Preston politician calls for nationalisations to ease cost of living crisis, as councillors demand government funds pay rise for local authority staff
, Cllr Rawlinson said similar moves were needed in the UK – but conceded that the current government “just don’t believe in it”.
Cllr Rawlinson, who is also the cabinet member in charge of finances at the city council, acknowledged that the government had thrown “sometimes large amounts of money” at attempts to deal with the fallout from the pandemic, but said that they were usually just short-term fixes, rather than the kind of wholesale changes he said were needed.
He added that the next Prime Minister had the job of steering the country away from the rocks, but said he feared that it may, by then, be “too late”.– who represents Preston Rural North – said he believed that help was coming for people struggling with their energy bills, but stressed that nationalisation was not the answer.
“Without a strong private sector economy we can’t have a public sector,” said Cllr Thompson, who added that he believed there should be stronger governance of large industries. Around 1.5 million local government staff were last month offered a £1,925 pay increase for the year from April 2022. For the lowest paid staff – currently earning £18,333 per year – that equates to an increase of 10.5 percent.
“However, a real terms pay increase is not viable – you know the government is not going to fund this and it doesn’t matter what we say, they’re not going to do it. So we’re between a rock and a hard place here,” Cllr Whittam said. “So it’s unimaginable to me that at a time like this, government [would] consider that a real terms pay increase for local government workers be funded through further cuts to services or through raising of council taxes.”
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