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TaxPayers’ Alliance sets out powers the PM should bring home from European Council

Dec 6th, 2011
by Robert Oxley.
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The TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) today (Tuesday December 6th) sets out how David Cameron has, for the first time in a generation, a serious opportunity to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU and seek the repatriation of powers back to the UK.

Click here to read the full report

Click here for the complete press release

Setting out a list of twenty policy changes that could make up any new deal between the UK and the EU, the TPA says the British Government could take immediate action on six of these areas without the need for any agreement in Brussels. The remaining fourteenwill require negotiation at the European Council on December 9th.

The twenty pieces of the policy jigsaw cannot be tackled in isolation. Britain is in a strong negotiating position and should force these issues onto the agenda.

Any package of reforms brought home from the European Council should be judged in comparison to this list; otherwise the Government could declare victory while delivering a poorer deal for taxpayers.

Click here to read the full report

Click here for the complete press release

Fourteen pieces of this jigsaw should be on the negotiating table at the European Council:

  • Bringing to an end the treaty objective of “ever closer union”
  • Repatriating the Common Agriculture Policy to national government control
  • Repatriating the Common Fisheries Policy
  • Repatriating control over International Development
  • Radical cuts to budgets where policies have limited demonstrable benefit
  • Slashing the UK budgetary share
  • Re-establishing the Social Chapter opt-out
  • Ensuring UK Parliamentary sovereignty overrides EU law
  • Dropping UK participation in EU defence integration
  • Introducing flexibility involving Justice and Home Affairs, including Asylum and Immigration control
  • Restoration of UK Government powers over taxation
  • Greater freedom for Britain to enter bilateral trading agreements globally
  • Rowing back from costly EU space ambitions, particularly the Galileo programme
  • Triggering massive reform to the structures of the EU itself

There are also six areas where immediate action can be taken by the British Government and without the need for any agreement in Brussels:

  • Commissioning a measured, independent and trustworthy cost-benefit analysis of EU membership
  • Demonstrating an intent and capability to act unilaterally if necessary to improve Britain’s position
  • Appointing a Cabinet Minister to review the acquis communautaire
  • Requiring EU-sourced legislation to be printed on differently-coloured paper, and to carry a cost-benefit summary that can be compared with the EU original estimate, in order to avoid ‘gold-plating’ (extra red tape from British civil servants)
  • Securing transparency in Westminster over EU laws
  • Improved use of the national scrutiny reserve, the Parliamentary veto

This list should be considered a toolbox for the British negotiating team and should help inform the backbench business debate to be held in Parliament on Thursday 8th December. Senior Conservative Ministers have long argued for a repatriation of powers; now that they have the chance, they must exploit this opportunity to make changes in the long term interests of Britain.

Tinkering with individual treaties is not enough. In the history of negotiation with the EU Britain has experienced a number of false dawns where despite winning a concession or opt-out from legislation, the policy has been enacted via the back door (such as the Working Time directive). There is no reason why Britain cannot fundamentally renegotiate its position; various nations already have differing relationships with the EU.

Click here to read the full report

Click here for the complete press release

Dr Lee Rotherham, Research Fellow of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said:

“The British people are crying out for the Government to stand up to Brussels and reclaim powers that should never have been surrendered in the first place. Senior ministers who have long called for a repatriation of powers now have a once in a lifetime opportunity to negotiate with their European counterparts from a position of strength. This report sets out a comprehensive list of reasonable demands that David Cameron should take into the negotiating chamber alongside a number of steps that can be implemented immediately at home, without recourse to Brussels. The Prime Minister has an opportunity to bring home a wonderful early Christmas present for British taxpayers, it is against these benchmarks that his ability to deliver for Britain will be judged.”

Other European countries do enjoy a better relationship with the EU

Nov 24th, 2011
by Matthew Sinclair.
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Jeremy Warner writes for the Telegraph this morning, arguing that Britain is unlikely to get impressive results out of any renegotiation associated with the EU treaty.  He is right that a lot of the minor changes we’ve heard rumours about would be welcome but, in the grand scheme of things, “don’t add up to more than a hill of beans”, but if the Government is more aggressive there is a real opportunity here.  As our Chief Executive Matthew Elliott wrote for his blog at the Daily Mail recently, there is a “a golden opportunity to claw back powers from Europe” if the Prime Minister is willing to seize it.

Matthew gave a list of demands that we should be making, not an exhaustive platform but a very good start:

  • Rejecting the European credo of ‘ever closer union’
  • Providing for UK law to take precedence over EU law
  • UK withdrawal from the atrocious and costly Common Agriculture Policy and Common Fisheries Policy
  • A cut to the UK contribution to the EU budget – which has increased by some billions of pounds since the last Government threw away the rebate negotiated by Margaret Thatcher
  • A UK opt-out from the Social Chapter which suffocates business with red tape and restricts the prospects for job creation
  • Ending British contributions to the EU’s International Development aid budget – so much of which is unaccounted for
  • Pursuing multinational defence ventures through NATO and only multilaterally via Brussels on an ad hoc basis
  • Allowing the UK to taking full control over Justice, Home Affairs, Asylum and Immigration policy once again
  • Restoring full UK control over taxation, particularly VAT

Jeremy writes that such proposals would be “red-line issues” for both Germany and France, and as a result our “position in the internal market would become marginalised. We’d end up like Norway, forced to adopt most of the foibles of the eurozone to keep trading with it, but with no say in its constitution.”

It is actually a a myth that Norway, and the other countries in a similar position like Iceland or Switzerland, are really in that unfortunate position.  Lee Rotherham wrote about this for the publication Controversies: From Brussels and Closer to Home:

The content of the [European Economic Area] Agreement is updated very regularly, but – and it is a huge ‘but’ – it can be blocked if either side does not want to include any single element of the acquis.  Each individual EFTA state has a veto on the entire agreement, since it is shared between the EEA and the EU acting as two parties.  This also means that national parliaments have a veto too.

He went on to cite a number of cases which show that the resulting regulatory burden is far greater than that felt by EU member states:

Firstly, according to a report by the EFTA Secretariat in Brussels for the Icelandic Foreign Ministry that was published in May 2005, only some 6.5% of EU regulations, directives and decisions had fallen under the EEA Agreement over the first eleven years of its existence, a total of 2,527 pieces of legislation.  Of those only 101 required a change to Icelandic laws already in place.

[...]

There was a similar question raised in the Norwegian parliament in 2004 about how much EU legislation had been implemented under EEA terms.  The then-government replied that over the period 199702993 there had been 11,511 pieces of legislation adopted by the EU.  Of those 2,129 fell under the EEA agreement, or about 18.5 per cent.

[...]

From its cost-benefit analysis, Berne assessed that the cost [to Switzerland] of continuing bilaterally with the EU would run at 557 milion Swiss Francs; gaining EEA terms would cost 737 million CHF; and joining the EU would come with a net annual billion of 3.4 billion CHF, and a gross bill of 4.94 billion Francs.

