Oral Answers to Questions

David Mundell Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

My hon. Friend quite rightly speaks out against the cuts to Cumbernauld fire station, which sadly is just one example of the SNP’s dangerous mismanagement of Scotland’s fire services, as the Fire Brigades Union in Scotland told me just last month. There are 9.1 billion reasons why the SNP Government should choose to invest in local services, including in Cumbernauld, but after 18 years of failure and neglect my hon. Friend’s constituents will rightly not hold out much hope. Across Scotland, we need a new direction next May, with Anas Sarwar as the First Minister.

[David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State share my view that, whatever the SNP Scottish Government’s budget, they have cynically and systematically deprived funding from areas that do not support independence, leaving councils such as Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders and their health boards struggling to provide basic services?

[Ian Murray]

I would extend that and say that the whole of Scotland voted against independence in 2014. It seems to me that the SNP Government’s strategy is to starve all Scotland’s public services of the vital funding that they require.