A CANDIDATE in next month’s local council elections has sparked a furious response after likening questions on sex in a Scottish Government children’s survey to “grooming” of young people.

Murray Hendrie, who is standing as an independent candidate in the Doon Valley ward, hit out at the content of the Government’s Health and Wellbeing Survey, which was launched late last year and asked school pupils as young as 14 to disclose information about relationships and sexual health.

East Ayrshire Council said it would review the content of the survey before deciding which questions to put to pupils, while South Ayrshire was one of 11 authorities which said it intended to distribute the survey as provided by the Scottish Government.

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Hendrie is a former councillor in the Scottish Borders and has previously been a member of both the SNP and Labour.

Concerns about some of the questions in the survey were first raised in early December.

Posting on Facebook five months on, Hendrie said: “Not had much time to post anything this week, but want you all to see this.

“This is what the SNP administration in Holyrood and their accomplices in SNP controlled councils have been asking the country’s kids.

“It’s disgusting, perverted, and if anyone running a kids or community group were to ask the children under their supervision these questions it could quite rightly be described as grooming.”

Hendrie previously voiced his opposition to the provision of gender-neutral toilets in the new school campus currently being built in Dalmellington, saying he would be “vehemently opposing any possibility of “woke” PC gender neutral toilets in the new high school”.

However, at least one potential constituent is less than impressed by Hendrie’s comments.

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Dylan Reid, who lives in the Doon Valley ward, said Hendrie’s rhetoric is detrimental to the political sphere and that his views, such as his opposition to gender neutral toilets at the new campus being built in Dalmellington, are divisive.

Reid responded: “Is this the sort of new rhetoric we should expect in Scottish election campaigns? In posts that our children are seeing on social media in the community?

“We should aim for higher standards and a solid pursuit of equality in this country. Not more divisiveness, false claims and inequality.”

The Scottish Government and the SNP did not respond to requests for comment.

Hendrie is one of three independents standing in East Ayrshire’s Doon Valley ward in the May 5 pooll, alongside one candidate each from the SNP, Labour and the Conservatives.