It is my view that the policies of the SNP government are systematically reducing the effectiveness of local democracy across Scotland. Let’s have a look at their policies.
1. The Council Tax Freeze
The SNP have stated that they intend to freeze council tax for the entire five years of the current Holyrood term. With inflation in the order of 4-5%, this is real cuts on the spending power of local authorities. This means one of two things: either public-sector services are cut across the nation or local authorities have to go cap-in-hand to Holyrood for extra cash. With councils not free to set council tax to meet local demands, power moves to central government.
In the last parliament, the Liberal Democrats suggested a local income tax to replace council tax but could not reach agreement with the SNP because they wanted to set the level from Holyrood and not leave it to locally accountable councillors. Hence local funding would have become a central tax.
2. The Police and Fire Bill
Not only have the SNP got their figures wrong on the savings involved in merging the eight locally-accountable police forces into a single force accountable only to ministers at Holyrood, their action should ring alarm bells for democracy in an hypothetical independent Scotland. Most nations have their police forces divided up to stop abuse of power. In Britain our police are divided upon geographical basis instead but for the same reason. If Scotland were to go independent, the police would neither have the regional nor functional divisions judged desirable in most healthy democracies.
Unlike Labour and Tories, who supports this SNP policy, the Liberal Democrats campaigned fiercely against the centralisation of power.
3. Free Prescriptions
Of course people who would be otherwise unable to pay or put under financial pressure should get their medicine for free but personally I am embarrassed not having to pay for my prescriptions at the local pharmacist and in doing so supporting our NHS. Meanwhile across Scotland, SNP cuts to the NHS carry on with over 1800 nurses nationwide being lost in 2011. At the Western General Hospital, health minister Nicola Sturgeon MSP has confirmed that there are plans to merge the oncology and general pharmaceutical dispensaries, cutting the numbers of highly-skilled technicians. Many cancer drugs are extremely toxic and any loss in expertise will put cancer patients at increased risk.
It will not stop there. During hustings for the Scottish Parliamentary elections last year, Kenny MacAskill MSP mentioned plans to take education out of the hands of local accountability and into central control, along the lines of police and fire services.
If you want a party that takes local issues seriously and are committed to devolution of affairs to the level closest to local people, support the Liberal Democrats in the May Council elections.
To learn more about the Scottish Liberal Democrats, visit our site here.
