ARSON ON THE RISE AS CUTS BITE

In the last week I have uncovered the shocking truth about the impact of this government's swingeing cuts to fire services in England.

After submitting freedom of information requests to every fire service in the land I discovered that arson attacks are on the increase, more firefighters are getting injured and casualties caused by house fires are rising.

It comes as fewer hours are invested in arson prevention work, training for firefighters is cut and fewer homes are fitted with smoke alarms.

Incredibly, Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, who has masterminded the downfall of public services across the country, has shrugged off these alarming facts. He lazily refuses to take any action to reverse the trend preferring to bury his ideologically driven head in the sand.

There has been a 13% reduction in hours spent on arson prevention and reducing anti-social behaviour and a 2.7% rise in arson attacks.

Hours spent in training by firefighters have been reduced by more than 5%, while numbers of injuries sustained by firefighters have risen by more than 2.5%.

And with the number of homes fitted with smoke alarms falling by more than 14%, the number of casualties in the home has gone up by around 7%.

Yet Mr Pickles denies there is a problem and will not be shifted from his determination to cut deeper still.

That is perhaps the most worrying aspect. The relentless cuts to our fire services that we've witnessed so far are just the tip of the iceberg. We now have the evidence that proves cutting further will result in more casualties.

And they are such self-defeating cuts too. Arson is already the biggest cause of major fires. Every injury - sometimes terrible in nature - has a personal, social and economic cost.

But the government is intent on making even deeper funding cuts to fire service funding in the next three years. And this will result in thousands more firefighter jobs being axed, scores of stations being closed down and dozens of appliances being scrapped.

There is a direct correlation between the money invested and the impact on fire safety. It is now being felt on the frontline.

And it was the frontline which David Cameron personally pledged to protect.

The figures look bleak and the facts sound alarming, but they are the clearest evidence yet that the poorly planned cuts are coming too thick and too fast.

It proves that Mr Cameron has failed to deliver on his pledge, and it demonstrates how out of touch his Tory-led government really is.

We've seen this government bulldoze through their plans on the NHS, we've seen police forces scaled back, and now we're seeing fire services decimated.

It's time for Mr Cameron and Mr Pickles to stir from their slumber, get a grip on the devastation their actions are causing, and take action to protect citizens, businesses and our brave firefighters.

SHARP CONSTRUCTION FALL ADDS TO DEEPENING UK RECESSION

Today’s GDP figures from ONS show that the UK’s recession deepened further in the second quarter of 2012, led predominantly by further sharp falls in construction activity.

And yet the Chancellor cites the Government’s investment in construction projects as evidence that they are investing in growth. The problem is they’re not! The truth is, despite the great fanfare, most of the recent announcements about investment in infrastructure projects won’t start for several years.

Whilst overall, the UK economy shrank by 0.7% between Q1 and Q2, construction fell by a staggering 5.2% over that same period, indicating that the construction sector is now in a really deep depression.

Commenting on these figures, Noble Francis, Construction Products Association Economics Director said: “Although the vast majority of commentators have been predicting continuing recession, very few will have expected such a sharp fall.

“For construction the position is now very worrying, as although we have known for some time that public sector activity would begin to decline, because of the government’s deficit reduction plan, the hoped for recovery in the private sector has not materialised. As the construction sector is such a key part of the economy, until we see recovery in construction, we will not have the economic growth the UK needs.

“According to our latest Forecasts, which were published this week, construction is unlikely to return to growth until 2014. Government has acknowledged that construction will be a part of the solution for our economic woes, but if they are serious then they must act now to stimulate growth and drive recovery.”

Sadly, this Tory-Lib Dem Government just doesn’t get it. It’s like Messrs Cameron, Osborne and Clegg have metaphorically thrown the economy out of an aeroplane at 30,000 feet without a parachute saying something like: ‘flap your arms about a bit and you’ll be fine’. The only snag is the economy has hit the ground with an almighty splat, yet Messrs Cameron, Osborne and Clegg keep telling us there is no alternative to the parachuteless plan.

