Sir – I attended the Oxford public meeting on county cuts on October 15 and left the room thoroughly unimpressed by the lack of leadership shown by the Conservative group on this issue.

While the tagline for the event was ‘help us make tough decisions’, it quickly became clear that they were already resigned to their fate of having to find a further £61m of cuts and had no clear priorities about where their values lie.

These extra cuts are due to central government reducing the grant to the council. Given that these cuts will result in the deterioration in vital frontline services and are likely to change the fundamental fabric of society, I ask where are our MPs in all this?

The power to change this for the better lies in Westminster and so it should be our elected representatives there who must make the case for the Oxfordshire settlement and for local government more generally. As the parliamentary candidate for Oxford West and Abingdon, it is certainly what I would be doing if I were the MP.

Ian Hudspeth, the leader of the council, has said he has got nowhere with his colleagues Eric Pickles and David Cameron. It’s time for more of us to make our voices heard.

I urge all Oxfordshire residents to visit their MPs at their surgeries to press them to stand up to these cuts.

These decisions, taken in Whitehall, are not yet set in stone. In these tough times we need to exhaust every avenue to protect the most vulnerable in our communities. MPs should be taking a more proactive role in this fight.

Layla Moran, Oxford