MILIBAND CHALLENGED ON LABOUR’S CUTS

For immediate use: Thursday 28th October 2010




Attn: NEWSDESKS


POLITICAL CORRESPONDENTS


LABOUR CUTS LITTLE DIFFERENT FROM CONDEM CUTS – ‘DEEPER & TOUGHER’ THAN THATCHER’S


SCOTLAND’S ECONOMY FAILED BY WESTMINSTER GOVERNMENTS


The SNP today called on Ed Miliband to support Scotland having the full financial and economic powers needed to recover strongly from recession as he was challenged to admit that Labour would have cut Scotland’s budget just as hard as the Tory and Lib Dem government has – as was admitted in a leaked Labour memo this week.


The last Labour Government cut £500 million from Scotland’s budget in 2010-11 and put in place two thirds of the cuts coming Scotland’s way in the next financial year. And only this week a leaked Labour party memo admitted that the Tory/LibDem plans were not much different than those proposed by Alistair Darling earlier this year. It also said that the party’s economic policy “lacks substance”.


The SNP is the only party offering an alternative to a dismal decade of cuts coming Scotland’s way by putting the case for the additional financial and economic powers that would allow Scotland the flexibility to invest in jobs, economic growth and infrastructure to secure a strong
future and the revenues to protect families, communities and public services.


SNP MSP and Chief Whip Brian Adam said:

“The SNP is working hard to minimise the impact of a series of Labour, LibDem and Tory cuts on Scotland’s families, communities and services. But without the financial and economic powers we need to invest properly in economic growth we are faced with the Westminster cuts that are too fast and too deep.


“Labour, Iain Gray and Ed Miliband must explain why they prefer Tory cuts and control of Scottish taxes and spending to Scotland having the responsibility to raise our own finances and spend our own money, to create jobs and grow the economy. They are prepared to abandon Scotland to years of London Tory control because Labour’s political ambitions lie at Westminster – not in Scotland.




“Labour made the first cut to Scotland’s economy knocking £500 million off last year’s budget and they put in place the first two thirds of the cuts Scotland is facing next year that risk seriously damaging the Scottish Government’s ability to invest in the infrastructure that will help our recovery from recession.



“Now Ed Miliband says he is sticking to Alasdair Darling’s plan to make cuts “tougher and deeper” than Margaret Thatcher, and we have a memo from Labour admitting that their plans were little different from the ones imposed by the Tory/LibDem government.


“Labour, Tory or LibDem it is clear that Westminster cannot be trusted with Scotland’s economy and it is only the SNP that has an alternative to the dismal decade of Westminster cuts coming Scotland’s way, with a plan to make Scotland better.”



ENDS






1. The Times article on the leaked labour can be accessed here:






http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article2781669.ece






"Labour has admitted that its economic policy lacks substance and detail,


according to a strategy paper seen by The Times.






"The memo also shows that Ed Miliband was warned that the coalition’s cuts


to public spending may not be much deeper than those proposed by Alistair


Darling."






2. Earlier this month Ed Miliband’s new Shadow Chancellor, Alan Johnson,


backed Alistair Darling’s deficit reduction timetable:






http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/08/alan-johnson-backs-darling-timetable






3. That was a plan Alistair Darling set out as "deeper and tougher" than


Margaret Thatcher's cuts in the 1980s:






BBC News, Thursday, 25th March 2010






http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8587877.stm






Asked by the BBC's Political Editor Nick Robinson to accept the Treasury's


own figures suggest deeper, tougher cuts than those implemented by the


Thatcher government in the 1980s, Mr Darling replied:






"They will be deeper and tougher - where we make the precise comparison I


think is secondary to fact is an acknowledgement that these reductions


will be tough".