New Year Message by Ed Miliband MP Leader of the Labour Party
In 2011, thousands of our bravest men and women will continue to serve far from home in Afghanistan with the highest commitment and dedication. My thoughts are with them and their families at this New Year.
Here at home, 2011 will be a year of consequences for Britain. Consequences that will be felt by hardworking families across the country. Consequences of the decision taken to reduce the deficit at what I believe to be an irresponsible pace and scale.
Many people feel powerless in the face of these decisions that will affect their lives, families and communities. The political forces in Whitehall which have made these choices appear forbidding and unheeding.
It is the message I get talking to young people about the loss of their educational maintenance allowances and trebling of tuition fees, people in different areas worried about their services and those wondering where the new jobs to replace those lost are going to come from.
In 2011, many people will wonder what they can do. Some will ask whether there really is an alternative to this scale of cuts. Still more will shrug their shoulders at casually broken promises and conclude politicians are indeed all the same.
Labour's challenge and duty in 2011 is to be people's voice in tough times and show that these are changes born of political choice by those in power not necessity.
And we will take the next steps on the journey to win people's trust that we offer a better, more optimistic future for Britain.
To do that will require learning from what we did right and wrong in government, strong opposition where it is required and laying the foundations for an alternative path for Britain.
I began my leadership by admitting that in government, we had lost touch and lost trust and that we needed to change to be the party that Britain needs. I saw it on the doorstep at the 2010 General Election and I know it can't be put right automatically.
It is why our journey to construct a better future for Britain must start from people's lives and their hopes and dreams. And we must change our party so that it becomes a genuine community force in every part of the country.
People also need our voice now.
So in 2011, we will be arguing for a proper economic strategy rather than an economic policy reduced only to deficit reduction. We would have made cuts but the scale, pace and targeting of these changes is not just wrong, it holds us back from answering the bigger economic challenges we face: about where the jobs of the future are going to come from and how can we create an economy which works for all.
We will stand up for young people because the promise of progress should be that the next generation does better than the last. That is not what young people feel is being delivered when they face the burden of tens of thousands of pounds of student debt, or are told there will be no more help to stay on at school or college or to find a job.
And we will expose the promise of new politics when it is simply about the breaking of promises in 2011 that were made in 2010.
And as we begin a New Year, I call on all people of other parties and none who share our values and worry about the direction of the country under this government to work with us.
I said in my Labour Party Conference speech that I have never believed that all wisdom resides in one political party. That is why I want to reach out to all other forces of progress in Britain.
To those who feel that politics as it is being practised is high-handed, remote and arbitrary, I also urge them to campaign and work with us. Decisions over school sport and in recent days, bookstart, were reversed because of the power of people arguing and winning their case.
It shows that political change comes because people make it happen.
2011 will be a year where we work to change Labour and seek to rebuild trust in us and in politics as a force for good.
Even in these tough times, we must keep the flame of optimism burning.
I sincerely believe that we can build a better future for Britain. That means closing the gap between people's aspirations and their chances of fulfilling them, being a society where we look after each other and meeting the promise that the next generation does better than the last.
That is our mission as a party which we will pursue next year and in the years ahead.
Friday 31 December 2010
Monday 27 December 2010
BUILDING A RECOVERY IN THE NEW YEAR?
Research released today reveals that building the homes required to meet Government’s projections of need would mean £1.2 billion of investment annually across the country and the creation of over 216,000 jobs.
The Home Builders Federation’s report, Reconstructing Our Regions, for the first time unveils the clear economic benefits of meeting housing need and tackling the housing crisis.
The report analyses the potential impact of the Government’s New Homes Bonus incentive to local communities and the upturn in employment in housing construction seen if local areas build the homes needed to meet the Government household projections over the next two decades.
It comes as the housing crisis worsened; last year saw the lowest number of homes built since 1924 and almost five million people on the social housing waiting lists. It also saw a record low number of first time buyers, with more and more people in their 30’s staying with their parents. In fact nearly a third of men and a fifth of women aged 20-34 now living with their parents, there is clearly a massive need for a major house building programme
Meanwhile Local Authorities have seen their funding cut severely – by 27% over the next four years – and unemployment passed two million this year. This demonstrates the importance of new house building for all communities and local economies across the country.
HBF Executive Chairman, Stewart Baseley, says: “Building houses is a win-win for communities across the country. Not only will families get the homes they need but local employment and increased investment will be boosted.
“Economic growth is fundamental to a successful recovery and housing has a huge role to play – I urge Local Authorities to reap the rewards of development and start building the homes the country needs.”
