Pledge: No more top-down reorganisations of the NHS
“With the Conservatives there will be no more of the tiresome, meddlesome, top-down restructures that have dominated the last decade of the NHS.” David Cameron, speech at the Royal College of Pathologists, 2 November 2009.

Reality: David Cameron’s Government has launched the biggest top-down reorganisation in the NHS’s history, wasting billions at the same time as cutting over 3,000 nurses. The NHS is being turned into a full-blown commercial market, putting competition before patient care.

Pledge: Get Britain working
“Get Britain working by giving unemployed people support to get work” A contract between the Conservative Party
and you, May 2010.

Reality: Under David Cameron, unemployment is at its highest rate in 16 years, and the economy has only grown by 0.2 per cent since the Spending Review in October 2010. As a result of its failure on growth and jobs, the Government is set to borrow £158 billion more than it planned during this Parliament.

Pledge: More police on the streets
“We will BACK the police by cutting red tape to get more police onto the streets” A contract between the Conservative Party and you, May 2010.

Reality: David Cameron’s Government is cutting the policing budget by 20 per cent, which means over 16,000 police officers ill be cut by the end of the Parliament. Over 4,000 frontline officers were cut in the Tory-led Government’s first year, and last year saw the steepest rise in personal crime in over a decade.

Pledge: Control immigration, reducing it to the levels of the 1990s
“Control immigration, reducing it to the levels of the 1990s – meaning tens of thousands a year, instead of the hundreds of  thousands a year under Labour.” A contract between the Conservative Party and you, May 2010

Reality: Under David Cameron, far from being cut, net migration has risen by 15,000 year on year. The Tory-led Government is cutting over 5,000 staff from the UK Border Agency, deporting fewer foreign criminals, stopping fewer people who shouldn’t be in the UK from coming in, and removing fewer people who should not be here.

Pledge: No cuts to child benefit
“I wouldn’t change child benefit, I wouldn’t means test it, I don’t think that is a good idea.” David Cameron, Cameron Direct in Bolton, 5 March 2010.

Reality: David Cameron’s Government is abolishing child benefit for higher-rate taxpayers, meaning that a single earner household with three children earning £43,000 will lose almost £2,500, even though a double-earner household on £84,000 could keep all their child benefit.

Pledge: No cuts to tax credits for low-income families
“On this issue of tax credits we are saying we like tax credits, we will keep tax credits but for families earning over £50,000 we think that we can’t afford the child tax credit. That is one of the savings that we are being up front and frank about but for Gordon Brown to say that actually the changes we are making would hit low income families is simply not true.” David Cameron, Leaders’ TV debate, 29 April 2010.

Reality: David Cameron’s Government is cutting childcare tax credit, costing working families up to £1,500 a year, and from this April some part-time workers on the minimum wage will lose £73 per week – meaning they and their families would be better off on benefits.

Swindon has been particularly hard hit – identified as a youth unemployment hot spot by the recent report by the Association of Chief executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACVO).  The percentage of young people (18-24) out of work in Swindon has more than trebled from 2.5% in 2000 to 8.8% in 2011.

There is a real danger we create a lost generation.  We know how corrosive and damaging unemployment is to local communities, and how demoralising the search for work can be.

For young people, long-term unemployment scars for life. It means lower earnings, more unemployment, and more ill health later in life. It means more inequality between rich and poor.

It also affects young people’s mental and physical health. It increases susceptibility to illness, mental stress, and helplessness, and loss of self-esteem leading to depression.

Youth unemployment means that those people affected are more likely to be unemployed and welfare-dependent later in life and it creates a long term divide in aspiration passed down the generations.  According to the Princes Trust 25% of those from deprived homes believe that ‘few’ or ‘none’ of their career goals are achievable.

Studies have found that increases in youth unemployment relate to increases in burglaries, thefts and drug offences.  Overall it is it is urgent that we take action to tackle youth unemployment.

Unfortunately at a time when we need to create new jobs and open the door for opportunity, many of the key support mechanisms have been dismantled.

•          The Future Jobs Fund, cut

•          The Connexions Service, Cut

•          EMA’s cut

•          And Tuition Fees Trebled

The ACVO report recommends 3 key strategies to tackle youth unemployment:

1. Young people need more job opportunities:

It calls for a Youth Contract Work Programme and for young people to be guaranteed a part-time ‘First Step’ job as a stepping stone to unsupported employment.

2. Young people need better preparation and motivation for work

The raising of the education participation age from 16 to 18 is a massive moment for the country.  They also call for the creation of national Job Ready programme for those most at risk of becoming long-term unemployed.

3. The creation of Youth Employment Zones

Starting in the youth unemployment ‘hotspots’ across Britain, the key organisations responsible for tacking youth unemployment should come together and coordinate their efforts.  It must become everybody’s business to get young people into work.

Tackling Youth Unemployment is one of political challenges of our times.  It is a challenge we must face together.  It is essential that we develop a clear strategy for Swindon and make a real positive difference to the future of young people across our town.

Questions focused on the disastrous state of the health service, tax evasion by big business, why the finance sector had been preferred to productive industry, and why bonuses and greed couldn’t be controlled by the Tories or Lib Dems.   The audience were left full of questions about the failure of the current Government and wishing Rachel well in her new and demanding role.

Caption: Rachel Reeves and Jim Grant (Labour Group Leader) (Courtesy of O’Brian Media)

Labour’s solution to Osborne’s failed plan A and Cameron’s Tory laissez faire attitude to young people will be to tax bankers bonuses and create 100,000 jobs for young people.