Britain’s position is far stronger than Jeremy suggests.  We don’t have to fear Norway or Switzerland’s fate.  It wouldn’t be so bad.  So the Prime Minister should be able to go and demand the repatriation of powers, that should never have gone to Brussels in the first place, with confidence.

The EU’s accounts are not signed off… again

Nov 10th, 2011
by Jonathan Isaby.
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Benjamin Franklin once observed that “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” I would venture that we could add a third: the inability of the European Union to guarantee that it has legitimately spent all of the taxpayers’ cash which the British and other EU member state governments have given it.

For today the European Court of Auditors – the body charged with auditing the EU’s accounts – has presented its annual report to the European Parliament and for the 17th – yes, seventeenth – year running, it has concluded that the payments underlying the 2010 accounts are “still affected by material error”.

Should you wish to wade through it, the full 250-page document is here, but here are the killer extracts:

“The Court concludes that overall the supervisory and control systems are partially effective in ensuring the legality and regularity of payments underlying the accounts. The policy groups Agriculture and Natural Resources and Cohesion, Energy and Transport are materially affected by error. The Court’s estimate for the most likely error rate for payments underlying the accounts is 3.7 %.

“In the Court’s opinion, because of the significance of the matters described [above] on the legality and regularity of payments underlying the accounts paragraph, the payments underlying the accounts for the year ended 31 December 2010 are materially affected by error.”

What does all that actually mean?

As the ECA’s press release this morning explains, the “error rate” represents “the degree of non-compliance with the rules governing the spending, such as breaches of public procurement rules, ineligible or incorrect calculation of costs claimed to EU co-financed projects, or over-declaration of land by farmers”.

And that 3.7% error rate is as a proportion of the EU’s annual budget of €122.2 billion (£104.2 billion), which means that serious questions remain about a staggering €4.5 billion (£3.9 billion) of payments which have been made by Brussels – a figure which has increased since 2009.

And the error rate across the “Cohesion, energy and transport” budget alone was no less than 7.7%.

The fact that this happens year after year does not make it any more acceptable. Moreover, it underlines just how outrageous it is that the European Commission is seeking another increase in its budget when there are question marks over billions of its spending.

UPDATE: With a press release that anyone who knows the first thing about accounting concepts like material error would find hilarious, the EU is claiming that failing to get their accounts past the auditors yet again is some kind of triumph.  They claim that: “For the fourth year in a row, the EU’s annual accounts have received a clean bill of health from its external auditors.”

Fiscal union won’t save the eurozone

Oct 27th, 2011
by Matthew Sinclair.
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After extensive negotiations, European leaders have now announced another desperate attempt to save the euro and tackle the sovereign debt crisis. Allister Heath in City AM describes the packages as “barely a draft blueprint” and “not a plan that will save the Eurozone”. George Osborne has joined eurozone politicians in their belief that the answer to their problems is a common fiscal policy.

It is a convenient answer for politicians deeply committed to political integration in Europe but it raises some pretty difficult questions. If one of the problems is that the Greeks evade their taxes, will German tax collectors be dispatched? If the challenge for Italy is a combination of high debt and low expected growth will the Estonians take on that massive debt or be let loose to impose supply-side reforms?

Economist John Kay wrote a pretty comprehensive demolition of the idea a common fiscal policy was the way forward for the Financial Times yesterday:

“Conventional wisdom holds that the eurozone problem is the adoption of a common monetary policy without a common fiscal policy. But a common fiscal policy is not necessary for a successful monetary union. No such agreement existed under the gold standard. Nor does one exist now between the US and the several countries – including China – which have pegged their exchange rate to the dollar.

Nor is a common fiscal policy sufficient for a successful monetary union. Neither the European Commission nor the German government can put tanks on the streets of Athens. The only mechanism the European Union has, or can have, for imposing fiscal discipline in any country or region is to refuse further payments to that country or region. This is precisely the mechanism that has been deployed, with limited success.

[...]

The eurozone’s difficulties result not from the absence of strong central institutions but the absence of strong local institutions. A miscellany of domestic problems – rampant property speculation in Ireland and Spain, hopeless governance in Italy, lack of economic development in Portugal, Greece’s bloated public sector – have become problems for the EU as a whole. The solutions to these problems in every case can only be found locally.”

It is worth reading the whole article. Instead of supporting their vain attempt to fight reality, George Osborne should be telling eurozone leaders they need to face up to the currency’s failure. He certainly shouldn’t let even more of our money be staked on fresh bailouts through the IMF.

DFID under fire from Commons Committee

Oct 26th, 2011
by Darren Rutland.
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Last week MPs criticised the Department for International Development’s “poor understanding” of the scale and possibility of aid being lost to fraud. This is all the more troubling given DfID will see its budget increase by a third over the course of this Parliament. We’ve said before that the Government had a good opportunity to set out priorities at the Spending Review that would have eased pressure in other budgets, and enjoyed support among the British public. Instead, they decided to increase spending by nearly £4 billion.

The Public Accounts Committee said:

“We questioned whether the culture within the Department was sufficiently focussed on value for money…While the Department had increased its focus on value for money, it acknowledged that it had not yet maximised value for money in everything it was doing and could do more.”

Time after time, the British public show their generosity – best highlighted by their amazing response to natural disaster appeals. But when it comes to how the Government spends taxpayers’ money, things are less rosy. Previous TPA research has shown that 13 per cent of DfID’s budget is spent on non-front line costs. And for every pound of taxpayers’ money spent by DfID through multilateral organisations such as the UN and the EU, 5 pence of this goes to the administration of DfID. A further 15 pence (on average) then goes on the administration of the multilateral organisations. That’s a fifth of the money not directly helping the people it’s supposed to reach.

And it’s these external multilateral organisations that the Public Accounts Committee has warned against giving more funds to, as DfID had planned. If too much money is being spent on administration, it is only right that DfID must look to cut these costs. The Committee indicates that it is more transparent if DfID spends the money itself, rather than giving it to organisations such as the World Bank and the EU. It must not be forgotten that how money is being spent is important, as well as the total amount.

British aid undoubtedly saves lives across the world, and DfID’s work on crisis appeals is admirable. But it is vital that aid spending is transparent, so that taxpayers can be assured it is effective for those it is intended to help. Simply hiking DfID’s budget at a time when public spending needs to be brought under control does not guarantee greater efficiency and could mean more money lost to administration and fraud.

Further EU waste exposed ahead of Commons referendum vote

Oct 24th, 2011
by Darren Rutland.
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Disappointing but not surprising news from Brussels has revealed a discrepancy of over £80 million in expense claims for European Union bureaucrats in 2006 alone.

Robert Galvin, a British accountant who looked over the EU’s books, found a discrepancy of £81 million in “personal entitlement” payments to EU civil servants in 2006, and saw there was “considerable risk” of further abuses. For the EU to misuse taxpayers’ money like this is simply unacceptable.

David Lidington, the Minister for Europe, has responded to the findings by saying that “reports such as these are worrying and further emphasise the need for increased transparency across all EU institutional budgets”.

