EU Increase maternity leave 2nd reply

For completeness here is Catherine Bearder MEP reply to Bill Bloggs letter 'EU increase maternity leave policy'

 

Dear Bill,

Thank you for contacting Catherine regarding the vote last week in the European parliament on the revision of the pregnant workers directive. Catherine forwarded me this email and asked me to respond on her behalf and also pass on her good wishes. She hopes to be getting down to Bracknell soon. If you have any questions for Catherine in future it is best to contact her via catherine@bearder.eu rather than her cix account, which she is phasing out and doesn't check as regularly.

 

Catherine did not support the amendments you refer to. Her Liberal Democrat colleague in the European parliament Liz Lynne MEP tabled amendments to the proposals by the European Parliament's Women's Rights and Gender Equality Committee, calling for full pay to be taken out of the report. This directive was always intended, quite rightly, to provide minimum standards to protect pregnant workers and women who are breastfeeding, but some of the amendments in the report went further and did not take into account the different traditions of Member States. For example, some countries have maternity leave, some have paternity leave as well, and some have parental leave. This leave is paid in totally different ways and at different rates – some from the social security systems, some from businesses and some are a mixture.

 

Whilst Catherine supports the original purpose of the directive, her view is that we can only really impose minimum standards at EU level and it should be for Member States to go beyond this if they wish. This legislation is intended as Health and Safety legislation for women at work.

 

Catherine is, as you are, concerned about the enormous costs associated with the proposed changes and was pleased that a second, more detailed impact assessment was carried out in to the Women's Rights Committee's amendments which between now and 2030 would cost some €121 billion.  As I said before, the extension of maternity leave could cost the UK €3 billion (£2.5 billion) each year. This is a staggering amount at a time when we have to stabilise the economy and deficit after years of mismanagement and waste by the Labour Government.

 

The amendments as voted through by MEPs last week could have a significant effect on businesses and particularly small businesses that are struggling to fight the effects of the recession.

 

This is still the first step in a long negotiation process and now the text will go to the Council of Ministers for their consideration. I believe that the UK's coalition government will not approve these proposals as it would have a negative impact not only on the UK but other Member States also.

 

Thank you once again for contacting Catherine and I hope this response has been of use to you.

 

Yours sincerely,

Mark Wheeler

Office of Catherine Bearder MEP

EU - Increase maternity leave policy

BillBloggs writes another letter.

A letter to Liberal Democrat MEP's Catherine Bearder and Sharon Bowles.

Dear MEPS,

I am appalled!

Here we are in a major recession with major cuts in Government expenditure, half a billion jobs to go in the public sector hence the need to rely on the private sector to create more jobs - and what do the bloom'in EU want to do? Hang another millstone around the necks of both public and private sector employers with increased maternity leave payments!

AND - that is on top of the EU wanting a 6% increase in their budget for which the UK would have to pay nearly a billion pounds a year more towards!

I do hope that neither of you two voted for any of this????!!!!!!

Personally, I would welcome more cuts to child related benefits in the UK, including maternity leave! Why? Because there are 6.8 billion people on this finite planet of ours already.

Many of them in the richer countries are consuming at the rate of 2, some even 3, and a few even at 5 planets! By 2050 there is projected to be 9 -10 billion people on our planet - i.e. 50% more - all of whom will still be seeking to get richer by yet more economic growth - and thus to be able to consume even more limited resources.

Yet, we are also supposed to be cutting CO2 emissions globally by well over 50% by 2050.

Yet, every new human arriving on our planet between now and then will be adding to those emissions...............And those arriving in the wealthier countries, like the UK and the rest of the EU, will consume a lot more and emit a lot more CO2 than those arriving elsewhere.......So, how is this going to work then?

I ask you, arguing from the standpoint of Sustainability and Climate Change alone, should the EU/UK be encouraging childbirth by increasing maternity leave benefits?

Why exactly is it being proposed?

The most common argument I hear in favour is that we need to encourage more children so that they will pay for better pensions for us when we get old That is based on the logic of the madhouse.

They will all grow old and want even better pensions too, so we will need ever more people ad infinitum - which is clearly unsustainable on a finite planet. This is a ponzi scheme.

It is worse than pyramid selling!

When we in the UK are already stressed by an overpopulation problem, caused chiefly by immigration, this argument makes no more sense than to suggest that we need to increase our numbers so that we don't get outnumbered by immigrants!

Perhaps the real reason behind all this is the EU want more new citizens so as to increase their budget still further, and spread their member states national debts upon?!

Arguing from the same standpoint, I would now like to put several questions on child based benefits in general to you;

Should we really be encouraging families in the UK to have more children by offering parents child based benefits that increase with the quantity of their offspring? So, in principal, shouldn't we move towards stopping all child based benefits after the first child?