YOUNG PEOPLE IN DERBY ARE CRYING OUT FOR ACTION ON JOBS

The number of young people out of work for a year in Derby North is up 380% in the last year, and throughout the country it has quadrupled.

Across Derby more than 330 young people would be helped into work if the Government brought in Labour’s Real Jobs Guarantee. Ministers should stop talking and start acting on youth jobs.

The headline fall in unemployment is a welcome respite in a blizzard of bad economic news. But the number of young people on the dole long term has see a fourfold increase in just 12 months and long term unemployment rose sharply again.

Moreover the number of people claiming welfare payments went up yet again, but this out of touch and complacent Government is refusing to bring in a plan for jobs and growth.

These are exactly the people the Government’s Work Programme is supposed to get into jobs, and today is fresh evidence that the beleaguered Work Programme isn’t working.

Although British business is doing its bit, it’s a shame that this Tory-Lib Dem Government is doing so little to help. In fact, around the country the business community is complaining about the bewildering confusion of back to work schemes, none of which appear to be helping.

George Osborne’s failed policies have delivered a double-dip recession and a £150bn of extra borrowing, which is holding Britain back. We urgently need a plan for jobs and growth to get the economy moving again and Ministers should start by bringing in Labour’s Real Jobs Guarantee to get our young people back to work.

REBUILDING BRITAIN: REAL CHANGE FOR BRITAIN’S BANKS

Last week the Tory-led Government rejected Labour’s proposals for an independent judge-led inquiry into banking following the shocking revelations that have left public confidence in the banks at an all-time low.

Labour will keep pushing for a real change for the banking industry, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it’s so crucial to rebuilding Britain’s economy.

David Cameron promised change, but things are getting worse, not better.  The Tory-led Government’s failed economic plan has left us in a double-dip recession with long-term unemployment at a 17-year high and borrowing higher than planned.

To rebuild our economy, we need strong and accountable banks – lending to businesses and helping families save and borrow.

The behaviour of some bankers which we’ve heard about in recent weeks is economically damaging and socially destructive. None of this reflects what British people expect of our financial sector. It doesn't reflect either the decent values of the majority of people who work in our banking system.

If we are to rebuild a British economy which works for working people we need a better kind of banking where rather than serving itself, banking has a fundamental, wider responsibility to serve the real economy.

SIX MONTHS OF SHAMBLES AND STILL NO CHANGE

David Cameron will be relieved that this week saw his last grilling by MPs before the summer break.  He has certainly got a lot to answer for.

In six months of shambolic government, with U turn after U turn under pressure from Labour, on petrol, pasties, caravans, churches and charities, his failed economic policies have given us a double-dip recession made in Downing Street, long-term unemployment at a 17 year high and borrowing that is higher than planned.

Thanks to George Osborne's out touch budget, we got a tax cut for millionaires - and an unfair ‘granny tax’ which means older people are unfairly hit.  But David Cameron and Nick Clegg like to tell us the budget was just what the country needed.

The Tories have promised change but have failed to deliver, and David Cameron is fast losing the confidence of the country.  So before he jets off for his summer break, leaving the country's problems far behind, Ed Miliband called on him to make three more U turns to get this country back on track, namely:

• Reverse the failed Tory economic policies and urgently put in place Labour's plan for jobs and growth, including a tax on bankers’ bonuses to fund youth jobs.

• Reverse the tax cut for millionaires so that in tough times the richest pay their fair share.

• Reverse the ‘granny tax’ so that pensioners aren’t unfairly hit.

OBR REPORT ESTIMATES PUBLIC SECTOR PENSIONERS SET TO LOSE BILLIONS

Public sector workers will lose more than £8.5 billion a year through cuts to their pensions, according to the latest forecast by the government's official analysts.

Included in the Office for Budget Responsibility's 'Fiscal sustainability report', published today, are figures showing £430 billion will be cut from public sector pensions over the next 50 years.

Treasury minister Danny Alexander is quoted as saying this will "free up" funding for other services, which rather contradicts the prime minister’s claims that the schemes were, "in danger of going broke".

