Richard Baum

Here is the speech I made last night to the Council, proposing the Lib Dem group’s motion on the Credit Crunch. You can read the motion itself by visiting http://burydem.bury.gov.uk/aksbury/users/public/admin/kab14.pl?operation=SUBMIT&meet=48&cmte=COU&grpid=public&arc=71

“Thank you Mr Mayor.

Earlier this year I was lucky enough to be able to buy my first home.

Since then though, it’s fallen in value, and the identical house next door hasn’t sold despite being on the market all this time.

There is of course the very real possibility that I might be the reason people don’t want to live in the house net door, but for this evening’s sake, let’s assume it’s the credit crunch’s fault.

Because despite house prices across the country being 15% lower than a year ago, they still aren’t selling.

Across the Borough hundreds of new flats lie unsold or not even built, and those who’ve bought one watch its value sink like a stone in a pond.

The time taken to receive an offer on a house has gone up 50% in a year.

At the same time, the wider economy is entering a recession for the first time in two decades.

Banks faced with unrecoverable bad debts tighten their lending to each other.

This means less credit for house buyers and businesses.

And as businesses can’t borrow, so they can’t trade.

Less trade leads to less growth, businesses fail, and jobs go.

Unemployment is now worse than it’s been for a decade.

It affects every part of every community, and hurts the people on the margins the most.

Looming recession leads to market volatility.

We have seen stock markets lose a third of their value in three months.

Pension funds wither, and investments dwindle.

Petrol prices up more in six months than in the previous ten years, and back down again even more rapidly.

How can people and businesses plan for that?

Our gas bills, up 40% in a year.

We should all spare much more than a thought for the people on fixed incomes who just can’t afford them.

Mr Mayor, the official inflation figures might be 4 or 5%, but it’s no use the cost of DVD players coming down when nobody can afford to drive to the shops to buy them, or to plug them in when they get back home.

Nationally and internationally, much of the situation might be beyond our control, and much of it beyond our understanding.

That doesn’t mean we should do nothing, and in fact it is our duty to help the government out by doing all we can for the people of Bury affected by these global events.

Whether it be my next door neighbour trying desperately to sell his house before the bank take it off him, the men and women of Bury facing redundancy, or our young people struggling to get a mortgage.

Whether it be our pensioners-to-be seeing their retirement income levels dwindle before their eyes.

Or our pensioners now who choose between heating and eating.

We are lucky that Bury is, relatively speaking, affluent.

But our relative success can make failure all the more unbearable as it takes us by surprise.
We need to be prepared for problems, and think hard about how to deal with them.

More people will need our help, and we must take proactive action to give it to them in the same way that we provide excellent services to those in need already.

Unfortunately many of the staff likely to be called upon even more in these challenging times - The Benefits Assessors, Housing Benefits officers and Council Tax staff - have suffered the most from job evaluation.

I am confident that the low morale these staff are currently enduring will not impact on their willingness to help local people.

But the leadership’s continuing refusal to answer questions on the pay review whilst staff will have to do more in the future, demonstrates again how short-sighted and wrong the Tory policy on that subject remains.

The Leader and his Cabinet need to ensure that our staff are ready to provide information on the full range of options available to people and businesses struggling in the current financial climate, and to do more things for more people.

There are Citizens Advice Bureaux in Prestwich and Radcliffe, but not in Bury or anywhere north of here.

We must make sure that where voluntary and other support agencies are not available for communities, we step in to help.

For many people, sadly, we are their last chance, the last barrier between them and ruin.

They have paid their dues all this time, and when it’s time for us to repay them, we should do our best, be innovative, be flexible, and remember that we are the servants of the people, not the other way round.

We must be there for people who may never have used or needed us before, and we must work with our partners to ensure that where they can extend their reach, we can help them to do just that.

If ever there was a time for real partnership working, this is it, as more people will come to need the whole range of Team Bury services.

And if ever there was a day when the power of politicians to inspire hope in times of trouble was clear to the whole world, then today is that day.

There are simple things that we can do.

Our Voice already goes to every home in the Borough.

It should communicate to local people where they can turn to for help, what that help can do for them and how we as a Council can get them through this.

Too often I hear people complain that they pay their thousand pounds a year in Council Tax and only ever see their bin emptied.

I know they’re very wrong, but I’ve never found a one sentence way of correcting them.

Maybe we can get them through the Credit Crunch, and that’ll give me one.

We can also do bigger things.

Councils across the country and starting or extending their own credit unions, giving local people the chance to save and borrow from a trusted source without having to go to loan sharks or take on crippling debts.

We should explore the same thing.

This Council has debated before the government’s and the Council’s role in analysing Bury’s private and social housing stock and consider more effective ways of reflecting demand.

That there are empty homes in the Borough whilst families are losing theirs and others are waiting on a list somewhere is not right.

Government has belatedly come round to our way of thinking on this, and the Council should do all it can to take them up on their offer of help.

We also need to make it known to all our local businesses that we are there for them now as well.

We are the biggest business, with the biggest turnover and the biggest reserves, around here.

We should do what we can to ease the pressure on businesses living from one invoice to the next.

Where we can hurry along payments due to local businesses, we should, and it was good to read today that a week after receiving notice of our motion calling for it, the Council has announced that payment terms for local small businesses have come down from 30 days to 10.

This small step may prove vital in sustaining local employers, and the people they employ.

But Council’s response so far has not gone far enough.

60% of businesses in the country are struggling to pay their business rates.

In times of trouble we must be more than a collection agency – we should be a place where businesses come for help, not just to pay their bills.

We should give advice on business rate relief, and be flexible wherever we can where local firms are struggling.

And we also need to remember that the Council has in its gift enormous power to help businesses in indirect ways – the power to direct resources to clean the streets, fix the roads, and keep them safe.

All of these things attract shoppers and trade to the Borough, and where there’s the possibility to prioritise improvements we should do that to help the wider community become more attractive.

We are fortunate that, like other issues pertinent to the Council at the moment, we do not face these problems alone.

We aren’t the first to go through this issue, and there are lessons we can learn from our neighbours that could make the difference between Bury weathering this storm, and Bury suffering from its ill effects.

We should work with all of our partners in Bury, in AGMA, in the wider local government family, and lobbying central government, to do the best for this Borough in challenging times.

Mr Mayor, I was in school during the last recession, and I have never had to live with 15% interest rates and 3 million unemployed.

But many here did, many in our Borough did, and just because I didn’t feel its effects the last time doesn’t mean I don’t know the value of stopping it this time.

These issues sit outside much of what the Council normally has to deal with.

Business normally takes care of itself, that’s how it makes money for itself and for us.

And unless they need us, normally we should leave the general public well alone.

Now though it might be that everyone needs us.

We have the power, the resources and the partners to help our community come through this, and I urge Council to use everything we have to do that.

Mr Mayor I have pleasure in proposing this motion.”

Rick