to make happen. Alongside the action planning process, the trust offers each community a participatory budget fund of £20,000, which gives the community a chance to vote on their priorities for funding and makes decisions relevant to their communities. What has been achieved through the Coalfield generation trust? In Gordbridge, here are some examples from the small Gordbridge primary school PTA, which has a £688 anti-dogfouling campaign. Larger ones, such as the Gordbridge community development trust for its history archive, have a £4,469. Previous awards have been in Newton Grains, ranging from £5,000 to the pipe band and some £10,000 to the silver band. In that case, it was to refurbish the hall. Perhaps the largest was to Midlothian Women's Aid, £56,500 for the refuge to be refurbished. Those are examples and give a taste of the range of projects and the funding involved. While it is about money, what is not, it is not just about that. It is about building community confidence, recognising that cohesion, that pride and identity, that mining community strength and resilience are still indefatigable over the generations, that pride in community and its future and turning it into action and practical successes. I commend the Scottish Government for continuing to fund that trust, for the valuable community work that it does. The trust delivers £1.81 of value for every pound that is received, almost doubling what it does. Most of all, I commend the Coalfields regeneration trust for the practical and effective work that it delivers, which is visible throughout those mining communities. I open up to the general debate. We are very tight for time, so I ask members to keep to four minutes please, and I call David Torrance to be followed by Cara Helton. I would also like to thank Christine Grahame for bringing this motion before Parliament. I believe that, since its inception in 1999, the Coalfields regeneration trust has become an important and, in fact, essential programme of Scottish communities. Christine Grahame rightly points out in her motion that a Coalfields regeneration trust is so effective because it invests in resources, expertise and knowledge into the heart and soul of Coalfields communities. The Coalfields regeneration trust is a truly holistic organisation, supporting a wider array of services within communities, formal based around the mining industry means. Often it is done so by empowering existing local organisations. For instance, targeted communities have seen 4,377 new jobs, 2,899 better community facilities, 1,117 new social enterprises and more than 200,000 opportunities for children to participate in healthy lifestyle activities. That is just to name a few examples. To me, the success shows that the trust creates an invaluable framework of support for forming mining communities across Scotland. I particularly welcome this programme because it has had a positive impact within my constituency of Kirkcaldy. As many colleagues will be aware, mining has been a central part of the history of Kirkcaldy and the surrounding area, not least the minor strike in the 1980s, which fundamentally affected the local economy and community life. That is why the Coalfields regeneration trust is very valuable. In its many years of existence, the Coalfields regeneration trust has funded projects as varied as the day centre services, which provides activities for elderly in our community. The fishbowl nursery works to give the youngest community members a good social and education foundation, and the front-line five homeless services, which provides not only temporary accommodation for homeless members of the community, but also consults with students and other community members on how to find and finance homes. Both of our many organisations in my constituency that I have benefited from the Coalfields regeneration trust, I would like to focus today on one in particular, the Linton Lane Centre in Kirkcaldy. The Linton Lane Centre does it all. It runs children's dance programmes, a daycare, child health drop-in hours, family support groups, small and sensations meetings, among other programmes, and provides local and recreational teams and societies a place to meet. Through its varied initiatives, engaging with many community members, Linton Lane Centre is truly a wide-reaching organisation. Linton Lane receives funds from Five Council but, like so many other organisations, it needs supplementary funding to keep it running. While the centre receives donations from other places, as well as its incredible success in the past year, it has very much depended on the refurbishment of its facilities, which are central to its programming, those refurbishments were made possible by a grant that it received from the Coalfields regeneration trust. Now four years later, the centre is still thriving thanks to the Coalfields regeneration trust. The Linton Lane Centre is an excellent example of Coalfields regeneration trust efforts. However, there are still more that needs to be done. The Centre for Regional, Economic and Social Research at Sheffield-Hallum University reports that Britain's Coalfields communities still face many obstacles. They include fewer jobs, lower business formation rates, higher unemployment rates, poor health and more people on welfare and struggling in the community sector. While projects that the trust has already funded have positively impacted on thousands of people, there are many people living and forming in my own communities that need more help. The Coalfields community challenge is one example of how a trust is attempting to expand its reach and help more people. The challenge allows sports