Issues (Alan Butt Philip)

Alan Butt Philip <alan@alanbuttphilip.org.uk>

YOU AND EU

Did you know ?

(1) Most government environmental policy in the UK comes from the EU - unleaded petrol, catalytic converters on cars,and cleaner beaches are examples.

(2) The EU forced the UK government to introduce paid holidays for all workers by law. About 3 million part-time workers (mainly women) got paid holiday leave for the first time.

(3) It is the EU that brings together all the agencies that fight organised crime, drug and people trafficking, and terrorism.

WALES AND THE ECONOMIC CRISIS

The global financial crisis has hit the UK harder than most. Labour and the Tories have presided over a failed economic model built upon cascades of debt, lax regulation and excessive risk. Manufacturing industry, once Wales's strong point, has been allowed to wither and die. Jobs and foreign investment have been jeopardised because Britain has not adopted the Euro. Liberal Democrat warnings were brushed aside for years, but have proven all too well founded.

Alan Butt Philip says " We should be putting public money into making all existing houses more energy efficient, not helping failed banks to pay their top managers unjustified bonuses".

WHERE HAS ALL THE MONEY GONE ? BACK TO BRUSSELS ?

Wales is set to receive hundreds of millions of pounds for economic development from 2007-2013. So far bureaucracy seems to have held up any money getting through to Wales. Last month the Liberal Democrats discovered that £77 million from the 2000-2006 period has had to be sent back to Brussels because the Welsh Assembly government were unable to spend it on the projects for which it was provided. Well done, the Labour-Plaid coalition !

Eleven months a year the European Parliament moves from Brussels to Strasbourg for a week long full session before moving back to Brussels. France insists on this arrangement, although most MEPs detest it. The annual cost of moving staff and files to and fro is close to £180 million.

WHAT A WASTE !

Alan Butt Philip, the lead Welsh Liberal Democrat European candidate for next June's European elections, says " this shocking waste of public money cannot be justified and must be stopped." British Liberal Democrat MEPs have taken the lead in trying to change this insane system. A petition of EU citizens in favour of one site only for the European Parliament recently attracted over one million signatures.