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Tim Page

Tim Page

I’m a Senior Policy Officer at the TUC, responsible for economic and industrial policy. I also cover science policy, public procurement and high performance workplaces. I started my union at the Amalgamated Engineering Union, which is now part of Unite. I also did a spell at the House of Commons, working for the MPs Ann Clwyd and Ian McCartney. I was part of the team that put together the policy proposals which became the National Minimum Wage.

One of my major tasks at the TUC is editing our Budget Submission, which is sent to the Chancellor of the Exchequer each year. It sets out our analysis of the state of the economy and recommends policies which, we believe, will improve the economic and social fabric of Britain. Being the TUC Budget Submission, it is especially concerned with these issues from the perspective of people at work. When I’m not working, I enjoy sports, especially football (watching) and skiing (taking part). I’m also learning to speak Italian.

  • Economics

    A week is a long time in economics!

    9th September 2011 — Filed under: Economics

    Tim Page Tim Page

    Harold Wilson said that a week is a long time in politics. It sometimes feels that way in economics too. From Sunday to Tuesday, I was in Paris with TUAC, the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD. Trade union economists from the US, across Europe, Japan, Indonesia, India and many other corners of the globe gathered in collective gloom about the state of the world economy. Even in the last few weeks, it feels as if another world downturn is much more likely than it had been earlier in the summer.

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  • Economics

    European growth meeting in London – but Germany stays away!

    7th July 2011 — Filed under: Economics

    Tim Page Tim Page

    Blink and you’d have missed it. The London edition of the FT didn’t see fit to report it. But a group of European Ministers met in London yesterday, hosted by the Deputy Prime Minister no less, to talk about economic growth. But where was Germany? And France. And Italy. And Belgium, Luxembourg and Austria for that matter.

    Reading the press release of this meeting on the BIS website, which I confess I stumbled across while looking for something else, it’s hard to be clear exactly what the meeting was for. BIS says its aim was “to build on recent European Council agreements regarding the creation of a fully-functioning digital single market, reducing the regulatory burden and maximising the potential of EU services.” So it was a digital summit? Does that mean that the countries listed above have no interest in a digital single market?

    Or was there another agenda at work?

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  • Economics

    Bombardier, Procurement and British Manufacturing

    5th July 2011 — Filed under: Economics

    Tim Page Tim Page

    Today’s papers dedicate many column inches to the news that more than 1,400 jobs are to be cut at Bombardier, the UK’s last train manufacturing plant, in Derby. These job losses come after Bombardier lost the £3bn contract to supply 1,200 carriages for the Thameslink route, a contract that was won by Siemens of Germany. The Guardian quotes Bombardier as saying that the loss of the Thameslink contract made a near 50% cut in the workforce “inevitable”.

    I could write more about the companies involved, but I would prefer to concentrate on the failures of policy that led to today’s decision, in the hope that next time we will be better prepared. But for the record, Siemens employs about 16,000 people in the UK, many of them trade unionists, and makes an major contribution to the economy. What is written below is in no way a criticism of Siemens or its workers, in the UK, in Germany or anywhere else. This is a systemic failure that neither Labour nor Conservative Governments have tackled, namely a failure to institute policies that allow UK procurement policy to support British industry.

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  • Economics

    The UK – and Europe – urgently need a growth strategy

    23rd June 2011 — Filed under: Economics

    Tim Page Tim Page

    European Heads of Government begin their two day summit in Brussels today, dominated by the crisis in Greece and its effect on the future of the eurozone. But I hope some time is spent thinking about sustaining economic growth across the Channel. Today’s FT reports what it calls a “sharp loss of momentum” in eurozone economic growth, with economic activity contracting outside France and Germany for the first time since 2009.

    Meanwhile, the TUC has been responding to the European Council’s recommendation on the National Reform Programme of the United Kingdom. After the March 2011 European Council, European Member States introduced national stability and national reform plans. On 7th June, the European Commission published country specific recommendations in reaction to these plans. Sadly, when it comes to their recommendations for the UK, the Commission falls into the same trap as the Coalition Government. While speaking the language of growth, it supports spending cuts that are sharp enough to undermine any real prospect of growth taking place.

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  • Economics

    Collective Bargaining and Low to Middle Earners

    27th May 2011 — Filed under: Economics

    Tim Page Tim Page

    We had an interesting couple of hours at the Resolution Foundation this morning, trying to address the problem of falling living standards for low and middle income earners. The foundation’s report, ‘Growth without gain?’, which was launched today, pulls no punches in highlighting the scale of the problem. Over the course of the coming months, the Commission on Living Standards, established by the Resolution Foundation to explore this problem, will be seeking answers.

