Tory chancellor Jeremy Hunt will make his much-anticipated Autumn Financial Statement on Thursday, the consequences of which will be massive for Scots households and our public services.

All the expectations are that Hunt will announce public spending cuts of £35bn and will raise another £20bn by increasing taxes.

But while he trots out the usual platitudes about everyone shouldering the responsibility to balance the books, you can bet it will be those who have borne the brunt of austerity, the frontline workers who carried us through the pandemic, and the ordinary households already struggling under the cost-of-living crisis who will carry the burden of what’s coming.  

The UK is of course facing multiple and overlapping economic challenges. Living costs continue to soar as incomes are squeezed by the massive hike in energy costs and rising food prices. In recent days, the Bank of England has warned that we are facing the longest recession since records began, which will inevitably have catastrophic consequences for jobs and businesses.

At the same time, vital public services are also buckling under the strain, with the cost of heating and powering public buildings from schools to hospitals and fuelling transport fleets having a massive impact on budgets.

And of course, with many staff across the public sector deserving decent pay rises to meet the demands of increased mortgage payments, rent rises, and all those pressures which make up this cost-of-living crisis, the money has to be found from somewhere.

Time and again we’re told that these are global issues, that the UK is caught up in a situation created by the war in Ukraine. This is only partially true.

The fact is we’ve been hit harder in the UK than other major economies because of the policy and agendas of the Westminster Government. Brexit has meant the economy hasn’t properly recovered from the pandemic and now won’t recover any time soon.

Successive Tory Prime Ministers have refused to get a grip of the energy market and the massive profits being generated energy firms. And we’ll pay the price for the madness of Liz Truss and her then chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget and the market turmoil it created.

At the same time, the Scottish Government, hamstrung by what we receive from Westminster and our inability to borrow to help protect our services and citizens, has seen its budget reduced by almost £2bn due to the impact of inflation.

The UK Government is responsible for so much of this mess. It’s on them to ensure that frontline services are properly funded and have enough to pay staff a decent wage.

Frankly, it’s immoral to expect the public sector to meet the demands of soaring inflation and wage costs and then strip away the benefits to low paid workers of any pay rise by hitting them with hikes tax to fix failed Tory policies.

In the past couple of weeks, council officers have been forecasting what the impact of these overlapping challenges will be for our city finances. The bottom line is these extraordinary economic circumstances have created a hole in our budget unlike anything we’ve ever experienced in recent times.

In the coming months officers will put forward options for how to balance our books which political groups will use to prepare budgets and protect staff and services as best we can.

Local councils across the UK provide vital life-and-limb services to society’s most vulnerable. They are a major employer in our communities.

Instead of slashing public spending at this most acute time, Hunt needs to reach out to the devolved governments and make sure councils can continue to deliver for citizens. Anything else risks calamity for our communities.

COP27

The small Glasgow team which attended COP27 had a packed and productive few days, building on our host city legacy and the momentum we built.

It was obvious that we are now widely recognised as a global climate leader, especially on the role of cities in addressing climate change and what a just transition means for people in places like Glasgow.

A key purpose of our attendance was to continue to make the case for the external investment Glasgow and cities like ours need in the decade ahead, transformational projects like the £10bn retrofit of almost half a million homes in the city region.

Over the three days we had really good discussions with institutional investors which we will take forward. What’s becoming clear is that there’s trillions of green investment now coming on stream and Glasgow needs to be in the room to make sure some of that comes to us.

We also met with climate activists from the global south to talk about what Glasgow can do to help on loss and damage and had great discussion with the International Labour Organisation about linking our just transition work into wider global efforts.

The climate agenda isn’t a distraction from the cost-of-living or public sector financial crises: climate solutions are also economic and social solutions in Glasgow as they are across the planet.

EQUAL PAY

I’m delighted that in recent days an agreement has been reached which means the council can deliver the final stage of the pay justice that many Glaswegian women have fought long and hard for.

This has been a long and complex process. When we reached agreement with the majority of cases four years ago both the council and claimants’ representatives knew we’d see further claims because of the lag in putting in place a new pay and grading structure

The pandemic ensured that process has been longer than anyone wanted or envisaged but the city government never wavered in its commitment to ensuring these women were compensated for the persistent undervaluing of their work.

I want to thank council officers, claimants’ representatives, my colleague and workforce convener cllr Allan Casey, and above all the women themselves in our collective efforts to draw a line under the era of pay discrimination in Glasgow City Council.

Settling Labour’s gender pay discrimination scandal was morally and legally the correct thing to do. Justice, of course, comes at a price and while we’ve done all we can to protect citizens from the impact of the bill it is one which will impact on our ability to financially manoeuvre by around £30m for the next 30 years. That’s the cost of this scandal to our city and its people for decades to come.