Clearly this can only be done gradually from where we are now in the UK. The coalition have made a start, thankfully, but have merely scratched the surface! (How many £billions/annum would that save when we finally got there?)

Therefore, apart from helping all parents universally for their first child, it seems to me that (were we able to go back to the beginning again rather than starting from where we are now!) the only absolutely fair, perfectly reasonable and logically sound reason to assist parents financially beyond that is solely on the basis of need. The state should be acting as a taxpayer funded charity organisation, only upon the unexpected loss of employment or unfortunate onset of ill health etc - when and while the parents are struggling to support themselves, let alone more children than their first child. Such assistance should never ever be provided indefinitely except in extreme cases.

Might you agree with this supposition, in principle at least?

I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on these matters!

Yours sincerely,

Bill Bloggs

 

And a very speedy same day reply from Sharon Bowles MEP Office;

Dear Mr Dowling,

Thank you for your email.

Sharon did not support amendments in the Parliament to the Pregnant Workers Directive which sought to provide 20 weeks full time maternity pay. While she supports moves for increased gender equality and for the safeguarding of pregnant women's rights in the workplace, these amendments are just not financially viable to introduce at this time in the economic recovery.

The implementation in the UK alone is estimated to cost close to £2bn. This is not only very costly for the UK, but to impose this stipulation across the European Union is unfair on those Member States who do not have the budgetary resources to support it.

Further to this, implementing this particular amendment during a time of economic constraint may lead to increased discrimination against women securing jobs as maternity leave packages would cost employers more than ever before. Sharon has met with the Federation of Small Businesses on this matter who estimates each pregnancy will cost employers on average £7000.

Thank you once again for contacting Sharon and I hope this response has been of use to you.

Yours sincerely,

Constituency Office Manager

Office of Sharon Bowles MEP, Liberal Democrat Chair of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee Member of the European Parliament for South East England

 

Posted on behalf of Bill Bloggs who is a member of the

www.optimumpopulation.org and Green Peace

Can taxpayers afford free tuition fees?

BillBloggs sent the following email to tuition@libdems.org.uk where he gives a different opinion to the one I expressed in A pledge is a pledge end of .
 
 
Dear Nick,

Under these dire financial  circumstances, and following receipt of your very well put explanation and arguments for abandoning the LD election pledge to abolish Tuition Fees, you do have my full support.

Free education to degree level is a great idea - IFour country (i.e. us taxpayers - not government )can truly afford it.
Please don't let this coalition government offer anything else for free that we taxpayers cannot afford!

 

Anything "free" always seems to be a great idea to voters - but why do these same voters keep forgetting that when any political party or government promises anything for "free" to us all - it is all of the taxpayers in the UK that are going to have to pay for it!
I don't!

 

Surely telling us taxpayers what it would cost to do this now and what we will have to do without on top of all the other cuts coming to us is the final clinching argument that you could put to persuade all those complaining now to be quiet?

 

Mind you -Scrapping Trident would have gone a long way to offset the cuts elsewhere wouldn't it? However, I think that money if saved would be far still better spent elsewhere(e.g. green infrastructure hence green job creation) rather than on tuition fees.

 

Frankly, I have always wondered how we managed to provide a university education for free for so long in the past.
We must have been a very wealthy country once!

 

I guess that is also why we have been so generous with our benefits system in the past too? Little knowing of course how that was going to backfire by creating so many dependants who have found it easier not to work and milk the system etc.

 

I would like to add that, IMHO, a university education is being overrated in the UK anyway.
All young people need jobs to go to, and a degree is wasted time and money if there aren't any jobs around that need you to have one.

 

A hell of a lot of degree qualified people are in lowly jobs in the UK already. Time and Money wasted, wasn't it?
(One begins to think any government support given for further education was a way to get people of the unemployment and benefit lists for a while!)

 

What we really do need badly in this country is a restoration of our manufacturing industries, a boost to our farming and agriculture, loads of green jobs, and far more people in on -job training and apprenticeships - rather than becoming overqualified or qualified in unwanted subjects in universities.

 

I also think that further education, particularly at degree level, could and should be financed much more by businesses and industry, and thereby the qualifications gained would be linked more closely to their needs. After all, they would get the benefit of these more highly and correctly educated people as a resource pool.

 

Please bear in mind that Practical skills have a very important place in our society too, and please note that many of those people that we are now trying to get off of benefits and into work (Hooray for Ian Duncan Smith!) are just the sort of people who can be trained to do them.

 

Surely this is what should be happening - rather than too freely letting the Eastern Europeans and other Immigrants come here and take jobs away from our own people?

 

I write as retired Chartered Mechanical Engineer who got the necessary qualifications the hard way, not via a university degree but as an apprentice doing days and many evenings at Technical College, while I also gaining many sound and invaluable  practical skills at the same time.