The government-commissioned Hutton report and the National Audit Office had previously confirmed the cost of public sector pensions would fall as a result of changes agreed in 2007.

While costs were forecast to fall from 1.9% to 1.4% of gross domestic product, the OBR now says they will fall to 0.9%.

The Public and Commercial Services union says “this represents a massive transfer of wealth away from public servants.” It will also lead to a greater reliance on means-tested benefits such as council tax benefit, housing benefit and pension credit.

GOVERNMENT OUT OF TOUCH ON BANKING SCANDAL

FURTHER evidence that this Government is out of touch with reality came with its refusal to allow a judge to lead the inquiry into the bankers’ rate-fixing scandal. And it begs one question: why?

For what possible good reason is David Cameron so insistent that it would be best for someone other than an independent judge to look into this whole sorry affair?

Why does the Government feel it was appropriate for a judge-led inquiry into the phone hacking ignominy yet it doesn’t matter for this issue?

The sad truth is that there is no good reason. There is no justification. The Prime Minister’s decision is based not on common sense or decency but on one thing only: satisfying the Conservative Party coffers.

In fact, the Tories have raised at least £17m from the financial services sector since David Cameron become leader. A study in 2010 found that the City and property sector accounted for more than a quarter of the Conservative Party’s funding.

So, just like when the Tories insanely handed a tax break to Britain’s millionaires in the budget, the decision to plump for a Parliamentary Inquiry is founded not on the public interest.

It is founded on a need to appease the people who fund the Tory billboards. It was those Tory billboards that helped Mr Cameron and his crew bounce into Government in 2010 on the back of years of propaganda and empty promises.

But perhaps the real sadness in this whole situation lies much deeper than the shameless manner in which the Prime Minister and chancellor George Osborne have behaved over this debacle.

It is that out of this sham could have risen an opportunity to build bridges and establish new rules of engagement to help repair the damaged relationship between Britain and its bankers.

Let us make no mistake: the manipulation of interest rates for the benefit of bankers and to the detriment of the families, and small business it affected, is nothing short of an outrage.

But a properly stewarded investigation – independent of politics and free from any suspicion of inappropriate influence – could have provided the foundations for a fresh start.

Quite simply, people in Britain have lost faith in the banks. And this was an opportunity to restore it by separating the wheat from the chaff, pulling out the good and dispensing with the bad.

A judge-led inquiry has the legislative power to compel witness attendance and ensure documents are produced and properly examined.

Only an inquiry like this can be sufficiently challenging, wide-ranging, and independent to persuade the public that this crisis is being properly addressed.

The great sadness is that David Cameron knows all this and has made the very same points before.

When rejecting the idea of a Parliamentary Inquiry into the phone hacking scandal last year, Mr Cameron said: “I don’t believe there is any better process than an inquiry led by a judge”.

Perhaps Mr Cameron didn’t realise quite how much detail that inquiry would delve into. I certainly doubt he anticipated the recent public humiliation of having to admit to some of his embarrassing text exchanges with Rebecca Brooks prior to the last General Election.

But the reality is that the Leveson Inquiry has uncovered revelations and asked questions to which the public has the right to expect an answer. All of that would be true of a judge-led inquiry into the rate-fixing disgrace, and that is why Labour intends to continue pressing for one.

HYSTERICAL SHOOTING FRATERNITY ARE WAY OFF TARGET

THE hysterical response from the shooting fraternity following my recent blog calling for private ownership of guns to be banned was par for the course.

It is absolutely typical of people who think they have a right to gun down an innocent animal that they would be outraged at the suggestion that somebody might take their weapons away.

But no amount of incredulity from the bombastic participants in blood sports will change my view that their activities are immoral and their gun ownership is unnecessary.

Let’s strip this issue back to the bare bones.

Why might you want a gun? To me there are three possible reasons: (1) you may be a member of a rifle club, practising shooting at targets; (2) you enjoy killing animals and have convinced yourself that this is acceptable; or (3) you are criminal who wants to use a gun to kill, injure or frighten.

