The weather may have thawed (a little) but a pay freeze is on the cards for council workers in Wales. This is hard medicine for anyone, but at a time when many are losing their jobs, perhaps it is the lesser of evils. ”No medicine is pleasant at the time” is the old proverb.
So I don’t understand when Peter Allenson, National Officer for the Unite Union, is quoted in the same piece (Wales Online) as saying:
“There is no justification for what I would call a pay freeze, and our members would be angry and outraged to say the least.”
Has he missed the fact that we are in a recession? Surely he knows that jobs are being lost across the public sector as costs are cut and – too late – the public sector realises it is not immune from the squeeze on public finances?
Not everyone agrees. When draft local government settlements for Welsh councils were announced in October, Steve Thomas, Chief Executive of the WLGA had this to say:
“In the end there is a feeling we are all in this together. We will either swim together or we sink together.”
Sadly, this did not seem to influence the decision of Cyngor Gwynedd to give senior officers a pay rise.
Have we forgotten so quickly the mess we are in?
I have written before that at least one independent report says the UK needs to reduce public spending by about 15% by the year 2020 in order to balance the books.
As a nation, we currently have a total debt equal to 65% (not a mistype – sixty five percent) of our “income” (known as Gross Domestic Product or GDP). The paper from Feburary 2009 went on to say, that if we continued public spending at the same rate, by 2020, we would owe 156% of our income (GDP) and most of our debt would have been incurred since 2009.
These are big numbers so to put it in perspective, just stop and ask yourself: if I am earning £20,000 can I afford to borrow £13,000 (not including a mortgage)? How sensible would it be to borrow more than £30,000?
The ten year bubble of cheap debt and rising house prices is over. But the habit of high public spending and paying for massive debts will take much longer to overcome. We are in new territory. We are the last country out of recession and as the report points out:
“No country with a fully mature welfare state has ever been tested by a full-blown economic depression. The welfare state materialised after the last depression in the 1930’s followed by the Second World War.”
And now inflation is on the rise. It may be a false alarm, but a one per cent rise last month is cause for concern none-the-less. The report again says, that inflation “is bad for growth, discourages savings and investment and once unleashed, it is very hard to tame”.
In Wales we have an economy and jobs that depend heavily on the public sector. Our politicians do not seem to understand business, profit and the engines of growth (perhaps that is why they have asked their advice). Nowhere is that worse than in Arfon.
Bangor University, Cyngor Gwynedd and Ysbyty Gwynedd are great institutions, important employers and capable of excellence. If I am elected I will fight hard for them and their interests in Westminster (and knock hard on the door in Cardiff too).
I will be a strong and effective Conservative voice in a Conservative government. But we must build a stronger private sector. Until then Arfon will remain weak – dependent, remote and reliant on the gifts bestowed by Cardiff and London.
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