groups in the Coalfields communities to propose projects that will increase physical activity levels in their communities. One of its specific criteria is that a project must engage with those currently inactive. While this is a closely targeted project, it focuses on one important issue within the communities and Scotland as a whole as a potential to engage and help even more people across Scotland. One organisation in my consistency, a meffelhold community children's initiative, has successfully received funding for its project. MCCI runs various activities for children and families, including gardening classes and a children's newspaper. A trust awarded MCCI £2,900, which will enable it to build a hub for indoor activities. It is clear that a coalfields regeneration trust not only aims but also actively contributes to assisting Scottish communities that need it the most. I truly support Christine Grahame's sentiments that this organisation must be applauded and receive continued support for its efforts. I begin by thanking Christine Grahame for securing today's debate and by welcoming the delegation from the Coalfields regeneration trust, many of them from my constituency. It may be 30 years since our coal industry was deliberately destroyed by Thatcher and our Tory Government, but the legacy of poverty, of deprivation, of unemployment and ill health continues to live on in our communities. Communities that will never forget the devastation caused by Thatcher in our attack on the national union of mine workers. Sadly, the deprivation gap between coalfield and non-coalfield areas is getting worse. In five, one-third of our coalfield communities fall within the 20 per cent most deprived areas, and the impact of that is felt every single day by the children living in poverty, the families forced into food banks, the lack of jobs and opportunities and the ill health, which literally cuts life short. I would echo the comments made already about the fantastic work of the Coalfields regeneration trust in supporting our communities, assisting people into work, equipping them with the skills, qualifications and opportunities, supporting fantastic projects such as Westfife Enterprises in my constituency, which has received £400,000 in funding from the CRT since 2000 to renovate the fourth fuel training centre and run employability programmes. Across five, during the past 15 years, the CRT has approved over 1,000 grants totalling over £5 million. Investment has made a real difference in rebuilding and empowering people in the communities that I represent. In Oakley, funding a youth drama group, a homework club, a summer play scheme, a parent and toddler group and a heritage group. In Concardin, supporting the community association to set up a women's group, a forest kindergarten, a breakfast club, supporting Tulley Allen guides, a cafe connect, a Tulley Allen bowling club, a salant and steel end supporting an information and access initiative, and a high valley field funding a new kitchen at the club, and a curious support on the Scottish Miners Convalescent Trust to buy a minibus in building your accommodation wing. However, it is not just about funding, as Christine Grahame has already alluded to. It is also about building capacity through the excellent Coalfields community future programme. That involves local people setting out their own vision, agreeing on the issues that matter in their communities and setting their own priorities for action. In West Fife, the futures programme has been delivered successfully in Concardin, in Oakley and Cymru, and has now kicked off in high and low valley fields. I would like to pay a particular mention to Concardin, where 550 people attended the community future event. One of the top priorities that they identified was the reopening of Concardin railway station to provide residents, commuters and visitors with quick and sustainable connections to Stirling and Edinburgh. Given the transport chaos that is being experienced by Concardin residents right now with road closures having a huge detrimental impact on local residents and on local businesses such as Baking Room, I would suggest that it is time for Network Rail and for the Scottish Government and Fife Council to look into this issue as a matter of urgency and see what support they can give to get it moving. Despite all the excellent work of the CRT, there are challenges ahead and there is a lot more to be done to achieve the vision of communities that are sustainable, prosperous, viable and cohesive without support. It is vital then that the CRT receives continued and indeed much increased financial support from the Scottish Government to allow them to continue to play a key role in revitalising our communities. I would like to see more action too from the Scottish Government to support West Fife enterprises who are currently struggling due to delays in their funding being released from Europe, and I hope that this is something that the minister will agree to assess with. I will conclude by wishing the Coalfields Regeneration Trust continued success in supporting, regenerating and empowering our communities. I know that the work that they do makes a real difference day in, day out in the communities that I represent, but I would also ask to the risk of being controversial that the Scottish Government extends their support to our Coalfield communities to address another lasting legacy, and that is to act to deliver justice for mine workers by agreeing to hold a full, independent public inquiry into the policing of the miners' strike, as been pursued by my colleague Neil Findlay to review the wrongful convictions of nearly 500 