John Thurso MP

The local MP was commenting after barriers went up around Linear Park in Invergordon despite the community not having been consulted on the plans for the park, a legal bid being submitted to stop the work and a crunch meeting being scheduled at the Highland Council for Monday. He has raised the matter with Michael Moore MP the Secretary of State for Scotland and Treasury Ministers.

Far North MP John Thurso is backing Scout Community Week this week which aims to deliver real benefit to local communities and to highlight the need for more volunteers.

The initiative is taking place to encourage Scouts to 'do 1 thing' to have a positive impact in their local communities and will be running from the 14^th to the 20^th of May. It aims to take the Scout Job Week to the next level and over 2,500 Scout groups and 125,000 young people are taking part from across the UK.

Far North MP John Thurso has described economic recovery as central to the Government's legislative plans laid out in the Queen's speech yesterday. He also welcomed moves to support families, businesses and farmers across the country.

The Queen's speech outlined Government plans to cut red tape for businesses, reform the banking system by separating retail and investment banking and introduce a supermarket adjudicator to protect farmers from unfair supermarket practices.

Local MP John Thurso is encouraging local people to take the opportunity to share their experiences of living in remote communities before the call for evidence for the Office of Fair Trading Remote Communities Study closes tomorrow (Friday 20^th April).

The OFT is looking to improve its understanding on how remoteness affects both consumers and business and is keen to hear from people living in remote areas like the Far North of Scotland. It is particularly interested in the prices people pay for goods and services, the range of products on offer and the quality of goods and services people receive.

Secretary of State for Scotland, Michael Moore, and local MP John Thurso on Tuesday, visited Kirker Europe in Invergordon to view the extended factory and new offices.

The Scottish Secretary was completing a two day visit to Caithness and Easter Ross and particularly wanted to see growing companies involved in exports.

Local Liberal Democrat campaigner and Thurso candidate for the Highland Council, Nick Noble was accompanied by the Secretary of State for Scotland, Michael Moore, and local MP John Thurso for a visit to successful Thurso bakery Reids of Caithness today. The bakery which employs 40 staff in Thurso is one of a number of businesses in the Far North which have signed up to Nick Clegg's £1 billion Youth Contract which was launched today and is aimed at tackling youth unemployment.

Speaking after the 2012 Budget statement, Far North MP John Thurso said that the package brought forward by the Chancellor will provide relief for working families and ensure that the richest members of society pay their fair share of tax.

In the Budget Statement, the Chancellor of the Exchequer confirmed that the Government would move forward with plans to increase the income tax threshold to £10,000. Next year the threshold will increase to £9,205 in a move that will give 2.1 million people in Scotland a tax cut, with basic taxpayers keeping an additional £220 of their earnings.

Far North MP has welcomed a new report from the influential Scottish Affairs Select Committee on the future of the Crown Estate in Scotland as offering an important contribution to the debate on the future of the marine estate.

The report, launched in Inverness yesterday (19^th March), recommended that control over the revenues generated from the marine estate and crown foreshore be transferred to the maximum extent possible to local authorities and communities. The report also argues that this change would help ensure that revenues generated in coastal areas such as Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross are of benefit to those local areas.

Far North MP John Thurso is encouraging local groups to apply for funding under the UK Government's Crown Estate Coastal Community Fund.

Groups across the Highlands and Islands have until the 27^th of April to apply for a grant from the fund. Grants in excess of £50,000 are available for a wide range of applicant organisations and projects which benefit coastal communities.

Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg used his speech to the Party's Spring conference in NewcastleGateshead to call for the forthcoming budget to be a "budget for fairness" and pledged that it would help working familes.

The Deputy Prime Minister pledged that by 2015 Britain would have seen an end to control orders, the first gay marriages and the first elections to the House of Lords.