Press Association
Saturday 11th February 2012
Unpaid carers have been hailed as "unsung heroes" by Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie.
The Tories pressed the case for better vocational training after holding a shadow cabinet meeting at Motherwell College on the site of the former Ravenscraig steel works.
Ms Goldie also met with volunteers at North Lanarkshire Carers Together in Motherwell.
She said: "Unpaid carers who help ill, frail or disabled friends or family are the unsung heroes of Scotland. They don't ask for praise or recognition and without their care, the person cared for could not continue to live at home.
"North Lanarkshire Carers Together offers support and representation to people who selflessly give of themselves to help others. We, as a society, cannot hold carers in a high enough regard."
Ms Goldie had earlier chaired a meeting of her shadow cabinet in Motherwell College before the Tory group were taken on a tour of the establishment.
Party education spokeswoman Liz Smith said: "We have known for some time that we need to raise standards in Scottish education and specifically within the area of better vocational training.
"Too many schoolchildren are unaware of, or unprepared for, the opportunities that vocational training presents. This is something we desperately need to work on, because vocational training has been ignored for so long at the expense of encouraging every child to go to university. Society needs to value vocational training in exactly the same way."
The college site was formerly home to the Ravenscraig steelworks, which once employed between 6,000 and 8,000 people. But it closed in 1992 after years of decline throughout the 1980s under the Thatcher government.
Former First Minister Jack McConnell, the MSP for Motherwell and Wishaw, said: "I hope the Tories look around and learn from the destruction they caused 20 years ago. I hope they will join Labour in calling on the SNP to reinstate national support for the regeneration of the site."