Scottish miners, including many of my constituents, and to finally tackle this miscarriage of justice. We have the powers of this Scottish Parliament to right these wrongs, and we should be using them to ensure justice for miners, for their families and for our Coalfield communities. I have to advise the chamber that, due to the number of members who still wish to speak in this debate, I am minded to accept a motion from Christine Grahame under rule 8.14.3 that the debate be extended by up to 30 minutes. Many thanks. I put that motion to the chamber. Is that agreed? I call Liz Smith to be followed by Alec Riley. I congratulate Christine Grahame on what was a very eloquent introductory speech and, I think, very informative. If I can pick up one thing that Christine Grahame mentioned, I think that it is the fostering of projects and local partnerships, which that fusion of expertise and guidance with the local research is just so important. I think that it is a very potent combination that can deliver such well-targeted results for so many of the communities. We have obviously heard some examples of that. I think that localism has many examples for other policies in other areas. In my own area of Mid-Scotland and Fife, it is home to a number of coalfield communities, including those in Fife, in Stirling and in Allewa, where the actual coalfield regeneration trust has its Scottish head office. That is something that I think is very important in Clackmannanshire, because the regeneration of former coalfield communities is absolutely key to building stronger, safer and more prosperous communities, often in areas where they have had tremendous difficulties in the past. There can be any number of challenges facing coalfield communities. Christine Grahame spoke of coalfield regeneration trust is therefore completely right, in my opinion, to recognise that the best people to come up with the innovative and well-targeted solutions are the locals themselves, because one-size-fits-all is simply not appropriate. That does not, however, mean that there is not a national balance to be taken. The coalfield regeneration trust is a fine example of how to get that balance right when it comes to the huge amount of local potential that has already existed in Scotland, but is now harnessed on a national level. I very much welcome the coalfield community investment programme, which supports obviously lots of activities that are delivered by community and voluntary organisations working in Scotland's coalfield communities. That investment can be capital or it can obviously be revenue at wards, which I think range from somewhere around 500 up to a maximum of 10,000, and those are obviously extremely important. I know that a number of local organisations in mid-Scotland and Fife have benefited recently, including many community groups that will help to develop around the Celtic area as well as in Cacoddy. I know that we are short of time, Deputy Presiding Officer. I just add my congratulations to the coalfield regeneration trust. I think that they do fantastic work and I am delighted to take part in this debate. Many thanks. I call Alec Riley to be followed by Adam Ingram. Can I say that I had the chairman of the coalfield regeneration trust, Councillor Bob Young, for five on the phone to me this morning, asking me to thank Christine Grahame for bringing this debate forward and securing this debate today. I certainly have been a big supporter of the coalfield regeneration trust over many years and I attended an event in Celtic recently where there were a number of groups along getting awards for local funds and it was a really positive evening. Crucially, whether it was Celtic, Benarty and my constituency, Cardin Den, the coalfield regeneration trust, Standing Cow and Meath now, are working to develop local community plans. When we saw the bill going through Parliament in terms of the community empowerment bill, one of the questions was in the communities where there were higher levels of deprivation was the capacity there to be able to get communities to drive that agenda forward. The role of the coalfield regeneration trust has been changing over those years and a key role that is playing in my constituency right now is capacity building and that is something that the Government has accepted we need to do. For that point of view, I would say that there is a changing role and a bigger role for the coalfield regeneration trust moving forward. The fact is that, if we take a nostalgic view of the coalfield communities, I am a minor son, I come from a minor community and I am very proud of that, but the fact is that in those communities we still have third and now fourth generation deprivation inequality poverty, so the scars of the mine and industry in terms of poverty and deprivation are still very much in existence in coalfield communities across Fife and across other parts of Scotland. We therefore need to have a programme that focuses and continually arguing in this place that we need to have an anti-poverty strategy that runs through all levels of government. However, if you started to ask where is the social deprivation in the poverty and you go to a former industrial area and the coalfield communities across Scotland, that is where you will find much higher levels of poverty and deprivation. If we are serious about tackling that, then part of that strategy must be to have organisations on the ground that will build capacity so that communities, the type of work that was being talked about earlier by the member for Caudiw, who seems not to be here now, and others. The type, the Linton exchange project, other projects, those types of