Last November the No Turning Back Group of MPs decided we needed to do more work on how to tackle the problem of too little social mobility.?? By clicking <a id="p44" href="http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/social-mobility-3.doc">here</a>??you can download a file which sets out my thoughts in this area.
As always, I welcome your feedback.
I have no problems with a Labour Cabinet Minister choosing a better school for her child. I do have problems that there is insufficient choice for many under this government.
I would like to see all schools becoming independent, with money from taxpayers sent to the schools chosen by parents up to a reasonable limit, so that all who want a free place can still have a free place, but at a better school with more choice than some experience today.
I also want to see better provision for special needs within the taxpayer financed sector. Conservatives have warned that too many special needs schools are being closed. Some children are better off in mainstream schools, whilst ??some are better off in special schools. Again, there should be the choice for those who rely on state schools, just as there is choice for those who can afford private educaiton.
I was fortunate to win a scholarship to a Direct Grant school from my local state primary. A previous Labour government knocked away that ladder of opportunity for people from lower income backgrounds. It is high time Labour now accepted that we need to remove the apartheid between independent and state schools, by making all schools independent, and by offering payment of fees for everyone who??wants ??that help, up to a sensible limit. Such a change would not only give people more choice, whatever their background, but would also help raise standards.
It is shocking?? but not surprising to read of the damage being done to the army and navy by this government’s budget plans and poor management of the money. I have never known morale so low, or money so badly spent.
The poor state of barracks and quarters has caught the attention of the media. Many soldiers would like to be able to gain a foothold on the housing ladder, like their friends on civvy street. The MOD should look at ways of helping soldiers acquire a property of their own – maybe by allowing them to take on poor MOD housing and fix it up for a share of the equity, coupled with a further share based on their mortgage capacity.??When they leave the armed services the equity could be sold on to the replacement coming into the service under the same equity share/mortgage scheme at market prices.
Officers I have talked to say the army does not have the expertise to go into the housing market, yet that is exactly what it has done in the rented market. Ministers need to move with the times, and let organisations into defence housing that can help arrange the finance. Another way of protecting people from rising house prices would be an army savings scheme that put the soldiers money into financial instruments linked to house prices, so they could be saving for the deposit/share of a house whilst serving.
Each naval person has a home port they return to after each operation. Maybe each soldier should have a home barracks/married quarters they return to after overseas tours. If they are going with their families on long overseas tours the army could help find a temporary tenant for their property to give them an additional rental income. Maybe more marriages would survive the stresses of army life if there was home that remained permanent during their time in the army, where wife and family or husband and family could stay during most courses of duty for the service member of the family.
If you want an independent England and an independent Scotland, with no Union, then of course my proposal is not for you.
I think it is worth a try to give England a fair devolution settlement, and then see if the public would rather live in a Union with such a settlement or wants to vote to break up the Union.
Of course if the British people voted to break up the Union then England would be governed by the English Parliament at Westminster, which would have fewer MPs than the Union Parliament, and fewer officials.
All who have written in seem to agree we need change to Labour’s bodged devolution fix, and all seem to agree that the position of England needs recognition. There also seems to be universal support for banishing all the much unloved English regional government.
The disagreement seems to be over whether the Union is worth saving, with some wanting to go straight to an independent England. Such a country would not ened a new Parliament bulding, as the Union Parlaiment at westminster would revert to its origins as the English Parliament.
I think it is worth trying the federal model I have proposed, with symmetry and fairness between Scotland, England Wales and Northern Ireland. If that did not suit the majority because they did not think it worked well or fairly, then we would have to consider referenda on whether to dissolve the Union or not. The pace may be forced by Scottish nationalists. The interesting issue is who should decide on whether Scotland should stay or leave the Union? Just Scottish voters in a referndum, or all UK voters? It is high time the government told us what they would do if Scotland votes for a Nationalist government in Edinburgh.
Many of the local and national government services in my part of the world closed down from 22nd December until 2nd January, and many public sector workers (including MPs of course- we are locked out of Parliament by??a government that does not like us asking too many quesitons)??are not yet back at work.
I would be interested to know from people elsewhere in the country of their experiences with shut down public services over this long Christmas and New Year break.
Churchill’s ringing phrase about an iron curtain coming down across Europe proved prophetic. For forty years Europe was split into a social democratic part in the west with considerable freedoms and an economic system that could keep?? within sight of the USA’s rear view mirror, and a communist east which performed so badly it was soon out of sight economically.
Conditions in the east were so bad they had to shoot people?? to stop a mass exodus to the more prosperous and freer west.
