Letter from Parliament - Simon Danczuk MP

Simon Danczuk, Rochdale MP

“The language of priorities is the religion of socialism,” said Labour’s founder of the NHS, Nye Bevan. No doubt Nye would be spinning in his grave at the skewed priorities of Rochdale Council at the moment.

At a time when the Council is having to push through savage cuts, make redundancies and freeze people’s pay, I am at a complete loss as to why the leadership has spent over a month now arguing and obsessing about giving big pay rises to senior council officers.

The fact that week after week I read headline after headline about this pay increase at the expense of stories telling me what the Council is doing to tackle child abuse, support small businesses and see some action on town centre regeneration fills me with despair.

Last week I cautiously welcomed what was supposed to be a performance related package, but given that there is no detail on the targets and that the chief executive immediately gets a £15,000 pay rise suggests to me this is just another way of trying to present an egregious pay rise. I cannot support this proposal.

Make no mistake this carry on is damaging the Council and my office has been inundated with calls complaining about the Council’s priorities. This week I received more calls from pensioners’ groups and a visit from a representative of the country’s largest trade union among others to impress upon me why this was such a terrible decision.

I have written to the Council leader urging him to come to his senses on this issue and why public anger is not getting through to him is a mystery.

When he recovers from his lapse of judgement, I hope he will draw encouragement from the great work being done by Labour nationally – and focus on the right priorities. On energy bills, the cost of living crisis, payday lending and business rates, Labour is setting the agenda. The Government, bereft of ideas, either copies Labour’s policies or offers a pale imitation of them.

Like many other MPs I’ll be out showing my support for Small Business Saturday this weekend. But my involvement will be a bit different. I’m planning to open my own shop. Danczuk’s Deli is launching in Rochdale town centre and will be run by my wife, Karen. We want to make it a welcoming place that improves the food offer in Rochdale and helps get our town centre back on track.