mudhook

In 1980 the Thatcher government broke the link between the state retirement pension and earnings and since then the pension has been uprated by the rate of inflation. Overall earnings generally run ahead of inflation and, although the Labour government has redistributed millions of pounds to targeted pensioners, the state pension is now worth less than if it had remained linked to earnings.

How much less?

A parliamentary answer says about £43 a week less.

The average state pension is now £97 and week and had it remained linked to earnings would be £140 a week. The current pension is 44 percent less than it would have been. The details are at Hansard for 16 June 2008 column 742W.

Cornwall has a disproportionate number of pensioners many of whom - but not all of course - have only or are primarily dependent upon a state pension.

Labour aims to restore the link in the next parliament and by 2012 if possible. I am unsure whether the Conservatives, the current favourites to form the next government, have signed up to this. It would be a handbrake turn for them.

Nor do I know why Labour in Cornwall isn’t shouting all this from the rooftops.

As we glide effortlessly into the unitary set up, let me recall the present political disposition of Cornwall.

In 2005 there were elections for the eighty two county council seats and a general election for the five seats; in 2007 there were elections for the six district councils, elections for the whole council in five of the districts and for a third in Penwith. The results of these give us the present party make-up of Cornwall.

Overall nearly 800 000 votes were cast in the three sets of elections. Here they are in percentages:

General election 2005
Liberal Democrats 44.4, Conservatives 31.8, Labour 15.9, UKIP 5, MK 1.4, Greens 0.7, all others 0.9

County council elections 2005
Liberal Democrats 39.2, Conservatives 24.1, Independents 19.5, Labour 10.5, MK 3.2, Greens 1.3, UKIP 1.1, all others 1.1

District elections 2007
Liberal Democrats 36.1, Conservatives 30.7, Independents 20.0, MK 3.9, Labour 3.5, UKIP 2.5, Greens 0.7, all others 2.6.

There are caveats.

These figures do not compare the same seats over time but different seats. The aim is to give a general county snapshot using the latest figures available in the three sets.

In the county and district elections some seats had more than one councillor elected and so people had more than one vote. The percentages are based on totals of votes not ballot papers. The “others” include unlabelled candidates, Liberals (a separate party from Liberal Democrats), two BNP candidates, and Veritas. Uncontested seats are excluded.

The votes cast for a party depend in part on how many candidates stand for that party though how many candidates a party puts up reflects its organisational and membership health and its estimate of its chances.

The parties perform differently in the seats and these overall figures, which represent general averages of real votes, do not reveal those differences. A couple of very popular candidates do wonders for a small party’s total vote and percentage and make it difficult to assess that party’s general standing with the electorate. These considerations suggest that in local elections at any rate some people do not vote only for a party.

The general election throws up very different results so here are the two local government sets in percentages of votes cast, county 2005 and districts 2007, more than half a million votes:

Liberal Democrats 37.9, Conservatives 26.9, Independents 19.7, Labour 7.5, MK 3.5, UKIP 1.7, Greens 1.1, Others 1.7.

Finally, these figures are about people’s choices. Seats won are a different matter, about power.

The next elections are in spring 2009 for the unitary council.

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Bewildered in the maze of schools: Alexander Pope (1688-1744) An essay on criticism

About 48 000 households in Cornwall worse off

Labour argued for and introduced a 10 pence income tax rate because, it said, it was fairer to the low paid and would make work pay and thus be an incentive to work for the poor. I think in fact that the best way to help the poor would be to raise the tax free threshold and to cut regressive indirect taxes such as VAT, but Labour chose another, less efficient way. Nevertheless Labour did act on tax and also created a minimum wage to help the low paid.

In his 2007 budget Gordon Brown announced the abolition of the 10 pence income tax rate. The change comes into effect tomorrow.

Belatedly some more Labour MPs have just realised that this abolition will leave about 5.3 million households worse off. These are largely the households without dependent children and who do not have tax credits and who have incomes of between about £5400 and £18 500 a year. Way back in October 2007 the government gave its estimate to Frank Field of how many would be worse off and even said 900 000 of those had incomes below £10 000 a year – actually the number refers to the household reference person (Hansard 18 October 2007 column 1266W).

