Tuesday May 26th 2026
Miles Briggs, MSP for Edinburgh and Lothians East, Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party writes his first monthly column of the new parliament for Midlothian View.
After a decade serving you as an MSP for Lothian it is a great honour to be returned once again to Holyrood to represent the people of Midlothian in the new Edinburgh and Lothians East region.
Serving my region in parliament has been the privilege of a lifetime and I am looking forward to getting stuck right back in. As the sole Scottish Conservative & Unionist voice in the region for this session, I feel an even greater responsibility to represent the common-sense views that are too often ignored by our politicians.
The last parliament was often a frustrating story of distraction and delay as the SNP did its best to dodge the problems that really concern the community. One of these is the utter fiasco of the Sheriffhall roundabout. It is one of my top priorities to ensure that this isn’t swept under the carpet by the new SNP Government under pressure from Green MSPs. Consecutive SNP governments have shown no urgency whatsoever to resolve this critical infrastructure issue which costs Midlothian motorists untold time and money. This project was flagged nearly 20 years ago, yet with millions spent on consultants not a single spade has broken ground.
Another worry for motorists and businesses across the Lothians is the framework for a congestion charge that Edinburgh Council are discussing. With the cost of fuel, parking, and business rates shooting up, and the low emissions zone up and running in the city centre, the last thing Midlothian motorists and businesses need is another tax on the roads. I campaigned strongly against this idea in the last parliament and will make sure to keep the pressure on councillors in the coming session.
The Scottish Conservatives are the only party that have consistently held the SNP to account on law and order, and this has become more important as anti-social behaviour rises in our region. Over my last ten years as an MSP, I have regularly pushed the government for greater investment in local policing and to stop the closure of stations which leaves communities feeling abandoned. The nationalist government has been extremely weak on justice, and it is high time they faced up to this failure. I will take every opportunity to hold ministers to account.
Perhaps the greatest cause of concern for us all is the strain that the health service is facing. Waiting times, discharge delays, productivity are consistently short of SNP targets. NHS Lothian predicts that its health board will see 84% of Scotland’s population growth over the next ten years. Meanwhile, NHS Lothian continues to be funded under parity, meaning that per head of population it receives less money than it should and less than other regions. As the Conservative Health Spokesman in this session, I will be paying particularly close attention to these issues and will campaign to bring a fair deal to NHS Lothian.
All of this and more is on my mind as I prepare for what promise to be a challenging, dynamic, but undoubtedly rewarding five years in Parliament. I look forward to working with both my Scottish Conservative and cross-party colleagues to make the voices of residents across Midlothian heard in the coming Parliament.
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