That’s very easy for him to say, but will anyone ever really be held to account for these failings? I fear we all know the answer to that one, given the EU’s record on dealing with financial mismanagement.

It’s not as if this is the first financial controversy to hit the European Union. In 1999, the entire European Commission, then led by Jacques Santer, resigned following a report “exposing fraud, corruption and mismanagement at senior levels”. While then-Shadow Foreign Secretary (and now Cabinet Office Minister) Francis Maude said that “British taxpayers need to be protected from being short-changed in Europe”, it is a disgrace that this warning still applies today.

Last year the European Court of Auditors refused to sign off the EU’s accounts. For the 16th year in a row. Yes, that’s right – EU accounts haven’t been cleared for 16 years. The two largest areas of EU expenditure – agriculture and regional spending – continue to be “materially affected by error”. Yet the Brussels machine still has the audacity to be demanding even more of our money.

I have previously written about how Members of the European Parliament and EU civil servants don’t seem to live in the real world – and they don’t seem like returning to reality any time soon.

MPs will today vote on a motion to give the British people a say on our relationship with the European Union for the first time in over 36 years. Given the waste that continues to come from Brussels (and Strasbourg), can they afford not to listen to the people?

Deferendum

Oct 24th, 2011
by Lee Rotherham.
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Today, the House of Commons will be having a debate over holding a referendum on Britain’s future in the EU. It may help to put this into context.

The last time people in the United Kingdom were given a real choice on Europe was in 1975.  In that year, the Wilson Government lived up to a pledge for a vote on whether to remain in the EEC.

If you can’t remember the Wilson Government, you are already onto a loser. If you can’t remember the EEC – well, that rather proves the point.

To have actually voted, it means in effect you would have had to have been born before the Suez Crisis. Everyone born after Anthony Eden became Prime Minister has, in a sense, been disenfranchised.

We could even coin a new word for this – Macmillanisation. For decades we have been voting in general elections for parties in which the European issue was but one policy amongst many affecting our ballot, while a number of Prime Ministers (starting with Macmillan himself) increasingly sought to get us into the European Community or, in changing treaty after treaty, marched massively away from the 1975 remit. Meanwhile, only people born before this process began have had a genuine say on it.

Some will argue that having a referendum today is a breach of our traditions as a parliamentary democracy. That argument would hold water had there not been such a raft of referendums over the past decade, on elected local mayors, regional devolution (including changes to London Government), Scottish devolution, and Welsh devolution (twice).

Under David Cameron’s government, there has been a referendum on the Alternative Vote, which was in no manifesto, but none on a referendum on the European issue, on which all three major parties have made a commitment that they have failed to deliver while in power. Meanwhile, the UK Government has said it “will not stand in the way” of a referendum on Scotland’s future, with David Cameron even calling upon First Minister Alex Salmond to accelerate the process. National independence can be an issue for plebiscite, then, providing the blue on the flag is of the right hue.

The very nature of today’s three line whip, uniting the leadership of the major parties, demonstrates the need to remove this decision from the hands of the party managers. In general elections, all three big parties find it within their leadership’s interests to smother any debate on the EU. On the issue of EU membership, the UK is still locked in continental-style consensual politics, deepening the split between the public and its representatives. Nothing could be more dangerous for democracy.

Whatever your viewpoint – whether you believe the UK should leave the EU tomorrow; that the country needs a powerful mandate to negotiate a new system from within the structures of the existing treaties; or even and particularly if you genuinely believe in a democratically-developed and accountable federal system for the continent – wherever you come from, the time has come for two new generations of voters to be asked our opinion. Because, increasingly across the country, we find people holding strong opinions, but silenced ones.

EU debate announced

Oct 20th, 2011
by Robert Oxley.
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At the start of the month we held a joint debate with the Daily Express about Britain’s relationship with the European Union. Aptly titled “We need to talk about Europe”, the point was made time and time again that discussion about Europe was being stifled despite the fact that it is an issue so many people feel strongly about, one way or another.

Apart from a minority of politicians who have consistently championed the issue, and debates over some statutory instruments, there has not been a substantial discussion about Britain’s relationship with the EU in the House of Commons for some time. It appears things might be about to change.

On tuesday, the backbench business committee approved David Nuttall MP’s motion for a debate on whether there should be a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU. On Monday 24 October MPs will discuss this motion:

“This House calls upon the Government to introduce a Bill in the next session of Parliament to provide for the holding of a national referendum on whether the United Kingdom

 (a) should remain a member of the European Union on the current terms;

(b) leave the European Union; or

(c) re-negotiate the terms of its membership in order to create a new relationship based on trade and co-operation.”

The motion was originally scheduled to be debated on Thursday but has been brought forward to Monday under the auspices of allowing the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary to attend.

While any vote in the debate will not bind the Government, it will take place against a highly-charged political background. While Greece burns and European leaders pontificate about how to get out of the debt crisis engulfing the Eurozone (tip: the answer is not more debt), there is growing anger at both the damaging effect of EU regulations in the British economy and the waste and profligacy that is commonplace across EU institutions. The latest example of the Eurocrats’ bizarre spending habits was exposed when we learned the £15 million cost of the EU’s new propaganda temple, the EU Parliamentarium.

The Daily Politics show visited the EU theme park and found EU officials more interested in eating cake than saving hard pressed taxpayers’ money:

Most national governments need to make big savings, but EU officials feel they are immune to the need to cut costs and consistently demand shocking increases in their budget. The disconnect between the priorities of taxpayers across Europe and the political agenda of the Eurocrats is stark. The scene is set for a passionate debate in the House of Commons.

It’s also worth noting that on Saturday The People’s Pledge will be holding their Congress for an EU referendum in Methodist Central Hall, Westminster. Speakers attending are from across the political divide, including both those supporting and opposing Britain’s membership of the EU. I will be there, along with our Political Director Jonathan Isaby and our Research Director John O’Connell. You can still get tickets and feel free to introduce yourself if you see us.

So how likely is it that the vote will pass? It’s reported that the Prime Minister may order Conservative MPs to vote against the referendum despite it containing a “third-way renegotiation option” similar to Conservative party manifesto commitments.  A number of Eurosceptic Tories will undoubtedly defy the whips but the Government may face a wider rebellion from new intake MPs, fed up of being bossed around and unhappy at pressure to vote against a referendum they support. For many, the renegotiation option will be highly appealing and may encourage them to support the motion on Thursday. MPs facing local constituency re-selection meetings as a result of the boundary review might not want to face Eurosceptic activists, having voted against giving the public a chance to vote on the relationship with the EU (a vote that no one under the age of 54 has ever had in this country).

And what will Labour do? They face the same questions over whether they want to give the public a say in Europe, with the added political dimension of the chance to inflict a bloody nose on the Coalition Government who could be split over this issue, given that the Liberal Democrats tend to support the European Union.

The congress on Saturday and the debate on the 24th are likely to be lively.  Regardless of the outcome, one thing is clear: we need to talk about Europe.

