Month: February 2008

This morning we welcome a new country to Europe. The creation of Kosovo as another state in the unstable Balkans is a reminder of how strong are the passions of people over their identity. The differences between people in Europe have been sources of tension and conflict for centuries. The shifting pattern of settlement, the divisions over religion and creed, the impact of great migrations and the long shadow cast by history lie behind so many of the persistent disputes.

Although Europe now has 45 countries, there are those who would like to see more. Passion is on the side of more smaller units. It is only the politicians and bureaucrats who are the Empire builders, wanting to create neat and larger units, drawing artificial lines across territories that are themselves crossed by the deeper marks of history and culture.

Belgium is witnessing a classic struggle between the Flemish speakers and the French speakers, as the Flemish seek to establish their own independence from the larger country. The Basques have never been happy with rule from Madrid. Scottish Nationalists would dearly love to drop their link to London, whilst English nationalism is now growing. South and North Italy are not entirely happy companions in a single country.There are still disagreements about the ideal shape of the country map in central Europe. In each case there has to be a democratic way to settle these issues that meets with the approval of a large majority to create stability. As a supporter of the Union of the UK I know the government needs to do more to engage people in seeing why it has worked in the past and making them feel it is fair today.In some of these European cases the large majority will want to keep the bigger country where it has established deep enough roots and loyalties of its own. In other cases people will want a redesign of the borders.Past attempts to unite the Scandinavian lands fell apart. Austria is once again an independent country. The two components of Czechoslovakia prefer their divorce to marriage.The three small Baltic states love their ability to go it alone.

I remember discovering just how deep these feelings can run, and how small the units are that command allegiance, when I inherited the task of remodelling Welsh local government. The 1970s reorganisation created large and unpopular units in many parts of England and Wales. The proposed 1990s scheme I inherited had been based on a bureaucratic view of how large a unit you needed to have a “viable” Council. The bureaucratic idea of viability bore no relationship to how people felt about themselves and their area. I decided instead to recreate the old counties of Wales, and to free the larger boroughs, giving to each their own unitary Council. Wherever I did this it was popular. I remember the representatives of Merthyr, overjoyed that I would give them their own Council after all, saying to me that they would have made me a Freeman of the Borough if only I hadn’t been a “Tory”! That was praise indeed.

The official machine disliked all these concessions to history and to feelings. They complained at every new extra Council I wanted to create. We ended up with the battle of Powys, which naturally split into the three old Counties of Brecknock, Radnor and Montgomery. Radnor was tiny, and I buckled over how feasible it would be for it to have its own all purpose local authority. I tried to free Montgomery from Powys, but Radnor and Brecon hated that solution even more. I set up a scheme for devolved decision taking in each County by the Councillors elected for that County in Area committees, so they could have some of the advantages of independence alongside the economies of the larger unit. It was not what they really wanted. They wanted independence. I regret not insisting that we split the three Counties, as I had done for the others, for identity does matter.

I wish Kosovo well, and hope that its independence will bring it more happiness. All those in government should remember just how local loyalties are, and how strong a sense of place and history people have. As a negotiating Minister in the EU I could still feel the fault lines from Reformation Europe. As a Minister involved in local government reorganisation in the 1990s it was obvious that the new and larger constructions of the 1970s had not settled down and had not won popular consent. There are still parts of Europe that feel they are governed from the wrong place by the wrong people. If we want a happier Europe we need more countries, not less, and more freedom for their governments,not more central control from Brussels.

Yesterday I went to meet the new Chief Executive of Wokingham Unitary Borough Council. Chief Executives come and go in local government, drawing good salaries whilst they stay, before moving on to larger Councils or quangos that spend more money and employ more staff. The last couple of Chief Executives at Wokingham have had three big issues on their desks, that have now been passed on to their successor.

The details of the issues will not concern most readers of this site, though they are similar no doubt to issues facing other Councils in the suburbs and shires. The interesting thing is to ask, Where does power lie now in this overgoverned but undermanaged country we live in? How much power does a Chief Executive, working to the brief of the Council leadership, have to get things done?

