More tax for lesscouncil services?

So claims Lanark-based Labour regional MSP Claudia Beamish in an attack on the now SNP-controlled South Lanarkshire Council.

Scottish Labour is engaged in a nationwide campaign to persuade voters that the Nationalist government in Edinburgh and councils the SNP control are meekly passing on UK Tory government austerity measures to the public.

Although the Scottish Government counter-claims that it has spent millions of pounds cushioning the public from Westminster economies, Labour this week produced statistics it claims shows willing collaboration with austerity at Holyrood.

And Ms Beamish even claims that the cuts are now putting lives in Clydesdale at risk and produced a ‘league table’ of council cuts since 2013, showing South Lanarkshire as the ninth-worst hit area out of Scotland’s 32 local authorities, its citizens now having £153 per head less spent on their services.

Earlier this year, South Lanarkshire Council raised the Council Tax by three per cent.

Said Ms Beamish: “The SNP has hammered South Lanarkshire Council with year after year of cuts.

“These cuts have put lifeline services like schools and social care at risk.”

However, the SNP’s directly-elected Clydesdale MSP Aileen Campbell retorted: “The Scottish Government has treated local government very fairly despite the cuts to the Scottish Budget from the UK Government.

“In 2018-19, South Lanarkshire Council received £561.6m in revenue funding.

“In 2019-20, South Lanarkshire Council will receive £575.2m in revenue funding.”