State pension set to rise by 2.5 per cent next year

Pensioners will benefit from a 2.5 per cent increase in their state pension thanks to the Liberal Democrat Triple Lock guarantee.

Figures out today (14 October) show that inflation is below target meaning that the basic state pension will be boosted by 2.5 per cent next year.

The Triple Lock guarantee means that pensions will increase with inflation, earnings or 2.5 per cent – whichever is highest.

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Commenting on the inflation figures, Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander said:

“This below target inflation number is good news for everyone, but will help pensioners in particular as the Liberal Democrat flagship ‘Triple Lock’ policy will kick in to give an above inflation pension increase.

“The Triple Lock delivers a pension rise of whichever is the greater of average earnings, inflation or 2.5%.

“This means that next year the basic state pension will rise by 2.5% or £2.85 a week.  With Liberal Democrats in Government the basic state pension has risen by over £950.

“This shows that pensioners are at the heart of our Liberal Democrat vision of a stronger economy and a fairer society.

“They’ve done their bit for society and paid their dues over a lifetime. Our Triple Lock policy ensures our country does right by them.

“This is in stark contrast to life under the Conservatives who broke the link between pensions and earnings in the Thatcher years, and life under Labour when pensioners were insulted with rises as low as 75p.”

Challenging the Council on Reserves

At Corporate Issues committee today I challenged officers on reserves. (The Council have 50 pots of money). Some allocated to nothing, others apparently allocated for future needs). We were told that the Council is/wants to use £75m of reserves between 2011-2017.

So for example if reserves were £100m you would expect to have £25m left wouldn’t you?

That is what officers and the Labour Party want the public to think. The reality is though that they are saying they will use £75m but not telling us how much they are putting into reserves. They add money in and then take it back out but:

If you add £100m to reserves but only take out £75m then you have more left than before. You can’t then say in a public meeting that you have used a lot of reserves because quite clearly you have actually added to reserves. (more…)

Clothing allowance – Official: Lib Dem success getting it scrapped

Interesting story about the Labour Clothing allowance in the Northern Echo today. Whilst we told residents that this was being scrapped a while ago. Official confirmation in the press.

Of course the chairman still gets a whopping great £6650 chairmans allowance pls £13300 for being a councillor, and can claim expenses instead of the clothing allowance, so they are not hard up by any means. Good old Labour socialists eh? Labour councillors claimed the £12000 clothing allowances for the chair and vice chair for 30 years without anyone knowing about it until we unearthed it by accident after looking at the cost of councillors.

http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/11469508.Council_chairman__39_s___39_clothing_allowance__39__scrapped___but_has_change_gone_far_enough_/?ref=var_0

Perhaps those chairmen still alive who claimed this behind closed doors should consider a donation to a local charity which helps struggling families with cheap or free clothing.

LABOUR’S GARDEN WASTE TAX GOES AHEAD

Your labour-run council is going ahead with taking a million pounds out of the local economy and charging households £20 to take away your garden waste.

Our press release of last week which was not published in the papers:

LABOUR–RUN COUNCIL PRESSES AHEAD WITH GARDEN TAX – IN FACE OF INCREASED FLYTIPPING AND RESIDENT BACKLASH.
Durham County Council, with £165m in reserves is pressing ahead with a charge for garden waste collections. The Council will start sending out letters to residents this Friday.
The Council, which despite increasing its reserves, says it is cash strapped, wants to charge residents £20 for the service. The garden waste collection service currently provides 16 free fortnightly collections for more than 150,000 households between April and November. Introducing a charge means that the service would be substantially funded by those using the service and according to the council would save it £933,000. Residents in some areas not currently receiving the service will be able to apply, but a small number of households across the County will lose the right to get the service even if they want to pay for it.
Lib Dem Councillor Mark Wilkes (Framwellgate and Newton Hall) branded the charge a Garden Tax which will hit the lowest paid the hardest saying “Labour is simply not considering the repercussions of this proposal. In some poorer areas and on some Council housing estates this is going to cause real problems.”
“People are paying more in this county for council tax than in most parts of the country. Labour doubled council tax when in government. The Coalition has frozen council tax for five years, giving the Council the money to cover for inflation. Labour refused this money from the government this year and now intends to fleece Durham residents. This will hit low and middle income families and many will simply not pay it.“
Councillor Wilkes believes the savings are an illusion as many residents will start to use their general rubbish bin for garden waste. This will massively increase disposal charges. He says that Labour Head of Scrutiny Councillor Joe Armstrong said in a meeting last year that residents could do just this. Councillors are also concerned that there will be a significant increase in fly tipping adding further costs to the council budget.
Last year when the proposal was announced, Lib Dem councillors previously suggested scrapping the position of Chief Exec as a means of helping to fund the service.
Cllr Wilkes said of this “The council is paying out over a quarter of a million pounds to employ one person, why not cut this so people don’t have to stop cutting their hedges. At the very least, with so much money in reserves the Council could delay implementation of this policy for another year to look for alternatives.“

 

LABOUR FORCED TO APOLOGISE OVER CHILDREN’S CENTRES

Labour politicians and the Director of Adult and Children’s services have been forced to apologise after failing to follow correct procedures. Full story on Northern Echo. We had to dig deep to get the information we needed but were helped along by a Labour councillor telling us if we had been members of the Labour Party we would have found out about the report 3 weeks earlier – a clear breach of the council constitution to brief only some and not all councillors.

http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/council/durhamcountycouncil/11379523.Council_apology_over_Labour_children_s_centres_briefings/

 

Labour Council’s broken promise on Bowling Clubs

When I was the councillor for Witton Gilbert, up until the boundary changes last year, I spent a great deal of time helping the bowling club.