innovation will help people and we need to use that to move forward. I did notice this morning as well that the RSPB had actually put out a briefing for today and it was interesting. One of the things that they highlighted in that briefing was the aftermath of the opencast coal mining. In Fife and in East Ayrshire in particular, the scars of the disaster that is unfolded in terms of the opencast coal mining is still there. Although we need to have a bigger debate someplace else on that, I certainly think that it is worthwhile to mention it today because these communities are going to be left with these environmental scars unless we actually do something about it. I congratulate Christine Grahame. Is there still a need for the coal fields community regeneration trust? It is a legitimate question to pose. Absolutely is the answer. It is a changing role. We need an anti-poverty strategy. We need to tackle deprivation and poverty in the coal field communities. The coal fields regeneration trust, in my view, has a key role to play in building capacity and doing that. Before we move on, I advise the chamber that the member for Kirkcaldy sought my permission to leave the chamber because of urgent personal reasons. I would like to put that on the record. I now call Adam Ingram to be followed by Neil Findlay. I congratulate Christine Grahame for securing this afternoon's debate. As she rightly points out, the coal fields regeneration trust has been making an invaluable contribution. Mr Ingram, could you turn your microphone around slightly? We're having some difficulty hearing. I'm just making—oh, that's better. As I was saying, the CRT has been making an invaluable contribution to the economic development and wellbeing in former coal field communities for many years now. In my constituency of Caryc Cymru and Dyn Valley, some 138 funding awards have been made to 101 local organisations totaling £2,400,000 since the year 2000. It's fair to say that the trust has been the leading regeneration organisation dedicated to improving the quality of life in former mining areas. Areas, as others have said, have been blighted for decades by deprivation, ill health and unemployment. It should be recognised that many of the communities in my constituency came into existence, grew and declined in direct relation to the fortunes of the coal industry. Even today, as Alex Rowley mentioned, the apparent demise of the open cast coal industry is visiting more misery on communities that have never been able to attract new industry to replace former levels of economic activity. In that context, it's hard to overstate the work of the trust, which aims to empower coal field communities to help themselves. Delivering services that help people gain skills, achieve qualifications, find work, set up and grow new businesses and become more active in their communities. In recent years, as Alex Rowley mentioned, the focus has been on building community capacity and asset building to use the jargon. I would like to highlight two examples of that work in my constituency. First, the Dalmellington Action Plan 2012-17, funded by the Trust's community futures programme, defined the priorities and projects that the community would pursue over the five-year period after an extensive process of community engagement. Many significant improvements have resulted from town centre building frontages to woodland paths, from increased police presence to annual litter campaigns, from upgraded youth and leisure facilities to business start-up support and from new signage to tourism development support. Some £240,000 of external funding has been leveraged into the original £150,000 from the Trust to implement a programme that is carrying the community forward with a renewed confidence. The second example is Netherford Community Action Training, a social enterprise providing training and employment opportunities in gardening and outdoor maintenance for young people across Cymru. Netherford Community Action Training was established in 2012 following on from its success of being the Coalfield community challenge winner in 2011, receiving a financial award of £50,000 from Coalfield's regeneration trust to kickstart the social enterprise. Last year, the minister Margaret Burgess and I had the pleasure of visiting Netherford Community Garden to meet Jamie Campbell, the young entrepreneur responsible, and to see Netherford Community Action Training in action. I am grateful for the activities of the Coalfield's regeneration trust in Carrick, Cymru and Doon Valley and commend their work department. Many thanks. I now call Neil Findlay to be followed by Colin Beattie. I apologise, I have to leave after I speak to meet a constituent. I want to pay tribute to the CRT and to the employees and trustees, particularly my good friend Nicky Wilson and former trustee Joe Thomas, ex-colleague of mine. We have to look at why the CRT was established. It was established by the Labour Government to look at and address the deep-seated issues in the former mining communities. That was after intense lobbying by mining MPs like Dennis Skinner, Mick Clapham, Eric Clarke and others, because they saw firsthand the last and devastating impact of the pick closures on their communities and the impacts on the people living there. I have seen it myself for my entire working life. Throughout that time, in my own community, I have observed the fallout of the closure of the pokemit colliery and British Leyland down the road a bit. I have been involved in many different projects that have attempted to rebuild those communities and put in infrastructure and services to support the people there. The CRT has