Political Viewpoint - Leigh-on-Sea

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Leigh On Sea News: Political Viewpoint – BY Coun Kevin Buck, Prittlewell Ward. Shadow Cabinet Member Infrastructure and Transport.

Political Viewpoint – BY Coun Kevin Buck, Prittlewell Ward. Shadow Cabinet Member Infrastructure and Transport.

BY Coun Kevin Buck, Prittlewell Ward. Shadow Cabinet Member Infrastructure and Transport.

We are now 8 months into the current Labour government, elected in July 2024 with 33% of the national vote. That means 67% of the nation have a government in No 10 they didn’t vote for.

When Labour took over from the Conservatives on July 5th 2024, the UK was the fastest growing economy in the G7.

Fast forward 8 months and their first cash grabbing, high taxation autumn budget and the UK economy has stalled with zero growth through the latter parts of 2024, unemployment up from 4% in August 2024, to 4.4%, the CPIH 12 month inflation rate has increased from 2.8% in July 2024 to 3.7% today and is expected to rise further through 2025, productivity per hour worked is down 1.8% and growth forecasts, which were healthy under the previous Conservative government, are now pessimistic at best.

As this goes to print, 2025 growth forecast has been revised to 0.1%, which the government are celebrating as an economic victory.

Any growth that is forecast, is based almost entirely on additional public spending, which longer term, is completely unsustainable, as it would require even higher taxes and more government borrowing.

This is because the private sector is the financial engine of any modern economy, as a healthy and thriving private sector, generates jobs, prosperity and increased taxation for HM Government to pay for the public services and jobs. Yet ironically, it is the goose that lays the golden egg that this Labour government have chosen to target with many punitive taxes and charges.

Naïvely, they thought they could penalise the private sector by raising employer National Insurance contributions without affecting ‘workers’. It then dawned on them, that the Civil Service, which employs around 0.5m, the state education system which employs around 0.9m and the NHS, which employs over 1m, all funded by taxation, are also significant employers and payers of NI contributions!

The increased cost of NI employer contribution to Southend Council is estimated at circa £600k. That’s £600k not being spent on local services in the City and instead, being spent on more bureaucrats to manage increased taxation on the public sector, which is funded by taxation!

So how effective was this policy at not affecting workers? It has of course, completely failed!

We can see this locally. Adventure Island bosses have announced that due to the rises in employer costs and taxes, they will employ 200 fewer people this year.

Then we have the attack on farmers. It is easy to be blinded by jealousy at the thought that someone lives on a large farm that has land value. Whilst there is inevitably a handful of outliers that the media will focus on, the reality for the vast majority of farmers, is that many farms have been in the same family for generations, going back decades or centuries.

These are the farms that produce the food we eat. If you increase the costs to farmers, only one of two things can happen. Either the cost of the food they produce and we eat goes up (causing inflation), or they cannot compete with cheap imported food and they go bust leaving us all relying on other countries for our food.

We should be supporting UK farmers to grow as much food as possible, to reduce reliance on imported food, which benefits us all financially, as well as being environmentally and economically far more sustainable.

It is council budget season. The Southend Conservative group lead by Coun James Courtenay, will be submitting a fully costed (and approved by the Council’s Chief Financial Officer) budget amendment at full council on 20th February.

We are proposing that the Southend Pass, which in itself is good value for local residents, is overhauled to prevent the current abuse of the system. At present, not only do pass holders not have to provide their post code, so we cannot determine where Pass holders live, they can register as many vehicles as they like against one Pass!

There are numerous examples of more than 17 vehicles registered against a single Pass, costing little more than £10 a month. This abuse must be curtailed and managed more effectively, and our amendment will do this, creating fairness ensuring those parking very cheaply contribute a little more, whilst still leaving the Pass offering fantastic value for money.

The income generated by our budget amendment, will go towards a significant increase in the number of Community Safety Officers all year around, and a surge in their number over the summer and other times of heightened need.

We will also propose the planting of hundreds of additional trees across the city, and put some money towards supporting pensioners get their own groups going.

I sincerely hope the leader of the council is able to put politics to one side and do the right thing for the city and support our amendment?

Finally, I am delighted that during my term as Cabinet Member for Transport and Infrastructure in the Conservative administration of 2023/24, I started the process for the introduction of the new 23a/b bus route.

This new route, which will start soon, will be a direct bus link from Leigh Station, through to Southend Airport via Leigh, The London Road, North Leigh, Belfairs Park, the Fairway and Progress Road through Eastwood. It was achieved with cross party working and support and I thank all those councillors in the wards that will benefit from the new route it travels through.

I hope the leader of the council follows this example, and votes with the Conservative Group on 20th February to help make Southend a greener, fairer and safer city.

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