MANY HANDS IN THE TILL?

The current Tax Gap is scandalous and exposes how much the Westminster elite has completely disregarded any commitment towards fairness and social justice at a time of unprecedented cuts to public services. Beyond the tax evasion, the real problem is that the Westminster based political parties have been fundamentally compromised by the prolonged and unhealthily close relationship with the City.

We are where we are because of the cumulative effect of the legacy of 18 years of Conservative and 13 years of New Labour government. Over recent decades, successive Labour and Tory governments have literally looked the other way, when it comes to tax evasion, allowing the UK's tax gap to grow to an eye-watering £34 billion each year. Total fiscal consolidation over the course of this Parliament amounts to £120 billon pounds, which indicates the scale of the problem.

Labour can cry wolf as much as it likes over this scandal, but these lost billions are as much their legacy as the Tories'.  Back in 2005, the last Labour UK Westminster Government merged Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise and then proceeded to cut almost a third of jobs in five years (99,000 to 68,000).  They also slashed the budget for tackling the tax gap by nearly 50% (£3.6 billon to £1.9 billion) between 2006-10.

Simply relying on ‘business as usual’ to fix this problem just won’t do – despite the bluster and the rhetoric from the usual suspects to expect Westminster to fix the problem is simply naive. Tax evasion needs to be dealt with worldwide – recently the Swiss banks have crumbled in the face a number of court cases in the US (and a few Swiss banks even collapsed) in relation to tax avoidance by US citizens.

If the USA can do it, then why not the UK - clearly there is a lack of any desire to do anything about it (hence Ed Ball’s silence and George Osborne's lack of urgency). The UK’s Crown Dependency Tax havens are based in some of the few remaining (fiscally useful) scattered remnants of Empire lie at the heart of the tax evasion problem.

Plaid Cymru will not compromise on its commitment to tackling tax evasion. Vast sums of money that should have been collected properly and invested in vital public services such as health and education have been lost. Plaid Cymru, while the Westminster parties fall over themselves to appease the City bankers and their wealthy backers, puts Welsh communities first.

Wangari Muta Maathai

Wangari Muta Maathai (1940–2011)

Wangari Muta Maathai (1940–2011) has died, she was a Nobel Peace Laureate; environmentalist; scientist; parliamentarian; founder of the Green Belt Movement; advocate for social justice, human rights, and democracy; elder; and peacemaker.

She lived and worked in Nairobi, Kenya. In 1971 she received a Ph.D., the first woman in east and central Africa to do so. She became the first woman to chair a department at the University and the first to be appointed a professor.

Professor Maathai was active in a number of environmental and humanitarian organizations in Nairobi, including the National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK). Through the NCWK, she spoke to rural women and learned from them about the deteriorating environmental and social conditions affecting poor, rural Kenyans (especially women).

The women told her that they lacked firewood for cooking and heating, that clean water was scarce, and nutritious food was limited. Professor Maathai suggested to them that planting trees might be an answer. The trees would provide wood for cooking, fodder for livestock, and material for fencing; they would protect watersheds and stabilize the soil, improving agriculture.

The Green Belt Movement (GBM), was formally established in 1977 and has since mobilized hundreds of thousands of women and men to plant more than 47 million trees, restoring degraded environments and improving the quality of life for people in poverty.

As GBM’s work expanded, Professor Maathai realized that behind poverty and environmental destruction were deeper issues of disempowerment, bad governance, and a loss of the values that had enabled communities to sustain their land and livelihoods, and what was best in their cultures.

The planting of trees became an entry-point for a larger social, economic, and environmental agenda.
Professor Maathai also co-founded the Nobel Women’s Initiative with five of her fellow women peace laureates to advocate for justice, equality, and peace worldwide.

A TIDY LITTLE EARNER

ATM charges can sting all of us, including some of the most vulnerable people in our communities by charging people to withdraw their own money. I myself nearly got stung early one morning at a service station on the M4, narrowly avoiding being charge £2.50 for a £20 withdrawal, fortunately I was awake and cancelled the transaction. 

Last August Dr Dai Lloyd, one the Plaid AM for South Wales West loudly called on the then New Labour government to regulate ATM proliferation and charges in order to ensure a fair deal for Welsh communities, particularly for those on low incomes who are hit hardest by these charges. 

No joy! Why do I suspect that the Con Dem's will also do little to protect some of the more vulnerable members of our communities. Some of the amounts being charged to use these ATMs are ridiculous, to make matters worse there have been some rapid increases in charges recently.

Some are now charging as much as £2.50 for every withdrawal - for anybody withdrawing £10 that's an extra 25%! This is a cost that many users can ill afford. To make matters worse it would appear that more deprived wards with no free cash withdrawal options are being targeted by these companies, this is disgraceful and unscrupulous behaviour by these ATM companies. 

From a standard £1.99 charge, about 60p will go to the owner of the site where the cash-point is, roughly 60p is taken by the firm that owns the machine and another 40p goes to Link. What little is left over - about 39p in this case - pays towards installing and maintaining the cash-point. An industry insider said: "The breakdown is roughly the same for all companies, but the charge differs depending on where the cash machine is.”

