Worried about privatisation? What to watch out for in Wednesday's budget
On Wednesday it’s thechancellor’s ’emergency budget’.
We don’t know exactly what he’s planning. But we do know he seems to be in a hurry to sell off our public services to the private sector as quickly as possible.
That’s why we’ve launched our Top Trumps campaign to draw attention to some of the great public assets that we believe are on Osborne’s hit list. If it has a proud history of success, provides a vital service and makes a profit – we’ve got to keep a close eye on it. The chancellor is probably about to go in for the kill.
1) In May, Osborne announced that he would be selling off £23 billion of our public assets at a CBI dinner. The government is creating a new company to streamline the privatisation process: UK Government Investments (UKGI). UKGI brings together UK Financial Investments (which includes government shares in Lloyds and RBS) with the shareholder executive. The Shareholder Executive is in charge of a portfolio of government owned or part owned businesses, including the Met Office, Ordnance Survey and the Royal Mint, amongst many others. We don’t know for sure whether all or just some of these assets are up for grabs.
2) Under the coalition government, the Liberal Democrats held back some of George Osborne’s plans to sell off public assets. Vince Cable vetoed plans to privatise Channel 4, the Land Registry and the rest of the student loan book.
3) Mark Russell, the head of the Shareholder Executive, is on the record as saying ‘only one or two companies’ owned by the government will never be privatised and that the government is looking at wholly or partly-privatising Companies House, the Land Registry, the Met Office and Ordnance Survey over the lifetime of this parliament.
“Mr Russell makes clear that, unless there is a policy reason for government to own a business, it should look to divest its shareholding if it can realise value for money,” the FT reported. Meanwhile, private investors are already starting to eye up the potential of our profitable public assets.
4) The chancellor has already said that he is selling off the remaining public shares in RBS, and Lloyds. Business secretary Sajid Javid recently announced plans to privatise the Green Investment Bank, and the press is now reporting that privatisation of Channel 4 is back on the table.
5) We know George Osborne won’t wait for our permission or consult us. He doesn’t seem to mind what the public thinks. This government has already sold off a whole range of our services including Eurostar, the search and rescue service, blood plasma – not to mention opening the doors for wholesale privatisation of the NHS and encouraging councils to outsource as much as possible. We know we’ll be the last to hear about our services being sold off. Did you spot George Osborne selling off 15 per cent of Royal Mail shares overnight to bankers? It’ll happen again.
When Osborne goes in for the kill on Wednesday, let’s be ready. Ready to explain why he’s wrong. Ready to fight back. Let’s tell the positive stories about public institutions working well in our hands, making a profit and doing fantastic work.
Sign the petition to stop the sell off.
Cat Hobbs is the director of We Own It. Follow her on Twitter
28 Responses to “Five reasons not to trust George Osborne with Britain’s national treasures”
JAMES MCGIBBON
Read what I have writtenl.
Man the Barricades
All you have written is as follows:
“You sound envious as you have not made an alternative argument and how it would be funded without borrowing from the International bankers.”
“Yes I did read and all you did was moan about Osborne. Give us your alternatives and how you would fund it” and
“Read what I have writtenl”
Still don’t know what “it” is. Do you? Or are you in another Universe? The article was about the Chancellors budget and the sell off of public assets. What do you want me to fund or are you being deliberately obtuse?
tangentreality
Why are these publicly owned concerns ‘national treasures’? What a vacuous statement. Whilst the Ordnance Survey does excellent work, what rationale is there for it being owned by the State? It could do its job just as well in the private sector. The same goes for Channel 4 – we already own one State broadcaster, why do we need another? The same applies to the Met Office – why is it publicly owned? It doesn’t need to be.
RBS and Lloyds, up until their calamitous actions which brought the country to the brink of ruination, were privately owned. Their nationalisation was a last-ditch effort to stop a financial meltdown, and was not intended to make banking a permanent function of Her Majesty’s Government.
Bottom line: if the State is involved in an activity, it should be out of necessity, i.e. that function cannot be reasonably performed by the private sector. I fail to see why broadcasting, cartography, banking & weather forecasting really need to be the preserve of the State.
wildejamey
perhaps if the bbc is sold we’ll finally get rid of the regressive TV licence fee – a straight tax on the poor. Most of what it relays is rubbish and/or propaganda anyway.
wildejamey
I would however like to know why nothing has been done about this over the last 25 years by governments of all persuasions. I doubt if this one will either. They have a history of hitting the wrong people while the real exploiters get off scot free.