It is presumably a given that society would not wish to allow guns for the third category, so we need not explore that any further.

I have some sympathy for the people in the first category. I have no particular issue with their chosen pastime and I am not against them. But nor do I see any justification for them privately owning a gun and storing it in their own home to do it.

But it is the people in the second category who seem to have prompted the hysteria following my previous posting. They are the ones who believe it is their right to own a gun.

Why? If it’s not become obvious already I’ll state here and now that I personally find their pastime sickening. But even if you do not, even if you are in the camp that has been convinced that blood sports are acceptable, why do they need to privately own a gun and store it in their own home to do participate in their blood sport?

The answer is, of course, that they don’t. And if we are to make our society a safer place, then we should minimise any possibilities of allowing guns to fall into the wrong hands.

The problem is that our laws, at the moment, say it is okay to go out into a field and shoot a bird from the sky. And as long as society says that’s okay then the people who do it presume it’s also acceptable to own their gun and store it in their own home. They liken it to a golfer owning clubs or a tennis player owning a racket.

In reality, there is no similarity. Golf clubs and tennis rackets are designed for sport. Guns are designed to kill. The clue to the rights and wrongs is in the definition of blood sports, or as the blood sports euphemistically call them – “field sports”.

So what we really need is a step-change in society’s perception of what is and is not acceptable in terms of gun usage. Referring back to the three categories I mentioned earlier, only the first is neither illegal nor immoral.

And as long as shooting at animals is lawful, we need at the very least to protect children and young people from the horror of it as best we can.

That’s why I’ve been pleased to sign up to a campaign by Animal Aid calling for shooting magazines to become ‘top shelf’ publications.

If I had my way they’d be banned altogether along with the activities they promote, celebrate and glorify. But we certainly need to restrict unsupervised access to these magazines given the potentially distressing and damaging images they are likely to contain.

I dearly hope that Animal Aid will be successful in its campaign. If they are, society will have moved a step closer to recognising that killing animals for sport is nothing short of deplorable.

TORIES LOSE THE PLOT ON BANK REGULATION

Labour is calling for a two-part judge-led inquiry, with the first part reporting by the end of 2012 on the scandal surrounding Libor, and the second part looking over 12 at wider questions about the culture and practices within the banking industry.

David Cameron has previously said that a judge-led inquiry is the best way of getting to the truth.

"I don’t believe there is any better process than an inquiry led by a judge where people give evidence under oath" David Cameron, BBC Andrew Marr Show, 29 April 2012

“If the hon. Gentleman is really concerned, as I am, about making sure that all the information about this is properly looked into, what is preferable: a civil service-run process where you can look at papers and ask questions, or a judge-led inquiry with Ministers answering questions under oath where all the documents have to be revealed and the whole thing is pursued properly by a team of barristers who are expert at finding out the facts?” David Cameron, Hansard, 30 April 2012, column 1251

David Cameron's views on on regulation are revealing.  In 2008, after the start of the financial crisis, David Cameron complained to a City audience that “a significant part of Labour’s economic failure” had been “too much regulation”.

“As a free-marketeer by conviction, it will not surprise you to hear me say that a significant part of Labour’s economic failure has been the excessive bureaucratic interventionism of the past decade too much tax, too much regulation, too little understanding of what our businesses need to compete in the modern world."
David Cameron, speech to the City of London, 28 March 2008

This is what he said later the same year on 30 April in a speech to the Institute of Directors.  He said: "You want me to give you lower taxes and less regulation".  Then he added: "I want to give you lower taxes and less regulation."

On interest rate insurance mis-selling and the watering down of Vickers’ recommendations he also got it wrong.

The final report from Sir John Vickers’ Independent Commission on Banking recommended that derivatives trading – except where necessary for the retail bank to manage its own risk – should not be permitted within the ring-fence.