 

I have had 40 years experience in industry, and I have worked with and employed many degree level and highly practically skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled people from all walks of life, during my career.

 

IMHO this country needs to become far more self sufficient all round again, like it once was.

What we are doing with continuous population growth and relying on getting ever more economic growth and increasing globalisation everywhere to support it all is simply not sustainable - certainly not for much longer.

 

The planet we live on is of a fixed size with finite resources, so this must be so.

 

Billbloggs

 

 

Todays link is to Lib Dem Voice who also has a opinion article from Simon Kaye who is in favour of the Browne report.

A Call to the World On Climate Change

Dear Fellow Citizens of Bracknell and the World,

What on earth is my granddaughter and her children and their children, and all of our descendants like them all over the world, going to use in the future for energy instead of fossil fuels - oil, gas & coal?

We take these currently absolutely essential energy sources so much for granted. Energy that we need to enjoy everything, watch everything, drive everything, dig up everything, cut down everything, move everything, grow everything, catch everything, make everything, cook everything, heat everything, etc etc etc. ad infinitum!

PLEASE WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE!

EVEN IF CLIMATE CHANGE, MAN MADE OR OTHERWISE, HAD NEVER EVER BEEN MENTIONED, EVEN IF IT IS A HUGE CON. TRICK - QUITE POSSIBLY (IF NOT PROBABLY!) BECAUSE IT IS THE ONLY WAY OUR POLITICIANS AND WORLD LEADERS NOW THINK THEY CAN GAIN PEACEFULL GLOBAL COOPERATION FOR ACTION WITHOUT STARTING WWIII OVER ENERGY - AND ALL OTHER RAPIDLY DWINDLING NATURAL RESOURCES.................

WE STILL HAVE A HUGE INDIVIDUAL, NATIONAL AND GLOBAL ENERGY SUPPLY PROBLEM TO SOLVE!!!!

POSTPONING ACTION TO REPLACE FOSSIL FUELS AS THE UNIVERSAL GLOBAL ENERGY SOURCE FOR USE BY THE REMAINING AND POSSIBLY IF NOT PROBABLY VERY LIMITED NUMBER OF FUTURE HUMANS THIS PLANET CAN SUPPORT WILL ONLY MAKE IT HARDER AND HARDER TO SOLVE IT, EVERY DAY THAT WE DELAY!!

IF WE ARE NOT VERY CAREFUL. THERE SIMPLY WONT BE ENOUGH OF THESE REMAINING FOSSIL FUEL ENERGY SOURCES LEFT TO BUILD ALL THE REPLACEMENT GREEN ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE THAT WE NEED BEFORE WE RUN OUT OF THEM!

WE WILL HAVE SQUANDERED THEM ALL. ENJOYING THE CURRENT PLEASURES AND LIFESTYLES THAT WE ONLY HAVE BECAUSE OF FOSSIL FUELS.
.
And - I AM SHOUTING!!!

Now, will you all please listen?

It is my firm belief that a great many politicians and world leaders, and their citizens too, are at last waking up to the fact that we humans who are alive right now quite justifiably blame them and their predecessors for not acting in our best interests in the past and the present.

Clearly strong action to replace fossil fuels should have started decades ago.

Blaming man-made climate change as the need for action now just lets them off the hook considerably!

Remember, they were/are our leaders. They were/are supposed to be looking after their citizens best interests at all times!

It is all fine and dandy having a growing economy for a while.........
But, after a boom comes a bust, always.
Being rich for a while only to end up poor on a dying planet without enough energy to live decent lives later on in the future is hardly leadership or an intelligent solution - is it?

All of these politicians and world leaders must have known that the OIL, GAS & COAL would not last forever. I mean, we all know that - don’t we?

Surely they must have worked this out for themselves at some time - mustn’t they?

If they didn’t know that much, they were/are either just plain stupid and therefore, they were never ever properly qualified enough to be a politician or a world leader, either that or they must think that some supernatural being replenishes the supplies every night while we are asleep, perhaps?

Same difference?

It seems to me that this has been a case of the blind leading the blind for far too long!!! But some of us blind people can see things quite clearly – NOW! No longer can we let these blind politicians and so-called leaders lead us citizens into future disaster.

Please believe me!

Please will you at least listen to those politicians and leaders who now call for firm action against Man-Made Climate Change?

Maybe this is the wrong label for the right action.

So what??????

If we can get the right internationally agreed global agreement at Copenhagen, it will have the same effect as rationing Oil, Gas and Coal consumption all over the world - without starting WWIII over energy!
At least I do sincerely hope that it will..........!
Sadly, with a mere whisper of hope left now (unless you and they at the conference all wake up to reality too!) - I rest my case for "man-made climate change action"!

Yours most sincerely,

Billbloggs

Post on behalf o Billbloggs by Dazmando