'Removed from reality': SNP attacks Scotland Office minister over claims Labour has ended austerity

Kirsty McNeill MP claimed in an interview that Labour has ended austerity.

A Scotland Office minister has been branded “removed from reality” after claiming Labour has ended austerity.

Kirsty McNeill MP, who was elected as the Scottish Labour MP for Midlothian at last year’s general election, said she was proud her party had kept its promise to end austerity.

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However, opposition parties north of the Border in Scotland say her claims are at odds with recent decisions the UK government has made such as ending universal winter fuel payments for pensioners and not abolishing the two-child benefit cap.

Scotland Office minister Kirsty McNeill.Scotland Office minister Kirsty McNeill.
Scotland Office minister Kirsty McNeill. | Andrew Milligan/Press Association

This comes after Chancellor Rachel Reeves said her government had inherited a £22 billion black hole in public finances from the previous Conservative government.

SNP MSP Kenneth Gibson said: “For Kirsty McNeill to claim that Labour has ended austerity in the same week that both the Prime Minister and Chancellor have refused to rule out making ‘severe’ spending cuts in the forthcoming spending review shows that she is far removed from reality.

“The Labour Party must start to take responsibility for their actions and come clean on the scale of planned cuts.”

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Maggie Chapman, the Scottish Greens’ equality spokeswoman, added: “This will be news to the thousands of pensioners that Labour has plunged into fuel poverty or the struggling families being hammered by the cruel two-child cap.

“Only this week Keir Starmer was telling us that he was going to slash social security spending, making life even harder for people who have the least.

“Austerity is a choice - there is more than enough money to end the cuts and build a fairer economy, but it is being hoarded by a small number of wealthy people.

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“If Kirsty McNeill and her Labour colleagues are remotely serious about ending the financial pain that households and families all over the UK are feeling, then they can ask the rich to pay more and invest in people, communities and the services we all rely on.”

During an interview with the BBC, Ms McNeill defended her party’s record in government and said disagreements with Scottish Labour in Holyrood showed devolution was working.

She said: “The Scottish Parliament is a quarter of a century old. Devolution has matured and that means different levels of government on different borders have different views - that’s a sign devolution is working.

“We need to fix the terrible inheritance of a £22bn black hole, which needs difficult decisions to fix the foundations. But now we are going for growth and delivering on our promises.

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“We said we would end austerity and I am very proud to say that we have.”

Ms McNeill said the creation of GB Energy, a publicly-owned energy company headquartered in Aberdeen, and Labour’s new deal for working people showed there had been a move away from the austerity measures introduced by the Conservatives.

She said: “The UK government is implementing the manifesto on which we stood and returned 37 Scottish Labour MPs - that is the choice we took the last time we had a ballot paper in our hands.

“The next time we make that choice, people will be thinking if it is acceptable one in six Scots are on NHS waiting lists and every institution is worse off at the end of the SNP’s reign than it was at the start.

“We promised an end to austerity and now we have - let’s get on with implementing real change.”

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