“So the following activities should not be carried on inside the ring-fence: services to non-EEA customers, services (other than payments services) resulting in exposure to financial customers, ‘trading book’ activities, services relating to secondary markets activity (including the purchases of loans or securities), and derivatives trading (except as necessary for the retail bank prudently to manage its own risk).”
Independent Banking Commission, Final report, p. 11

However in its recent white paper, the Treasury has argued that ring-fenced banks should be allowed to sell “simple” derivatives products to their customers.

“It is the Government’s view that a ring-fenced bank may be permitted to provide ‘simple’ derivatives products to its customers, provided that a number of conditions are met”
HM Treasury, financial regulation white paper, June 2012, p. 22

Permitted products would include those “whose purpose is to fix or cap client market exposures to interest rate or foreign exchange rate risk related to the business of the ring-fenced bank” (HM Treasury, financial regulation white paper, p. 22). These are similar to the products which banks - Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and RBS – were found to have mis-sold to SMEs by the FSA last week. According to the FSA banks sold around 28,000 interest rate protection products to customers between 2001 and 2012.

“Interest rate hedging products can protect bank customers against the risk of interest rate movements and can be an appropriate product when properly sold in the right circumstances. During the period 2001 to date, banks sold around 28,000 interest rate protection products to customers.

These products range in complexity from comparatively simple “caps” that fixed an upper limit to the interest rate on a loan, through to the more complex derivatives such as “structured collars” which fixed interest rates within a band but introduced a degree of interest rate speculation.”
FSA, 29 June 2012, http://www.fsa.gov.uk/library/communication/pr/2012/071.shtml

Sir John Vickers criticised the Government for watering down some of the recommendations in his final report.  Speaking to the Financial Times on 14 June 2012 he said: “The white paper proposals are far-reaching, but on some points – such as limits on the leverage of big banks – we believe they should go further. We welcome that the ICB proposals have been accepted in large part, but urge the government to resist pressure to weaken their effectiveness.”

Martin Wolf, who was a member of the Vickers Commission, yesterday described the Government’s decision not to implement this recommendation as “really quite dangerous. It leads to the very serious risk of mis-selling”.

David Cameron and the rest of his Government simply haven't got it when it comes to sorting out the banks.  Could it have anything to do with who bankrolls the Tory Party?

PHIL DAVIES, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF DERBY HOMES, DIES

Phil Davies, Chief Executive of Derby Homes, the organisation that manages Derby City Council’s housing stock, passed away on Tuesday, aged 59. I worked closely with Phil when I was the Chair of Housing in Derby from 1994 to 2000. Phil was a dedicated housing professional who believed in social justice and was a great ally and friend. I will miss him.

Bob Osler, Chair of Derby Homes announced late yesterday that Phil died peacefully in his sleep, surrounded by his family, after being diagnosed with cancer in early June.

Bob said: “Phil was greatly respected in the housing industry and we have received some wonderful messages of support since the news broke across the social housing sector. In particular, I feel a comment from one of Phil’s peers in the housing world sums up all our thoughts and feelings at this very sad time:

‘Can I say on behalf of everyone here how sad we are to hear of Phil’s death. He was a fantastic Chief Executive of Derby Homes through good times and bad. I loved talking to him about the communities in Derby, where I grew up. This will leave a big gap and I am sure the whole company will be grieving for him and honouring his achievements. A Derby legend!’

“My sincere thoughts go especially to his family as well as his colleagues at Derby Homes”.

Phil was an inspirational leader for social housing in Derby and across the UK. He led the organisation since its formation in 2002 and in that time has been instrumental in improving the lives of thousands of tenants across the city.

Paul Bayliss, Labour Leader of Derby City Council said: “I had the pleasure and honour of working with Phil Davies for over ten years. He was a dedicated housing professional and instrumental in setting up and leading Derby Homes, and achieving the highest ratings in the UK.  I will miss him, his advice and his good humour.  My thoughts are with his family at this time.”

Last year, Phil saw Derby Homes secure a new ten year contract with Derby City Council to continue to manage homes in the city. Phil will be sadly missed by family, colleagues and all who knew him.

RIP Phil - You were a good man who made a difference.