January has been another busy month for Ruth, in both the Scottish Parliament and the Cunninghame South constituency. Read a flavour of what Ruth has been involved in this month down below in our January Bulletin.
Parliamentary work
Grace’s Law
Ruth is working with a local constituent and the non-government bills unit to explore creating a “Grace’s Law”. After the death of 13 year old , Grace Handling, Grace’s father is pushing for tighter laws after the man who admitted to providing Grace with the drugs, verdict was ‘not proven’. This legislation will tighten the laws surrounding a drug dealers responsibility of drug related death. Read more about this story here.
National Planning Framework 4 Debate
Circular Fashion Debate
Cervical Cancer Prevention Week
During Cervical Cancer Prevention Week, Ruth co-chaired an MSP drop-in. Jo’s Cervical Cancer charity came along to educate MSP’s about the uptake of Cervical Cancer screenings and HPV vaccines within their constituencies. Public Health Scotland’s most recent report on cervical screening revealed that in the Ayrshire and Arran area, had a 71.3% uptake in cervical cancer screenings between the 25-49 age group. However, nationally the uptake is fewer than 7 out of 10 women. We would hope for this to increase in the coming years. You can catch more content from our drop-in on our Tiktok channel here.
Ruth also shared some of her own experience of her cervical cancer diagnosis and treatment with Sunday Post, which you can read here,
Portfolio Questions: Net Zero, Energy and Transport
Constituency Work
Meeting at Frew Terrence GP Surgery with GP and Practice Manager to hear from them the challenges they are facing and the work they do to support the community.
Meeting with NHS Ayrshire and Arran Chief Executive to raise the concerns of constituents and understand the action the Health Board were taking to address the hugely challenging winter they are facing
Meeting with ‘Children in Scotland’ for discussion around the “National Conversation” on Scottish Education, the priority given to the wellbeing strand of Curriculum for Excellence and additional support for learning.
January Surgeries
Ruth was out in the community at her monthly constituency surgeries at Ardeer Community Centre, Kilwinning Cranberry Moss Community Centre, Dreghorn Library and Fullerton Community Hub.
February’s surgeries will be held on the 24th of February and can be found right here.
If the surgeries are not at a suitable time or location, you can also book an appointment to visit Ruth at the constituency office.
Ruth Maguire MSP 