The former leader of the Labour Party in Scotland has urged a regional publisher to scrap its plan to cut up to 70 journalism roles across the United Kingdom.

Kezia Dugdale MSP has lodged a motion in the Scottish Parliament condemning the planned round of voluntary redundancies at JPIMedia and has called for the decision to be reversed, according to the Edinburgh Reporter.

Ms Dugdale, left, a Member of the Scottish Parliament for the Lothian region, was in charge of Scottish Labour between 2015 ND 2017.

Last week it was confirmed the company has opened a voluntary redundancy programme which could see up to 70 roles lost across the country, including ten at JPIMedia’s Edinburgh-based titles The Scotsman, Edinburgh Evening News and Scotland on Sunday.

JPIMedia is offering enhanced redundancy packages with an additional £2,500 tax-free pay-off on top of the usual terms.

Ms Dugdale said: “The decision by JPI Media to make even further cuts to local staff is deeply disappointing.

“Many news titles are now working with an almost skeleton staff and making more journalists redundant is the wrong decision at a time when high quality, trusted and professional journalism is needed more than ever.

“I hope this decision will be reversed and that further redundancies can be averted.

“A healthy and diverse local press is essential to our democracy, growing the sector instead of making further cuts should be a priority.”

JPIMedia declined to respond to Ms Dugdale’s comments, but a spokesman for the company previously said: “We are constantly looking to innovate and find new working structures and ways of working to respond to the declining print advertising and newspaper sales revenues we and the rest of the media industry have experienced for many years.

“As part of this, we are looking at measures to respond to immediate revenue challenges and have therefore today announced an open voluntary redundancy programme across the editorial function at JPIMedia.”