Owen Tudor

Yesterday the global teacher union federation, Education International, exposed the massive revenues lost to governments through corporate tax avoidance and the impact of this on education and other vital public services which are at risk from government expenditure cuts. A new report, launched at Congress House, shows how powerful multinational companies use their global reach to avoid meeting their fair fiscal obligations, through strategies like exploiting legal loopholes and offshore tax havens. Global Corporate Taxation and Resources for Quality Public Services highlights the extraordinary statistic that an estimated 60% of all global trade is actually routed through tax havens.

The study was released this week to suport EI’s UK affiliates (ATL, EIS, NASUWT, NUT and UCU) who are striking against Government plans to slash teacher and other public sector pensions, with some teachers losing more than £50,000 over 20 years from the value of their pension. It argues that if the UK government took firm action on tax evasion, the money released would be more than what is going to be cut from public sector pensions.

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• Retailers’ sales down and jobs being lost
  In the CBI’s latest quarterly Distributive Trades Survey 26% of retailers saw the volume of sales rise in the year to November, & 44% saw a fall. This is the fastest decline in sales since March 2009.The volume of orders with suppliers fell at the fastest rate since March 2009; worryingly, orders are expected to fall again next month. Employment in the sector fell at the fastest rate since November 2009: 13% of retailers increasedemployment, while 40% cut it. Wholesalers saw falling sales volumes this month and expect more of the same next month.
• Conditions worsening in services sector
  The CBI’s quarterly service industry survey shows “continuing decline in business volume and value ” with consumer services falling at the fastest rate since May 2009 by volume, Feb 2009 by value. Businesses expect further declines in the next quarter. Employment fell 6% and is expected to more strongly in the next quarter – the weakest expected employment change since Feb 2010.
• British Chambers of Commerce cuts growth forecast
  The BCC Quarterly Economic Forecast predicts that growth will be “minimal” until the middle of next year and then slow until the second half of 2013.These are substantial downgrades from previous BCC forecasts and the organisations also expects the rate of growth of consumer spending to be “consistently slower than GDP growth.” Unemployment is forecast to reach 2.77 million by the last quarter of next year, with youth unemployment remaining over 1 million.

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Thanks to everyone who joined in today with our online seminar on the future funding of care and support. Especially to our panel, Andrew Dilnot, Alison Roche, Prof Peter Beresford and Barbara Keeley MP. If you missed it, or want to see it again, here’s a video of the presentations and discussion. You can also download Andrew Dilnot’s slides (4mb powerpoint file).

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Owen Tudor

Progressive of the week award (although the rest of the week is still to come) must surely be going to top hedge fund boss David Harding, quoted in the Financial Times (£) today (Monday) backing the European Union draft directive on a financial transactions tax and expressing his astonishment at how far the UK government has gone in lobbying on behalf of the financial industry. His hedge fund, Winton Capital, is worth $26bn, and is one of the largest in London. He says:

“I would be in favour of a low [financial transaction tax], if part of it was used to finance more supranational regulation of markets. …I am surprised to the degree to which the Treasury and the FSA [Financial Services Authority] act as lobbying organisations for the financial services industry.”

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Duncan Weldon

The Chancellor looks set to announce a ‘£30bn boost to infrastructure’ at his Autumn Statement.

Whilst any measures aimed at increasing demand are obviously to be welcomed I worry that today’s headlines are running a little ahead of reality.

Increasing investment will be crucial to Britain’s recovery – more investment not only provides a much needed boost to domestic demand in the short run, it also helps the economy to grow faster in the future. Because of this the TUC’s ten point plan for growth released today includes measures such as raising capital allowances to encourage firms to invest, reversing the cut in the feed-in tariff for solar power and protecting the science budget.

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Nigel Stanley

Government supporters continuously argue that any cut to public sector pensions can be justified as things are worse in the private sector.

But to make pension provision in the public sector look like those in the private sector we would need to expel two in three public sector workers from their scheme, as well as giving top public servants much bigger pensions.

But at least something was being done about the appalling state of private sector pensions with the introduction of pensions auto-enrolment next year, which compels employers to contribute to a pension unless the worker opts out.

But there are now reliable reports, particularly this one in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph, that the Chancellor will either delay or abandon auto-enrolment for small businesses in the Autumn Statement on Tuesday.

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Philip Pearson

Consider this: When Environment Secretary Chris Huhne robustly defended the need for a new global climate deal, he was presumably unaware that his Government was reported to be giving Canada ‘high level, secret support’ for its tar sands imports to Europe? It’s game over for the climate if the oil sands are exploited, NASA scientist James Hansen claims. Such are the climate politics facing the ITUC’s 200-strong delegation assembling in Durban.  The usually conservative International Energy Agency says we are 5 years from a point of no return on CO2 emissions from fossil fuels.

So, in Durban, to help drive home the urgency of action, the ITUC is lining up a major two week programme: lobbying Governments, public events and open debates at its flagship World of Work (WOW) Pavilion at the University of Kwazulu Natal.

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Peter Beresford

It is now nearly five months since the Dilnot Commission’s report on the future funding of social care was published. This was the Commission that was given the unenviable task of coming up with proposals for sustainable future social care funding which would gain a significant consensus of support. This at a time of unprecedented cuts in public expenditure under the banner of cutting the public deficit. Small wonder then if the Commission falls short in any way of achieving what seems like a nigh impossible task.

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Join Andrew Dilnot, Chair of the government’s Commission on Funding of Care and Support, Alison Roche, UNISON officer for social care, Prof Peter Beresford, Director of the Centre for Citizen Participation at Brunel University, and Barbara Keeley MP, to discuss the Commission report and options for the future of care services.

The event is being streamed live from 12:30pm, and you can add a comment or question to be put to the panel by sending a Tweet using the hashtag #TUClive, or sending an email to rexell@tuc.org.uk – We’ll try to get in as many comments as we can in the time.

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• CBI: Manufacturers report weakening demand and expect output to fall
  The CBI’s latest monthly Industrial Trends Survey reports that 11% of manufacturers saw their order books above normal but 42% said they were below. The – 31% balance is the worst since January 2010. Export orders are particularly depressed.
• Eight reasons extending unemployment benefits will boost the economy
  Are unemployment benefits a disincentive to work? The USA has some useful evidence; this post by Mike Konczal shows (scroll down to point 5) that people who are eligible for UB when they lose their jobs spend much the same amount of time unemployed as people who quit their jobs, who aren’t. Yes, there is some effect, with an important study suggesting benefits have raised unemployment in the recession by 0.4 – 0.8 points, but that’s a pretty good price to pay. And even that may be an over-statement – another study estimates the effect at 0.2 – 0.6 points. (The other points in this post are also worth reading.

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