PARLIAMENT has returned but the Prime Minister has still not been held to account. A no confidence vote should have been called and Tory backbenchers made to support or repudiate him. They may have done the former but it would have exposed them as self-serving charlatans.

Instead, a referral has been made to a committee with an inbuilt Tory majority. That’s totally inadequate given his lack of contrition. Johnson’s support may be ebbing within the Tory Party but gone, and soon, he must be, for the good of us all.

Local community councils have rightly been calling for work for local people to follow the renewable energy bounty that East Lothian is blessed with. Sadly, revenues are few and jobs are scarce. Contracts are going to large enterprises from outwith the area and they’re giving the work elsewhere. Even on construction sites, workers are largely being brought in.

A few hoteliers may be benefitting from increased trade and some security guard work is probably available. But it’s not what it should be. The jobs are passing the county by. It’s just not good enough.

But even workers from outwith the county are being exploited. Most of the new offshore fields are outwith UK territorial waters, although in the UK Exclusive Economic Zone. That includes some coming ashore here in East Lothian. But the National Minimum Wage doesn’t apply to those operating out there in that sector.

RMT Union already tell me that there’s cases of supply ships operating with foreign labour who are being paid £3 per hour. They’re not even on weeks on and weeks off but months, if not years, at sea. We’re not getting the work when folk here need it. But that’s worsened by those getting the jobs being exploited with rates of pay and conditions which are abhorrent.

I’ve therefore sought assurances from the UK minister that the loophole will be closed, as well as from operators whose energy will be coming ashore at Cockenzie, that no such abuse will be allowed.