THREE Lib Dem councillors in Halton have quit the party in protest at the Coalition Governments cuts in public services.

Runcorn councillors Bob Bryant, Peter Blackmore and Chris Carlin said the Lib Dem’s had become “nodding dogs for the Tories”.

They were unhappy with the savage cuts to public services and benefits, which were hitting Halton’s poorest the hardest.

Cllr Blackmore said he could not ” look people in the eye” because of the Coalition’s policies.

The three join another Halton Lib Dem councillor, Mike Shepherd who resigned from the party a few weeks ago.

The resignations, which have already hit the national headlines, provide clear evidence of growing unrest in the Lib Dem ranks over their party’s role in propping up David Cameron and his cuts in public services.

In Liverpool, Lib Dem councillor Ian Jobling has also defected to the ruling Labour group in protest at the cuts.

The resignations are certain to increase the pressure on the North West’s five Lib Dem MPs who are being targetted by the North West TUC over their support for savage cuts in public services.

AT LEAST 150 firefighters in Greater Manchester could lose their jobs because of massive cuts demanded by the Coalition Government.

The firefighters will be made compulsorily redundant for the first time in the brigade’s 36-year history as Greater Manchester Fire Service loses between 25-40 per cent of its government funding.

An internal document reveals that one cost-cutting proposal is to cut the number of firefighters responding to 999 calls, another is to close some of the service’s 41 stations.

Chancellor George Osborne will reveal the extent of the cuts facing fire services across the country in his October spending review.

A 25 per cent reduction in Treasury cash to the Greater Manchester brigade over the next three years  would mean nearly £19m being slashed.

More than 75 per cent of the brigade’s budget goes on wages for its total workforce of 2,400, including 1,600 firefighters.

Management and the Fire Brigades Union are due to begin talks today about how savings can be made.

County Fire Officer Steve McGuirk has admitted the service faces “an uncertain future”  because of government reviews.

Peter Taylor, from the Fire Brigades Union, said: “We are happy to sit down with management and discuss ways of making savings without going down the path of compulsory redundancies. But we will not accept compulsory redundancies.”

Read More: 150 firefighters could be axed in cutbacks

A NORTH West MP has rapped the Government for failing to recognise the relationship between the public and private sectors.

Jonathan Reynolds, Labour MP for Stalybridge and Hyde, spoke out during a House of Commons debate about the future of the North West economy.

Mr Reynolds hit out at the way the Coalition Government failed to recognise that both public and private parts of the economy were inter-dependent.

Mr Reynolds told the Commons that the Government’s lack of understanding about the relationship between the public and private sectors was one of the main concerns of manufacturing businesses in his constituency.

He warned that bringing Britain out of recession would be hit by the Government’s failure to recognise that huge parts of private business relied on healthy and vibrant public services.

Mr Reynolds said: “Manufacturers in my constituency have clients across the world, but a key part of their business is supplying the public sector.

“The Government are ruthlessly cutting public sector procurement in the Budget, and manufacturers will be unable to drive the country out of recession and back into growth if they do not have the necessary support and stimulus from the Government.”

It reports that confidence amongst bosses has plunged with rising nervousness about the impact of the cuts.

“Many businesses linked the decline in confidence to the planned cuts in public spending, which were expected to lead to weaker demand, both directly in those sectors with significant public sector exposure, and indirectly by reducing public sector employment and hence household income,” the Bank reported.

On jobs, the survey found:

“In recent months, private sector contacts had reported only a modest rise in recruitment intentions, with uncertainty about the economic recovery prompting many contacts to meet increases in demand using their existing resources, or by hiring temporary staff. Moreover, the modest rise in private sector intentions had been outweighed by expected cuts in the public sector. A few contacts also noted that cuts in public spending might lead to further falls in private sector employment, by reducing demand for private sector services.”

Companies were waiting to see how details of cuts unfolded in the October spending review.

Shoppers also appeared to be holding back from buying goods. Retail sales growth has slowed as businesses fear that consumer spending will suffer as public sector jobs are cut and incomes squeezed.

The property sector has also been suffering, after the Government cancelled the Building Schools for the Future project.  Builders reported that their workloads fell in the three months to July, according to a survey by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Examples of cuts the TUC believes are unfair include:

* Free school meals – The cancelled measure would have extended entitlement to free school meals to about 500,000 families in work on low pay from September this year. Cost £125m.
* Every child a reader – This programme to provide early support to children with literacy difficulties (focussed on inner-city schools) will be cut by at least £5m and its future is not guaranteed.
* City Challenge Fund – This programme aimed to provide extra support to under-performing children in the most deprived areas, but has been cut by £8m this year.
* Building Schools for the Future – This scrapped programme was the biggest-ever school buildings investment plan. The aim was to rebuild or renew nearly every secondary school in England. Cost £7.5bn.
* Housing benefit – Nearly a million (936,960) households will lose around £624 a year as a result of changes to housing benefit. Londoners will be worst hit.
* Homes and Communities Agency – Cuts to programmes including Kickstart (for restarting stalled house building programmes), affordable housing, gypsy and traveller support and Housing Market Renewal (improvements to housing in deprived areas). Cost £450m.
* Young Person’s Guarantee – £450m has been cut from the Guarantee, which will be abolished in April 2011. This Guarantee promised unemployed young people access to a job, training or work after six months of unemployment.
* Working Neighbourhood Fund – This fund, which aimed to help unemployed people in deprived areas to move into work, has been cut by £49.9m.
* Domestic Violence Protection Orders – Scheme to create two-week banning orders so that victims of domestic abuse can look for protection in the safety of their own house.
The TUC is calling on the Government to reconsider its plan of swingeing spending cuts to public services, and focus instead on other ways to reduce the deficit, such as a Robin Hood Tax on financial transactions that could raise up to £20bn a year.

