FIFE'S three SNP MPs have written to the Chancellor ahead of the forthcoming Budget to call for an immediate end to austerity impacting on local services including education, health and social care.

In a letter to Philip Hammond, Glenrothes MP Peter Grant, North East Fife MP Stephen Gethin, and Douglas Chapman, MP for Dunfermline & West Fife, said that despite the commitment shown by the SNP Scottish Government to invest and prioritise funding for these services and “mitigate many of the worst UK Government cuts”, a 9.1% cut in the Scottish fiscal resource budget by Westminster has been devastating for public services across the Kingdom.

The SNP MPs have called for the Chancellor to do more to relieve the burden on their constituents and Fife Council which has had to make tough decisions due to funding cuts.

The letter states: “These cuts are hitting our local services alongside the rest of the public sector. At the Conservative Party Conference, the Prime Minister said that “austerity is over”. This is clearly not the case in our constituencies where people continue to feel the impact of your Government’s damaging cuts.

“Whilst local authorities under the SNP Scottish Government have received far better funding settlements than those in England and Wales and is having to mitigate many of the worst of UK Government cuts, the Scottish Parliament’s narrow set of powers under the existing devolution settlement, means that it cannot stem the torrent of austerity that began under the UK Tory-Liberal coalition in which you were a Cabinet Minister.”

It added: “However, the decision made by successive UK Governments since 2010 to impose austerity continues to severely effect local services including education, health and social care, and it is wrong that people across Fife are suffering at the hands of the Tory-led austerity agenda that they never voted for.”

Local MP Douglas Chapman said: “The Scottish Government has done what it can to mitigate the damaging impact of austerity in Fife and across Scotland, but faced with a 9.1% cut to its budget, it can only do so much.

"The reality is that our communities are suffering, with the poorest in society disproportionately affected. The Tories don’t live in the real world and they don’t appreciate what their austerity agenda is doing to real people.

"The SNP Government has shielded my constituents from the worst of Tory cuts, but Scotland shouldn’t be forced to continue to bail out the shortcomings of the UK Government. My constituents deserve better than that. Austerity must end now.”