Highlands and Islands MSP Jamie Halcro Johnston has questioned Nicola Sturgeon over cuts being implemented by Moray Council.
At today’s (Thursday 27 June) First Minister’s Questions in the Scottish Parliament, Mr Halcro Johnston challenged the First Minister over the squeeze her government had put on the Council which has resulted in services for local residents being slashed.
The Scottish Conservative MSP pointed out that the Council now faced another £19.3m of cuts by 2021, with even the Leader of Moray Council’s SNP administration describing future budgets as “very challenging”.
Speaking outside the chamber after FMQS, Mr Halcro Johnston said: “I was pleased to have the chance to confront the First Minister with the consequences of her government’s decision to squeeze Moray Council’s funding in recent years.
“The people of Moray deserve better than the prospect of having even more of the services they rely on being taken away by an SNP Government that refuses to pass on the money it receives.
“Unfortunately, the First Minister chose not to address the points I had raised and to ignore the real impact her cuts are having on residents in Moray.
“I hope that she will reflect on the damage these SNP cuts are doing; cuts which come at a time when her government has underspent its own budget by nearly half-a-billion pounds.
“If she doesn’t, then the prospect for Moray is many more years of having to endure cuts to local services at the hands of an SNP administration in Elgin content to take a bad deal from their SNP Scottish Government colleagues in Edinburgh”.
