PETERBOROUGH LABOUR PARTY

The right plan for Peterborough

In today’s Pre Budget Report, the Chancellor Alistair Darling sets out Labour’s three-point plan for Britain’s future – securing the recovery and going for growth; taking tough choices necessary to halve the deficit in four years – and protecting vital frontline public services. It’s the right plan for Britain and for Peterborough

Our budget plan puts securing the recovery first and introduces new measures to stimulate economic growth. We’ll continue support to keep people in work and in their homes by guaranteeing every young person out of work for more than six months the offer of a job, training or college place, and maintaining our support for people who lose their job to keep their homes.

We will continue support to businesses manage tough times by pressing the banks to start lending more to business and helping businesses to defer their tax payments until they can better afford to pay – a scheme which has helped 620 of businesses in  Peterborough to defer £11 million. And we announced new measures that “go for growth”, making green growth a real priority for the nation’s future.

We’re the only party in British politics with a proper plan to halve the deficit, through a tax rise package that is tough but fair – with half of the burden falling the top 2% of people – and a spending cut package that has been carefully worked through, including tough action on public sector pay and new efficiency savings of £12bn per year. We’ll make it law to cut the deficit in half over four years.

And because we have taken those tough choices on spending and on tax, I believe that Labour is the only party in British politics deeply committed to protecting frontline public services. Even in tough times, we will protect in real terms investment in the NHS frontline, Sure Start, frontline schools and police numbers over the next 3 years. This builds on our progress in Peterborough over the last twelve years. Since 1997, the number of local teachers has gone up by 20 while police numbers in our area have increased by 112 in Cambridgeshire.  The Tories would scrap funding for our University in Peterborough, close Childrens centres. Localy the propose fountains and an increase in Council tax. National the Tories are not suggesting anything to help Peterborough.  Irrespective of party politics my focus is on putting Peterborough first and representing what is best policy for Peterborough folk.

On recovery and growth, the Conservatives would put the recovery at risk by cutting back too fast, too soon. They would cut vital public services like sure start and education to pay for unfair tax cuts for the wealthiest in our society – like a £200k inheritance tax giveaway to 3000 wealthiest estates.

And they refuse to say how they would halve the deficit!  Well, I’ll tell you – we’ve worked out that if they did it faster than us – in three years not four, they’d have to find an EXTRA £26  BILLION – that’s half the schools budget or 5.5p on VAT!

This week, we saw very clearly that Conservatives remain years away from being fit to run the country. Labour are the only choice for Peterborough and for Britain.