Lib Dems attack 'SNP centralisation'

SCOTTISH Liberal Democrat leader Tavish Scott will today attack creeping centralisation in Scotland.

The MSP will rail against what he calls Labour's centralisation of banks and the SNP's centralisation of government, warning of the danger of creating state monoliths like a national police board and massive superbanks.

Scott, due to address the second day of the Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth, will call on government to "give people their lives back".

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He will say: "This week's Budget demonstrates that centralisation is the core approach of the SNP.

"This government wants to turn our local councils into nothing more than SNP pen pushers. The SNP's approach is to nationalise the policy and localise the blame."

Scott will call for giant centralised banks to be broken down and for people to have a choice of smaller banks, which are reliable and secure.

He will say: "In Scotland that bank should be the Bank of Scotland, back home, free to lend to local business."

The SNP, however, yesterday dismissed claims they had a centralising agenda and wanted to create a single police force for the whole of Scotland as a "complete fiction".

The five-day Bournemouth gathering will be the Lib Dems' last annual conference before the next General Election, which must be held within the next nine months.

Yesterday the party's UK leader, Nick Clegg, admitted that the need for "savage" public spending cuts might force him to ditch his party's promise to abolish tuition fees. He said he had to be "realistic" about the country's mountain of debt. Clegg also warned of "savage and bold" cuts in spending under a Lib Dem administration – but suggested they would be in areas that allowed vital public services to be protected.

"If ending tax credits for high earners is the price we pay for cutting class sizes and investing in disadvantaged pupils, so be it. If we need to tell the highest-paid public sector staff they won't get an increase in their pensions so that we can afford to keep teachers, nurses, policemen and women in their jobs, so be it."

Clegg went on to attack David Cameron as the "con man of British politics", accusing the Tory leader of saying anything to win the next general election.