Last Thursday, Hawick Rotary Club had our MSP Rachael Hamilton to speak to us after supper. Rachael is a Scottish Conservative & Unionist politician who has represented Ettrick, Roxburgh & Berwickshire in the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood since 2017, having been re-elected in 2021 and is now the Deputy Leader of the Scottish Conservatives.
Rachael had been asked to be apolitical in her talk and she started off by speaking of her farming upbringing outside Brecon in Wales, followed by studying to become an agronomist (someone dealing with crop production and soil management), before owning a hotel at St Boswells, at which point she became involved in politics.
Rachael then went on to tell us about the nature of her work at Holyrood where she has been extremely busy dealing with 5,500 cases over the last 8.5 years. Local issues mentioned were the possible restriction of Hawick Fire & Rescue Service to ‘office hours’ of 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday, wind farms, pylons, Battery Energy Storage Systems, the Cash Access banking hub which is to be welcomed and the return of the railway to and beyond Hawick.
Finally, Rachael invited all members of Hawick Rotary Club to visit Holyrood where she would book us seats to watch the Public Petitions Committee at work, hopefully in January 2026.
After Rachael’s talk, questions were welcomed and there was an interesting statement from George Thorburn about diseased forest trees in our area and therefore the increased risk of wild fires, another reason why we need full time fire cover in Hawick. Nick Bell also raised the matter of urban electricity networks not being adequate to service the demand for domestic Electric Vehicle charging points.