WE WILL FIGHT FOR YORK'S SHARE OF BUDGET INVESTMENT SAYS COUNCIL LEADER (York Liberal Democrats)

York Liberal Democrats <info@yorklibdems.org.uk>

WE WILL FIGHT FOR YORK'S SHARE OF BUDGET INVESTMENT SAYS COUNCIL LEADER

April 22, 2009 12:00 AM

Responding to today's budget announcement by Chancellor Alistair Darling, Liberal Democrat Leader of the Council, Councillor Andrew Waller said he would fight to ensure York a share of new government funding.

Councillor Waller said he would work to ensure York got it's share of £260m of extra money to help young people acquire skills and training, saying education and training were key to ensuring the York economy was in a strong position to take advantage of an economic recovery.

York should also be in a good position to take advantage of a new £750m strategic investment fund to help emerging technologies thanks to York Science City.

Councillor Waller urged the government to live up to the promises made in the budget, he said, "I hope that this time Ministerial announcements will be backed up with real action and real funding. Too many times in the past announcements have come and gone without the policy becoming reality."

While Councillor Waller said some of the announcements in the budget were welcome, many opportunities had been missed and in some cases the policies would make things worse.

Councillor Waller said, "The key to easing some of the economic pain we are in is to get banks lending again, especially to businesses. At the last meeting of the Business Forum a number of local businesses said how difficult it was for them to access funds. The government needs to take steps to get the banks lending again to free up the economy."

"Given the amount of money that taxpayers have invested in banks in recent months it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect that money to be working for the good of the whole economy. It is very disappointing that the government have failed to include any measures in the budget aimed at getting the banks lending again."

Councillor Waller also expressed his disappointment that the government had failed to help businesses by introducing a holiday on business rates, instead sticking to an announcement in March that would allow businesses to spread the payment of the 2009-10 inflation up-rating of business rates over three years.

"This is not a real solution to the business rates problem" Councillor Waller commented. "Deferring payment won't help businesses they will still have to pay , whether it is this year or next. The government would have been better off introducing a holiday for business rates rather than introducing this complex scheme that seems simply designed to put off the real problem."

The Chancellor's decision to go ahead with a planned increase in beer tax, despite the opposition of more than 200 MPs, was a disaster for York's historic local pub's Councillor Waller said.

"Local pubs are struggling as it is, the tax increase will only make matters worse and force many community pubs to close. These pubs are part of York's character and need protecting."

The budget comes amid a backdrop of rising unemployment with the number of people claiming jobseeker's allowance increasing for the 13th month in a row in March, up by 73,700 to 1.46 million, the highest total since September 1997.

Councillor Waller said it was important that the government worked to retain existing jobs, as well as attempting to help create new ones. He said the Council was already working with businesses to direct them to existing help and support.

The introduction of a £2000 allowance for scrapping old cars to buy more efficient new cars was also tentatively welcomed as was the introduction of the 50% tax rate for people earning over £150,000 a year. Councillor Waller said that these plans were welcome in theory but questioned the ability of the government to implement them correctly.