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Shropshire North

View candidate responses for North Shropshire to our public service pledges.


Name: Steve Boulding
Party: Green
Constituency: North Shropshire

1) I pledge to work to ensure that public services are properly resourced and delivered by the public sector and that there are no further local office closures, public sector job cuts or privatisations.

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2) I pledge to support measures aimed at closing the UK tax gap, including recruiting HMRC staff and ensuring tax loopholes are closed.

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3) I pledge to support civil service national pay bargaining and to press the government to offer pay increases to public sector workers at least in line with inflation.

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4) I pledge to urge the government to honour the 2005 commitment on public sector pensions and to defend the rights of existing members of the civil service compensation scheme.

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5) I pledge to campaign to ensure any changes to public services are only made after proper equality impact assessments have been conducted and their findings implemented.

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Although our manifesto isn't due to be published until later this week, you will know from our stated policies and various recent media announcements that there's scarcely a whisker between PCS's aspirations and our election commitments in the area of public services.

I am therefore happy to state unequivocally that I completely support the five pledges as stated below, and for you to quote me publicly to that effect.

On a personal note, my late father and mother were both civil servants whose overriding motivation was the ethos of public service. In fact my dad, who was one of the "boffins" who played a significant role in the development of our air defence radar systems from the late 1930s through to his death "in harness" in 1962, refused repeated offers from the private electronics sector to work for them at three or four times his derisory civil service salary, but always refused as a matter of principle. I give thanks that he wasn't around to witness the privatisations, especially Qinetiq - it would have broken his heart.

I genuinely believe that it is still possible to turn our society back from the effects of the excessive greed and materialism that have cast such a long shadow in recent decades, and that by breaking the stranglehold that transnational corporate interests have on every aspect of our lives, and thus greatly reducing the distance between the richest and poorest, and the strongest and weakest, we can reintroduce a significant element of public service, public duty, and altruism into the way that we co-exist.

If we don't, then the ecological challenges that we face, let alone all our other problems, may well overwhelm us.

Yours, in the hope that your grandchildren and mine will inherit a kinder, sustainable world,

Kind regards,

Steve Boulding

 

Ian Croll (Lib Dem)

I believe that public services should be properly resourced and delivered by the public sector and that public sector jobs should only be reduced by natural wastage. I believe we should ensure tax loopholes are closed and employ staff to achieve this. As an ex NASUWT member I support proper national pay bargaining.  I believe public sector pensions should be properly funded