Health services across Lanarkshire will receive a £43m boost next year, the Scottish Government has announced. The inflation busting increase will see NHS Lanarkshire’s funding increase 3.7% year on year, whilst Scotland’s total health and care funding will rise £729m.

Rutherglen MSP Clare Haughey has highlighted the millions that have been spent on mitigating UK Government welfare cuts after new figures revealed that a total of £3.1 million was paid to people in South Lanarkshire under the Discretionary Housing Payment scheme.

Rutherglen MSP Clare Haughey has once more slammed the UK Government’s Universal Credit policy saying that because of it people may be left ‘cashless this Christmas’. The in-built wait of a minimum of five weeks before payment means that anyone making a claim this month will need to survive until January without money to which they are entitled.

The next payment of the Carer's Allowance Supplement will be made to the majority of carers on 14 December. This will be only the second payment of the supplement ever made, after the Scottish Government recently became responsible for a small number of benefits and subsequently set up the new service, Social Security Scotland.

Rutherglen MSP Clare Haughey is encouraging people to shop small and local all year round on the back of the annual Small Business Saturday campaign. Small Business Saturday, which took place on December 2, is now in its sixth year in the UK, and in 2017 an estimated £748m was spent with small businesses on the campaign day.

Rutherglen MSP Clare Haughey has renewed calls for an immediate halt to Universal Credit after it was revealed that councils are spending millions of pounds attempting to undo the damage of the ‘failed’ UK Government policy.

Rutherglen MSP Clare Haughey and Rutherglen South Councillor Carol Nugent have been advised that the Bank of Scotland will definitely be closing their Burnside branch early next year.

Clare Haughey MSP visited a local Tesco store to support the company’s food collection drive. Last weekend, more than 2,600 Tesco stores across the UK, including both Rutherglen and Burnside branches, held their annual food collection for people in need this Christmas – the biggest in the UK

Rutherglen MSP Clare Haughey has welcomed news that 94% of workers in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West UK parliamentary constituency earn above the national minimum wage – with Scots the least likely to be on minimum wage jobs in the UK.

MSP Clare Haughey has welcomed the announcement of a new campaign to encourage women in Scotland to get involved in politics, and stand for election. The #ScotWomenStand campaign, a partnership between the Parliament Project and YCWA Scotland, marks 100 years since some women were allowed to vote and women were able to stand for election.