The only problem is the ConDem coalition's policies will make it virtually impossible to deliver the new houses people desperately need. The abolition of the regional housing targets could see even fewer houses being built because it amounts to a NIMBY's charter.
Despite the HBF's upbeat assessment of the economic and social benefits of a major new house building programme, there is little hope of a housing renaissance in the foreseeable future. The introduction the new homes bonus is not fit for purpose. It will do little if anything to address the housing shortage that is set to get worse following the government’s decision to scrap the Regional Spatial Strategies.
The Home Builders Federation’s report, Reconstructing Our Regions, for the first time unveils the clear economic benefits of meeting housing need and tackling the housing crisis.
The report analyses the potential impact of the Government’s New Homes Bonus incentive to local communities and the upturn in employment in housing construction seen if local areas build the homes needed to meet the Government household projections over the next two decades.
It comes as the housing crisis worsened; last year saw the lowest number of homes built since 1924 and almost five million people on the social housing waiting lists. It also saw a record low number of first time buyers, with more and more people in their 30’s staying with their parents. In fact nearly a third of men and a fifth of women aged 20-34 now living with their parents, there is clearly a massive need for a major house building programme
Meanwhile Local Authorities have seen their funding cut severely – by 27% over the next four years – and unemployment passed two million this year. This demonstrates the importance of new house building for all communities and local economies across the country.
HBF Executive Chairman, Stewart Baseley, says: “Building houses is a win-win for communities across the country. Not only will families get the homes they need but local employment and increased investment will be boosted.
“Economic growth is fundamental to a successful recovery and housing has a huge role to play – I urge Local Authorities to reap the rewards of development and start building the homes the country needs.”
The only problem is the ConDem coalition's policies will make it virtually impossible to deliver the new houses people desperately need. The abolition of the regional housing targets could see even fewer houses being built because it amounts to a NIMBY's charter.
Despite the HBF's upbeat assessment of the economic and social benefits of a major new house building programme, there is little hope of a housing renaissance in the foreseeable future. The introduction the new homes bonus is not fit for purpose. It will do little if anything to address the housing shortage that is set to get worse following the government’s decision to scrap the Regional Spatial Strategies.
Tuesday 14 December 2010
CONDEM ASSAULT ON YOUNG PEOPLE
The government’s decision to abolish the Education Maintenance Allowance undermines aspiration and will be counterproductive.
My fear is that hundreds, if not thousands of young people in Derby will now be deterred from staying on at school or going to college. At the moment 3,571 16 – 18 year olds in Derby receive EMA and 36 per cent of Derby College’s students currently receive it.
Our economy needs a well educated and motivated workforce, but these plans, and the tripling of tuition fees, will undermine educational attainment.
These changes represent the dawning of a new era where access to post-16 education becomes the preserve of the rich and elite, creating profound and unwelcome consequences for our society.
My fear is that hundreds, if not thousands of young people in Derby will now be deterred from staying on at school or going to college. At the moment 3,571 16 – 18 year olds in Derby receive EMA and 36 per cent of Derby College’s students currently receive it.
Our economy needs a well educated and motivated workforce, but these plans, and the tripling of tuition fees, will undermine educational attainment.
These changes represent the dawning of a new era where access to post-16 education becomes the preserve of the rich and elite, creating profound and unwelcome consequences for our society.
Wednesday 8 December 2010
FOUR BUILDING BLOCKS FOR A NEW CONSENSUS ON POVERTY
This is an extract from a speech given by Douglas Alexander to the Child Poverty Action Group’s AGM today – 8 December 2010.
“I think there are four building blocks for a new consensus on poverty that I hope at least some of the supporters of this Government could sign up to. But at the same time, we need to make sure this Government is held to account for their efforts to end relative child poverty, not some easier to meet definition of poverty, and that the 2020 target is a commit ment of every mainstream political party in this country.
“Firstly, work remains the best route out of poverty. Even if we do eventually get back to pre-recession levels of unemployment, the employment rates for some groups would still be far below those in countries that do better on child poverty than we do.
“Raising the lone parent employment rate to 75 per cent would take half a million children out of poverty, and that’s what has led this Government to go ahead with our plans to ask lone parents to start looking at part time work when their youngest child turns seven. And I’m willing to look at their proposals to change that age to five if they can produce a proper impact assessment and can show that they will match any toughening of conditionality with investment and support for affordable childcare.
