Cost-of-living crisis: Glasgow City Council leader urges Boris Johnson 'please act now'
Glasgow City Council leader Susan Aitken has urged Boris Johnson to take “urgent action” on the cost-of-living crisis.
Aitken told the outgoing PM that while his is "a government in transition", leaving the economic issue to his successor "could be too late".
The outcome of the Conservative leadership contest is expected on September 5, when either Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak will become the UK's new prime minister.
Earlier this week, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon urged Johnson to call an emergency meeting with heads of devolved government over rising costs. That came after the Bank of England issued a recession warning for the last three months of the year, with inflation predicted to top 13 per cent by October. That was before new estimates put the average annual domestic fuel cost at more than £4,200 from January.
Sturgeon said that while the Scottish Government Resilience Room would reconvene this week, "it is a statement of fact that many of the levers which would make the biggest difference" to the growing problem "lie with the UK Government".
In her letter, Aitken, who leads a minority SNP administration, said the impact of the crisis will be "even more pronounced" in Glasgow and similar cities. Fuel poverty in her city is already estimated to affect 35 per cent of households and she said the council's "finite resources" cannot solve the problem.
Calling for the establishment of a "much more generous public sector pay policy" to bring direct help to "tens of thousands of households", she told Johnson: "Action must be taken before the colder weather sets in and the biggest bills arrive. While you remain prime minister, you have the opportunity and the ability to act."
Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi has said that the UK Government is "taking important steps to get inflation under control".
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