The three things that the Councillors agree about that sit on the CEO’s desk are that Wokingham is experiencing too much new housing development on green fields, that it needs a redeveloped Town Centre (including some new residential units), and that it needs a new station and transport interchange. These items have sat on the same desk – with different people looking at that from behind that desk – for the last ten years.

My electors are right in thinking that a project like a new station requires efforts from national and local government, from Network Rail and from the Council. In 2001 I included in my election proposals support for a new station and transport interchange. I was careful not to claim I could deliver one. An Opposition MP has no executive power and no budget for such things. I took plans to the Council, the government and Railtrack/Network Rail. I explained how the land – owned by the public sector – could be used for a suitable development which would give enough planning gain to pay for a new station. I reasoned that the Labour government favoured rail travel. It had a policy to modernise the railway. Even assuming it wouldn’t want to spend any additional public money in an area like Wokingham, our golden acres could come to the rescue and raise the money for a suitable scheme. Ministers confirmed they liked the idea of modernising stations out of property profits at Network Rail. Schemes were drawn up. The Council was enthusiastic. The Chief Executive was given it as a task to see it through. Nothing happened. In the 2005 election I dropped all reference to supporting such a scheme, as I concluded that Network Rail simply isn’t up to doing something like that.

My electors are also right in thinking that the national government is heavily involved in all the building on floodplain and over the remaining greenfields which they so dislike. Councillors and their executives are locked in difficult arguments about whether to confront the government and lose, or whether to co-operate with the government and gain more cash from developers when they get planning permission. As an Opposition MP I join with my colleagues to demand more local planning control, and to vote against the centralising measures this government pushes through. The Council has to conform to government requirements in the local plan, and finds that if it turns down too many proposals the government simply trumps it on appeal. If the Council co-operates it can do a better deal for the local community over any given planning application, at the cost of some electors thinking they have been let down by their Councillors who should have opposed it to the last ditch.

The third item on the CEO’s desk is the need for a redevelopment of the Town Centre. In this case the Council has granted planning permission, but the developer is still not in a position to carry out the works. For once it is not government that is the problem, but getting all the private interests together and pointing in the same direction. It is an interesting challenge for the CEO, and one which has defeated her predecessors.

It all adds to people’s sense of frustration with government. The Council they elect cannot have its way on planning matters, and cannot get the nationalised railway company to follow the stated policy of the government that owns it on our behalf. Even when MP, Council leadership and the Council executive team are united on what to do, the stifling inadequacies of central government and Network Rail, or the deliberate wish to follow a different policy in the case of planning conspire to prevent progress or to thwart the will of the community.

The Chancellor makes a habit of clumsy speeches. In the great tradition of telling the banks they had been badly run and would not be bailed out just a few days before he guaranteed the deposits of any bank in trouble, yesterday he popped up again and says the City is paying people too much for poor performance. He would like to see their pay cut.

For once I will agree with him. I think if someone presided over a large organisation which lost all the personal details of half its customers, the boss’s pay should be cut. If someone presided over the first bank run in more than a hundred years, their pay should be cut. If someone rushed out press threats to tax Non Doms more, only to have to withdraw some of the proposals because they were too damaging, his pay should be reduced. If someone decided to increase capital gains tax by 80% for entrepreneurs, and then had to climb down on part of that proposal, we should look at how much they were being paid.

Can anyone think of someone on high pay who might fall into any of these categories? And what should happen to the pay of someone in the unlikely event that they managed to do all four? Should he be paying us to carry on in the job?

It is an easy drive to Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury or Waitrose from my home. None of them are easy to reach by train or bus. I think we are well served by our competitive supermarkets – but not by our monopoly public transport.

It was typical of the OFT and the Competition Commission to pick on successful UK businesses for their latest set of press releases, and amusing to see a Judge stand up to the OFT and criticise it for its very New Labour failing of chasing headlines, without proper concern for due process and the impact of its populist remarks.