“Secondly, social mobility is crucial, it’s driven by education and it’s the early years that matter most. While I didn’t agree with everything in Frank Field’s report last week, when he says that early years determine a child’s chances in life, he’s exactly right. Although it seems to be an area where Nick Clegg wants to draw some artificial dividing lines with Labour, the fact is that we are the Party of Sure Start not just as a response to the need for better childcare provision, but as a response to the need for better, integrated support to improve life chances for the poorest kids.
“The third building block is more contested; we have to reaffirm that inequality in our economy and our society matters. We have a relative poverty target in this country and there’s a reason why we do. One of the most striking features of the Unicef report last week was the finding that if, in Sweden, you took away all the progressive tax and benefit measures and just let the market determine how many children lived in poverty, you would still have a lower poverty rate than in the UK with all of our tax and benefit measures in force.
“The New Policy Institute study earlier this week, found that about half of the children growing up in poverty do so despite the fact that at least one of their parents goes out to work. In work poverty goes too easily unnoticed and is perhaps harder to deal with because it goes to the kind of economy we want to see in our country. For that reason, Ed Miliband is right to be advocating the living wage.
“Because we need to find ways, not just of moving people into work and then topping up their wages, but helping them get on in work, just as our growth strategy has to be based not just on creating more jobs, but creating more higher skill, higher value added jobs that command better wages.
“The final building block is the most elusive and, although it actually comes naturally to progressive politics, it’s one we need to reaffirm. Poverty isn’t experienced by atomised individuals acting as totally independent economic agents. Poverty is endured by f amilies and to communities – and building relationships and supporting families are central to any sustained assault on poverty.
“What does that mean? It means we have to be alive to the impact that the private economy and public policy are having on the quality of family relationships. Isolation and lack of community are vital determinants in persistent child poverty. It means we need to deliver pride and self respect for poor communities, not just jobs and income transfers. For that reason building relationships, being engaged with local institutions, learning to lead and work with others are indispensible aspects of reducing child poverty.
“The state and the private sector can create the space and time for people to come together, with policies from flexible working to allow people to have time off, to making the streets safe so that people feel they can attend a public meeting on a dark night in winter. But it also means we need to start celebrating, and value, the people who are taking action and assuming leadership roles in their own communities.
“But even the strongest policy consensus won’t get us to what we need. We have to find new ways to give voice to a campaign that makes backsliding, delay, or watering down of the commitment to ending child poverty too politically painful for this Government to contemplate. One of the best things about CPAG is that it has the word “action” in the title, and I know everyone here doesn’t want to wait until we start to see rising child poverty before taking political action. But it also means we need to find new campaigning tools and new language to try and recruit new advocates who haven’t been involved in this cause before.”
“I think there are four building blocks for a new consensus on poverty that I hope at least some of the supporters of this Government could sign up to. But at the same time, we need to make sure this Government is held to account for their efforts to end relative child poverty, not some easier to meet definition of poverty, and that the 2020 target is a commit ment of every mainstream political party in this country.
“Firstly, work remains the best route out of poverty. Even if we do eventually get back to pre-recession levels of unemployment, the employment rates for some groups would still be far below those in countries that do better on child poverty than we do.
“Raising the lone parent employment rate to 75 per cent would take half a million children out of poverty, and that’s what has led this Government to go ahead with our plans to ask lone parents to start looking at part time work when their youngest child turns seven. And I’m willing to look at their proposals to change that age to five if they can produce a proper impact assessment and can show that they will match any toughening of conditionality with investment and support for affordable childcare.
“Secondly, social mobility is crucial, it’s driven by education and it’s the early years that matter most. While I didn’t agree with everything in Frank Field’s report last week, when he says that early years determine a child’s chances in life, he’s exactly right. Although it seems to be an area where Nick Clegg wants to draw some artificial dividing lines with Labour, the fact is that we are the Party of Sure Start not just as a response to the need for better childcare provision, but as a response to the need for better, integrated support to improve life chances for the poorest kids.
“The third building block is more contested; we have to reaffirm that inequality in our economy and our society matters. We have a relative poverty target in this country and there’s a reason why we do. One of the most striking features of the Unicef report last week was the finding that if, in Sweden, you took away all the progressive tax and benefit measures and just let the market determine how many children lived in poverty, you would still have a lower poverty rate than in the UK with all of our tax and benefit measures in force.
“The New Policy Institute study earlier this week, found that about half of the children growing up in poverty do so despite the fact that at least one of their parents goes out to work. In work poverty goes too easily unnoticed and is perhaps harder to deal with because it goes to the kind of economy we want to see in our country. For that reason, Ed Miliband is right to be advocating the living wage.
