Rt Hon Alistair Darling MP
Gorgie Dalry Gazette ( Budget 2007 & new voting system @ Scottish Council elections May 07)
Gordon Brown delivered his eleventh Budget this month and the British economy is entering its eleventh year of growth under this Government. There are over two million more people in work right across Britain and because of the decisions we have made, inflation and mortgage rates remain low.
The Budget brought good news for hardworking families. Child Benefit will be increased over the next three years to £20 a week. Worth £575 a year in 1997, Child Benefit will be worth over £1,000 a year by 2010.
When this Government was first elected most families received only child benefit. Today many families also get Child Tax Credit and there will be an increase in the child element of the Child Tax Credit by £150 per year. Already over 2000 families in South West Edinburgh benefit from tax credits.
On top of this the Chancellor was able to announce he was cutting the basic rate of income tax from 22 pence to 20 pence from April 2008 - the lowest basic rate of tax for 75 years.
For pensioners, we announced plans to raise the pensioner tax allowances so that 600,000 pensioners are taken out of tax altogether and the tax allowances have been raised by more for older pensioners. By April 2011 no pensioner over 75 will pay any tax on incomes under £10,000.
An additional £3 billion over the next 4 years will enable the Scottish Executive to spend more on health, education and other investments. This shows that the Government is making the right decisions for the future, to build on our platform of economic stability while still being able to give more help to families with children and making more resources available for investment.
Of course, in Scotland, on 3 May we’ll be electing Councillors and MSPs. You may have picked up that there will be a new voting system for the Council elections known as the single transferable vote (STV) – this is designed to achieve proportional representation. Under STV the size of council wards will increase and either 3 or 4 councillors will be elected from each of the new wards. This area will be covered by two new wards: “Sighthill/Gorgie Ward 7” which will elect four councillors and “Fountainbridge/Craiglockhart Ward 9” which will elect three Councillors. Under STV, instead of putting a cross against the name of your preferred candidate, you will be asked to rank the candidates in order of preference (1st,2nd etc). There’s no change to the Scottish Parliament voting system which will again use the Additional Members System.
I believe that using our right to vote is one of the most important things we can do.