People still fear for their job security as redundancies climb. The Office of National Statistics reports that there were 164,000 redundancies in September to November 2011, up 14,000 on the previous quarter and 5,000 on the year. When will Osborne ditch his plan A and accept that it isn’t working?

So why did Cameron veto a pact that most of the other EU members who werent in the Euro were prepared to sign?

Well,  one reason was that he didn’t like the proposed financial transaction tax.  Yet as the Archbishop of Canterbury said last month “the public is frustrated by the financial sector’s business as usual approach which is represented by still soaring bonuses and little visible change in banking practices while society as a whole pays for banks’ past errors and irresponsibility”.

The UK’s stamp duty, which taxes share purchases, already raises £3 billion a year, but a Financial Transaction Tax – or “Robin Hood Tax” of only 0.05% on transactions like stocks, bonds, foreign currency and derivatives would raise £250 billion a year globally, and at least £20 billion in the UK.  This is well-tested, cheap to implement and hard to avoid.  It was the tax that our European Socialist friends were pushing for on a coordinated basis across Europe.

Another element which Cameron objected to, and which Tory MEPs also voted against in European Parliament last month, is a regulation banning speculators ‘gambling’ with debt debt issued by the British government, the Eurozone countries, or by other EU Member States.  In recent months we seen these speculators making billions by trading European financial bonds that they dont even own.  Technically,  this means a ban on  ”naked” credit default swaps (CDS), which enable speculators to take out insurance against a failure by governments to pay their debts even if the speculators themselves do not actually own those government bonds. Rising demand for such contracts can push governments into financial trouble which then delivers a payout for speculators – even when the government was originally solvent.  Tories don’t want this to become law because it would threaten the bonuses of their friends in the City.

So, come off it!  The veto wasn’t an expression of Britain’s bulldog spirit.  Just Cameron playing poodle to his Banker buddies.

The Government is planning the biggest re-organisation of the NHS since it began in 1948.

It is unnecessary, unwanted, wasteful and damaging and threatens to end the NHS as we know it. Only last year, the Government promised people they wouldn’t do it. Many thousands of people have already called on the Government to stop.

But they are ploughing on, ignoring public and professional opinion, out of touch with Britain. We need to make the Government listen before it’s too late.

Sign the Drop the Bill petition at http://www.labour.org.uk/dropthebill and tweet this on twitter!

What this Bill means for the NHS

POSTCODE LOTTERY

The Bill will break up the NHS and create an unfair postcode lottery. With no national standards, there will be widespread variation in the treatments available on the NHS. In some areas, people may have to go private to get services available for free elsewhere.

LONGER WAITING TIMES

The Bill risks rises in waiting times and a two-tier NHS. It scraps the cap on hospitals treating private patients at the same time as watering down guarantees on NHS waiting times. This means local hospitals will be free to treat more private patients and make NHS patients wait longer.

PRIVATISATION

The Bill turns the NHS into a full-blown commercial market, putting competition before patient care. It allows private companies to cherry-pick quick profits, potentially forcing local hospitals to go bust. Hospitals could even be fined for working together.

DAMAGED DOCTOR-PATIENT RELATIONSHIP

The Bill undermines the bond of trust between doctors and patients. It creates conflicts of interest where financial incentives could interfere with medical decisions. GPs could even get a bonus for rationing your care.

WASTE

This Bill is wasting money and creating bureaucracy. It is unforgivable to spend £2 billion on a reckless re-organisation when the NHS needs every penny it can get for patient care. Nearly £1 billion is being wasted on pay-offs for managers, only for many of them to be re-employed as consultants.

Last week doctors in York were criticised for telling their patients that certain operations were no longer available on the NHS, and offering to provide these for a fee. This is the tip of the ice berg where the Tories are concerned of creeping privatisation of previously free NHS provision.

Andy Burnham MP, Labour’s new Shadow Health Secretary, has written to Andrew Lansley with a constructive offer to resolve the “dangerous stalemate” on NHS reform. He believes the financial challenge is the overriding priority for the NHS but that the Government’s contested top-down re-organisation is proving to be a dangerous and damaging distraction.

As the House of Lords gets ready to debate the Health Bill this week, Andy Burnham has urged the Government to withdraw its Bill. In return, he has pledged Labour’s support for developing true clinician-led commissioning in every locality in England – one of the key aims of Mr Lansley’s reforms. Labour believes that these reforms do not need legislation, and indeed could be implemented more quickly without it.

Andy Burnham’s approach offers a way ahead that everybody could unite behind. It would bring much-needed stability and would help the NHS save money on the costs of re-organisation. People would be encouraged to see the main parties setting aside differences and working together for the good of the NHS.

I hope the Coalition Government accepts Andy’s offer to work together and that they dump the bill even the BMA in Swindon is calling on the Government to pull back from its plans, as they fear the NHS in Swindon will be very badly hit by them. What a waste of money the Government is planning billions on a reorganisation that the medical profession doesn’t want and will mean worse services for local people.

It could come down to one or two votes. Together we can help tip the balance. If we show the Lords that the public want them to put Lansley’s plans under the microscope, we can convince wavering Lords to stand up to government pressure and vote the right way.

• These changes weren’t in any manifestos and the public has never had a chance to vote on them.
• These changes weren’t given proper scrutiny in the House of Commons so we need the House of Lords to look at them properly.

An urgent, people-powered petition can show the Lords that huge numbers of us want them to protect the NHS. Please add your name now by clicking here.