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Public Spending Cuts

Posted by Sammy Wilson, MP for East Antrim, at 08:24, Mon 4 October 2010:

Across Europe this week Trade Unions protested about the reductions which governments have been forced to make in public spending. The fact that every state has been forced into this action should in itself be an answer to the economic illiterates such as Gerry Adams who think that public spending reductions can be stopped by putting up posters and demanding that cuts be resisted.

While the turnout in Belfast was very small, itself an indication that the general population are not taken in by the rhetoric and politically motivated campaign of the Trade Union movement, I think that it was the most unique of all the protests in Europe. I base this claim on the fact that it was the only protest which attracted among its supporters two government ministers, ironically they were ministers responsible for the two biggest spending departments in N.I. You really could not make it up. No wonder the outside world sometimes looks in on N.I. with incredulity. Even worse when interviewed both Michael McGimpsey and Catriona Ruane did not rule out the possibility that they might strike in protest against cuts.

To tell you the truth I thought they had already started their strike. To see the mess that Catriona Ruane has left in education most of the public wonder if she didn’t stop doing her job years ago. Schools and the children who go to them would be better served if the Education minister spent time trying to look at how her department can face up to the new budgetary situation which we find ourselves in, instead of wandering the streets of Belfast wishing the situation away.

As far as Michael McGimpsey is concerned I think that he is perhaps suffering from a guilty conscience. Don’t forget this is the man who is a minister in a party which was in partnership with the Conservative party. He urged people to vote for candidates who would take the Tory whip at Westminster. He knew exactly what the Conservatives were planning by way of cuts if they won the election. Maybe his attendance at the protests is some kind of penance for his earlier support for the Conservative party. However it does seem rather hypocritical to take to the streets to protest against what his party urged people to vote for. We used to think of him as a dour mortician it seems that he has now taken on the role of a rather agile acrobat who urges people to vote for the party of cuts then protests against them. He will have to administer a budget which contains reductions in spending but he publicly proclaims his opposition to those reductions. Donning his cloth cap, waving the red flag and singing the internationale or whatever they do at these throwback to the seventies protests, will not eradicate the reality that we have to live with less money from Westminster than we had in previous years.

The public, who will be affected by the spending reductions in many ways, deserve to be treated with a lot more respect than this juvenile posturing by two ministers who have a duty to those who work in their departments and need their services. What are the civil servants in these departments meant to do? They will be there long after these ministers have departed. Do they simply sit on their hands or do they defy their ministers and prepare papers and reports on what these important departments need to do to live within constrained budgets?

The First and Deputy first ministers were in London to put the N.I. case to the Chancellor this week. I and my department are in regular contact with the Treasury officials and ministers highlighting the particular problems that we in N.I. face and the need for help in restructuring our economy to grow the private sector and reduce our dependence on the public sector. We emphasise the fact that we wish to work constructively with the Westminster government to achieve this. However it is a bit difficult to be taken seriously when we have two ministers joining the “oppose the cuts circus”on the streets of Belfast.