News / Carmichael queries housing grant cut
THE UK treasury is to be asked if it can bypass the Scottish government to help pay Shetland’s £40 million public housing debt.
The move comes after the Scottish government decided to stop paying housing support grant, which only goes to Shetland.
Shetland’s housing debt was built up in the 1970s to pay for accommodating oil workers building Sullom Voe oil terminal.
Repeated efforts to persuade the UK government to clear it have failed.
On Wednesday Scottish housing minister Margaret Burgess told parliament the housing support grant was being halted, a move local MSP Tavish Scott had tried to block.
However in a last minute phone call to Shetland Islands Council leader Gary Robinson, Burgess and local government minister Derek Mackay offered a final payment of £840,000 over the next three years to cover the interest.
Robinson asked for the offer to come as a lump sum and to be put in writing.
He said: “We have not got a great deal of choice in this. It’s a matter of take it or leave it.”
The council is worried that losing the cash will force them to put up council house rents, which are already amongst the highest in Scotland.
Meanwhile northern isles MP Alistair Carmichael is asking why money paid to Scotland specifically to be passed on to Shetland is being kept in Holyrood coffers.
“It seems worth asking whether or not that money can come directly from London to Shetland,” Carmichael said.
“I think the treasury should be concerned that money they give the Scottish government for a very specific purpose isn’t being spent on that purpose.”
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