Field was on to this unfairness at the time of the 2007 budget and tried to get an impact assessment of tax changes on different groups and transitional arrangements if necessary for those on the lowest pay: his clause was rejected by Labour MPs though a handful of six Labour MPs and most Libdems voted for it, along with a few others (Hansard 25 June 2007 column 108 onwards). Julia Goldsworthy and Matthew Taylor both voted for Field’s clause and Dan Rogerson was a teller for it.

I can estimate how many households in Cornwall are adversely affected by the abolition of the 10 pence rate by comparing the number of households in Cornwall with the number in the UK and those adversely affected in the UK. This arithmetic suggests that suggests about forty eight thousand households in Cornwall are worse off because of the abolition of the 10 pence rate. As the proportion of low income households in Cornwall is greater than in the UK generally, the number affected is probably greater too.

Labour has done much, though nothing like enough, to help the poor since 1997 while keeping the economy sound and the bulk of the electorate on side. It has wrought a sea change since the barbarian days of the Tory governments 1979-1997. Things are now beginning to fall apart. It is difficult to understand this 10 pence tax policy. Labour is making a lot of low paid people worse off and doing it on purpose. Is this what people voting Labour thought they were voting for? How does this square with the minimum wage? This policy of soaking the poor is pitiable and shameful. The government should put its mistake right and ensure the low paid are not worse off.

PS The Conservatives officially abstained in the 25 June 2007 vote.

Let’s be clear at the beginning. This is the policy of a Labour government we’re discussing.

Alongside the good news about the modest rise in the minimum wage is some bad news about the taxation of the poor.

From next month, when the income tax provisions of the last budget come in, the lowest paid will pay more income tax; the better-off will pay less. The budget abolished the 10 percent tax band and that’s the cause of the injustice. It means anyone earning less than about £19 000 a year will pay more income tax; people above that pay less.

People are liable for income tax when their work income reaches about £104 a week. People on very low earned incomes indeed will pay more tax.

Labour is rightly trying to reduce child poverty and, although progress is being made, this is proving difficult. The increase in the minimum wage will help. The loss of the 10 percent band and the consequent increase in income tax for those on low and modest incomes will reduce their take-home incomes and will worsen child poverty.

Disproportionate numbers of people in Cornwall earn low wages. This tax policy will make them worse off. The low paid in Cornwall are about to get a kick in the teeth from Labour.

I don’t know what, apart from socially unjust and stupid, you call a policy of taxing the poor more and the better-off less but I doubt it was what Labour voters thought they were voting for.

The Labour party in Cornwall has published its platform. It’s online here.

This is the first platform/manifesto from the three main parties and Labour has shown commendable industry in getting this far in its thinking. When will the Libdems and Conservatives catch up?

Yes, like all manifestos it has glittering generalities and the audacity of cliches to uplift us. It also has some sensible and progressive ideas for making Cornwall a better place for its people.

A party has three tasks in this work: to identify the problems and possibilities, to explain its ideas for tackling those and building Jerusalem, and to explain how it will bring its ideas to realisation. The Cornwall Labour platform does the first two well but the third element is missing.

It rightly draws attention to the minimum wage, Sure Start, and rising employment as examples of Labour national policies helping make life better for many people here. These are real-life achievements that have made a significant difference and suggest powerfully what we can expect of Labour at its best. They are a persuasive advertisement for what people in Cornwall can gain from a Labour government - which is part of the manifesto’s purpose. Odd, isn’t it, that these progressive achievements don’t get a mention among the prattle in nationalism about London parties and Westminster government ?

The section on the economy is representative of the platform in its ideas and flaws. There is a realistic assessment of Cornwall’s economic position, realistic and desirable aspirations for improvement, but few practical policies of realisation. Of course local wages are too low, we all know that, but saying they “need to be brought closer to national average levels” is an inadequate response. How can this be done? Similarly, Labour says we need in Cornwall more jobs of higher quality. Yes, yes, but how do we get them? How do we get the money, the “large-scale capital funding,” to expand Newquay airport?

The other sections are similarly large on aspiration. There is much on this needs to be done but where is the indication of how Cornwall Labour will try to make it happen? Labour has talked the talk and must now walk the walk.

Labour has a serious problem. It is unlikely to have a surfeit of councillors (or MPs) in Cornwall, in the immediate future at any rate, and locally is not going to be able to vote its ideas into practice. In any case many of the aspirations depend upon action by central government. Cornwall Labour therefore needs to work out how its ideas can be realised from a position of relative powerlessness. If the platform isn’t just a long wish list, the missing third element needs to be put up soon.