European Regional Development Fund loses millions

Oct 19th, 2011
by Paul Harwood.
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Alastair Jamieson at the Telegraph recently reported that huge amounts of public money were lost by the EU after being used to prop up schemes to “reduce economic disparity” between countries and regions as part of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

The total ERDF budget for England was £3.7 billion between 2000 and 2006 during which time the Department for Communities & Local Government (DCLG) confirmed that £38.1 million (about 1%) had been misspent or unaccounted for. Losses could have totalled £236 million, but officials had managed to “claw back” £63 million and a further £133.9 million remains outstanding.

In 2010 the UK made a net ‘contribution’ to the EU of £9.2 billion (about the cost of the police and courts combined) and a total transfer to the EU of £19.7 billion (roughly a quarter of the education budget). Amongst the indispensable projects on which this money was misspent were:

  • an enterprise scheme in Tees Valley where £1.8 million is unaccounted for due to “audit trail and document retention issues”;
  • a rooftop plant nursery to provide seeds for biodiversity projects, which lost more than £300,000 after its promoter, Tower Hamlets Environment Trust, went into liquidation;
  • regional film agency Screen East was responsible for £368,000 of “ineligible expenditure”.

The situation was so bad by March that even the EU had had enough and cut funding for the projects. Funding resumed in July after the DCLG, which allocates funding for projects, introduced tighter controls to prevent further losses.

The EU itself doesn’t seem too concerned. Out of a total budget of €140 billion (£122bn) the EU claims that “a 2% to 5% error rate is not big” which works out at £2.4bn-£6.1bn . This is fine, we are told,  since “this represents a considerable reduction from past levels”. Luckily, suspected fraud only accounted for about £244 million of the EU budget by their own estimates.

DCLG may be reintroducing weekly bin collections but there is still a large waste management problem to tackle with these EU budgets.

Eurozone to resume digging its way out of debt hole

Oct 18th, 2011
by Paul Harwood.
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Slovakia’s parliament refused to ratify the expansion of the European Financial Security Facility (EFSF) on Wednesday. As usual with ‘No’ votes, a second vote was called and the decision was reversed on Thursday leaving the bailout fund ratified, the ruling coalition in tatters and Slovakia facing its second general election in less than two years.

The original vote failed to pass after Freedom and Solidarity (SaS), a junior partner in the ruling coalition, refused to endorse the proposal. It was later passed with the support of the opposition Direction – Social Democracy (Smer) in return for early elections.

In an interview with Germany’s Spiegel, SaS leader Richard Sulik explained why his party didn’t support the proposals.

“Slovakia has the lowest average salaries in the euro zone. How am I supposed to explain to people that they are going to have to pay a higher value-added tax (VAT) so that Greeks can get pensions three times as high as the ones in Slovakia?”

He’s got a point. Slovakia will now contribute €7.7 billion (about eleven per cent of GDP) to the bailout fund. With a population of 5.4 million and a GDP less than one per cent of the eurozone total, Slovakia will now be forced to prop up a country with living standards at 89 per cent of the EU average while their own is just 74 per cent.

It’s hard to see how prolonging the agony of a Greek default serves the purpose of Slovakian taxpayers. This will simply transfer more of the liability from the private sector to taxpayers when it does eventually happen. It’s hard to find someone arguing that Greece will pay its debts and the debate is now about how to manage an ‘orderly default’. This is not a guarantee as any ‘haircut’ taken on the bonds purchased will mean a loss for the taxpayer.

When asked if he had any advice for Greece after Slovakia escaped its own economic crisis a few years ago:

“They have to make cuts in the state apparatus. The Slovaks could also give them a few good ideas about the tax system. We have a flat tax when it comes to income taxes. Our tax system is simple and clear.”

Slovakia may be a small country but they have some big ideas and it’s not just Greece that can learn from them.

Even more money for the EU

Oct 14th, 2011
by Darren Rutland.
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MEPs have voted to increase their budget by 4.2 per cent compared to last year, to €132.7 billion (£116 billion). That is what the European Commission originally proposed – before it was cut back to €129 billion by member states in July.

A spokesman for the British Government said, “In such challenging economic conditions, high growth in EU spending is both unaffordable and out of kilter with the tough measures that many countries are taking to consolidate public finances.” Nice words, but it is vital they don’t acquiesce to increases in the budget again when it is discussed by MEPs and EU ministers later this year.

The European Union’s bloated bureaucracy will be a big winner – in particular, its diplomatic service. Earlier this year, Foreign Secretary William Hague had to warn against a power grab by the European external action service, which might try to “usurp the functions and powers of national foreign ministries”. A report by Dr Lee Rotherham for the TPA in September 2009 warned that this was already happening. Baroness Ashton, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, has been working hard to expand her budget and powers.

Last month I wrote about how EU officials have refused a minor change in their working hours which would have saved £870 million. MEP Lajos Borokos summed up what many taxpayers would have felt on hearing the news: “The European Parliament is once again showing itself to be out of touch with the real world”.  Sadly, at a time when ordinary taxpayers face tax rises and inflation, and EU member states are making difficult budget decisions themselves, this vote for a budget increase only goes to confirm Mr Borokos’ point.

Brussels’ new £15 million propaganda temple

Oct 12th, 2011
by Jonathan Isaby.
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It may well have escaped your notice – probably because you have better things to do than to be looking for things to do in Brussels – but as of this week the Belgian capital has become home to a new “tourist attraction”.

On Friday the so-called Parliamentarium is opening – a brand new European Parliament visitor centre which has been paid for by the hard-pressed taxpayer at a cost of £15.5 million – nearly £5 million over budget and opening three years later than originally planned.

The official blurb about the exhibition – which aims to present the history of the EU to its citizens – could not make it sound more ludicrous:

“A highly varied presentation spread out over three floors holds the visitor’s attention. It consists of carefully harmonised narrative spaces, which lend three-dimensional expression to the contents of the exhibition… The Parliamentarium conveys the motto of the European Union, “United in Diversity”, in an emotional manner.”

And be in no doubt, it is propaganda central. The room entitled “United in Diversity” features “a walk-on map spread out over the floor, showing a Europe without borders” and enables visitors to “interactively acquire information on events that caused the European Parliament to draw up regulations that are valid and applicable throughout Europe”.

It includes a “light installation” entitled “Sky of Opinions”, while a special effort has been made to indoctrinate children of the need for the European Union to exist, with a mock-up of the Parliament chamber. Again, according to the official blurb, this will enable them to “learn what it means to actively participate in the idea of a united Europe”.

Some have dubbed it the EU’s very own theme park; I’m not sure about that, but it certainly seems like we’re being taken for a ride…

Ignore the European Commission’s legal threats over welfare payments to EU nationals

Sep 30th, 2011
by Tom Welsh.
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The European Commission has threatened to take legal action against the British Government over the rights of foreigners to claim benefits in Britain. British nationals are automatically considered to have the ‘right to reside’ but people of other EU nationalities are subject to an assessment first.