“Because we need to find ways, not just of moving people into work and then topping up their wages, but helping them get on in work, just as our growth strategy has to be based not just on creating more jobs, but creating more higher skill, higher value added jobs that command better wages.
“The final building block is the most elusive and, although it actually comes naturally to progressive politics, it’s one we need to reaffirm. Poverty isn’t experienced by atomised individuals acting as totally independent economic agents. Poverty is endured by f amilies and to communities – and building relationships and supporting families are central to any sustained assault on poverty.
“What does that mean? It means we have to be alive to the impact that the private economy and public policy are having on the quality of family relationships. Isolation and lack of community are vital determinants in persistent child poverty. It means we need to deliver pride and self respect for poor communities, not just jobs and income transfers. For that reason building relationships, being engaged with local institutions, learning to lead and work with others are indispensible aspects of reducing child poverty.
“The state and the private sector can create the space and time for people to come together, with policies from flexible working to allow people to have time off, to making the streets safe so that people feel they can attend a public meeting on a dark night in winter. But it also means we need to start celebrating, and value, the people who are taking action and assuming leadership roles in their own communities.
“But even the strongest policy consensus won’t get us to what we need. We have to find new ways to give voice to a campaign that makes backsliding, delay, or watering down of the commitment to ending child poverty too politically painful for this Government to contemplate. One of the best things about CPAG is that it has the word “action” in the title, and I know everyone here doesn’t want to wait until we start to see rising child poverty before taking political action. But it also means we need to find new campaigning tools and new language to try and recruit new advocates who haven’t been involved in this cause before.”
Friday 3 December 2010
RECKLESS CUTS COULD UNDERMINE LOCAL NHS
In the Comprehensive Spending Review George Osborne outlined the Government's commitment to protecting the NHS. However, whilst the NHS budget was not actually cut the reality is that the 'growth' in funding will not meet the growth in demand.
Nationally, the NHS must save £20 billion by 2014 which is 20% of its budget. Locally this means that Derby hospitals must save £20 million over the same period, which is 5% of its budget in each of the next four years.
This isn't what people expected when they heard David Cameron promise to protect the NHS. This will have a massive impact in Derby.
I only hope that NHS staff are able to maintain the excellent service standards which they currently provide, but I fear this is unlikely under such tight budget constraints.
Coupled with the cuts comes a complete restructuring of the NHS, with the plan to scrap Primary Care Trusts forcing GPs to take on the role of administering the NHS's £80 billion budget.
The Government is forcing GPs to take on the job of planning, buying and managing the rest of the NHS's services. People want GPs to concentrate on caring for patients, but this colossal task will detract from patient care.
The government's reckless plans could actually undermine the very foundations of one of Britain’s greatest institutions. No wonder they're happy to be described as 'Thatcher's children'.
Nationally, the NHS must save £20 billion by 2014 which is 20% of its budget. Locally this means that Derby hospitals must save £20 million over the same period, which is 5% of its budget in each of the next four years.
This isn't what people expected when they heard David Cameron promise to protect the NHS. This will have a massive impact in Derby.
I only hope that NHS staff are able to maintain the excellent service standards which they currently provide, but I fear this is unlikely under such tight budget constraints.
Coupled with the cuts comes a complete restructuring of the NHS, with the plan to scrap Primary Care Trusts forcing GPs to take on the role of administering the NHS's £80 billion budget.
The Government is forcing GPs to take on the job of planning, buying and managing the rest of the NHS's services. People want GPs to concentrate on caring for patients, but this colossal task will detract from patient care.
The government's reckless plans could actually undermine the very foundations of one of Britain’s greatest institutions. No wonder they're happy to be described as 'Thatcher's children'.
Wednesday 1 December 2010
STUDENTS INDIGNATION IS UNDERSTANDABLE AND JUSTIFIED
It was Harold Wilson who in the 1960s coined the phrase that a week is a long time in politics. How right he was! The events that have unfolded since the General Election would have been unthinkable this time last year.
TV pictures of students taking to the streets and staging sit-ins were only ever seen in archive footage from the 1960s and 70s, but a new political awareness is stirring. Many young people are indignant about the blatant betrayal by the Liberal Democrats.
Every single Lib Dem MP gave a solemn pledge...“to vote against any increase in tuition fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative.”
It was these pledges that persuaded many students to vote for the Liberal Democrats, securing victory for them in a number of seats around the country. Little wonder then that students feel betrayed and have taken to the streets to voice their anger.