Just two years ago the council announced that it would invest £350,000 in bowling club infrastructure and that this would be spent in 2012 and 2013. They didn’t spend ONE PENNY of this and facilities have continued to deteriorate across the county as a result. Last week the Echo ran an article on it:

http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/11334073.Closure_threatened_bowls_clubs_were_promised__pound_350k/

The moral – don’t trust Labour run councils.

Overflowing bins – Lib Dem Action

Following complaints I received about a small number of residents not putting out their overflowing bins, we have asked for some households to be contacted by Durham City Homes or by our the Council neighbourhood services team to remind them of collection dates and the need to put out bins regularly to keep our areas looking tidy and to reduce the risk of vermin.

Sometimes people don’t know collection dates if they have just recently moved to the area, or need a bit of persuasion that it really matters. Equally if people have a lot of rubbish, providing advice on recycling and reducing waste can help solve most problems.

If there is a particular property or street which concerns you please email one of us and we will seek to address the issue so that our neighbourhoods keep looking clean and tidy.

Labour Votes to destroy greenbelt

Durham County Council today passed the County Plan. Labour councillors ignored concerns from opposition councillors that the plan was deeply flawed.

The plan will see 5000 houses built on the land around Framwellgate Moor and Pity Me causing environmental destruction to the greenbelt.

The plan will now go for examination in public where it is expected many local councillors and groups will put forward views that the plan is unacceptable.

We pushed to get Labour to recognise that the plan was unacceptable but they have refused to listen. I am absolutely appalled by the Labour Party at today’s meeting.

They even altered the plan so that thousands of executive homes will not have to be carbon neutral and properly energy efficient. So the houses to be built in the coming years will not only be more expensive to run, they will be polluting too. Bizarrely Labour then voted through their sustainability strategy half an hour later which states the aim to cut carbon emissions by 80%. By allowing houses to be built which are not as energy efficient, this makes it almost impossible to achieve this goal.

So we now know that in County Durham, the Labour Party couldn’t care less about the environment and is only interested in handing power to developers. Durham Council is in the pockets of the developers who will build whatever they want wherever they want if Labour gets its way.

I recently asked for a list of all the people who had been wined and dined in the box the council pays for at the Cricket Ground in Chester-le-Street. A huge proportion of the guests were developers and associated people, but not one member of an environmental group, wildlife trust or other such organisation. The council has spent thousands of pounds cosying up to developers and now has passed a County Plan which is an open charter to built all over our greenbelt – it really disgusts me.

LABOUR COUNCIL PLANS GARDEN TAX

Durham’s Labour council has come up with another idea to save money – A GARDEN TAX!!!

Not impressed with this when there is so much money being wasted and nearly £100m in reserves. My press release below:

Durham County Council, with nearly £100m in reserves is to launch an assault on hard working families. The Council will force families to pay a charge for the collection of garden waste, which up to now has been provided as part of residents council tax payments. Anyone not having a garden waste bin has been entitled to get bags of garden waste collected on request for free as well.
Now the Council, which despite increasing its reserves, says it is cash strapped, wants to charge residents £20 for the service. The garden waste collection service currently provides 16 free fortnightly collections for more than 150,000 households between April and November. introducing a charge means that the service would be substantially funded by those using the service and according to the council would save it £933,000.
Councillor Mark Wilkes (Framwellgate and Newton Hall) wants to know why Labour did not include this in their election manifesto before the May elections. He branded the charge a Garden Tax which will hit the lowest paid the hardest. He also believes the savings are an illusion as many residents will start to use their general waste bin for garden waste massively increasing council landfill and disposal charges.
Cllr Wilkes says “People are paying more in this county for council tax than in most parts of the country. Labour doubled council tax when in government. The Coalition has frozen council tax for four years, giving the Council the money to cover for inflation. Now Labour has found a way to fleece Durham residents. This will hit low and middle income families and many will simply not pay it. How much more does Labour think it can charge people. After messing up the economy, it now wants to mess up our housing estates too. This will be a disincentive to keep areas tidy. In some areas this is already a problem. This policy will make things even worse.!”
Councillor Wilkes continued “People have been asking for a long time what they are paying council for. We already know about clothing allowances and Library cuts, now Labour wants to tax our gardens. Labour is simply not considering the repercussions of this proposal.
The Councillor also believes that the cost of collecting the charge will significantly reduce the savings, much like the introduction of the charge for collection of bulky waste a few years ago. This has seen many housing estates plagued with sofas, and furniture in gardens as well as flytipping.
Durham’s Cabinet will approve the report for consultation next week. Lib Dem councillors will oppose the policy.
Councillor Wilkes has suggested that scrapping the position of Chief Executive would save over £300,000 and the council should do this before any cuts to services.
Cllr Wilkes said “The council is paying out over a quarter of a million pounds to employ one person, why not cut this so people don’t have to stop cutting their hedges.”