The TUC is also a member of a coalition, which includes Barnardo’s, Oxfam and Save the Children, who want the Government to guarantee that any future budget cuts will be put through rigorous fairness testing – or a Fairness Test – by the Treasury, to ensure that vulnerable people, low-paid workers, women and children are not left to bear the brunt of spending cuts.

North West TUC Regional Secretary Alan Manning said: “Before the election we were told that cuts could be achieved through efficiency savings, that the most vulnerable would be protected and front-line services preserved. These pledges have not lasted 100 days.

“What makes things worse is that these cuts are doing the opposite of what the Government intends. Far from securing the economic recovery, they are slamming on the economic brakes. There is growing risk of a double-dip recession.

“We can only conclude that at least parts of the coalition are using the deficit as an excuse to secure the cuts in public services that they know that voters would have overwhelmingly rejected if faced with a manifesto that promised slash and burn.

“There is an alternative with policies designed to promote growth and to close the deficit, with taxes that target those who did so well out of the boom years and have escaped the recession.

“The TUC wants a Fairness Test to be introduced by the Treasury to ensure that cuts do not unfairly impact on the poorest in society – which would increase inequality in a Britain which is already at its most divided in income levels for half a century.”

- For a full list of cuts identified by the TUC please go to http://www.tuc.org.uk/extras/100_cuts_table.pdf
- For a list of cuts that will specifically affect children and families please go to: http://www.touchstoneblog.org.uk/2010/08/children-and-families-face-around-13-billion-of-spending-cuts/,
- The Fairness Test is supported by: Barnardo’s, Child Poverty Action Group, Church Action on Poverty, Community Links, Disability Alliance, End Child Poverty campaign, Equality Trust, Family Action, Gingerbread, London Play, One Society Campaign, Oxfam, RADAR, Ruth Lister, Save the Children, TUC and UK Women’s Budget Group. For more information please visit http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/fairnesstest

JOBLESS young people in Cheshire are to pay the price for the bankers recession with a £1.7million cut in services.

Hundreds of young people classed as ‘NEETS’ – Not in Employment, Education or Training – will be hit by the 25 per cent cut in the Connexions Warrington and Cheshire budget.

Up to 75 staff will lose their jobs by the end of this month in the not-for-profit service, which provides careers and training advice for 13-19 year-olds.

Connexions centres will close on Saturday and fewer staff will now be able to visit youth clubs, schools and colleges to help young people plan their future and look for careers.

UNISON official Ray McHale told The Sentinel: “The job losses will affect those people that are working with particularly vulnerable members of society such as those who are currently classed as Neets – not in education, employment or training.”

Meanwhile Bolton Connexions reports cuts equivalent to 30 per cent of its budget, while in Greater Merseyside there are cuts of 15 per cent on top of an earlier budget cut of 24 per cent.

The first cuts are due to come into force in September, just as thousands of 18-year-olds who are unable to find a place at university are expected to be looking for alternatives.

Read more: 75 jobs at risk as careers advice service makes cutbacks

Connexions service faces budget cuts of up to 50 per cent

Connexions service faces decimation

A CHARITY is backing North West TUC figures which show that thousands of people on housing benefit in the Region will be hit hard by Coalition cuts.

It says 130,000 people in the region will be up to £10 a week worse off – figures which the TUC first revealed on August 3rd.

This is the full text of a press release issued today by Crisis, the national charity for single homeless people:

New figures reveal the full impact that cuts to housing benefit will have on people in the North West.

Thousands of people in the region face debt and homelessness if the Government goes ahead with planned cuts, warns Crisis, the national charity for single homeless people.

The Government announced cuts of £1.8bn to housing benefit in its emergency Budget soon after coming to power. According to an impact assessment by the Department of Work and Pensions, virtually all of the 131,180 households in the region reliant on Local Housing Allowance (LHA)-the form of housing benefit paid to tenants in the Private Rented Sector-will be affected. This represents the largest number of people affected for any region outside London. On average, claimants in the North West will see their LHA cut by £10 per week, or £520 per year.

These cuts will leave tenants falling into rent arrears and increasing debt or being forced to leave their homes and at worst becoming homeless.

For people living in one bed properties, those in Manchester, Salford, Liverpool and St Helens will be especially badly affected. In St Helens, those living in one bedroom flats will have their support cut by £780 per year. In Manchester and Salford, the cuts to those in 1 bed flats will be £624 and £676 respectively.

