North East Cuts
Posted by Tom Blenkinsop, MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, at 11:14, Fri 18 June 2010:
A number of crucial announcements have been made regarding funding projects in the North East by the new Conservative and Liberal Democrat Coalition government.
More details on how these measures will effect our area are coming out on a day by day basis.
What are your views on these developments, and what do you want to see me raise in the House of Commons?
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Posted by Philip Lamb, 12:52, Mon 21 June 2010: (Is this post abusive?) #
Hello Tom. Thanks for getting involved with this. I had to rescue the email informing me of your message from ntlworld's spam filter. I don't know if some others might not see the email. Regarding the cancelled hospital, I work near Wynyard and I haven't heard many people say they wanted the new hospital. Most seemed just to want the existing hospitals to remain and to be properly funded. Others may have heard differently, of course. With regard the cancellation of the loan to Forgemasters in Sheffield - not local but I'm sure you can see how it might be interesting to the local community - It's sad to see the steel industry not being supported but I suppose you'll be on shaky ground complaining about this given the perceived lack of support for Corus under the last government. Thanks again and good luck in your new job.
Posted by Tom Blenkinsop, 15:44, Tue 22 June 2010: (Is this post abusive?) #
Hi Philip, I've just come out of the budget today. Good news on pensions being restored to the link to earnings, originally broke by the tories in the 80s, and an issue I've been campaigning on to re-establish. Bad news on child benefit, changes on interest rises in benefits etc from RPI to CPI. £11 billion cut on benefits across the board.
The main problem however, as i spoke twice about in the debate, is that according to the Financial Times, our areas families are more than twice as likely to be hit by public service department expenditure reductions which will be as high as 25%. This undermines crucial benefits, most working people are reliant on, as well as public sector employment. Furthermore, the proposed 20% VAT rise will really hit the poorest families and severely hurt highstreet shops. This really concerns me for our market high streets, particularly in east cleveland. Also, still not much detail on industry which is very worrying. What are your views?
Posted by Philip Lamb, 11:57, Wed 23 June 2010: (Is this post abusive?) #
I agree that the restoration of the link between pensions and earnings is a good thing. As for child benefit, I've never really understood why it is universal. It seems odd to give benefits to people who have plenty of money. Stopping this would free up a huge chunk of money to give to the poorest - the benefit then wouldn't need to be frozen. The change from RPI to CPI for rises in benefits is something I had to look up. The main difference seems to be the inclusion of mortgage interest in RPI. If all we want is higher benefit payments then RPI would be better, but if we just want benefits to increase by the right amount then I really don't know which is correct. I suspect it depends on each claimant's circumstances. I think the public sector pay freeze is a better option than simply telling departments to cut budgets, which would lead to more redundancies. I hope some allowance is made for people like new teachers who might expect a pay-rise after completing their probationary period. I agree that it is worrying for the area generally though, with less spare cash floating around. Redcar High Street has a number of empty shops already and Guisborough has a few now too. If only a deal could be reached to get some or all of the steel works running again that would put a lot of money into the local economy. Overall the budget was no worse than I expected. Everyone knew there had to be cuts.