Discriminatory, says the Commission, which has given Britain a two month deadline to allow foreigners easier access to welfare in Britain, warning:

“Otherwise, the commission may decide to refer the UK to the EU’s Court of Justice.”

Changing the law to meet the demands could cost British taxpayers £2 billion a year as thousands of jobless EU nationals arrive with immediate eligibility for means-tested, residence-based benefits. The Commission is attacking not only the right of every member state to decide who is eligible for its benefits and why, but also the foundations of current welfare reform plans. The Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, spoke out against the move:

“This threatens to break the vital link which should exist between taxpayers and their own government. I sense this is part of a wider movement, coming in the same week as the proposals for a financial transactions tax across Europe which threatens to punish UK banks by decreasing their competitiveness abroad.”

Duncan Smith is rightly outraged at a ‘rising tide of judgements’ from European institutions, but taxpayers should be equally furious that a useful policy for preventing fraudulent use of our benefits system is being attacked by the unelected and the unaccountable. If Britain gives in to Brussels’ sabre-rattling the link between contribution and eligibility will be effectively destroyed.

The Government should simply ignore the warning and, if it becomes necessary, challenge the Commission in the EU Court of Justice. If the Commission wins, the Government should consider whether that decision might provide the circumstances for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU.

When will Eurocrats get it?

Sep 29th, 2011
by Darren Rutland.
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The European Commission has asked its staff to work an extra half hour each day in order to save €1 billion – around £870 million – by 2020, but trade unions representing the EU’s 55,000 staff have not accepted this minor change. Extravagant salaries, generous holiday, gold plated pensions and free lunches; it’s a tough life, working for the European Union.

With the crisis in the eurozone, and the situation in Greece only likely to get worse, this is another slap in the face for hard-pressed taxpayers. The extra 30 minutes per day would increase their working week to 40 hours – still below the average British full time worker’s 41.5 hours. Even so, there is talk that EU workers could strike.

A letter from Equipe d’Union Syndicale, the European Parliament’s trade union, has rejected the idea. They complain that “the attractiveness of the European civil service would deteriorate”. Further proof that they don’t realise the EU gravy train needs to stop.

It is said often enough, but this is yet another example of civil servants in Brussels living in an entirely different world to the rest of us. They don’t understand that ordinary taxpayers simply cannot afford to continue funding cushy working practices they don’t enjoy themselves.

Agency workers EU directive shows Coalition isn’t serious about growth

Aug 26th, 2011
by Rory Meakin.
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The Business Secretary, Vince Cable, has agreed to an EU directive forcing agency workers into the same terms and conditions as directly employed staff. Legislation will mean agency workers will effectively be treated as permanent staff after just 12 weeks in an agency role. The new law will mean firms will think twice about hiring an agency worker and the Government’s own analysis predicts the legislation will cost British business £1.8 billion annually.

Businesses will be able to pass on some of the new costs the legislation imposes onto agency employees in the form of less generous basic pay. But it is likely that many agency workers will not accept sufficiently lower pay rates in exchange for the new ‘rights’ the government and the EU have decided must form part of their employment agreements. So executives will face tough decisions about whether to hire agency workers or simply abandon their projects. And some agency workers might decide that jobs with lower pay but enhanced statutory rights just aren’t worth as much to them and not take on the assignments.

Vince Cable: not serious about growth

At this stage in the economic cycle, casual and agency staff are particularly important. Companies are especially nervous about making potentially costly decisions so the option to take on agency staff on a more flexible basis that regular employees allows them greater confidence to create jobs and prosperity. Slamming this door to prosperity shut would never make sense but to do so in the current economic climate means it’s even worse. It means higher unemployment, slower growth and a weaker economy. Just what we don’t need right now.

What we do need is less regulation and fewer restrictions on enterprise, and lower and simpler taxes. The Coalition Government claims to have a growth agenda. If it was serious about growth and getting the economy back on track, it’d ensure the legislation was stopped before it was implemented. Until they do so, it’s hard to come to any conclusion other than that they’re just not serious.

The EU approaches a crossroads

Aug 18th, 2011
by Jonathan Isaby.
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As Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy this week put forward another set of proposals aimed at trying to rescue the Eurozone from its crisis, the European Union and its peoples are getting ever nearer to a crossroads where fundamental decisions will have to be taken about its future.

The German Chancellor and French President have resurrected the idea of an EU-wide financial transactions tax – which would massively hit the UK due to the sheer volume of such transactions done in the City of London.

Matthew Sinclair set out the case against the so-called Tobin tax (named after the economist who initially proposed it) just last year.

Treasury sources are indicating they would oppose such a plan (see today’s Times £) on the basis that unless it applied globally, the transactions would end up being done elsewhere and we would lose out big time.

It goes without saying that it is absolutely essential that we hold David Cameron, George Osborne et al to vetoing any such tax.

What George Osborne had suggested earlier this month (in this Telegraph article) but which was rejected by Merkozy (as City AM’s Allister Heath has called the Franco-German duo) was for the Eurozone to issue euro bonds allowing for its strongest economies to underwrite the debts of its weakest members.

Such a measure would require a new EU Treaty – unanimously agreed by all 27 member states, of course. And if such a Treaty were agreed, then it would be the first time that the Coalition Government’s EU referendum lock would be tested – the recently passed measure that states that any further transfer of powers to the EU should be subject to a vote of the British people.

Whatever ends up being proposed in the coming weeks and months, the fact that the consent of the people of most European countries has not been sought as the juggernaut of EU integration has ploughed on regardless makes the status quo unsustainable for very much longer.

The current discussions about moving towards “true economic  governance” for the Eurozone within the European Union certainly seem an obvious juncture for all EU member states to assess their role in the club going forwards.

Moreover, here in the UK a consultation with the British public over Britain’s relationship with the EU through a referendum is long overdue.

And I can only see the clamour for such a vote growing as our continental cousins continue to propose measures that would clobber Britain whilst the Brussels bureaucrats ignore calls for austerity and insist that they need bigger and bigger budgets.

Have they no shame?

Jul 8th, 2011
by Jago Pearson.
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On the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) website, the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is hailed as being “focused on reducing economic disparities within and between member states by supporting economic regeneration and safeguarding jobs.” Sounds grand, but the reality is another example of taxpayers’ money being collected by an unaccountable European power then re-distributed to a narrow elite of chosen institutions and causes.

It emerged earlier this week that the fund hasn’t just been dishing out grants, but slapping fines on our institutions too. The Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at DCLG, Bob Neill, replied to a question posed by Burton’s Member of Parliament, Andrew Griffiths, regarding how much money has been paid back by British organisations to the European Union as a result of breaches to the fund’s rules. Griffiths specifically referred to infringements relating to the publicity of the fund on the part of the organisations that received the financial support. Neill’s answer was nothing less than startling.