Their sense of indignation is understandable and justified, not just because the Liberal Democrats have let them down, but because the Government’s proposals are seriously flawed.
The Government’s plans to raise the cap on tuition fees, cut teacher training by 80 per cent and abolish the Education Maintenance Allowance for sixth form students undermines aspiration.
Their proposals represent a radical shift in the way in which we as a society view and support further and higher education. Forcing students to pay the full cost of their tuition and taking away financial support for further education students from poorer backgrounds is, in my view, nothing short of national scandal.
Some universities will be able to charge the highest tuition fees and still attract students, but others like Derby University won’t, and will consequently receive less money via student contributions.
But Derby University is set to lose up to £30 million in government funding. This will require it to increase tuitions fees to more than £7,000 per annum to cover the reduction, which poses a difficult conundrum. If Derby University is forced to increase its fees to £7,000, it might not be able to attract a sufficient number of students to meet the shortfall in Government funding. But if it doesn’t it will create a financial black hole.
This quandary will be faced by many other universities around the country if the Government goes ahead with its proposals. Sadly, when I put this dilemma to David Willetts, the Minister of State for Universities, in the House of Commons on 3 November, no reassurance was forthcoming about Derby University’s future.
It seems the Government has opted for a ‘sink or swim’ approach to students and universities alike. But it doesn’t have to be this way. I support the National Union of Students’ call for the introduction of a graduate tax to ensure the bulk of additional resources for higher education would come from the highest earning graduates.
The Government says it wants MPs to vote on its controversial plans to increase tuition fees before the end of the year. But if the 57 Liberal Democrat MPs honoured their pre-election pledge, the planned increase would be defeated. I understand some Liberal Democrat MPs are considering abstaining, but that isn’t good enough. To have any chance of defeating the Government on this issue they have to vote against these malevolent proposals.
And finally...it is worth remembering that the Government is not introducing these plans because it has to, it is doing so because it wants to. The Government’s policies are nothing short of an ideological assault on state funded education.
TV pictures of students taking to the streets and staging sit-ins were only ever seen in archive footage from the 1960s and 70s, but a new political awareness is stirring. Many young people are indignant about the blatant betrayal by the Liberal Democrats.
Every single Lib Dem MP gave a solemn pledge...“to vote against any increase in tuition fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative.”
It was these pledges that persuaded many students to vote for the Liberal Democrats, securing victory for them in a number of seats around the country. Little wonder then that students feel betrayed and have taken to the streets to voice their anger.
Their sense of indignation is understandable and justified, not just because the Liberal Democrats have let them down, but because the Government’s proposals are seriously flawed.
The Government’s plans to raise the cap on tuition fees, cut teacher training by 80 per cent and abolish the Education Maintenance Allowance for sixth form students undermines aspiration.
Their proposals represent a radical shift in the way in which we as a society view and support further and higher education. Forcing students to pay the full cost of their tuition and taking away financial support for further education students from poorer backgrounds is, in my view, nothing short of national scandal.
Some universities will be able to charge the highest tuition fees and still attract students, but others like Derby University won’t, and will consequently receive less money via student contributions.
But Derby University is set to lose up to £30 million in government funding. This will require it to increase tuitions fees to more than £7,000 per annum to cover the reduction, which poses a difficult conundrum. If Derby University is forced to increase its fees to £7,000, it might not be able to attract a sufficient number of students to meet the shortfall in Government funding. But if it doesn’t it will create a financial black hole.
This quandary will be faced by many other universities around the country if the Government goes ahead with its proposals. Sadly, when I put this dilemma to David Willetts, the Minister of State for Universities, in the House of Commons on 3 November, no reassurance was forthcoming about Derby University’s future.
It seems the Government has opted for a ‘sink or swim’ approach to students and universities alike. But it doesn’t have to be this way. I support the National Union of Students’ call for the introduction of a graduate tax to ensure the bulk of additional resources for higher education would come from the highest earning graduates.
The Government says it wants MPs to vote on its controversial plans to increase tuition fees before the end of the year. But if the 57 Liberal Democrat MPs honoured their pre-election pledge, the planned increase would be defeated. I understand some Liberal Democrat MPs are considering abstaining, but that isn’t good enough. To have any chance of defeating the Government on this issue they have to vote against these malevolent proposals.
And finally...it is worth remembering that the Government is not introducing these plans because it has to, it is doing so because it wants to. The Government’s policies are nothing short of an ideological assault on state funded education.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
