Breaking News: Royal Mint to be Privatised

I have learnt ahead of the official announcement that the UK Government will be privatising the Royal Mint at Llantrisant.

The Mint made a profit of £10m last year and according to Rhodri Morgan is due to take on additional staff as a result of winning the contract to produce medals for the Olympics. The PCS Union is deeply concerned about the effect this will have on jobs.

Plaid Cymru has consistently opposed the privatisation of the Mint. The Welsh Government is against it, the workers are against it and the local communities are against it.

The Mint was brought to Llantrisant in 1967 as part of a "regional economic strategy" to redistribute jobs throughout the UK.

Labour MP Huw Irranca-Davies recently said:

"Look at some of the benefits we've had over the years in terms of public sector jobs...in Llantrisant we've had the Royal Mint, relocated by Jim Callaghan."

"If Plaid Cymru, Adam Price or anbody else want to enter the debate about what independence would mean for Wales, they have to explain how those jobs would be defended."

How can the UK Government argue that they are defending Welsh jobs now?

In today's Western Mail

From today's Mail:

'Wales should get a windfall if the Government has to provide extra funding to English PFI projects, a Plaid AM has claimed.'

'Plaid Cymru AM Leanne Wood yesterday said private finance initiatives had “clearly failed”. Her criticism of the use of private sector finance comes as speculation mounts that the Westminster Government may have to provide £4bn in loans to rescue contractors which can no longer raise money from the markets.The Treasury yesterday confirmed it will be coming forward with a set of proposals on PFI in the coming days.'

'The Labour-Plaid Cymru coalition pact commits the Assembly Government to eliminating the use of private hospitals by the NHS by 2011 and use of PFIs by the health service is banned.Ms Wood said: “One good thing coming out of Wales’ very limited use of PFI in the past is that we will not have chunks of our budget tied to PFI repayments over the coming decades.” '

'Conservative AM David Melding said: “PFI...remains a very robust option for capital projects but it’s also a model much more likely to be popular during times of robust economic growth.”The present shortage of funds was not due to errors by the contractors, but due to actions by banks, he said.A Welsh Assembly Government spokesperson said: “We are in regular dialogue with the Treasury to ensure that the Welsh Assembly Government receives funding in accordance with the operation of the Barnett formula.” '

Royal Mail - Public Service

I agree with this article about threats to part-privatise Royal Mail, by Gregor Gall in the Guardian. In the Western Mail Adam Price says:
“These proposals are ludicrous, and could lead to the loss of thousands of jobs at mail centres...Many of the problems currently faced by Royal Mail have arisen solely because of previous attempts at liberalisation and privatisation."
The Royal Mail has served us well as a viable public service for almost two hundred years. Why is it not viable now?

The Communication Workers Union fears that 50,000 jobs could be at risk if the part-privatisation goes ahead. Meanwhile, Royal Mail's Chief Executive took home a £3 million pay packet last year, despite being responsible for missed targets.

In 2005 Labour's election manifesto said of the Royal Mail that they had "no plans to privatise it". By keeping 51% of the shares, they can stay within this pledge. But will people believe them next time?

(Image copyright by Steve Bell)

New Labour broken manifesto promises on welfare

Bethan Jenkins posted yesterday supporting TUC calls for a rescue plan for workers in response to the problems in the economy. The TUC are calling for three immediate policy changes; increasing the statutory minimum redundancy pay (as promised in Labour's 2005 election manifesto), greater tax relief on redundancy payments, and a reverse in cuts to front line staff at the DWP who deal with the unemployed, a campaign I have been involved with as chair of the Assembly all-party PCS group. They have also said that the UK Government should abandon their Welfare to Work proposals. These are plans to which Plaid Cymru is leading opposition in Wales, with our Conference wholly rejecting the principles behind this idea.

Today, I have written to James Purnell, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in response to the Government’s consultation on the proposals. The Government's Green Paper is based on the work of David Freud, a City banker and former FT journalist, who has recommended that the Government pays private partners to take people off the Incapacity Benefits list into work, amongst other ideas.

These partners, known as delivery providers, will be big retailers such as Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, B&Q and Marks & Spencer, and A4e, a private provider of public services, as well as firms like Ford and Prudential. These huge corporations will get paid £80 a week out of the benefits budget to give people work placements for three months. People will work or train full-time for the same money as they currently get from benefits. That works out about one-fifth of the minimum wage. There'll be no guaranteed jobs at the end of these placements.

There has already been an experiment. Last year we saw the closure of Treforest Remploy because the Government wanted their arms-length company to spend more of their allocated budget on “employment support services”, instead of factory production. This policy saw the York Remploy workers take their grievances to the Labour Party Conference in Manchester this year. Half of the workers at the closed York factory are still out of work.

The Government’s proposals are based on the premise that the unemployed and incapacitated are to blame for not having a job. But the reality to that is that the required number of jobs don’t exist. In the Rhondda for example, there are 8,750 claiming Incapacity Benefit and Severe Disablement Benefit (Feb '08) but only 274 job vacancies (Nov '07) in local job centres.

With a big growth predicted in the numbers of unemployed over the coming months, together with a severe economic recession meaning even fewer job vacancies, forging ahead with these proposals would be economic madness. That’s why I’ve added my name to calls for Purnell to abandon these plans.

You can view my letter to James Purnell here-
http://www.leannewood.plaidcymru.org/uploads/publications/327.pdf

Thanks to Rhydian Fon James from Bontnewydd for all his help.