??I was proud to play a small part in the great drama of the end of communism as a governing system in Eastern Europe. When I wrote the <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Democratic-Revolutions-Popular-Capitalism-Eastern/dp/1870265378/sr=8-2/qid=1168351201/ref=sr_1_2/203-2466118-7917518?ie=UTF8&s=books">Popular Capitalist Manifesto</a> in the 1980s I self consciously modelled it on the far more infamous and better known Communist party manifesto, recommending that countries seeking prosperity and freedom should do the opposite of nine of the ten central tenets in the original Marxist document.(Free education for all paid for from tax was the exception). I advised Margaret Thatcher on the changes that were emerging in Eastern Europe, and had the privilege as a UK Minister to make the first visits to leading Eastern European countries to offer advice on how to establish free enterprise economies and democracies once the Berlin Wall fell.
It is a sadness to me that after such glorious beginnings in those countries, and after such bravery displayed by the people who broke free of the evil empire, we should now be witnessing a bureaucratic curtain or blanket being thrown around the whole of Europe by the EU. We do not want over government, or erosion of?? freedom. We do not need the daily infuriating nit picking intervention in our lives that is the common fare of EU officialdom. We do not want the EU to seek to cut us off from the rest of the world, where many countries are growing more quickly and are more lively.
It is good news that Angela Merkel has said she will place deregulation at the heart of her EU policy as President in the first half of 2007. It is good that some Commissioners now understand just how damaging to our interests this hyperactive lawmaking has become. It is far more worrying that at the same time Angela Merkel thinks she can breathe life into the Constitution. That?? is part of the system which is failing, and should be buried as quickly as possible.We want less central power and freer trade, not further progress to a??forced and unloved EU nationhood.
Let me try to explain my idea again. This is not official Conservative policy which is still being discussed. The official Conservative policy in 2005 was to create English votes on English issues in the Westminster Parliament to deal with the worst imbalance of Labour’s bodged and biased devolution "settlement". My proposal goes further.
I suggest that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all have devolved assemblies settling a range of agreed issues on the Scottish model. We elect MPs to Westminster who are dual mandate MPs in every case. Those sitting for Scottish seats sit in the Edinburgh Parliament part of the time to settle Scottish matters, and sit in the Westminster Parliament to settle Union matters for the rest of their working time with MPs from the other three parts of the UK. There would no more Scottish elections for a different cast of characters to be MSPs – instead Westminster MPs elected for Scottish seats would also be the MSPs.
Those sitting for English seats would sit in the English Parliament – meeting in the Westminster building which has been the home of the English Parliament for many hundreds of years, prior to it becoming the Union Parliament in 1707. They too will meet with colleagues from the rest of the UK to settle Union matters at Westminster, which would also remain the home of the UK Parliament. It would be up to the elected English MPs to decide what office holders they wanted to carry out their business.
These proposals would
a) Restore symmetry and fairness between the different countries of the Union
b) Save money compared with a model which required yet more politicans to be elected to a new English Parliament, and compared to the present model with the current additional elected people in Scotland and Wales
c) Ensure full time use of the Westminster Parliament and facilities, and??better value from??all elected politicians.
d) Overcome some of the weaknesses of the Scottish (and English) Parliaments being the subsidiary bodies, dependent on tax and grant votes in the Union Parliament for the money they spend. If we carry on with two different sets of elected representatives, one in the each of the devolved bodies and one in the UK body, it provides every excuse for no accountability. The devolved representatives blame the Union for insufficient funds, and the Union MPs blame the devolved administrations for running things badly. No-one is to blame. if the same people carry out the devolved functions and share responsbility for the Union functions it is easier to establish accountability.
Of course the Union can only survive if enough people in all parts of it want it to. At some point we need a referendum throughout the Union on whether the settlement is working and whether the Union is still supported.
Parliament does not meet this week – we are having another nineteen day gap.
As someone who thinks there is too much legislation already I am not concerned that we are failing to produce new laws, but I am concerned that another nineteen??days pass when the government does not have to face questioning on any of its deeds or words. It also means that when we are allowed back more legislation will be rushed through with insufficient time to??examine and amend??it.??
??I am not surprised. Doubtless the government does not wish to be asked how the cash for peerages enquiry is proceeding, what influence they are having on Mr Bush’s new policy towards Iraq, how much??sway they have with Mrs Merkel who seems determined to bring back the much hated EU Constitution, or whether over the last month they have had any better thoughts on how to get some of the 5.3 million on benefit back to work.
Devolution
No, I am not proposing the abolition of the Scottish Parliament. I am suggesting that the same people that Scotland elects to Westminster should represent them in Edinburgh as well, whilst we English MPs represent people at Westminster on both the English and the UK issues. Scotland shows just how much money the public sector can spend on setting up a new devolved Parliament. England already has a Parliament building in London which should be used for the English issues as well as for the Union Parliament. Why waste money on a new building and another set of politicians?
??Railways
Yes, we should reunite track and trains on a route by route basis, and give the franchise holders greater freedom to invest in expansion of capacity. To do this a franchise holder will need more power to make decisions, and a longer franchise to make it worthwhile.