The Supermarkets stand accused of responding to the government and popular pressure to pay farmers more for the milk they supply. The Competition Commission apparently thinks we are short of quangos in this country, and wants the public to fork out for another one, this time to act as an overseer of all the supplier contracts supermarkets enter into. When will these people learn that we are not short of regulators, and that there is a price to pay for endless layers of supervision?

If the guardians of competition want to do something useful they should look at the exploitation of monopoly, with high costs and high prices, in some of our important services. Why don’t they investigate:

1. The surge in costs at Network Rail after nationalisation, and the high access charges to track
2. The high and rising costs of the postal service
3. The absence of cost effective and reliable train services in many places
4. The poor performance of many rubbish collection services allied to high Council taxes
5. The rising costs and poor performance of some water monopolists over flood control, with rationing when it’s dry weather for a bit.
6. The high charge for a BBC licence allied to its persistent pro bigger government and pro EU bias

If I don’t like one of the local supermarkets I can go to another or to the corner shop. I think they all do a fantastic job with sensible prices, They offer high quality, great choice, flexible hours. Tesco is the market leader currently,because more people choose to shop there than elsewhere. If Tesco ever lost its understanding of what we, the customers want, if it became too expensive or stocked the wrong things, it would lose its position. There is plenty of aggressive competition from others trying to take the first place away from the leader. Tesco’s record at running a profitable, socially accoutnable business is excellent. Its stores participate in their local communities,and the buyers flex the product range as they see customer tastes altering.

If I don’t like my rubbish service I still have to use it, and have to pay the bill under threat of prison if I withheld money for poor performance. If I don’t like the local train service, or find it is not convenient, I have to lump it. If I want a different water service I am out of luck. If I don’t want the additives in the water which are standard supply I have to put up with them.

It’s high time the government, the Competition authorities and the regulators got stuck into these real examples of poor service and high price. Meanwhile, the fact that so many of my constituents choose to go to Tesco shows they must be doing something right.

The Bank of England yesterday bowed to the inevitable and warned us that we will become worse off this year. Many people already feel worse off, after the huge increases in food and energy costs that we have experienced in recent months. There was no apology for leaving credit too loose a couple of years ago, and no public recognition that the Bank had kept conditions too tight last summer and autumn as the bakdrop to the Northern Rock crisis. There was no revision to the absurd line just before the Northern Rock crisis struck that banks had been foolish in their lending and there would be no bail outs!

The Bank is right that they are boxed in – boxed in by government spending that is too high, by a public sector whose productivity is too low, by past credit excess and rising prices, and by the more recent Credit crunch which is having a big impact on property. The Bank is partly boxed in by governemnt mistakes – the government should have reined back more on wasteful spending earlier, and cut public borrowing – and partly by its own erratic performance on money growth.

We now have a boom and bust approach to credit creation – boom in 2003-6, bust in 2007. We have had boom and boom in public spending. Now we see the government fighting to get to grips with the problem of over spending.

I am glad the Conservative leadership has responded to those of us who have asked that we should not match all of Labour’s spending plans in the future. We should keep all the teachers, nurses, doctors, police and armed services personnel, for they only cost under one quarter of publilc spending. We should not keep all the quangos, regional governments, ID cards, computerisation schemes, advertising budgets and management consultancy contracts. They do not represent value for money and they are squeezing the public needlessly.

The National Post of 13 December 2007 reproduced the text of a letter sent by 100 leading climate scientists and other experts to the Secretary General of the United Nations. The letter told him that “There has been no net global warming since 1998”. It urged the UN to concentrate on encouraging national and international efforts to adjust to whatever climate changes might lie ahead, rather than thinking UN action could stop climate change.

This winter has been particularly severe in large parts of the Northern hemisphere. China has been experiencing Artic conditions, with heavy snowfalls disrupting travel and economic activity. Temperatures have been falling to 20 degrees below zero in the mountains and on the steppes of the former Soviet Union. There are reports of frozen rivers and frozen hydro electric systems leaving people with no power and no heating in the appalling cold.. This is not proof of a new ice age – just a reminder that weather is difficult to predict and variations can be wild.

