Richard Baum

Here is the speech I made proposing the congestion charge amendment at the meeting of Bury Council last night. There were a few last minute amendments made in the chamber, and I said a bit afterwards too to close the debate, but this is more or less it:

“Mr Mayor, in proposing this amendment I would like to tell Council  about an experience I had at Watford Gap service station on the M1  in early October.  

I was driving to an engagement party when my car began making the  types of spluttering noises one would normally associate with the early days of steam.   

I pulled into the service station and waited, with nothing but a  Ginster’s Pasty for company. The AA man came, and despite him  being a very nice man he was no use at all, and I had to scrap my car  and get a new one.   

The only good thing to come out of the whole mess was that I got a  refund on my tax disc, which still had more or less a whole year to  run.   

And Council will be delighted to hear that, should we all end up  paying a congestion charge each and every day to travel into Greater  Manchester’s District Centres, should our cars have the same  troubles, we too will be entitled to such a refund.  

Because this congestion charge isn’t replacing my tax disc.

It isn’t  replacing fuel duty. In fact it isn’t replacing anything.  

It’s an extra charge which will force poor people out of their cars.  

Simple as that.  

It limits choice. It is hugely regressive. And it is a damning indictment of the nannying, money-grabbing worst side of our government.   

We shouldn’t be bidding for anything which signs us up to it. 

Mr Mayor, this country is in dire need of public transport investment.  

We have been promised an integrated transport system for decades.  

We don’t have one yet.  

In Greater Manchester we have a Metrolink system so dirty, dangerous and unreliable that half the time I may as well ride to  work on a wing and a prayer as on a tram. It’d be cheaper, that’s for sure.  

We have buses that serve some communities well, and others not at all.

An 85 year old lady in my ward has to walk a mile and a half to  get a bus because the route past her house doesn’t make enough  money to continue. That’s just not on in my book. 

The north of our Borough is woefully served. Woefully served Mr  Mayor.  

This is unacceptable after ten years and more of a government which claims to champion public transport.  

We need investment in our public transport system, and we need it  now.  

Never has it been more important to get people out of their cars.  

For the sake of pollution, for the sake of congestion, and for the sake of our communities, we need people using sustainable public transport. People using a first rate public transport system. 

And people should pay for it, Mr Mayor. There’s no such thing as a  free lunch. And God knows there’s no such thing as a free Pasty at Watford Gap. 

But People do pay for it. You pay for it Mr Mayor, so do I, and so  does everybody up there in the public gallery. Whether we use it or not.  

Through the taxes we pay every time we get paid, every time we purchase anything, and every time we fill our cars and tax our cars and buy our cars. 

This government now wants us to pay for it again though. Through congestion charging. 

“You’ll get the transport you need,” they say “but only if you pay upto a fiver a day to drive into Manchester. We won’t pay for it ourselves.  We think other things are more important.” 

Well Mr Mayor, I don’t think that’s right.  And I’d like to know the opinions of the people in this room, in this Borough and in Greater Manchester.  

And we should get them to tell us by holding a county wide referendum of every household. 

I don’t think the government’s attitude is right because it’s an additional tax. Because it’s an unfair tax, and because it’s an unwise tax. 

It’s an additional tax because it replaces nothing.  

We’ll still be paying £1 a litre at the pumps.  

We’ll still be paying hundreds to tax our cars.  

And now we’ll be forced to pay a fiver to drive where we want. 

It’s an unfair tax because poor people will suffer the most.  

If I earned ten thousand pounds a week, a fiver a day isn’t going to stop me doing anything.

But if I earned ten thousand pounds a year, it might stop me doing everything.  

Mr Mayor, poorer people have poorer choices, and this deprives them  of yet another.  

And it’s an unwise tax.  

Unwise because it is presented under the guise of being good for the  environment and good for the economy.  I think it’s neither.

It’ll just create bitterness, and bad feeling towards good causes.  

Businesses won’t like it because Greater Manchester will be a big city with a big tax.

Workers won’t want to move here,  and businesses will want to leave. 

And people won’t like leaving their cars at home because they’re being dragged wallet-first towards public transport, not shown the  light through world class public transport. 

That’s not the way to benefit the environment or the economy. 

We should say no to the congestion charge Mr Mayor. 

No to this government forcing poor people to pay to get to work.  

No to being tracked by cameras.  

No to tags in our cars.  

No to public transport investment on the never never.  

No to the TIF bid if this is what it means. 

This TIF bid isn’t about a Transport Innovation Fund.  It’s about a Transport Injustice Fund. 

It is simply unjust to ask poor people to pay hundreds of pounds extra every year to drive into work when there is simply not a suitable alternative. 

We should not stand for such injustice. 

How can we be entrusted to serve the people if we consign the poorest to paying more to get what is rightfully their’s?  

Innovative governments persuade by example, convince by  investment, and win arguments by building a brighter future.  

Simple taxation is not innovation. 

Mr Mayor I know what rejecting congestion charging may mean.  

It may mean saying goodbye to the investment in public transport that  we need.  

But it shouldn’t mean that.  

It should send a message.

A message to government that we will not stand for their bullying.  

That we have been elected by local people to stand up for what they want – a quality public transport system paid for through the taxes we have already paid, sustained through more users and leading to  improvements all round. 

We shouldn’t take no for an answer from government.  They owe it to the people of this Borough and this county to give us  what we need.  

We need to send them a message that we want quality public transport corridors in Bury.

That we want the north of this Borough to be properly served.  

And that we want Bury to be part of a region with a world class public  transport system. 

Let’s send them that message Mr Mayor, by rejecting congestion charging, listening to the views of every house in Greater  Manchester, and then telling the government loud and clear what it is  that the people want. 

Mr Mayor, I have pleasure in proposing this amendment.” 

My colleague, and the leader of the Lib Dem Group on Bury Council, Cllr Tim Pickstone, seconded the amendment,  giving the Council two examples where major public transport investment was made without the need for a congestion charge (Crossrail in London and the Edinburgh Tram System). He also noted how the decision that Bury were making might actually shape the future by enabling the people of Greater Manchester to have their say in a public referendum.

Rick