Although the impact of the cuts on individual claimants is somewhat smaller in Liverpool (£468 per 1 bed flat), the cuts will affect 12,620 households of all sizes in the city-the fourth largest total after London, Birmingham and Leeds. Similarly, in Blackpool the cut to each 1 bed flat is not as high as in some other areas (£416) but 12,420 households will be affected by reductions for all people on LHA.

The number of households of all sizes affected in St Helens, Manchester and Salford is as follows:

• 3720 households in St Helens
• 10210 households in Manchester
• 5470 households in Salford

Leslie Morphy, Chief Executive of Crisis, said: “The Government promised that in cutting the deficit it would protect the most vulnerable, but these figures show that thousands of those who are in greatest need will have their income hit when they can least afford it.

“As vulnerable private tenants see their income slashed they will inevitably fall into rent arrears or debt and face the spectre of homelessness. The Government must totally rethink these cuts now.

“Not only would a surge in homelessness cause damage for generations to come in the North West, it is also counter-productive. The costs to society of somebody who has lost their home are huge compared to keeping someone in accommodation.”

A new campaign has been launched by the North West Trades Union Congress to persuade the Region’s five Lib Dem MPs to withdraw their support for the Coalition Government’s massive spending cuts.

The campaign – ‘Focus on the LibDem5’ – will target the North West’s five Lib Dem MP’s – John Leech, MP for Manchester Withington; Andrew Stunell MP for Hazel Grove; Mark Hunter MP for Cheadle Hulme; John Pugh MP for Southport; and Gordon Birtwistle MP for Burnley.

Mr Stunell was one of the architects of the Coalition Government and was rewarded with a job as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Communities and Local Government, with special responsibility for the Big Society, housing and regeneration, community cohesion and race equality.

Union members are to lobby the ‘LibDem5’ in their own constituencies  in the run-up to a national TUC protest rally on the eve of the Lib Dem Annual Conference in Liverpool on Sunday, September 19^th.

The union campaign will also focus on the constituents of the ‘LibDem5’, especially those who work in public services and who are union members.

The North West TUC aim to rally their support to urge their Members of Parliament to change course and stop supporting the Coalition’s cuts, before Chancellor George Osborne’s Comprehensive Spending Assessment reveals huge new spending cuts on October 20th.

The campaign will also focus on the LibDem5 on the TUC’s public services web site, ‘Proud to serve the public’ and through social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

North West TUC Regional Secretary Alan Manning said: “None of these five Lib Dem MPs stood for wholesale cuts in public services at the General Election – but once in Government, they quickly changed their minds.

“Public servants living in the constituencies of the ‘LibDem5’ risk losing their jobs as a result of the Coalition’s policies, along with many workers in the private sector whose jobs depend on public construction contracts, local authority work and similar programmes. We want those workers and the tens of thousands of voters who rely on public services from day to day, to tell their local Lib Dem MP exactly how they feel.

“We will appeal to the ‘LibDem5’ to change their minds and stop supporting the Coalition’s reckless and socially divisive attacks on public services and loyal public servants who are proud to serve the public.

“If the ‘LibDem5’ continue to support these huge cuts, they must be in no doubt that they will pay a price and risk losing their seats at the next election.

“The ‘LibDem5’ should instead be focussing on bankers astronomical bonuses, the massive profits made by the banks and a fairer tax system, rather than making their own constituents pay for the bankers’ recession.”

Mr Manning added: “We will also be targeting the Conservative half of the Coalition Government in the North West – but we hope to make an impact with the ‘LibDem5’ and their supporters, many of whom feel utterly betrayed by the Coalition.”

]]> http://www.proudtoservethepublic.org.uk/2010/08/12/union-members-appeal-to-the-north-wests-five-lib-dem-mps-over-cuts-in-public-services/feed 0 http://www.proudtoservethepublic.org.uk/2010/08/09/focus-on-the-libdem5-battered-burnleys-nhs-safe-in-coalition-hands http://www.proudtoservethepublic.org.uk/2010/08/09/focus-on-the-libdem5-battered-burnleys-nhs-safe-in-coalition-hands#comments Mon, 09 Aug 2010 12:35:41 +0000 Matthew Finnegan http://www.proudtoservethepublic.org.uk/?p=963 ONE of The LibDem5, Burnley MP Gordon Birtwistle fought the General Election on a ‘no more cuts’ pledge at the town’s General Hospital.

He even produced campaign posters (right) on his website which supporters could download and display in their windows.

So, as Mr Birtwistle’s Coalition Government now consider massive cuts in public spending (which Mr Birtwistle opposed just a few months ago), patients and staff at the hospital will be on the lookout to see what happens to them.

And what will their local LibDem MP say?

Will Mr Birtwistle continue to adopt his ‘No More Cuts at Burnley General’ position?

Will he do anything about any cuts?

Or will he meekly accept the Coalition’s cuts which have already given Burnley a battering – with worse to come: Burnley’s bus is stopped as town gets battered by Coalition’s cuts

Watch this space….