By Alan Wilson

NICOLA STURGEON made a cast-iron pledge on to Fife and Tayside on Saturday—the SNP will abolish bridge tolls if they win control of the Scottish Parliament next year.

Before beginning her keynote speech at the party conference, the deputy leader said it is always a delight to visit Dundee and promised next year it will be an even easier place to visit because an SNP administration will remove the tolls on the Tay and Forth.

She also praised Dundee East MP Stewart Hosie for making his mark at Westminster.

Ms Sturgeon gave reassurance to the people of Fife, telling them there is no need to panic at the outbreak of bird flu.

At the same time, she condemned First Minister Jack McConnell’s silence on the matter.

She said, “In the last few days since bird flu was found in Fife, the public, the poultry industry, the whole nation has needed reassurance that there is no cause for panic.

“The public servants working round the clock to help contain the outbreak deserve support.

“Ross Finnie has done his best, but that reassurance and support should have been coming from the First Minister.

“And yet Jack McConnell has said nothing at all…for a First Minister that is just not good enough.”

She also struck out at the Lib-Dems who, she said, have colluded on the Shirley McKie affair in failing to explain what went wrong.

“They have done nothing to ensure that it never happens again,” she said, adding that while Jim Wallace demanded a public inquiry into rendition flights, he and his party continue to block a public inquiry into the McKie case.

“You’d think they had something to hide,” she said, pledging to order a full, public, judicial inquiry should the SNP win power at Holyrood next May.

“This case is about the very foundation of our society—the integrity of our justice system.

“Let me sound a warning to those who conspire to conceal the truth…the truth will be told.”

The deputy leader gained loud applause and even cheers when she called for Scotland to enter its own team into the Olympic Games following success at the Commonwealth Games.

She also promised more nursery education and to cut primary class sizes and made a pledge to students to write off graduate debt, restore the grants system and abolish tuition fees by the “front door, back door, any door.”

Council tax will be abolished, she added, and replaced by a local income tax, while the SNP will give a guarantee to NHS patients of free healthcare when they need it.

On energy, she pledged a nuclear-free Scotland with no new nuclear power stations and to scrap Labour plans to buy new Trident nuclear weapons.

Earlier, delegates were welcomed to the spring conference at the Apex City Quay Hotel by Lord Provost John Letford, who officially opened the event.

The Broughty Ferry branch of the SNP successfully proposed a motion on patient waiting times, stating an SNP government should introduce a patients’ rights bill to give every patient a waiting time guarantee.

Enshrined in law, it would be appropriate to them and mean no-one should wait longer than 18 weeks from GP referral to treatment by the end of 2011.

They also proposed that patients seeking compensation for substandard treatment should have the right to redress without having to go to court, and that services such as GPs services, local clinics and out-patients’ appointments are more accessible and available out of office hours.

On dentistry, they proposed that an SNP government would enter into dialogue with the profession to address recruitment and retention problems, re-establish a third dental school and offer a system of “golden handcuffs,” helping with education costs for graduates who would remain working in the NHS in Scotland for a minimum period.