BUDGET 2018 OFFERS LITTLE COMFORT TO NORTH AYRSHIRE & ARRAN

Responding the Chancellor's Budget 2018, I pointed out that this was a disappointing budget for most of my constituents.

There was no firm date given for the promised UK Government investment in the Ayrshire Growth Deal; there was no commitment to pause and fix Universal Credit, the flaws in which are pushing people into unnecessary hardship and debt, just tinkering round the edges; no measures to link the UK Government's pretend National Living Wage with the actual cost of living to ensure a Real Living Wage; more cuts to Scotland's budget; no refund of the £175million of VAT paid by Scotland's police and fire services even though a dispensation from paying VAT was given to England's Academy Schools; no guarantees over the safeguarding of taxpayer's interests when the future sale of RBS shares go ahead; nothing about the alarming rate of closure of ATMs in communities already suffering from bank closures; nothing for those who have been swindled by the UK Government-backed Green Deal company, HELMS; noting for the WASPI women, nothing for the Civil Nuclear Police Force who have been singled out from the conventional police service for "unsustainable" retirement arrangements; no timetable on bringing forward the measures set out in my Ten Minute Rule Bill to ensure Director level responsibility for nuisance calls; a delay in implementing the reduction of the stake for Fixed Odds Betting Terminals to £2; and raising the tax threshold which will, according to the Resolution Foundation, "overwhelmingly benefit richer households" with almost half set to go to the top 10% of households but which Labour will not oppose, despite calling for tax hikes in Scotland.