been involved in many of those projects. Projects such as Logan Lee, the pit stop, which is attached on to the miners welfare, are a fantastic resource for the village. The West Calder community development trust is a recent development, and it is doing terrific work there, as are the Stonyburn Future Vision Group. Blackburn Credit Union has benefited greatly and now operates across the whole area. The community development trust hub project and the miners welfare have benefited greatly. All fantastic groups are doing much-needed work and many, many more as well. However, I know that similar work goes on, and many people have mentioned them. Christine Grahame mentioned Gord Bridge, Newton Grange and areas such as Danderhall, Dahlkeith and the rest. We do not have a 26 per cent unemployment rate that we had in 1985, when the pit closed. Thank God for that. However, the reality is that these communities are still suffering and suffering badly with higher rates of unemployment, low business startups, low pay, job insecurity, high claimant rates and financial deprivation. Yes, they may have financial deprivation, but what they have is humanity, decency, dignity and whatever happens this week, when the final deep mine in Scotland closes, with great thanks to Ms Smith's party and its historic role in that, that the people will not die, even though the industry has gone, and that is what we have to do to support the people in these communities. So we need the work of the CRT and others in that partnership who work alongside it to continue. We need to keep funding these projects. However, the reality is that I cannot come here and take part in this debate and not raise this. The reality is that the Coffield Regeneration Trust has had its funding hammered over the last decade. It received £1.8 million from the Scottish Government in 2007 and, in 2013, it received £422,000, a 75 per cent cash cut in its budget. That is forgetting about inflation, 75 per cent cash cut, so it would be remiss of us not to mention that in this debate. I think that it is fantastic the work that the trust does, but think how much more work it could do in your constituency in Coffield Regeneration Trust, in the constituencies that all the people represented here, if they funded back to what it had before, because I know that in my constituency we need much more of the type of community development work that the CRT and others are involved in. I just wish that the Government would put its heart into it as well. I thank Christine Grahame for instigating this debate and allowing the important work of the Coffield Regeneration Trust to be highlighted in this chamber. It must be clear to the chamber that, from what you have heard so far this afternoon, the trust provides invaluable aid to parts of our constituencies that are most in need of help and rejuvenation. My own relationship with the trust dates back to 2007, when I was first elected as a councillor in Midlothian. At the time, I was keenly aware of the decline of the coal industry, and it had taken its toll right across the Lothians. The Trust's own 2013 report, Analysis of Coffield Area Deprivation in Scotland, confirms us. In the six years between my becoming a councillor and this report's publication, the Lothian Coffield has reported the highest increase in the most deprived areas in a group, including Ayrshire, Central and Fife and Lanarkshire. 21 per cent of Lothians data zones ranked in the worst 20 per cent of data zones in Scotland, five percentage points higher than in 2006. That is obviously a major concern, especially in this age of austerity. However, funded by the Scottish Government, the Coffield Regeneration Trust is providing badly needed help and funding to many local organisations to help and encourage local communities out of this decline from the ground up. I have visited and worked with many of the groups who have received such help, and I could speak at length advocating the work that those groups do for their communities. For example, the Mayfield Neathhouse's Development Trust, Youth 2000 Project, Midlothian Association of Play, Bonnering Old Folks Club and Cousland Village Hall Association, and those are just some of the local charities that have received help and funding from the trust for a wide range of projects. I have seen at first hand how communities have benefited from this funding and the results of the trust's support. One of the more recent initiatives of the trust has launched is a Dragon's Den, which allows sports clubs and organisations based within Scotland's Coffield areas to pitch for funding from a range of dragons, including Nicky Wilson, the NUM president, and Jim Leishman, an honoured director of Dunferm on Football Club. The next den is, in fact, tomorrow in Allawa, and I am sure that the chamber passes its best wishes on to all the participating groups, but I am not sure that I would want to be in their shoes. Just to highlight a specific instance of CRT's broad approach and responsiveness, as some of my fellow MSPs and those in the gallery may know, I am a director of the Midlothian-based business launchpad, which aims to provide support and assistance to young people who want to start their own businesses. I recently met with Pauline Douglass and Alec Downey of Coalfield's Regeneration Trust to discuss—of course. Christine Grahame. I simply want to put in the record that I am glad that you have the name Pauline Douglass. I think that I refer to Pauline as Carol. I think that I have Christmas on the brain, so I want to apologise for miss Collinger. Thank you. Colin Beattie. Ah, borderer. I recently met Pauline Douglass and Alec Downey of the