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Barriers to better pay
• FOLLOWING my challenge to Emily Thornberry over the allowance paid to inner London MPs – I have promised not to claim it, if elected – Islington’s current MP has asked me what I think of including a London weighting in salaries and benefits paid here (We all need a little extra, April 17).
Of course, we all know that the cost of living in this city is much higher than elsewhere in Britain, but that doesn’t mean well-rewarded London MPs have to help themselves to every available penny at taxpayers’ expense. That big Westminster building is supposed to be a Parliament, not a lifestyle support system.
Obviously, if you are getting housing benefit, that will be higher here to reflect how expensive rents are. That is fair. However, a blanket increase in jobseeker’s allowance and tax credits to reflect the higher London cost of living is not the right answer. Someone has to pay for all this. All of us as taxpayers are now facing a massive increase in the burden we carry as Labour drives Britain deep into the red.
I would much rather see more low-paid people simply taken out of tax altogether, instead of having to pay tax and then claim back through the incredibly complicated and costly-to-run tax credit system, which caused much distress by trying to claw back nearly £2billion of overpayments from families.
As for paying higher salaries in London, Conservative Mayor Boris Johnson is committed to paying the London living wage of £7.45 an hour, but he’s also running a tighter ship at City Hall than Ken Livingstone did.
He has cracked down on bonuses for senior figures at Transport for London, to help balance the books. This is taxpayers’ money we are talking about, and if you want to pay staff more you must also find savings elsewhere.
As a school governor, I do think inner London teachers should be paid more than the present London weighting, to reflect the greater challenges they face as well as the cost of living. I have called for that change at Conservative Party conference and have discussed it with shadow frontbencher David Willetts MP, who kindly addressed a fundraising event for Islington Conservatives last week.
However, as education expert Francis Gilbert wrote in The Times, the unions don’t want regionalised pay bargaining. I suggest Ms Thornberry directs her London cost of living question to Labour’s friends in the unions, who are getting in the way of a better deal for people like Islington’s teachers.
A Conservative government would not stand for that. It would place education at the heart of our policies for tackling the failures of Labour’s years in power.
ANTONIA COX
Conservative parliamentary spokesperson for Islington South and Finsbury
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