People in Scotland are getting for free a range of public services that people in England are charged for. In England prescription charges are presently £6.85 an item and only off-peak buses are free for people over sixty. In Scotland there are free eye check ups, free dental check ups, and the arrangements for free bus travel for the elderly are more generous. Tuition fees are paid by students at university in England but Scottish students at university in Scotland do not pay them (though there is in Scotland a one-off flatrate graduate fee of about £2300 payable on graduation). In Scotland there are generally shorter NHS waiting list times and smaller school classes; some drugs are available on the NHS that are not available in England; the arrangements for personal and nursing care are more generous.

The Scottish government has just started a six month pilot of free school meals in some areas for pupils aged five to eight and hopes to extend it all over Scotland. It has also announced that prescription charges will be abolished for everyone within the lifetime of the present Scottish parliament and aims to abolish the university graduate fee.

I don’t live in Scotland and it is up to people there and their government to decide what happens in Scotland.

However, these improvements are possible because the Barnett formula gives a much higher percapita amount of UK identifiable government spending on public services in Scotland than in England. The formula, leading to the higher spending in Scotland and the free or more generous services, is increasingly seen as unfair to England. For 2005/06 the percapita public spending in England (including Cornwall) was £6762 and in Scotland £8265 (and in Northern Ireland £9088, and Wales £7666). This formula is unfair and untenable. It should be scrapped and a new arrangement made for spending UK taxes in the four constituent countries.

For Labour, with a majority of the Scotland seats in the UK parliament and dependent on Scotland for its UK majority, this is an issue they will not tackle; nor will they tackle the related issue of MPs for Scotland constituencies voting for England-only issues in the House of Commons. The Conservatives sometimes rumble about Barnett unfairness but seem undecided whether to commit to tackle it. It is noticeable that the Liberal Democrat MPs for Cornwall complain about what they see as unfair public spending in Cornwall, point to the UK government, but do not mention the Barnett formula.

Slowly people in England are realising the unfairness of the present formula and the present House of Commons voting arrangements and eventually parties will not be able to ignore them.

The Times on 11 October 2007 quoted figures from the Centre for Economic Business Research that showed state spending by the constituent UK countries as a proportion of economic activity was lowest in England and significantly higher in the other three countries.

An earlier post on the Barnett formula is here.

The Cornwall Labour Party blog draws attention to welcome progress in falls in unemployment here in Cornwall.

Since Labour came to power unemployment has fallen by about 9 400 in Cornwall. See here for the detailed data for each of the five Cornwall constituencies; it also explains how unemployment is measured.

The fall in the numbers of unemployed people in Cornwall constituencies is about two thirds overall. In the same period the fall in UK unemployment was 45 percent, significantly smaller than in Cornwall. The Cornwall constituencies are among the top tenth of most improved UK constituencies ranked by these percentages; we have made serious progress.

This good news seems to have been unrecorded so far by the Liberal Democrat and nationalist websites in Cornwall.

However, the Liberal Democrats here have acknowledged in Matthew Taylor’s words: “The fact is that the Cornish economy has started to turn round” since the dismissal of the Conservative government, though they claim credit for their Libdem efforts.

Of course, pay for workers in Cornwall remains problematically and stubbornly low and this is affecting negatively the lives and opportunities of many people. Progress is unacceptably slow.

Low pay also affects the funding of the NHS here and will be a factor in any move to reduce benefit levels, national pay scales, and the minimum wage in Cornwall. See this post and this on the blog.

In 2006 the median average gross pay for all fulltime, adult employees in Cornwall was £357.5 a week. This was 79 percent of the England figure of £453.3, a very modest improvement since 1997. Mean average pay is higher and so is median and mean average pay for males everywhere.

Again, even in the averages there is variety within Cornwall. The median pay (in 2006) for Penwith workplaces works out at about £2000 a year less than in Carrick.

See here for the ASHE income details.

Child poverty is variously defined and I think it does not make sense to try to produce a figure for Cornwall as a whole as its incidence varies vastly from place to place in the county. Child poverty in Redruth North is not the same as in Saltash St Stephens, as we shall see. So I don’t see the point of Julia Goldsworthy, the Liberal Democrat MP for the seat which includes Redruth, the other day asking for a Cornwall figure; such a figure would not help one iota in the practical reduction of child poverty and we have better, more local figures.

