Labour Attack On Vulnerable Youngsters Exposed

New Labour were exposed as fraudsters in their high profile defence of children with special needs.

Following a series of meetings between SNP members and local groups such as the Aberlour Childcare Trust and Barnardos it was found that these groups had been advised by officers of Falkirk Council to expect a 20% cut in funding for the forthcoming financial year.

That was at a time when there was an anticipation of a drop in funding from central government based on indicative figures carried over from the Labour / Liberal Executive.

The attack on the voluntary and charitable sector demonstrated that Labour actions were very different from Labour words and shows Labour Leader, Wendy Alexander, in a particularly negative light given her high profile attack on the SNP for reducing ring fencing of grants to local government.

Falkirk North SNP member, Cecil Meiklejohn made a timely intervention on budget day to highlight the double standards and expose Labour leaders. In her speech she said,

“Groups like the Aberlour Childcare Trust have been partners of Falkirk Council for many years delivering services to vulnerable families with special needs.

To even contemplate a cut of any sort was bad enough but Labour had informed groups of what their anticipated budgets would be and they amounted to a cut of 20% which is deplorable.

The lesson from this exercise is that you can not trust New Labour to do what they say.

Thanks to the SNP government nationally and a strong lobbying exercise by the SNP locally these groups now face increases in their funding levels not the cuts Labour envisaged in November of last year when they began the process of putting together their budget.”

SNP anger at the cuts was intensified due to the fact that at the time these charities were being advised to expect savage cuts Labour leaders were spending thousands of pounds on new carpets, blinds and furniture for their own offices.