RHODA GRANT: Inquiry needed to get to the bottom of dualling disaster
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LAST weekend was Scottish Labour Conference, and I was really proud to see that the local Moray Labour Party won the Keir Hardie Award for Membership Engagement and Development.
It was a well-deserved win. Our Scottish Labour Councillors in Moray are fighting hard on the ground. Polls indicate that Labour Governments in both the UK and Scotland are a real possibility.
We are ready for that challenge when it arises. We owe it to the country to be ready to eliminate poverty, reduce energy bills and to tackle the climate emergency.
This SNP Government have continued to betray rural communities and that has never been as obvious as the recent delays to dualling the A9.
It is clear to me that this has never been a priority for our SNP-Green Government. The excuses of Covid, the Ukrainian war and inflation should never have impacted this timetable – this promise was made in in 2007 and a timetable set in 2011.
Yet today, a lengthy 12 years later, we only have 11 miles dualled. That is unacceptable. It is about time that the Government comes clean on why this has not been completed.
For that reason, the Scottish Labour Party are calling for an inquiry into this fiasco. Highland and Moray communities deserve the truth.
Furthermore, I predict our SNP-Green Government will take the same course of action on dualling the A96. The Minister for Transport hinted at such recently in answering my questions.
This is not a choice of prioritising road safety over dualling like my Green colleagues try to say. To even suggest that they are two separate issues is ridiculous. They are interlinked, we all know dual carriageways are safer.
Councils are currently being put in an unimaginable position as the Scottish Government continue to slash their budgets.
The truth is that these challenges are 15 years in the making because the SNP has repeatedly underfunded councils, making cuts even when their ministers had more money to spend.
Every single council in Scotland is now united in their opposition to the Scottish Government’s Budget with SNP councillors also expressing concerns.
Moray Councillor Sandy Keith recently highlighted how inadequate this budget is in addressing the cost of living crisis in Moray and what it will also mean for jobs within local Government.
Because of the SNP’s cuts, in real terms, to council budgets over the years, communities are facing a bleak future where children’s music lessons could be cut, libraries could be closed, and bins collected once a month.
Maybe that is why Nicola Sturgeon has resigned as First Minister.
Her successor, chosen by SNP members, will inherit a difficult task; to rebuild our NHS, our public services and our country.
I do hope they look to unite our country rather than divide it. We really must come together to rebuild the NHS, to provide homes and jobs for people and protect the most vulnerable from the cost of living crisis.
We in the Labour Party have committed to do this, this would be our top priority. We would create an UK publicly owned energy company that would shield people from the profiteering we have seen recently. We would invest in the NHS and Local Government. Crisis can also mean opportunity. We created the NHS in the dark days after the second world war. We are ready for the challenge to rebuild our country out of this current crisis.
