Chief Secretary of the Treasury Danny Alexander was accused of dodging bedroom tax protesters outside Highland Council headquarters in Inverness yesterday.
The Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey MP met fellow north MPs and the council’s welfare reform working group to discuss the impact of the UK Government’s controversial benefit changes on the Highlands.
Since being introduced in April the housing benefit cuts for residents deemed to have spare rooms has affected 2,470 people and council house rent arrears have increased by £105,530 over the same period, according to the latest figures.
Yesterday, instead of passing through around a dozen placard-waving protesters outside the main door to the council building the Liberal Democrat MP went in through a side entrance.
His fellow LibDem MPs Charles Kennedy and John Thurso both ran the gauntlet of the protest group and were faced with catcalls including “Tories in disguise” and calls to scrap the bedroom tax.
Mr Alexander said he chose the quickest entrance to the building as he was running late, but protesters accused him of “scurrying in the back door”.
One campaigner, Donnie Fraser of Balintore, said: “This is just typical of Danny Alexander. He’s sneaking in the back door instead of speaking to his constituents who are here to protest the actions of his government. He should be facing his constituents instead of hiding away and scurrying in the back door.”
The 39-year-old landscape gardener added: “The reality is people are going to be forced out of their houses by the bedroom tax – they are going to be served eviction notices and they have no smaller properties to go to. The MPs need to stop that happening.”
Fellow protestor, Donald Jack, 64, of Ardersier, said: “I think he couldn’t man up to us. It is disappointing. He ought to be mightily embarrassed. I’m not personally affected by the changes but I’ve been a taxpayer all my days and I still am. I don’t mind that the money goes to help people in lesser circumstances. What I see is a government prepared to target the weakest in society and I think that is socially divisive.”