Indeed, from the department for work and pensions (DWP) we also have detailed tables of the household and family characteristics for children in low-income households, though for the UK as a whole: see chapter 4 of ‘Households below average income’ here.

The Labour government has pushed hard the view that people can best work themselves out of poverty. However, ‘Monitoring poverty and social exclusion 2006′ by Guy Palmer et al for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation points out that half the children in poverty live in families where someone is working: see the ninth report of December 2006 here. The main cause seems to be low pay rates. See too the above DWP tables. Nevertheless, the government has made good progress in tackling child poverty though it is proving more difficult than imagined in a free market economy.

Liberal Democrat MPs in Cornwall have, however, reasonably been reminding the government that its attempts to reduce child poverty in the county could be frustated by high water bills. They have identified a possible additional contribution to child poverty in Cornwall - they mean parts of Cornwall - and, though they do not say so, parts of the rest of the south west water company area.

So how much child poverty is there here?

The End Child Poverty campaign has given figures for constituencies in 2005 which showed for Cornwall the proportion of children in families on out-of-work benefits ranged from 14 percent in South East Cornwall to 21 percent in Falmouth and Camborne. The average figure for Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales) was also 21 percent. On another definition the campaign said in February 2005 that 25 percent of children in Cornwall lived in poverty.

Free school meals are a rough and ready way of measuring poverty and the Hansard data for them are on this blog here though they refer to Cornwall as a whole.

Above all, there is an index of child poverty: this is a part of the Indices of Multiple Deprivation. See the IDAC file here where the child poverty figures are given for 32 482 subwards in England including all of the Cornwall ones. This is much more useful information. It enables us to identify quite precisely where to target any remediation which is what the whole-county figures do not. It defines child poverty as people of less than sixteen living in income-deprived families, income deprivation being defined as in receipt of certain benefits.

What does this dated but very local child poverty index show about Cornwall? What every other measure of poverty and deprivation shows: much variety in the county. Some places in Cornwall have completely unacceptable high levels of child poverty and others do not - and many other places in England have more child poverty than anywhere in Cornwall.

Of the 32 482 subwards in the child poverty index, where the lower the figure the worse the poverty, the range in Cornwall is from part of Redruth North ward in Kerrier at number 485 to part of Saltash St Stephens ward in Caradon in at number 29 153. The Kerrier subward has sixty six percent of children aged less than sixteen who live in income-deprived families, an appalling figure, and the Caradon subward has three percent. That is a vast range. Over a third of Cornwall subwards are in the top half of the 32 482 England subwards, that is score better than the median average for England.

The Labour government has made significant inroads into child poverty and in the seven years to 2004/2005 there was a sixteen percent drop in Britain. Nevertheless very much has to be done still. The progress should be acknowledged and welcomed; a government with the large ambition to abolish child poverty should be encouraged, chided, goaded, and cheered towards its goal.

It makes no sense to talk of ‘Cornwall’ when it comes to child poverty but rather we should talk about the different parts of Cornwall and their different needs. We need to know where most help is needed. To help tackle child poverty effectively we should not focus equally on Redruth North and Saltash St Stephens. Goldsworthy’s comment that “Cornwall is unique” is profoundly unhelpful; it blurs the focus. In any case everywhere is unique, every child is unique. Let me say it again: when it comes to child poverty every child is unique wherever they live and child poverty is a scourge wherever it is found. We shall beat it primarily by national measures and resources focussing on the children and families who need help the most.

See Vorsprung 1 on this blog for particular help given to Cornwall in March 2007.

And see here for Lisa Harker’s report of November 2006 for the DWP ‘Delivering on child poverty: what would it take.’

PS 7 August 2007
Writing in today’s Guardian about effectively tackling poverty through social enterprise, David Cameron, the Tory leader, says that local authority areas are “too large to get an accurate picture of what is going on…We need a more fine-grained approach to tackle multiple deprivation at the micro-level.”

I agree entirely. The micro data is available in the index of multiple deprivation and its subsets as this post shows for child poverty. I think for measures and projects that directly and effectively tackle poverty we should drop “Cornwall” and even the districts as data-identifiers and focus on the places and people in Cornwall that need most help.

However, for economic regeneration we need “Cornwall” to qualify for EU convergence funds which reflect the EU emphasis on regions.