He revealed that in excess of £436,000 has been paid back to the EU by thirteen different organisations; Advantage West Midlands (AWM) and the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce being the worst hit. The latter organised an event without suitable acknowledgement of the ERDF contibution; a flat rate penalty of 10 per cent was imposed and £77,609 repaid. The former, thankfully soon to be wound up, received a £201,801 bill for not using the EU logo on area publicity material in an attempt to simplify its brand image.

EU

You will comply

Most recently, the University of Northampton was fined £56,477 by penny-pinching bureaucrats after it failed to display the European Union logo outside a building whose facilities had been part-funded by the ERDF. Michael Ellis, Conservative MP for Northampton North, criticised the fine as “astronomical” and demanded the EU return the cash:

“It’s outrageous. These European dictocrats shouldn’t be worrying about their egos or wasting taxpayer’s money on investigating these matters. This is British taxpayer’s money being wasted on absurd self-publicity. There’s not an ounce of common sense being used here.”

These fines ultimately come out of the pockets of British taxpayers; we’re being stung once for contributions to the EU, which are then handed to the ERDF before being handed back to us, and then again when we’re fined for not following their petty rules. Outrageous. Why does the European Union insist so vigorously on promoting itself and its brand? Why must individual member states be forced to assume an additional financial burden to the already monumental sums they already contribute annually for Union membership?

In Neill’s answer, the full version of which can be found here, he said:

“We have to operate existing ERDF programmes according to the regulations. However, the Government believe that the regulations should be focused on ensuring that ERDF meets its objective of promoting economic competitiveness. We will be arguing strongly with the Commission that in the next programme, penalties for things that do not contribute to this objective, such as failing to publicise the programme, should be swept away.”

British taxpayers will be astounded at this current situation. Thankfully, the Government is slowly waking up to this and we can only hope that it will apply sufficient diplomatic pressure to make sure this nonsense is stopped. The EU truly is bloated if it can afford the time and money to waste on pathetic pedantry and bothering people for not flying the right flag or displaying the correct logo.

Rubbish failures

Jul 4th, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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The fallout from the Conservatives’ failure to keep their election pledge of maintaining weekly rubbish collections can be seen plainly throughout the West Country. From November, in West Wiltshire, residents will see their rubbish collections shifted to fortnightly, with a 240 litre blue-lidded bin added to their existing black box and usual garbage bin. The rest of the county will soon after see the end of their weekly rubbish collections.

“By the end of 2014 we will start saving on landfill tax,” says enthusiastic Wiltshire Conservative Councillor Toby Sturgis. “We have invested £7.6m to get this far. If we hadn’t done this the penalties for not doing so would have been very painful.” But excuse me, aren’t these so-called penalties completely artificial taxes invented by the European Union to push their recycling agenda and are endorsed by a current British government who chooses to do nothing about them (despite using the issue of weekly bin collections to win votes)?

Still, as chairman of his local climate change board, Cllr Sturgis clearly has a mission that is at variance with his own party’s election manifesto pledge on rubbish collection. British taxpayers and voters are entitled to feel very hard done by on many levels.

Well, this was unexpected

In the meantime, changes to rubbish collection and charges levied at some recycling centres are seeing dramatic rises in fly-tipping across the South-West. A report from Somerset Waste Board said there was a clear increase in district councils dealing with an ‘unprecedented number of cases’. Local government seems toothless in its ability to deal with fly-tippers—prosecuting only four people over a year in which over 6000 incidents were reported to Somerset councils. This leaves an enormous bill for taxpayers as councils have to clear up the increasing mess.

EU hypocrisy over austerity

Jul 1st, 2011
by David Cowan.
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The Greek Parliament has voted narrowly in favour of an austerity programme, which will enable a new bailout from the EU and IMF. This cash is designed to tackle the national debt and reinvigorate the economy. But the threat of default remains, and rioting continues on the streets of Athens. A similar fate looms large over other member states. So the European Commission will be suitably austere in their own Budget proposals for 2014-2020 then?

Of course not. They are proposing a whopping 5 per cent increase in the EU’s finances, five times the official EU inflation rate, and worth up to £100 billion. This will produce a mammoth €1 trillion budget. For the United Kingdom this will mean increasing our already substantial contribution by £1.4 billion every year for the next seven years until it reaches £23.1 billion. In addition to this a new funding formula will be negotiated, with the aim of further reducing the UK’s rebate. The rawest of deals, at a time when necessary spending reductions are being made within domestic departmental budgets.

Your money, or your life!

It doesn’t stop there. The EU wants its own tax powers to raise revenue independently. This includes a new EU-wide tax, a tax on financial transactions, and greater power over green taxes. This will only increase the ever increasing cost of living, crush economic growth, and punish motorists. Even Jean-Claude Trichet, head of the European Central Bank, has spoken out against such plans by describing them as “putting sand in the machine” of Europe’s financial hubs, including the City of London. The UK already has a large, complex, and unfair tax burden without the EU imposing a new layer of distortive taxes on people.

These proposals are scandalous. And only promising a bailout to Greece on the premise of passing an austerity budget is a bit rich, considering the Court of Auditors has repeatedly refused to sign off the EU accounts for 16 years. As we all know, there are many, many areas where the EU could cut its spending radically. For example, Dr Lee Rotherham’s report ‘From thespians to death rays’ exposed numerous examples of waste in EU expenditure, such as €2 million to ‘define God’, and €81,345 spent on a European Masters in Drug and Alcohol studies. Tired and broken structures will be propped up too. Under the new budget proposals the CAP will consume a grand total of €386.9 billion. This programme of agricultural protectionism has wasted billions, created wine lakes and dumped surplus products on struggling third world markets. It must end instead of further subsidies being pumped into the market. In the long term, removing trade barriers would be an effective way to slash our aid budget too, allowing farmers in developing countries to enter the market.

But sadly none of this is in the least bit surprising. The Government must resist these increased budgets and work for reduced contributions to save taxpayers’ money. If that involves flat-out refusing to hand over the money, then that’s the answer.

Non-job of the week

Jun 29th, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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Many thanks to supporters for sending in their non-job suggestions. As ever, there doesn’t seem to be a shortage of them, and although I cannot top last week’s non-contract of the week, there are still some revealing posts being advertised.

The London Borough of Sutton is advertising for a Customer Insight and Performance Manager, paying between £40,716-£43,368 per annum. This is part of the job description:

Working in a vibrant and highly performing new Policy and Customer Services Division in the Chief Executive’s Group, this post is key to shaping change. As the Council’s professional lead for research, customer insight and performance management you will ensure delivery of the Council’s priorities through customer-focused, evidence-based policy and service delivery.

Non-Job of the WeekIt all sounds rather vague, but that’s not the only offering from Sutton today. For the same salary, the council is also looking for a Community Involvement and Innovation Manager. One of the requirements for this post is  ’experience of engaging residents in innovative ways’. How about simply asking them?

Moving on to Reading, the council there is seeking to recruit a Tenant Participation Officer as part of its ‘strong commitment to working with tenants and to make sure that tenants have a say in the services delivered to their homes and local communities’. The successful candidate will also ensure ‘tenant expectations are met and where possible exceeded and the resident experience is continuously improved’.

