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.

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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.

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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….

UP to 130,000 households in the North West will lose on average £10 a week (£520 a year) as a result of changes to housing benefit announced in June’s Emergency Budget.

Cuts to the local housing allowance will hit almost everyone in private rented housing who is on the benefit.

The analysis of figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) reveals the top 10 worst hit areas in the North West are:

Liverpool

Blackpool

Manchester

Wirral

Sefton

Bolton

Wigan

Rochdale

Cheshire West & Chester

Cheshire East

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THE  Coalition Government’s programme, particularly its emergency budget measures, are economically reckless and socially divisive.

The North West TUC will play its part in defending our jobs, services and communities.

• Cuts now will make the recession worse. Private sector jobs, as well as those in the public sector, depend on public spending. Poorer regions of England are especially dependent on public spending.

• The government says that massssive cuts are the only way to reduce the deficit. They are not. We should tax those who did well from the boom, the banks and their massive profits – not penalise those that did nothing to cause the crisis. The Government must invest in growth – not threaten recovery.

• The coalition is breaking its promises that the cuts will be fair. They will hit front-line services; the poor and vulnerable; increase inequality; open up a new North/South divide; and let the richest off the hook.

• Some in the coalition have a long-standing ideological commitment to reduce the size of the state. They are using the deficit as an excuse. Right-wing politicians and think-tanks called for cuts when the economy was booming. Their agenda is driven by ideology rather than economic reality.

• Tax-payers are right to ask for value for money. Academy and ‘Free’ schools, increased privatisation and ever more complex internal markets in the NHS, will deliver less for more.

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FIFTEEN thousand public servants will lose their jobs in the North West’s ‘big two’ cities over the next five years, according to independent research.

In Manchester, 7,648 jobs will go amongst the total of 90,000 people working in public services in the city, while 30 miles away in Liverpool a further 7,523 jobs will be axed from the 88,000 total.

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LANCASHIRE’S chief executive Ged Fitzgerald pocketed a whacking £254,000 a year salary last year – while 4,000 of his staff face huge pay CUTS.

The chief executive’s salary has more than doubled in the last ten years – while front line staff have been forced to take repeated pay cuts.

Members of UNISON are already balloting over industrial action in response to the Conservative controlled council’s £22.9million budget cuts.

But the news of Mr Fitzgerald’s bumper pay-out is certain to inflame opinion amongst County Hall workers throughout Lancashire.

Mr Fitzgerald is currently enjoying a 5-star luxury holiday abroad, leaving behind public servants who fear for their jobs.

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