Tuesday February 24th 2026
Midlothian Council Fairfield House
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Marie Sharp
Midlothian residents will face a 9% rise in council tax this year after the former leader of the council’s Conservative group voted to support the SNP budget.
Councillor David Virgo who had earlier in the meeting survived a motion from his former colleagues calling for him to step down after he resigned from his own party brought votes over the budget to a 9-9 tie allowing Provost Debbi McColl to give the casting vote to approve the budget.
The Conservative group had called for a lower council tax increase of 8% in an amendment which was rejected while the Labour group had called for more funds to be given to health and social care services amid claims the most vulnerable in society were being let down by a care package crisis.
However both amendments fell after councillors passed the SNP budget which means the new Band D monthly council tax figure for Midlothian will be £1816.16 which is equivalent to an increase of £12.50 extra per month.
Council leader Kelly Parry said the increase had been decided by the need to balance the books and was not come to easily.
She said: “I want to be very clear to the public, the recommendation to increase council tax by 9% is not a figure the councillors choose, or arrive at randomly, casually or without thought and consideration.
“It is a balanced figure to make up the shortfall in our funding.”
She said reducing the council tax increase required “more income from other sources” adding that over £4million was being taken out of the council’s reserves which otherwise would have required a balancing council tax rise of 16%.
The budget included a £75.122million payment to the Midlothian Integration Joint Board which oversees health and social care services.
The Labour group had put forward an amendment asking for an additional £1.793million to be given to the services which are struggling to provide care packages with the bar raised to only the most critical cases being considered.
Councillor Derek Milligan told the meeting that he had been told about a case where a woman in her seventies had to carry her disabled husband to the toilet at night because she could not get a care package while another man with a wife who was bed bound and required to be turned every four hours could not get anyone to come in and help turn her.
Mr Milligan said: “We are letting down the most vulnerable people in our society.”
He called for funds being set aside to establish an outside compliance team and which had previously been used to fund the disbanded community action teams to be transferred to the service.
Councillor Parry acknowledged the concerns about the service saying: “This is still an ongoing concern with recurring overspends in the IJB and it is difficult to see how this is not going to be repeated in the next financial year without additional resources and I think those should come from government.”
Earlier in the meeting the Scottish Conservative and Unionist group brought a motion calling on their former leader Councillor Virgo to step down and allow a by election in his ward pointing out he was elected as a member of their party.
The motion, brought by Conservative councillors Peter Smaill and Pauline Winchester, claimed Councillor Virgo’s name had appeared on the SNP group office door after his departure from their group.
And Mr Smaill said that photographs of Mr Virgo attending the SNP group Christmas party had been shared on social media.
Labour group members also backed the call, however the motion was split with eight SNP councillors and Councillor Virgo voting against it while nine Conservative and Labour councillors supported it, leading to Provost McColl taking the casting vote and rejecting it.
Following the vote Councillor Virgo told fellow members: “At any point since I stepped back had any of those who supported the motion approached me to clear the air that might have been the more sensible approach.”
Full details of the budget decision can be found on the council website.
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