Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland Labour MP Tom Blenkinsop, today (11th January 2012) said a new Government plan to ‘raid’ local council workers pension funds to underwrite expensive infrastructure projects would mean low paid workers and council pensioners on Teesside paying to widen the North-South divide.

Tom said “Press reports today reveal that Chancellor George Osborne has targeted town hall pension schemes to underwrite big construction schemes which the government does not want to pay for itself.

This means that low paid council workers on Teesside and former council workers who are now pensioners would be forced to see their pension pots paying for schemes which will almost all be in the booming South East.

This was demonstrated only the other week when the new national infrastructure was unveiled. All the big road and rail schemes were in London or the South. In the North East we did not even get the crumbs off the table.

To force local council workers and pensioners to underwrite these schemes from their pension pot will mean that local people will be paying to widen the already cavernous social divide that exists in this country, and thereby eroding the finance base of the councils that employ them and who they pay council tax to.

It is clear that unlike – say – asking the council pension fund to consider investing in local high-tech start up firms, Osborne’s scheme will do nothing whatsoever for the local economy. It is like asking Turkeys not only to vote for Christmas, but pay for it as well.”