Plan to ease cuts backed by Mhairi

A Paisley politician is backing housing bosses’ moves to tackle the chaos caused by Tory austerity policies.

Mha i ri Black, SNP candidate for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, is throwing her support behind Scottish Federation of Housing Association’s (SFHA) new plan to alleviate bruising welfare cuts.

She said: “The fivepoint plan from the SFHA highlights the impact of Tory austerity cuts on social housing in Scotland.

“Recent social security policies have discriminated against the young, with the removal of entitlement to 18- 21- year- olds and the shared accommodation rate to single under-35s.

“SFHA believes these measures should be scrapped.

“In addition, the protection provided by social security’s safety net should be restored by reversing caps to entitlement for younger people and large families.”

She added: “I attempted to bring forward legislation via a private member’s bill to limit the impact of benefit sanctions, but unfortunately, due to a lack of Labour MPs backing the bill and the Tory government using parliamentary procedures to waste time, my bill never got past the first stage.

“I am happy to support the SFHA’s campaign and to fight for constituents and everyone else who has been affected by the cruel Tory agenda of targeting cuts at the most vulnerable in society.”