As we continue grappling with the failed public finances of the Blair /Brown
Administration (“Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid to tell you there is no money left.
Kind regards and good luck! Liam”) it is no surprise that Hull has some problems to
wrestle with, but this is also a time when Hull has many increased Government
funds. At a time when Hull has become the City of Culture, the A63 improvements
and bridge at the Marina, the Garrison Street roundabout improvements, and rail
electrification – funding and schemes achieved under the Conservative led
Government and something not delivered in the fake boom of the Blair/Brown years
despite Hull having two MPs as Cabinet members – we can say Hull as a whole has
more money than before. The increased Public Health powers, and budgets are
proof that Hull has more money – for those of us who do not see the City as a
synonym for the council.
Logically you can only cut where you are spending and if Hull is being cut in
terms of direct provision we are entitled to ask how successful the Blair/Brown
credit expansion really was. This was the credit expansion fuelled by allowing banks
to run rampant and recklessly gamble with money; where failure meant they would
be bailed out by our taxes. An expansion where the Prime Minister’s cleaner paid a
higher percentage of their income in tax than the Premier – the only Administration
since WW2 to shift the tax burden from the rich to the poor – and one that
shamefully abolished the 10p tax rate in 2008 – although thankfully the George
Osborne proposals will take 2 million hard-working people out of tax thanks to the
largest real increase in the personal allowance for 30 years. Three generations of
unemployment did not just happen because Labour lost the last election and it is
irresponsible cheap politics for Hull’s Labour administration, in office for most of
those three generations, to blame anyone else except themselves for that failure.
Indeed, at a time when Labour have controlled Hull for most of the years since WW2
their record is far from enviable in the plethora of league tables so it is no wonder
that more and more the people of Hull are asking “what did you do with all the
money?”
Whilst Labour bankrupted the country, and locally then seek to punish those
areas who do not vote labour (sell off everything in Wyke; close libraries in Liberal
Democrat wards such as Boothferry and spend it in Labour heartlands such as
Marfleet) our budget follows our traditional beliefs.
Like anyone of any political party we did not come in to make people’s lives
worse – I believe this of my opponents as I do my own Group. However we have,
uniquely on Hull City Council always moved a budget and we have stuck by our core
values and beliefs.
This budget is designed to ease the financial burden of
Government on the people of this city for we have always believed that when
budgets are tight you do not make things better by doing “optional” services or
services that make politicians excited. Local government grew out of School Boards
and Poor Laws – it flourished under the Chamberlain school of Birmingham politics
where slum clearances, paving, electrics, and gas were brought to people without
the first call being on general or local taxation. We believe in the safety net, but we
also believe that if you trust the people, if you reward the people, and above all if
you set the people free there is no limit to their opportunities.
As a result our Budget proposes newer and more modern ways of working.
KWL has been a success, we expand the model into white-collar areas – we set staff
free to do what they can do without the burdens of central charges, the stultifying
hand of the corporate centre who toil not neither do they spin. We continue to
increase funding in pothole repairs, library improvements, cultural improvements,
parks – those services unique to Local Government.
As usual we have stuck to our core principles, what is interesting is that
budget lines that went without comment in earlier years now manage to produce
forecasts of negativity and doom. On probing we are told, for example, that the
Administration have presided over a reduction in the number of female Assistant
City Managers but our gender blind proposals, to be executed by staff, are
apparently harbingers of doom. Naturally we reject such claims, and fall just short of
making suggestions about them, what we want is what everyone needs – a
meritocratic staff resourced to execute the political will of the council which reflects
the aspirations of the City.
We have made tough choices, we have not enjoyed it, but it is our duty. We
propose a balanced budget with no extra call on the public purse, realistic appraisals
of cost increases based on the current national Administration’s successful inflation
busting policies. Our budget on the other hand is a unified budget, united for the
people of Hull and one which supports where necessary while setting them free to
achieve the great potential in this great City.