    ‘Growth without gain?’ points out that whilst less chronic than in the US, where median earnings have been stagnant for a generation, leading economies such as the UK, Germany and Canada have seen median wages either remain stagnant or falling during long periods of growth, prior to the 2008-09 global recession. However, other OECD countries, including Australia, France, Sweden and Norway have experienced better wage performance, suggesting there are lessons that countries like the UK can learn.

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  • Economics

    Employers need consistent message on manufacturing

    24th May 2011 — Filed under: Economics

    Tim Page Tim Page

    Today’s report from the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, showing the concerns of manufacturers towards the Government’s growth strategy, is important and timely. Trade unions have been concerned at the paucity of the Government’s approach to growth and we were doubly concerned when this year’s Budget, offering carrots to business in the form of lower corporation tax and less regulation, was so heartily welcomed by the CBI.

    I would expect the CBI to want lower business taxes. The trouble is, George Osborne dressed up these tax cuts and lower regulation and called them a growth strategy. And deliver growth they won’t. Today, the IMechE highlights why.

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  • Economics

    No more talk of wage-price spirals please, Mr King!

    11th May 2011 — Filed under: Economics

    Tim Page Tim Page

    I won’t spend long dwelling on this morning’s downgrading of the Bank of England growth forecast, as outlined in its latest Inflation Report. The Bank presents its GDP projection as a fan chart, showing various levels of possible growth with various levels of probability, so it’s hard to draw clear statistics, although the Press Association has had a go. According to the Guardian, PA are saying that the Bank has downgraded its projections for GDP in 2011 to around 1.7% from around 2.0% in its February Inflation Report. GDP in 2012 is expected to come in at around 2.2%, from just under 3% previously forecast.

    This will surprise no-one. Embark on a massive package of spending cuts, put hundreds of thousands of public sector workers out of a job, increase VAT and fail to develop a meaningful growth strategy and its hard to expect anything else. Only George Osborne and Nick Clegg don’t seem to get it. It’s worth noting, however, that the Bank’s forecasts, on growth and inflation, factor in an interest rate rise in the third quarter of this year. If growth really is sluggish, it might need to think again about that. The Bank Governor, Mervyn King, warns that CPI inflation may go as high as 5% during this year, but he has been clear that high inflation is due to imported commodity prices and increased VAT. A rise in base rates would make no difference to those factors, whilst undermining growth still further.

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  • Economics

    Bank must not follow ECB’s ‘futile gesture’ on interest rates

    7th April 2011 — Filed under: Economics

    Tim Page Tim Page

    There’s an interesting article in today’s FT, entitled ‘In a tight spot’, which describes divergent policy towards interest rates in the US, the UK and the eurozone. This is prompted by the fact that the European Central Bank (ECB) is expected to raise interest rates today, by 0.25 per cent, while the US Federal Reserve continues to ease monetary policy. The Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England (MPC), which analysts expect to hold rates this lunchtime, is unfairly described as “sitting on the fence”.

    The article neatly describes two things, one explicitly and one implicitly. It highlights, as if we didn’t already know, how interconnected the  global economy is today. Higher eurozone interest rates would drive down the dollar, hitting continental Europe’s attempt at an export-led recovery (an attempt at which some are succeeding more than others). US inflation might accelerate as import prices rise. What Washington and Frankfurt do are of interest to economies thousands of miles away from Washington and Frankfurt.

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  • Economics

    OECD forecast adds to UK economic gloom

    5th April 2011 — Filed under: Economics

    Tim Page Tim Page

    More gloom for the UK economy today from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Paris-based think tank that brings together the richest 30 free-market economies in the world. In a new analysis by Pier Carlo Padoan, its Chief Economist, the OECD argues that the UK’s economy will grow more slowly over the next quarter than that of any other G7 country apart from Japan.

    UK gross domestic product (GDP) will grow by an annualised rate of one per cent in the second quarter of 2011, according to Padoan, down from the 1.3 per cent forecast in November and compared to forecasts of 3.4 per cent in the US, 2.8 per cent in France and 2.3 per cent in Germany.

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  • Economics

    It’s official: falling real wages are bad for the economy

    30th March 2011 — Filed under: Economics

    Tim Page Tim Page

    You knew that, of course. So did I. But it’s good to see it confirmed by no less a body than the Office for Budget Responsibility, the independent organisation set up by the Chancellor, George Osborne, to provide impartial economic analysis.

    Today’s Financial Times carries a report headlined ‘Osborne defends Budget as MPs hear of oil risks’. This report describes evidence given to the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee on the effects of Budget 2011 and includes the following passage: “Mr [Steve] Nickell, of the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, said that if wages failed to keep pace with inflation, real wages would fall, consumption would decline and growth would be weak. ‘That, in some senses, is the worst of all possible worlds,’ he told the Commons Treasury committee. ‘You have higher inflation and lower growth as a consequence, which means the difficulties facing the [Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England] are of a very high order.’”

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