Shotts MP hits out over Tory cutbacks
Neil Gray MP
Shotts MP Neil Gray has expressed deep concern that the Government’s welfare cuts are costing people in North Lanarkshire hundreds of pounds a year.
Neil’s comments come after the release of a report by Sheffield Hallam University which says Tory cuts will cost people in the local authority £370 a year.
The study, carried out by the university’s Centre for Regional and Social Economic Research and released last week, found that post- 2015 welfare reforms will hit some areas harder than others with older industrial areas, like North Lanarkshire, less prosperous seaside towns and cities such as Glasgow bearing the brunt of the cuts – with much of southern England and London escaping the worst of the cuts.
In North Lanarkshire, the amount of the changes calculated per working age person equates to a loss of £370 a year.
That is considerably higher than the UK figure of £320.
Mr Gray said: “£ 370 per year per working age person is a shocking amount in itself, but someone in receipt of social security will be hit far harder.
“These cuts are incredible unfair. For some parts of the UK to be so badly affected when others are hardly hit at all is shocking. It is yet more evidence, if any were needed, that parts of the country in Scotland, Wales and Northern England, whose traditional industries have been allowed to go to ruin by successive Westminster Governments are being left to suffer while the south of England escapes virtually unscathed.
“I will continue to do all I can to fight these changes in Parliament so that the people I represent are not going to lose out.”