Responding to the announcement today (Thursday) by the Finance Secretary Kate Forbes MSP of measures to tackle the cost of living crisis ALBA Westminster Leader Neale Hanvey MP said:
“ Today’s announcement does not go nearly far enough in addressing the cost of living crisis facing millions of families the length and breadth of Scotland. With average fuel bills set to rise by an average of £700 per household a £150 reduction in Council Tax does not even scratch the surface of what is required to compensate families facing a massive hike in energy bills this April.
“£500 targeted at those families in greatest need would have been a far better route for the Finance Secretary to go down. We will send the Finance Secretary the targeted ALBA five point plan to tackle child and family poverty. That in conjunction with a Council Tax freeze would make a real difference to hard pressed families.
“ In addition £10 million for the Fuel Insecurity Fund is risible and risks being spread too thinly to make any real difference to families who need help now. This will do nothing to lift the 600,000 households already living in fuel poverty, a figure that is set to rise as energy prices rocket. There is also nothing to tackle the higher costs of fuel, greater levels of fuel poverty and poor home insulation in rural, remote and island areas of Scotland, with many households off the gas grid.
“ What families in Scotland need is practical support that will make a real difference targeted at those who need it most. The Finance Secretary has failed to do either and has let Scots families down.”
Families presenting at hospitals with poorly kids are being admitted with malnutrition & suffering from living in unheated homes as we speak. Doctors & nurses are having to make more SW referrals, NOT due to bad parenting but bad housing & poverty. Are we back in the 50s? Homeless people have fell through the net due to Covid & shortage of staff. So many driven to suicide as see no way out. But by all means spend money making people with sexuality confusions & fetishes feel better eh? All so easy from that Ivory Tower aka Bute House.How the other half lives eh?
The working class are being squeezed till the pips burst. Why are we not at the barricades.
Time our politicians in the shape of the SNP did something useful like end the Union.
I did think Kate Forbes was one of the better Scottish politicians. Seemingly not. We simply must get ALBA into Holyrood. They are our hope for a brighter future. At the moment it’s beginning to resemble the Scotland our predecessors endured before World War2.
Nice article with good ideas. Been reading about the £150 rebate to council tax payers where lots of it will be eaten up by debt. If they are behind the £150 goes to that. Kate Forbes has lost a lot of authority in the comment she mate to Blackford capitulating to his idea that Ireland, Wales and England will pay our pensions. A lot of explaining to do on that now. This will not go away.
I will remind people once again that when all this TALK from the snp (for that is ALL it is ) about helping people who are facing and are currently suffering poverty and panicking at the thought of choosing between heating and eating , the GOOD PEOPLE as some like to refer to them within the snp are still sitting on their arses immobile and struck DUMB whilst the loon ball sturgeon and her parasitical sycophants are doing NOTHING about independence to protect the citizens of Scotland from this hell
We are crazy putting up with this, Scotland is an energy rich country with Oil, Gas, and Electricity in abundance. We are being milked by the Tory crime syndicate and their pals. Millions and Billions isint enough for them,Trillions, wont even satisfy their unquechanable greed, they want it all .We are back to the bad old days of pre war Britaina, impoverished in a medieval Brexitland run by the current Prince John of the Tory party. Enforced austerity for all while Tory Toffs have neverending champagne parties. A dystopian state, totalitarian in nature. (You will own nothing and be happy) , part 2 of the Brexit Tory wet dream. There is more food banks in Scotland than Macdonalds, people can’t afford to heat their homes. How about Nicola she takes another selfie, oblivious to all the chaos and hardship, childpoverty, Scotland fracturing under the weight of corupt coercive colonialism. Do what we elected you to do end this rotten to the core Union. I think it’s time we the people had our own great reset . Vote Alba.
Everyone knows that Scottish government has a limited budget So instead shouting SNP bad why not sit down with SNP and work something out due to fact majority of Scot’s want independence and if you work together will look very good on referendum day to get max support and before I am one of Albas members but fed up with the verbal on both sides time to stop it and work together does not take a brain surgeon to work it out
Simply put the SNP have refused all offers of unity and have done nothing but attack Alba.In May Zlba were promoting SNP ,meanwhile Sturgeon was talking up a deal with British Labour.Sturgron is the obstacle to independence and unity
It may not ” take a brain surgeon …..” but it would take a brain Sturgeon appears not to have when it comes to doing what’s best to achieve the ONLY goal that will make a difference ie Independence . The rest is white noise . Tinkering , fiddling , shouting into a howling gale , or in the case of NSNP , muttering incoherently .
The list of missed opportunities is there for anyone not wilfully blind to see , and grows longer almost daily .
Of course a unified front among all pro-Independence Parties – and the Movement itself – focused on the single objective of ending the Union would be optimum .
There is only one person preventing that ideal
Clue . It’s not Alex Salmond
Micheal if only the SNP would listen to people , We need action not procrastination, 7 years of wasted mandates marched up the hill time and time again only to be stood down. I have been a supporter of the SNP and Independence all my life. However with the current Leader there will be no independence she’s simply not interested, it’s way down her list of priorities. This maybe a shock to you, believe me I understand and sympathise It was a shock to me. There is plenty good people in the SNP however large number of members now realise things are not. right. Brexit happened in 2016,6 years ago, so what happened to the referendum, why has there been no planning , why dont the SNP discuss independence at conference. I agree we all need to unite but let’s get another Leader in place someone who wants independence. All we have from Sturgeon is sould bite ,then she plays the keep the dafties in the Union game.
You have to really laugh at what’s going on.
An absolute social and economic holocaust befalls our citizenry. Fuel poverty, cold houses, declining incomes, capped pensions, depleted saving for those with saving, reduced benefits, inadequate numbers of doctors, nurses, ambulances – the Brexit benefits go on and on.
And laugh hysterically we should with the laugh of insane. People will die, are dying. Lack of cancer treatment – ho ho who is like us. Cold house in a country blessed with a more than sufficiency of oil, gas and now renewable wind and hydro. Ho ho ho again.
Good work for the funeral industry. Box em up, put em down. Or suffer the little children. Ho ho ho again.
Don’t think of these comments as being unkind or callous or hard. This is our life. It is the life we choose. Our choice, and if we decide to accept it, well what can one say.
Both votes SNP now mind. Stronger for Scotland. You couldn’t make it up, you really couldn’t.