AT the time of writing, Inverclyde Labour have finally u-turned on their decision to impose an unnecessary council tax hike upon local households.

During a cost-of-living crisis, this increase would have only heaped further pressure on household budgets – so I’m pleased that local campaigning efforts on this issue have been successful.

This means everyone living in Inverclyde will benefit from a council tax freeze next year. Ultimately the people have won.

However, let’s be frank: there was no need for Inverclyde Labour, supported by councillors McVey and McKenzie, to undertake this political position. They chose to proceed with a proposal to increase council tax by 8.2 per cent.

The Scottish Government had offered £2.9m which would cover the 8.2 per cent increase. Why they chose to make local households pay £2.87m when the Scottish Government were going to pay £2.9m made no sense.

What’s more, they chose to turn down this funding despite knowing it was baselined for future years – so in effect choosing to turn down an extra £2.9m each year for future years.

On top of this, as Cllr Liz Robertson highlighted in her latest Tele column, by choosing to take this £2.9m from the pockets of local people rather than the Scottish Government, Inverclyde Labour et al. were content with removing £2.9m from local people’s spending power.

Whilst I welcome this u-turn and my constituents will benefit from a council tax freeze, just like other councils across the country, Inverclyde taxpayers will bear the cost of any extra administration, if any, to ensure the freeze happens.

On a separate matter, I want to comment on the latest data from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) which shows that 28,248 Scottish households have had their housing benefit or Universal Credit capped between the introduction of the benefit cap and November 2023.

Almost 90 per cent of those households include children, with most capped households continuing to be single parents with children.

With the Scottish Government already providing £8.6 million in direct support for people affected by the UK benefit cap as part of its work to tackle child poverty, it’s time that the Tories' and Sir Keir Starmer's Labour Party commit to the abolition of the benefit cap – or devolve the full powers of social security laws to Holyrood so that the Scottish Government can tackle the problem head on.

A failure to do so consigns thousands of Scottish families to poverty and financial hardship.

Finally, I was contacted by Scottish Water regarding upcoming investment. From Tuesday 7 May they plan to start an 11-month project to install nearly two miles of new pipework along the A78 from Wemyss Bay towards Skelmorlie.

They plan to work between 8am and 5pm and will use a convoy system to manage traffic.