Here in the UK a wet summer has been followed by the occasional wet period in the winter. The flood threat is ever present. The government dashes around issuing press releases, setting up enquiries, promising more of our money in future years, but still does not get on with the jobs of clearing water courses, improving ditches and working with the water authorities and local authorities to strengthen our flood defences.

I have put in evidence to the Prime Minister, at his request. I have put the same evidence to DEFRA. I have given written and oral evidence to the Pitt Review. I have had meetings with people from the Environment Agency and the local Council, and have exchanged many a letter with water companies and all the army of regulators and governors in this area.

It is a prime example of massive spending on a lot of well intentioned regulation and administration, with all too little of the money being spent on anything useful. The final irony is the possibility that many of the government’s planned 3 million new homes will be built on flood plain.

The government has been struggling with Gordon Brown’s sweeping dictat that there will be 3million more new homes by 2020. When he announced it it was difficult to see how people would afford them, as house prices were soaring out of sight of the would be first time buyer. Now prices are weakening, it is difficult to see which housebuilders will be able to afford to build so many. Offering people homes on floodplains, after the images of last summer, will not be an easy sell. It will be even more difficult if insurers say they will not insure them, or if they want high premiums for taking the risk.

The answer to all this is simple. The government should spend more of its current huge regulatory budget in this area on practical measures to improve flood defences. It should not allow building on floodplain, unless the developer has a scheme which will ensure no flooding and make a contribution to better water management. Mr Brown should recognise that a 3 million target may be difficult to achieve in the current climate. Housebuyers are put off by the declines in house prices, and housebuilders are constrained by tight credit and shrinking margins on their work. The government should b e relieved if the housebuilding rate does not fall. They should not expect in these current difficult economic conditions to see a surge in housebuilding to the new higher levels of the PM’s imaginings.

It is typical of this government that Parliament should not be meeting on this day of all days.

On 13th February 1689 “the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons assembled at Westminster” presented a declaration to the new sovereigns, King William and Queen Mary.

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This declaration, known as the Bill of Rights, established Parliamentary supremacy over the Crown in important areas, and guaranteed Parliament’s freedoms .It did so that the people could practise the religion of their choice, avoid arbitrary manipulation of their laws and require redress of ills before they had to pay taxes.
The Declaration included amongst other articles:

“That the pretended power of suspending the laws or the execution of the laws by regal authority…is illegal

That the levying of money for or to the use of the Crown ….without grant of Parliament…is illegal

That the raising or keeping of a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with the consent of Parliament, is illegal

That election of Members of Parliament ought to be free

That the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament

And that for the redress of all grievances, and for the amending, strengthening and preserving the laws, Parliaments ought to be held frequently”

This new settlement was designed to put an end to the rule of James II and of any other King who thought he could govern without Parliament, raise money without Parliamentary approval, suspend the laws and manipulate the army.

It proved effective. All subsequent monarchs had to acknowledge Parliament’s power, and seek accommodations with Parliament when they needed money, wanted to amend the law or wished to drive through important changes in the nation.

It is sad that today’s Parliament allows itself to be regularly suspended, to be timetabled into subservience on crucial matters, sidelined by Ministers who tell the media before the Commons, and overruled by Brussels. If Mr Straw wants a new constitutional document, he could do worse than enforce the provisions and spirit of the Declaration of Rights, one of the central documents to emerge from our predecessors’; struggles for liberty and free speech.

Why oh why do Labour MPs put up with it – their government is preventing Parliament meeting all this week. We cannot discuss the government’s climb down on the Non doms, the state of play on the Northern Rock bids, the inflation rate or anything else that matters. No wonder people are fed up politics – it’s a different world from the commercial one where people have to work every week to pay the wages.

On the eve of Valentine’s day we should ask Is love enough? There must be as many young men attracted to their sweethearts as ever, as many young women dreaming of their wedding day as ever. We also know that the rate of divorce is high, the hesitation about marriage is pushing it later for many couples, that all too many couples struggle to stay together when the cake and the honeymoon fades in the memory.