Very often people living in these communities that have seen the loss of local branches of banks and do not have the luxury of being able to travel to withdraw cash. Their options have been further limited by effects of the New Labour driven Post Office closure programme which hit all parts of Wales.  

Many of our smaller communities, especially (but not just) in the Valley communities have lost their banks and their post offices, leaving people with little choice - so much for market forces. Even in those of our communities that are still lucky enough to still have a post office, the days of withdrawing benefits and pensions directly and over the counter are long gone.  

A few more things to think about: 

ATM’s

• Fee paying machines introduced in 1999 and some now charge as much as £2.50
• Average fee at the UK's 25,000 charging ATMs now £1.75, initially was around £1 per transaction.

• 96.5 per cent of all withdrawals last year were from free cash machines.
• Over the last 5 years the number of cash machines that charge has increased by more than 18,000. The number of free cash machines has grown by only 8,000.

The CAB has said: "When we looked into it we found there was a disproportionate number of these machines in poorer areas.”

As well as hitting everybody, it is worth remembering that ATM machines that charge for transactions have a much more disproportionate impact on people on low incomes and those claiming benefits which are paid directly into bank accounts. 

Richard Bates, of watchdog Consumer Focus, added: "It is shocking that there are more fee-charging cash machines in communities where people are least able to afford them."

What about the Banks?

• In 2008, the Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) group, sold more than 800 of its cash machines to an independent operator. This company is now free to introduce fees on the machines.
• HBOS won't directly benefit if charges are introduced - and it will be able to continue saying its own machines are free - but it made £75m from the sale of the network.
• Abbey has also sold part of its cash-machine network.
  
  
• NatWest has even bought one of the fee-charging ATM operators, whose profits will now feed into the banking giant's bottom line.

Since 1995 banks have closed 22% of their branch network, 15% of post office branches have been closed, 5% of building society branches have been closed. Machines which charge now account for over 40% of the 53,000 machines in the LINK network. In 2001 only 7,000 cash machines charged to get money out but by last year that figure had rocketed to 25,000 (July 2009). 

It is high time that action is taken to protect our communities, it is wrong that unscrupulous companies should profit most from those who can afford it least. The New Labour Westminster government failed to take any action to regulate the proliferation and charges of these ATMs. Sadly we may have a long wait until the Con Dem's step up to the mark on the subject of ATM charges.

In Wales, there is still time in the next term for the National Assembly's social justice Minister needs to step up and work with local public service providers to provide free alternatives and we must see if there is anything else that can be done to protect our communities from this unfair practice and protect our communities from unfair charges.  

A NICE LITTLE EARNER FOR SOMEONE

The New Labour Government (which is doing it's best to keep on the good side of the bankers) needs to regulate ATM charges which hit some of the most vulnerable people in our communities by charging people to withdraw their own money. The recent rapid growth in ATM's which charge users for their services - hits all of us, but, particularly hits those on low incomes - it's yet another tidy little earner for the banks at our expense.

Some of the amounts being charged to use these ATMs are ridiculous, to make matters worse there have been some rapid increases in charges recently. Some are now charging as much as £2.50 for every withdrawal - for anybody withdrawing £10 that’s an extra 25%! This is a cost that many users can ill afford. To make matters worse it would appear that more deprived wards with no free cash withdrawal options are being targeted by these companies, this is disgraceful and unscrupulous behaviour by these ATM companies.

From a standard £1.99 charge, about 60p will go to the owner of the site where the cashpoint is, roughly 60p is taken by the firm that owns the machine and another 40p goes to Link. What little is left over - about 39p in this case - pays towards installing and maintaining the cashpoint. An industry insider said: "The breakdown is roughly the same for all companies, but the charge differs depending on where the cash machine is.”

Very often people living in these communities that have seen the loss of local branches of banks and do not have the luxury of being able to travel to withdraw cash. Their options have been further limited by the New Labour Post Office closure programme. Even in those communities that are lucky enough to still have a post office, the days of withdrawing benefits and pensions directly and over the counter are long gone.

Since 1995 banks have closed 22% of their branch network, 15% of post office branches have been closed, 5% of building society branches have been closed. Machines which charge now account for over 40% of the 53,000 machines in the LINK network. In 2001 only 7,000 cash machines charged to get money out but by last year that figure had rocketed to 25,000 (Jul 2009).

Last year, the Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) group, sold more than 800 of its cash machines to an independent operator. This company is now free to introduce fees on the machines. HBOS won't directly benefit if charges are introduced - and it will be able to continue saying its own machines are free - but it made £75m from the sale of the network. Abbey has also sold part of its cash-machine network. NatWest has even bought one of the fee-charging ATM operators, whose profits will now feed into the banking giant's bottom line.

It is high time that action is taken to protect our communities, it is wrong that unscrupulous companies should profit most from those who can afford it least. The New Labour Westminster government needs to take immediate action to regulate the proliferation and charges of these ATMs. In Wales, the social justice Minister needs to step in and work with local public service providers to provide free alternatives and we must see if there is anything else that can be done to protect our communities from this unfair practice and protect our communities from unfair charges.