Coalfield's Regeneration Trust to discuss the possibilities of partnering together to raise more awareness of the launchpad and to expand participation. The meeting was extremely fruitful and it has been clear to me for some time now that, while the launchpad has everything in place to provide the facilities required for any prospective business, we can do better in making ourselves known to our potential audience on a wider scale. The trust representatives grasped that straight away and proposed several initial ways of how they would be able to provide positive engagement. We will be meeting in the new year and it is very much my hope that we can expand our reach to those young people who have a great business idea but are lacking the support to take it forward. There is no doubt that the trust reaching to the heart of our Coalfield communities allows it to speak to many constituents who may not otherwise be heard. In conclusion, it is clear to me—and I hope to all those in the chamber today—that the Coalfield's Regeneration Trust provides an important and vital level of support for our communities in enabling local people coming together to decide ways forward for their own areas. The trust is, without doubt, targeting its help where it is most needed. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the trust for everything that is done in Midlothian, North and Musselborough to date and look forward to them helping in other similar regions of Scotland and continuing to work with them in the years to come. Coalfield's Regeneration Trust is situated in Alloa in my region, and I know how much excellent work it has done over the past 15 years. I grew up in Kelty, which is a Coalfield's village where much of the community was then employed by the coal board, either working directly in the mines or, like my dad, working in the workshops in Cowdenbeath. That was an industry where people's livelihoods became a political battleground and the running down of the mining industry was devastating for many communities across my region. Those are villages whose identity was determined by its mines and the employment that it gave. They were villages of high employment with a civic society that was supported by mining families. I held an event recently in recognising Jenny Lee MP last week in Lloggelli's Miner's Institute. I chose that venue because of its historical relevance for the area, but it also shows the legacy that can be relevant within the present day. The Coalfield's Regeneration Trust was established 15 years ago to focus on regenerating former mining communities. Some might think that the mining industry declined many years ago and that times have moved on and that there would be no need for that kind of trust. However, 30 years after the decline of the coal industry, there is a lasting and continuing legacy of poverty and deprivation, a set of circumstances that, in recent years, have faced even more pressure. There are still worse levels of deprivation in Coalfield communities when compared to other areas, and the trust report that Fife, by some margin, has the largest and most pronounced concentration of Coalfield deprivation in Scotland. That is one of the reasons why I welcomed the Fairer Fife commission report that was published in Fife last week, and the trust must be one of the key delivery partners in this going forward. I support Neil Findlay's comments earlier about the declining budget of the CRT. With a fairly modest income of £24 million, the trust has supported an employability agenda and a focus on people's health and wellbeing, offering very targeted grass-roots support for communities and their families. Pauline Douglas and our team are very approachable, positive and really understand the communities that they are working in. It is the only organisation that has an exclusive focus on Coalfield communities, and it is more than just a funder. It works in partnership with people and builds communities' capacity. The briefing from the trust highlights so many positive examples that it was difficult to choose which one to highlight. I particularly like the wheels to work project. It is a very simple project that leases molepads and scooters to young people in rural areas in Fife, who are having difficulty getting to work or training or education. It provides a simple solution to the problem, but it is one solution that also develops self-respect and motivation. There is a specific long-term aim, such as gaining a driving licence. There is also the option of buying the vehicle at the end of the loaning period. It is a clever little scheme that reflects the ethos of the trust, finding solutions and empowering people to change their lives, giving them confidence and responsibility. I spoke to the trust recently at my party conference. I was due to speak on a panel for the Electoral Reform Society on participative democracy, and I fortuitously spoke to the trust beforehand. They told me about their Coalfield's capacity building programme, which works to build community engagement, enthusiasm, partnership working and community ownership of their future. We talked in particular about the Coalfield community action plan, which engages communities in community action planning. As Christine Graham highlighted, there is a small participatory budget fund that offers grants to groups and projects who action the plans. They recently ran the process and method and had a really positive level of community engagements. Communities who are living with poverty can often feel remote from decision making or feel that their vote at the ballot box does not really change their lives or their communities very much. Projects such as this from the CRT give communities power, control and decision making, bringing people together to improve their community. For every £1 invested through participatory budgeting, an additional £5 of external funding has been secured and involvement in the process has been very high. There has been really enthusiasm from communities. Scotland is a healthy, engaged democracy, and I commend the Coalfield's generation trust for taking this approach, and for all the work that they do across coalfield communities in Mid-Scotland and Fife. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I congratulate Christine Graham for bringing this debate to the chamber today. I also pay tribute to a former member of this chamber, Helen Eadie, who instituted a number of debates on the coalfield regeneration fund, because the issues that we have always felt, and Neil Findlay had nailed on the head when he said, were always round about the funding aspect that would seem to have these debates, and not just to congratulate the trust and the work that they have been doing in communities throughout Scotland. I also draw members to my register of interest, and that will become a parm in two minutes. The work of the coalfield regeneration trust has been important, vital and essential for many communities throughout Scotland. Former mining communities who were left in a situation when the industry was actually killed off finding themselves in deep depression, as well as deprivation. The issue for the coalfield regeneration trust in the establishment in 1999 identified the real issue in many of the villages and communities throughout Scotland that had actually been left without any support and without any structures in those communities. Clearly, the trust has done a lot of work in the time that it has been in existence. I can speak from the practical experience of seeing the work that has been done in areas such as, and I will introduce the Deputy Presiding Officer's own constituency of Cobritch and Christon, which I know well, as she well knows, of Bedley, Annette Hill, Orkingeek and Moody'sburn and Cardown. I have to apologise to people at Cardown for saying steps next to that. The work that has been done, particularly in Moody'sburn and the work that other members have made reference to the capacity building programme, in Moody'sburn three or four years ago, the coalfield regeneration trust went and worked with the community. They developed their own community plan. They surveyed the community and identified what their priorities were, not the priorities of the council or the Government. They put that in a document that they have presented to local authority to say that this is what we would like to see happening in our community. While many members might have been out shopping last Saturday in the wind and rain, I was participating in an event in my own village in Glen Boyge. While we were switching on the Christmas lights in Merasanta's Grotto, along with that, we had taken the decision that the community that is involved in the capacity building in Glen Boyge decided to survey the members of Glen Boyge about how we would choose the £20,000 that has been granted to the community and what groups should be prioritised in receiving that funding. Not the group that has been established to look at that, but they have decided to consult the wider community on what groups should receive the funding. I also received a survey forum about three weeks ago, through the door, from the community development trust and looking at what the issues were for the issues in terms of Glen Boyge. Those also formed part of Saturday afternoon's consultation, asking people to say, do you agree that those are the priorities for our community? Do you agree that that is what should be getting taken forward? I think that Alex Rowley made the point quite rightly that this is about community capacity building from the grassroots up. That is not an organisation that has been formed from it externally, because all the co-fielder generation trust has done is to facilitate the community coming together to identify their own issues. I will make the plea, as others have made in the chamber today. Can we get a guarantee in the minister's summing-up speech that the funding for the co-fielder generation trust will continue but not only continue? Could the minister give a guarantee that we see an increase in the funding to allow the co-fielder generation trust not only to continue the work that it has been doing but to enhance the work that it has been doing for many communities throughout Scotland so that we could all get the benefit of understanding what community empowerment for the grassroots is about? Thank you very much indeed. Whenever we have debates about anything connected to Scotland's traditional industry, whether that is steelworking shipbuilding, which is where my Scottish side was involved, or coal mining, there is a real point in saying that there is a real sense of identity running to the heart of the issues that we are talking about. In part, it must be accepted that that is a result of the shared suffering of the legacies of Governments' past. I really want to commend the co-fielder generation trust for the sense of mission that comes from that identity, the real mission to improve the quality of life for the people who live in Scotland's former mining communities. Since 1999, the Scottish Government has been the sole funder of the coalfield regeneration trust activity in Scotland. That demonstrates the cross-party commitment to the regeneration of our coalfield communities in contrast with the decision of the UK Government who ended their