Cost of living, concrete and care: Lib Dems urge government to get priorities straight

Speaking ahead of Humza Yousaf outlining his programme for government on Tuesday, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP has today identified a series of key priorities for the SNP and Greens to address as Parliament returns for its new session.  

Scottish Liberal Democrats are calling on the government to:  

• Establish a national fund to help local authorities and health boards remove potentially fatal concrete (Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete) from their buildings.  
• Scrap council tax increases and rail fare hikes to tackle the cost of living and ease the pressure on households across the country.  
• Abandon billion-pound bureaucratic takeover of social care and divert that money to local services, helping all those who are still waiting to receive care at home.  
• Extend lifeline support to Scotland’s long covid sufferers, invest to establish clinics and care pathways for those robbed of so much by this terrible condition.
• Publish every single sewage dump, set legally binding targets for dumps and accelerate measures to upgrade Scotland’s Victorian sewage system.  
• Invest in extra classroom support to end the blight of violence in schools.  

Mr Cole-Hamilton said:

“Humza Yousaf needs to focus on the real priorities of the people of Scotland.

“With concrete beams in both England and Scotland threatening to collapse, it is vital that the SNP and Greens pull their heads out of the sand and commit to a national fund that will help authorities remove dangerous concrete from their buildings. With the chancellor stating that the UK government will meet that cost, the Scottish Government must do likewise.

“The SNP have been promising to abolish council tax in its entirety for 16 years, but they are now planning to increase rates and leave a quarter of homes paying more. If the SNP are at all serious about easing the cost of living, they must abandon these devastating plans and ditch rail fare hikes without delay.

“As thousands wait for care at home, I want the Scottish Government to finally do the right thing and scrap their proposed takeover of social care, diverting that money to staff and services instead.  

“Meanwhile, we need ministers to recognise the public health disaster that Long Covid represents. For too long Scotland has lagged behind the rest of the UK in its response to this terrible condition.

“Scottish Liberal Democrats will continue to call out the mismanagement that has led to sewage being dumped on beaches and school violence spiralling. We have outlined a raft of measures that will get to the root of these long-neglected problems.  

“The next months will undoubtedly demand hard work; my party is committed to putting that in and leading the way for change in Scotland.”