We have to recognise that there has been huge social change in recent decades. I was blessed to be brought up by parents who enjoyed – and still enjoy – a good marriage. I remember being surprised as a teenager by a surprise remark of my late grandmother, who opined that if she could have her time again she would never have married. I had taken it for granted that my grandparents, like my parents, had a good marriage as they were always together when I saw them. Her words made me reappraise, and see the heartbreak and the misunderstandings behind the institution of marriage.

In my grandparents day it was almost unheard of to think of divorce. There was shame in it. Contrived adultery often had to be arranged if there was no real adultery on offer to persuade the courts that the marriage had failed. Because divorce was unusual people felt the pressures of society to stay together.

There was also economic necessity. Most marriages survived – and some thrived – on the splitting of the work. The men took on the paid employment so their wages could pay the rent and the food bills. The women did the rest, washing the clothes, preparing and cooking the meals, making the home. Much of that was hard physical work, without the labour saving devices we take for granted. A man did not want to wield the broom or cast the needle – or thought he couldn’t – it was not his province. The woman did not expect to clean the shoes or earn the income – that was her husband’s role. This economic model forced the unhappy to stay together, depending on each other economically but building their own interests and circles of friends for the little leisure time they had. The man would go to pub or club, the woman to her circle of family and neighbours. It probably also encouraged more love and companionship between others, as they came to respect or admire what the other achieved in the male and female spheres. They were partners, not competitors.

My parents generation saw some shift in this. My father would help with home tasks that his father’s generation would have spurned. My mother did take a paid job outside the home when I became a teenager, to supplement the family income. The basic pattern still had a lot in common with the pre war generations, but it was on the move.

Subsequent generations have seen this old model pulled apart. There is no longer the same rigid distinction between man’s work and woman’s work. Men change nappies, run the hoover, stack the dishwasher, peel the vegetables. Women get well paid jobs, use the paint brush, drive the car. This very multiskilling which can bring lovers into closer friendship, can also teach both woman and man they can live on their own. They do not need “the other half” as they can be the whole article themselves.

A woman’s ability to earn a living, and a man’s ability to cook a meal and wash a shirt can make each party less tolerant of each other. There is less need to compromise when living together – there is another option. Some ask if the wife or husband does not live up to expectations, then why carry on?

Many politicians would like to save or strengthen marriage, but show some humility as many have found keeping their own marriages too difficult a task.

Some of my colleagues believe that offering a tax break for marriage can change all this. I agree it could help. It is a perverse incentive to create a tax and benefit system which makes people better off if they live apart or alone. We should not think however, that it will be a complete answer. Women’s economic freedom is a good thing, but it naturally increases the pressures against marriage or long lasting marriages, as it removes the need of their grandmothers and great grandmothers to grit their teeth and carry on for economic necessity. The saying “You’ve made your bed and now you have to lie on it” sounds hopelessly dated and unrealistic. Today many more people think that if they have made the wrong bed they will change it instead.

A consumerist world produces a culture of instant gratification. Some see their marriages through the distorting images of the rich and famous having the perfect day for their wedding, more than they understand the subsequent rupture of so many of those celebrity alliances.

If marriage is to be strengthened we need to think more about how it can work and what legal framework it needs in this very different society. It requires friendship as well as love, tolerance and understanding as well as passion and attraction. The very differences between men and women that make much of the excitement and romance, can become the sources of tension and disagreement later. Men like things, women are fascinated by relationships. Men want to talk about Manchester’s team tactics, or the performance of the latest car: women want to talk about feelings and moods. There needs to be give and take to make it work, and goodwill on both sides. There is no easy quick fix for politicians, as expectations of marriage have outrun the average experience of it. The attitudes towards income and property in family law when marriages are broken up seem dated, based on a different model of the roles of men and women.

Tomorrow there will still be many young men buying the roses and the chocolates, sending the cards, and summoning up courage to tell someone they love her. There will be many young women hoping for the invitation, and wanting to receive the gifts. I wish them a lovely day.