We must save Scotland’s world-champion pipe band – leader comment

North Lanarkshire Schools Novice A Pipe Band, which won a world title in September, could be scrapped because of council budget cuts.

North Lanarkshire Schools' Pipe Band pictured ahead of their trip to New York for Tartan Week

It scarcely seems credible that any country would allow a group of world champions in almost any field to disband except in the most extreme circumstances.

If there was a war or the economy had collapsed, then perhaps it would be unavoidable. But Scotland is not currently in either situation.

And yet, astonishingly, there is a serious risk that North Lanarkshire Schools Novice A Pipe Band, which added a world title to their British and European ones in September, could be scrapped because of cuts being considered by the council. In April last year, the band also took part in a Tartan Week parade along New York’s Sixth Avenue in front of a crowd of 30,000 people.

Bagpipes are the sound of Scotland, Even if they exist in other parts of the world, they are quintessentially Scottish.

If the band is scrapped, it will be a national scandal. Councils are being forced to make serious cuts by the Scottish Government.

Sometimes canny councillors threaten to make intolerable cuts, to make the alternative savings seem less bitter and/or put pressure on Holyrood.

But, surely, this band must be saved.