In other words, if the roof’s leaking, it gets fixed. If the fuse box blows, it gets repaired. Isn’t that a legal obligation for landlords? What else are they talking about? More public sector doublespeak!

To find the winner this week I have been on a journey. No, I haven’t been racking-up expenses on the TPA corporate credit card. Instead I have been on a virtual tour from Medway to Brussels, via Dunkirk and Ostend.

Has anyone heard of the AIMER project? AIMER is an acronym for Achieving the Integration of Migrant Communities. Here are the opening lines on its website:

This Website has been designed to help you if you are new to the UK (Specifically new to the regions of Medway, East of England and Essex), to Dunkirk (in the Nord-Pas-de Calais Region in France) or in Oostende (in the Flanders region of Belgium).

Its purpose is to help you learn about life in the UK, France and Belgium in general, and the area where you live in particular.

Medway Council is searching for a Community Inclusion Coordinator as part of this project, which is funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) within the INTERREG IV A 2 Seas Programme.

None of us want racial tensions in Britain, but does it really need the EU’s involvement to solve any problems that may exist in Medway? Does Medway really need a Community Inclusion Officer to deal with any problems it has? Community groups, working with councillors, are more than capable of dealing with issues when they arise.

Weekly bin collections sent to landfill

Jun 14th, 2011
by Chris Daniel.
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Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, guaranteed all councils would return to weekly waste collections when the Government was formed,  as over the previous years many had switched to fortnightly collections. But it’s over 12 months since the Coalition Agreement was signed and the situation on the ground is actually worse; 13 more councils have switched to fortnightly collections than have switched the other way.

Back then Eric Pickles claimed “It’s a basic right for every Englishman and woman to be able to put the remnants of their chicken tikka masala in their bin without having to wait two weeks for it to be collected.” Saying that was clearly not enough to persuade councils to revert to a weekly collection of residual waste so there was talk that further measures, most likely some form of incentive, were needed.

We are right to expect them once a week

The ‘Waste Review’ will be announced today and the Government will not force councils to collect rubbish weekly. Instead they will refocus their efforts to make the UK a “zero waste” country. This is one battle Eric Pickles has lost, but many taxpayers will lose out too. Council tax has almost doubled over the last decade but taxpayers aren’t getting such a basic service cut. As the Telegraph noted in their Leader article yesterday morning, the collection of waste is the most basic of council tasks, one of the main reasons we pay council tax. Since the 1875 Public Health act, residents have been required to put their waste into a “movable receptacle” which the local authorities should empty each week. John Redwood reiterates this point, noting that many people do not use the majority of their council services. They may not have children in local schools or receive social security or patronise local leisure facilities; but one service they will use is their bin collection service. That makes a combination of less regular, less convenient bin collections and rising council tax bills particularly hard to stomach.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies produced a report on environmental taxes as part of the Mirrlees Review. They argue that the taxes imposed on waste disposal outweigh the social costs that they inflict in the first place. They found that:

“The UK landfill tax was one of the first explicit environmental taxes introduced in this country, initially set at rates reflecting best estimates of the costs involved. However, subsequent large increases in the rate, and the introduction of the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme, appear designed to ensure compliance with EU targets on landfill reduction. These targets look too stringent to be justified by the environmental costs.”

If government really want to help councils they should tackle the EU landfill directive

Those landfill taxes make it much harder for councils to keep offering weekly collections.  Councils are being forced into rationing waste collection by overly simplistic and inflexible EU targets, rather than genuine local environmental concerns.  Complaints that this is about central government interfering in local decisions therefore miss the point. We don’t have a level playing field at the moment with heavy handed intervention not just from Whitehall, but from Brussels.

Our Director Matthew Sinclair was on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning saying that local people should decide the priorities for their local area. The EU, with their onerous directives, don’t have UK taxpayers in mind and establish draconian top-down targets. Massive landfill taxes directly hurt local authorities, instead of allowing them to decide the best policies for their residents. This pressure breeds bizarre responses, such as councils requiring residents to sort rubbish into nine bins, which we looked at in recent research . If councils believe that central intervention in waste policy isn’t localist, then they should be asking the Government to take on the EU Landfill Directive.

Matthew Sinclair also appeared on the BBC News Channel this morning, you can watch it here

Non-job of the week

Jun 8th, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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A different week, but the same old jobs being advertised at inflated salaries. Trafford Council is looking for a Programme Manager, on a ‘senior manager pay grade.’ The job advert states:

Trafford Council is driving forward an exciting journey of Transformation to redesign services to become even more flexible, efficient and customer focused. To continue on our success in the delivery of the Transformation Programme we are seeking to recruit a self motivated, dynamic professional with a proven track record in successful Project/Programme delivery to undertake a lead role within our established Transformation Team.

When you think councils are looking forward and cutting the numbers of senior staff, you see they manage to sneak another person in under the guise of ‘change’.

Last week’s non-job was a Sustainability Manager (Community Engagement) in Camden, and pays between £40,506-£43,152. This week, Enfield has managed to go further. This council is looking for a Head of Sustainability on a salary between £53,700-£63,177. If you think you are the ideal candidate, here’s the job description:

Enfield Council is seeking a strategic individual to lead a new area of service to ensure we meet our commitments for a sustainable environment. We want to reduce our own impact on the environment and also to facilitate, encourage and bring investment into the borough, to support communities and businesses to develop sustainable futures.

The ideal candidate will be able to : * Strategically manage and develop key initiatives around sustainability, energy and environment. * Identify and tender for external funding opportunities for environmental initiatives. * Deliver carbon and energy reductions through developing initiatives whilst managing others to deliver these programmes. * Liaise with Council Departments to promote initiatives & achieve best environmental practice. * Take a lead role in all energy related matters and manage the carbon reduction commitment requirements. * Advise master planning groups and the Council’s Development Management Service to ensure sustainability is at the forefront of all new development and policies. * Ensure that the Sustainability Team is self-financing in three years. If you have the leadership, drive, vision and ability to deliver to this agenda for Enfield Council, we would welcome your application for this key position.

I’m going to look at two key phrases from the paragraph above:

  • Identify and tender for external funding opportunities for environmental initiatives.
  • Ensure that the Sustainability Team is self-financing in three years

Not only are we paying for this non-job, but we are also paying for the grants it will be chasing. They will come from Quangos (paid for by us), and no doubt the EU (again paid for by us). The only way the sustainability team is going to be self-financing is by either reducing the council’s energy bills and/or chasing grants.

Reducing energy consumption saves money, and is something we do at home. We switch-off lights that don’t need to be on. In winter we may turn the thermostat down a degree or two to save some money. I switch my computer off when I’m finished working. As we highlighted last year, Windsor and Maidenhead Council reduced its energy consumption by 15% after installing smart meters.

The money saved by councils should them be used to protect front-line services, and help reduce council tax bills. In Enfield it will merely be ploughed back into protecting the financially unsustainable ‘Sustainability Team’ who will also take more of our money by ensuring the grants are in place for it to continue doing its work.

