‘Council cuts are eroding glue of society’
● Labour’s Findlay criticises SNP for failing to stop the impact of austerity
Relentless cuts to the budgets of Scotland’s local councils are contributing to a “breakdown of community cohesion” around the country, a Labour MSP has warned.
Neil Findlay, who served as a councillor in West Lothian for almost a decade before entering Holyrood, said austerity was “eating away” at the “glue” that holds society together.
In an article for The i newspaper and The Scotsman, Mr Findlay called on the Scottish Government to take radical action on income tax in next month’s draft budget so the cuts could be reversed.
Ministers are expected to publish a “discussion paper” on taxation tomorrow after Nicola Sturgeon said it was time for the nation to debate across-the-board rises.
The First Minister has refused to rule out increasing the basic rate of income tax next year despite the SNP manifesto promising that it would be frozen until 2021.
She has also invited Scotland’s other political parties to put forward their proposals on tax ahead of the draft budget for 2018-19, which is due to be published on 14 December.
Mr Findlay said his experience as a councillor had taught him the wider importance of the front-line services provided by Scotland’s 32 local authorities.
“Services such as education, housing, social work, care of the elderly, youth work and street cleansing are the services that civilise our society,” he wrote. “They educate our children, support our older and vulnerable people, keep our streets clean and safe and house those in need.”
Although he acknowledged that austerity from Westminster was primarily responsible for the cuts, he also hit out at the SNP for failing to stop the “heartbreaking” impact on local people.
“If the Scottish Government refuses to use the powers of the Scottish Parliament to end these cuts, but goes ahead instead with plans to scrap, for example, Air Passenger Duty, then their priorities and this public services scandal will have been exposed for all to see,” he wrote.
The MSP said his former council had endured cuts of more than £100 million in the past seven years, with other local authorities around the country forced to make similar savings.
“It is eating away at our communities and the glue that holds our society together,” he wrote. “Every classroom assistant lost sees the life chances of our children affected. Every youth club cancelled isanothergroupofyoungpeople on the streets. Every social care contract squeezed is your elderly mum or dad levered into a 15-minute care visit.”
Mr Findlay is backing Richard Leonard – an ally of UK leader Jeremy Corbyn – for leader of Scottish Labour.
A Scottish Government spokeswoman described Mr Findlay’s claims as “untrue”, insisting that councils were being treated “very fairly despite the cuts to the Scottish budget from the UK Government”.