Simon Danczuk MP

Fighting for Rochdale, Littleborough and Milnrow

This week David Cameron finally let the cat out of the bag when he admitted the cuts his Government are making will be permanent. With stories of police and community support officers being replaced by unpaid volunteers you have to wonder what public services will be left soon.

The most important announcement of the week was the Work and Pensions Secretary’s promise to ‘make work pay’ under new benefit reforms.  No one wants to see people languishing on benefits. Getting people back into work is the job of any responsible Government. But I’m afraid this Government is not being honest about how it’s reducing job opportunities and creating the conditions for an age of high unemployment.

On the day welfare reform proposals were announced, Sky News rolled into town to ask people if they thought more people should be forced off benefits into work. I made the point very strongly that the Government cannot claim to be making work pay on one hand while cutting hundreds of thousands of jobs, reducing back-to-work support schemes and getting rid of tax credits on the other.

I know how hard it can be tackling long-term unemployment. But in Rochdale we were making progress under the Future Jobs Fund, which the Lib Dems and Tories have scrapped. This is a kick in the teeth for people desperately trying to find work.

While the prospect of more Government cuts hangs over our town, the Council has already committed to £14 million of cuts, which will cause major job losses. As someone who has raged against council waste in the past – including the expensive fiasco of having to re-run the tender process for the town centre regeneration – I find their rhetoric about making efficiency savings hard to swallow.

However, I am happy to congratulate them on extending my initial proposal for free parking in the town centre to include Saturday. This is a welcome sign that the Council are starting to pay more attention to the needs of local businesses.

This must not be a one off gesture and as a sign of continuing commitment to the town centre I hope the Lib Dem leader of the council will give assurances to residents and local businesses that their preferred bidder, Genr8, is able to fund the planned regeneration scheme. They have already missed two deadline dates to clarify funding arrangements and the council urgently needs to let people know what is happening.