We have to move away from this grant chasing mentality, and remember what councils are for. They are not employment agencies. They exist to serve us, and provide first class services at the best possible price.

PETITION: Oppose the EU Bailouts

Jun 2nd, 2011
by Emma Boon.
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Sign the petition here

A couple of weeks ago, at the Rally Against Debt, we launched a petition to oppose EU bailouts. Lots of you signed up on paper and hundreds more have signed up online. If you haven’t added your signature yet, here’s why you should.

EU bailouts are storing up debt for the next generation. British taxpayers’ liability for propping up the collapsing euro has rocketed, largely due to a recent rescue package for Portugal. We thought the bailout for Ireland was a bad idea and we opposed that, the Portuguese case seems even more egregious as they couldn’t pass an austerity plan before stretching out the begging-bowl. Worse still it’s becoming increasingly apparent that Greece will need another handout as its debt woes continue. At a time when we’re making very necessary spending cuts at home, why are we handing over more money to try to save the euro; a mistake we didn’t make?

The Government is disastrously letting down taxpayers by picking up the bill for bailouts to keep the rest of Europe happy. It’s time to say no and oppose the EU bailouts, sign here if you agree.

Non-job of the week

May 25th, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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We have another array of unnecessary jobs this week. Surrey County Council is looking to expand its Change Department – something I have commented on in the past. This time it’s looking for a Change Communications Manager on £54,085 per annum.

Surrey is also looking for in Internal Communications Co-ordinator. Internal communications is a subject that gets many people commenting on this website. There are some who passionately defend this role. There are others who work or have worked in the corporate world and agree with me that when a company is looking to reduce costs, this is one of the first jobs to go. Surrey County Council seems intent on increasing the amount of backroom managers, when other councils are looking at reducing the numbers. Almost every week there seems to be a new job advert looking for change managers. How much change are they contemplating?

If you live in Reading, expect a knock on your door or your telephone to ring, as you may be contacted by one of the councils ten Seasonal Personal Travel Plan Advisors. Here’s what the job advert says:

The role of the Seasonal Personal Travel Plan Advisor involves discussing with people how they travel to work, school, go shopping, etc and identifying if there are different travel options available to them. Once the options are identified, the Advisor then provides information and incentives to encourage people to try out different ways of travel.

With the cost of fuel at a record high, many people – including myself – are thinking about the journeys we make. Do we really need the council spending our taxes to advise us on how we travel to work or go shopping? Another bit of state interference we can do without, with ten of thousands of pounds wasted over the summer months that could be spent on front-line services or reducing council tax bills.

The title this week though goes to the European Union. It is looking to employ an Executive Director of the South West European Partnership. Whilst government departments and councils have seen their budgets reduced, the EU continues to spend money regardless of the economic climate. It likes to think itself immune from what is going on around it; as if it’s living inside a bubble.

UK taxpayers are being dragged into more bailouts for the failing Euro, and we have launched a petition requesting the government to say no to more Eurozone bailouts. This is on top of the £20.8 million net contribution we pay every day to Brussels. Now it wants us to pay the salary for a director whose job is ‘to lead the development of this new social enterprise and ensure clients receive the highest quality of European Services.’ This job will also involve extensive travel between the UK and Brussels, so on top of the £50-£60K salary, you can add a substantial amount of extra costs as this person shuttles their way between the two places.

This non-job has more to do with public relations, and is a typical example of EU largesse. This is on top of the costs of maintaining and staffing existing EU offices in what it regards as the different European Regions. It is the duty of our government to say no to increases in the EU budget, and no to more bailouts. We are already generous net contributors, and should be looking at reducing our payments, not spending more, and paying for non-jobs like this one.

EU bailouts remind us to Rally Against Debt on Saturday

May 10th, 2011
by Rory Meakin.
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It’s party hats all round at TaxPayers’ Alliance HQ this week as we celebrate EU Week, kicking off yesterday with EU Day. To help us get in a suitably joyous mood, all but one of the Union Flags on Parliament Square have been replaced by the flags of our various European partners and, of course, the EU’s own yellow-starred blue number. Sadly, the euphoria has been tempered by news that Greece is likely to default on the EU bailout agreed just over a year ago while Portugal is negotiating the interest rate on its own EU bailout.

The bail outs are unpopular. In December last year 62 per cent opposed giving loans to Portugal, even if they are “in the national interest”, according to a Populus poll. It didn’t say how many opposed the loans if they were against the nation interest. And it’s not just in Britain where they’re unpopular. The True Finns party in Finland jumped from 4 to 19 per cent in the recent election, largely on the back of opposition to bail outs. As Tony Barber said in the Financial Times, reported in this Irwin Stelzer article:

“Finns are angry because, like the Austrians, Dutch, and Germans, they dislike rushing to the aid of countries that in their eyes have cheated, idled, lied, lived beyond their means, and let reckless bankers run amok.”

Hip hip, hooray!

In a thoughtful piece for the Irish Times, Morgan Kelly explains why Ireland’s bailout is of little use to the Irish. Rather, it exists to prop up confidence in the Euro currency. Quite why this should be of much concern to German taxpayers is unclear, let alone the British. Why should taxpayers in Germany, Britain and other EU countries’ pay for so-called ‘loans’ to fund public spending in Portugal that the Portuguese aren’t willing to pay for themselves? Calling the bailouts ‘loans’ is being pretty polite, too. The very reason a bailout is required is because professional money-lenders don’t believe Portugal will pay the money back. If they don’t believe it, why should taxpayers?

Right now the EU is negotiating with the Portuguese government on the rate of interest, in other words just how much of a hand out it will get from taxpayers in the form of subsidised loans to make repayments less unrealistic and more affordable. But this is treating the symptoms rather than the cause. The cause is unrealistic, unaffordable spending and the answer for Greece, Portugal, Ireland and, indeed, Britain too is to cut spending down to an affordable level, not least by resisting the pressure to carry on bailing out irresponsible banks, a policy which has caused so much of Ireland’s current mess. We’re not far behind (less debt now but a greater deficit) but at least Britain appears to be starting to get a grip on its fast-growing debt mountain with the planned freeze on spending (it’s still growing fast, despite the ‘cuts’ rhetoric).

The ugly fate of the PIGs (Portugal, Ireland, Greece) will pale in comparison to what would await Britain if markets lose confidence in the Government’s willingness to make tough decisions on spending. While small economies on the European periphery can be bailed out, who could bail us out if we carried on spending recklessly? We’re several times bigger than the combined size of the PIG economies. And that’s why the Rally Against Debt this Saturday is such a good idea. Come along and join us to show your opposition to irresponsibly piling up debt for the next generation. You needn’t worry about our party hats, we’re not really wearing them at the TPA. So if you’re on Facebook, register here for the event. If not, just turn up at Old Palace Yard at 11am on Saturday 14th May. Have a look at the Rally Against Debt website for more details.

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