COUNCIL leader Shona Haslam and local MP John Lamont have criticised the Scottish Government for failing to provide enough money to councils in preparation for Brexit.

According to the Scottish Conservatives, English local authorities have received £56.5 million over the past two years to help fund Brexit preparations, while Scottish councils have received nothing.

This is despite the Scottish Government receiving £37.3 million in 2018-19, and £55 million in 2019-20, from Westminster to prepare for leaving the EU.

However, SNP MSPs have described the duo as having ‘a real brass neck’ considering that responsibility for the Brexit referendum and the current state of negotiations with the EU are the responsibility of Westminster Conservatives.

Councillor Haslam, who represents Tweeddale East, said: “This is quite unbelievable.

“The SNP Government continues to squirrel away money and not pass it onto those who are actually doing the work.

“As a local authority we are working incredibly hard to ensure that front line services are maintained and unaffected by Brexit, to hear that financial support has been given to the Scottish Government but it has, again, failed to be passed on is disheartening.”

SBC has been working on civil contingency plans in case of Brexit-related emergencies, including a taskforce that updates the council regularly.

The group has been tasked with planning for emergency shortages in food, fuel and medicine which may arise as a result of trade disruption following the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.

The council’s emergency planning officers have advised the authority that its role in such situations would be to ensure vital services such as schools, waste disposal and social care, remain functional.

The Brexit response team has also provided the council with updates on the impacts on procurement, funding, EU residents in the Borders and the council’s workforce, private business and economic resilience, and agriculture and rural development.

Fellow Tory and Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk MP John Lamont said: “On an almost daily basis we hear from the SNP Government about the challenges of Brexit. Yet incredibly we now know that the Scottish Government hasn’t even spent the money it has been given to prepare for Brexit.

“In England, councils have received nearly £60 million, yet the SNP have provided no financial support for our own councils.

“The fact that the SNP are now demanding more money just goes to show they are more interested in manufacturing a grievance than being a responsible Government.

“Scottish Borders Council are quite rightly making plans to ensure that as we leave the EU there is minimal disruption for services and for businesses. And they are doing this without any support from the Scottish Government.”

However, the SNP said that “Brexit is the Tories’ mess”, with MSP George Adam commenting: “It takes a real brass neck for the Tories to demand the SNP do more to clean up their Brexit mess while Westminster cuts deeper into Scotland’s annual resource budget.

“This shameless stunt by John Lamont to try pin the fallout of catastrophic Tory Brexit on the SNP is nothing short of embarrassing.

“Even before we have even left the EU, Brexit has already left households £1,500 worse off – with the economy at its weakest since 2012.

“Brexit is the Tories’ mess. No one else’s. End of story.

“We are now in the eleventh hour: John Lamont and his Tory colleagues in Westminster need to get their heads out of the clouds and extend Article 50 immediately for the sake of jobs, businesses and livelihoods across Scotland.”