Covid: SNP government must reverse swingeing cuts to councils to help frontline workers deal with pandemic – Ian Murray MP

Our council has been working hard to ensure lifeline services can still be delivered by frontline staff such as social care workers, bin collectors, teachers and street cleaners, the importance of our local authorities must not be forgotten.

Inequalities in our communities have been exacerbated by the coronavirus crisis, and risk widening further when we enter the post-pandemic recovery phase, which will need all our focus.

We know how hard the next few years will be. Economic recovery will be difficult and the crisis has stored up long-term health issues that will need addressed. Cancer waiting lists have doubled as the NHS has concentrated on Covid.

Government at all levels, national and local, must be fully focused on this. Take note, John Swinney, who is still so obsessed with creating division that he thinks the constitution matters more.

Councillors in Edinburgh understand the scale of the challenge ahead. But their job will be made considerably harder without the necessary financial support from the SNP government.

Years of SNP cuts were exposed by how ill-equipped our local services had become to deal with the pandemic.

Those cuts were a political choice made by the nationalists as they go far deeper than the real-terms cut to the Scottish budget. In fact, they quadrupled the level of cuts to our councils.

Over the past nine years, Edinburgh City Council has had to cut a staggering £352 million and there is more projected to come. Over a third of a billion pounds out of our city and services.

That has had a dramatic impact on the level of services delivered and has left councils heavily dependent on self-generated income such as fees and fines.

With the pandemic reducing that income, there is now a funding emergency. That funding emergency has highlighted the precarious nature of existing services after a decade of cuts.

So as we move towards recovery, the cycle of Scottish government cuts cannot continue.

Covid-19 has already cost Edinburgh council £84m.

As local authority umbrella body Cosla said this week, we need fair funding that respects our communities.

There needs to be a real-terms increase in the forthcoming Scottish budget – unveiled in Holyrood this month. That is what Edinburgh deserves and what our communities require.

None of the usual deception from the SNP and tired blame games. Ministers can deliver fair funding now that will ensure councils have adequate resources for the recovery.

Scottish Labour supports calls from Finance Secretary Kate Forbes for the Chancellor to release £1.7bn of reserves for Scotland to help tackle the pandemic.

But if Rishi Sunak makes this reserve funding available to the Scottish government, our frontline councils must get every penny and not repeat the sleight of hand of keeping much-needed support funds from Covid-hit businesses.

Rather than just clapping and constant platitudes by the government about how grateful they are to our frontline workers for keeping us healthy, safe and operating during this pandemic, perhaps the best thank-you would be to properly fund the services within which they work.

Ian Murray is Scottish Labour MP for Edinburgh South

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