Politics: Cost of living support will continue
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Aberdeenshire Council’s Infrastructure Services Committee have voted to remove booking systems at household recycling centres (HRCs) in the Buchan, and Banff and Buchan council areas.
In the Formartine area – which includes Turriff – a hybrid system will be implemented which will see booking maintained every day except Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Readers will be aware that I have been campaigning on behalf of residents calling for the booking system to be scrapped, since early 2021.
The idea of a hybrid system in Turriff has raised several questions already, so I will be writing to the Formartine Area Committee to ask how they plan to assess the effectiveness of this model.
While the aim of a growing the UK economy has not changed, it will not have escaped readers’ notice that some specific measures and timing have been amended in the last week or so.
However, despite these changes, the energy and cost of living support measures that have already been announced will remain in place throughout the winter to April 2023.
The Energy Price Guarantee still means that an average household on dual fuel electric/gas will not pay more than the equivalent of £2500 per year.
It is of course worth noting that the price is capped per unit so the more you use the more you pay.
Similarly, non-domestic (e.g. businesses, schools, etc.) customers will benefit from the Energy Bills Relief Scheme which will fix wholesale gas and electricity prices at 7.5p per KWh and 21.1p per KW/hr respectively for the same period.
Those not connected to the gas grid will get equivalent support to help with increasing prices, with an additional £100 towards costs for heating oil.
The Energy Bills Support Scheme means that every household will receive at least £400 discount on their domestic electricity bills, starting this month
For a household on means tested benefits, total support rises to £1200, including the £650 cost of living payment paid between July and November this year.
For those with disability benefits this rises again to £1350.
For a typical low-income pensioner household, the support is worth £1500.
And for a typical low-income pensioner household on disability benefits, this rises to £1650.
The UK Government’s Household support fund means an extra £82 million for Scotland – as part of a £37 billion package of support made available across the whole UK.
Lastly, I want to comment on the recent remarks made by SNP politicians about political opponents.
The First Minister openly declared recently that she “detests the Tories!”.
A strange tactic considering that nearly a million people in Scotland vote Conservative – including >50 per cent of those in Banff and Buchan.
She tried to roll back on this by claiming it was our ‘policies’ she ‘detested’ – but that didn’t stop one of her MPs doubling down on the statement directly to me in Scotland Office Questions at
Westminster last week.
This has been followed by other SNP party leadership figures claiming that such comments are part of ‘normal political discourse’, with others claiming they want Scotland to be ‘Tory-free!’
There will always be a robust debate between those who hold opposing political views but language and behaviour should never be based on such personal attacks, and certainly not based on
expressing or indeed inciting, ‘hatred’.
When it does, as Margaret Thatcher famously said, “it means they have not a single political argument left.”