funding to CRT England last year. Our continued support for the work of the trust in delivering community-led regeneration activities delivers benefits to some of the most disadvantaged communities in Scotland. Our vision is a Scotland where our most disadvantaged communities are supported and in the driving seat of the efforts to solve problems that they know all too well because they are the ones living them every day. The Scottish Government's regeneration strategy and programme for government both highlight the importance of community-led efforts and community empowerment. Our fairer Scotland programme to develop a social justice action plan shows the importance that we attach to direct public involvement in those decisions and the building of those strategies. We recognise that community anchor organisations in particular can drive change across everything environmental issues locally, local economic growth, unemployment, arts and cultural activity and, crucially, they deliver what local people know will make a difference. In 2015-16, we substantially expanded resources to support community-led activity across Scotland. By investing £20 million through our Empowering Communities Fund, we are funding action to tackle poverty and inequality across Scottish society, including by the CRT. The trust has invested over £21 million in the Scottish coalfield to create jobs, help people into work, support new businesses and social enterprises, encourage healthier lifestyles, and help groups at the heart of their communities to become successful and self-sustaining. You name it, they have done it. Over the past two years, we have provided funding of £1.5 million to the CRT to help to deliver its programmes in coalfield communities. More than that, we continue to learn from the trust and other organisations in Scotland that support community-led regeneration, basically the initiatives that work best at local level. One of them has been highlighted already, and I really want to draw attention to it, is the coalfield community futures programme. It targets the ex-mining communities that are suffering multiple problems, but that have not previously benefited from funding from the trust or other grant makers. It works at a very local level and works with residents and groups to identify the community priorities by delivering a community action plan using the residents themselves as researchers. By making use of a small fund and, crucially in my mind, using participatory budgeting, residents themselves make decisions on improvements in their communities. Capacity building is needed and provided by the trust, developing new community skills, which hopefully cause the establishment of community anchor organisations to provide a focus then for on-going activity. I saw this model recently, just last month, in Preston Pans and I can't commend it highly enough. It's not enough to do things to communities that we believe are needed. We must have faith in the spirit and empower communities themselves to do the things that they know are needed. The Community Empowerment Act 2015 is important for that. It will help to support more initiatives such as those of the CRT. That is an act that can and must provide new vigor if it is to work. It needs to provide new life, new routes for communities to take to ensure that their ambitions can be realised. Participatory budgeting, or PB, like that done by the CRT, is a massive opportunity, not just to ensure that decisions are better made because they are being made by people at the front line, but to ensure that people feel ownership of those decisions. I totally agree with Claire Baker to re-engage them to participate in decision making of all kinds. It is community empowerment putting its money where its mouth is. I am an ardent supporter of PB and the Scottish Government is supporting and stepping up efforts to build capacity and understanding of PB across the country. I would recommend PBscotland.scot to anyone interested in that work. In the town hall in Preston pans last month, I met so many people who are enthusiastically casting a vote for their favourite projects, securing funding directly from local residents. It is not only about days like this but about the work, the ideas, the connections that the process generates, how it brings individuals and groups together and the real positive energy that creates. The Scottish Government is going to continue to support community-led regeneration in our coalfield communities, but I repeat that the CRT work has many aspects that I hope others look to as well and emulate. Looking to the future, we are going to keep working with the CRT to help it to develop further and enable it to build on its strong profile in those coalfield communities. The trust staff is working with Scottish Government staff on how initiatives such as participatory budgeting could be rolled out more widely, alongside the jargon of outcomes-based monitoring community-led regeneration. However, we need all of that to help to reverse the decline that our former coalfield communities have experienced and to find ways to bring communities forward and up. I would like to add my thanks to the coalfield regeneration trust for their work. All their amazing work in our former coalfield communities is vital work that makes a difference because it is embedded in the priorities of those communities themselves. It is a model example of community empowerment. It is to be congratulated and, frankly, it is to be learned from. That concludes Christine Grahame's debate on the continuing success of the coalfield regeneration trust. I now suspend this meeting of Parliament until 2.30 pm.