Pauline Jorgensen is doing a great job as Leader of the Opposition on Wokingham Borough and is also the prospective Conservative candidate for the new Parliamentary seat of Woodley and Earley.
She keeps people informed and keeps in touch through her website paulinejorgensen.uk which residents of Earley and Woodley will find interesting.
Please find below the link to my participation in the Spectator’s ‘Has Brexit Failed?’ event at Conservative Party Conference last Monday
https://www.spectator.co.uk/podcast/has-brexit-failed/
The Lib Dem Council has a determination to spend huge sums on road consultants to come up with expensive schemes to make it more difficult to get to work by van or car, to impede deliveries made to our homes, to make life far more co0mplicated taking children to school and doing the weekly shop. This month they are consulting on the first part of a very expensive four part plan for the A 329, a crucial east west highway, between Winnersh and Wokingham. They want to get government money to cover their big costs, as if that was not more money taken from Wokingham taxpayers in a different way to the Council Tax. Government funds local Councils for the Councils priorities. The Council needs to have sensible priorities and to make good use of taxpayers money when it claims it. The Council will be on risk of the project overrunning or going wrong.
The idea is to create two wide cycle lanes either side of a reduced road for vans, lorries and cars. The current cycle lanes do not attract much use. The Council has clearly not studied who does use the road and why they use it. If they did they would find many of the uses cannot be done on a bike. The plumber and the decorator, the maintenance man and the parcel deliverer need a van to do their work. People taking young children to school do not want to try to supervise them on bicycles in the morning rush. People needing to carry home a week’s food shopping need a car. People wanting to complete a decent amount of work in a day that need to travel around often need the flexibility the car provides.
Spare us the anguish and the cost. People living along the road do not want major roadworks for months on end with all the noise and dust. People trying to do their jobs need to be able to use that main road.
The Government has provided updated travel advice to Gaza and Israel which I have reprinted below.
Our Travel Advice has updated to advise against all travel to Gaza and to nearby areas of Israel and to advise against all but essential travel to Israel. (www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/israel). We will keep this under close review. We are telling any British nationals in any areas affected by the fighting that they should follow the instructions of the Israeli Home Front Command.
My officials are working around the clock to support affected British nationals as our utmost priority. Our consular assistance must alas include support for the families of British nationals reported dead or missing. We are also supporting those who require new passports, or Emergency Travel Documents, or other assistance with leaving Israel and, where possible, facilitation for the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt. We are also asking affected British nationals to register their presence via (https://www.register.service.csd.fcdo.gov.uk/israel20231009/tell-the-uk-government-youre-in-israel-orthe-occupied-palestinian-territories) so that they can receive FCDO travel updates. We are aware that commercial airline capacity out of Israel is constrained and that some British nationals are having to delay their departure.
As mentioned above, any constituents who remain in Israel should follow the instructions of the Israeli Home Front Command. We are working with the Department for Transport and the Israeli government to keep commercial flights running. We are available 24/7 should any British nationals need to contact us, including to update their contact details or location. Our Crisis Response Centre is fully operational and we have embedded Police and other government liaison teams. British nationals in Israel or the Occupied Palestinian Territories requiring consular assistance should call the following numbers: +972 (0)3 725 1222 or +972 (2) 5414100. If they experience technical difficulties or if they are in the UK, call +44 20 7008 5000.
THE RT HON. JAMES CLEVERLY MP
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Secretary
Scottish devolution when voted on at the end of the last century was claimed to be the way to allow Scotland to perform better than England in public services and economic growth when they could run their own services and boost their tax revenues.
I have no intention of arguing we should seek to reverse a democratic decision taken in a referendum, and many Scots may well have voted for more Scottish decision taking however it worked out. It nonetheless sheds an interesting light on policies towards higher spending and higher taxes to see what Scotland has bought by choosing both. It is a perfect experiment compared to England over the last 23 years.
Scotland has imposed a higher 21% intermediate Income tax rate, a higher higher rate at 42% and a higher Top rate at 47% compared to the rest of the UK at 20%, 40% and 45%. This has helped Scotland to afford much higher public spending per head, though the bulk is paid for by a bigger grant from UK taxes. Scotland last year spent £13,881 per head on public services compared to £11, 549 in England.
If we take the two key services of health and education we see little advantage from these higher sums. Scottish pupils on average are well behind English ones in maths and science judged by international secondary school comparative assessment, and similar in English. The NHS in Scotland has more long waits to get NHS treatments than England and has a bigger percentage on waiting lists.
Meanwhile there has been no boost to growth from higher spending and taxes. Since 2000, the first full year of the Scottish Parliament, Scottish GDP has advanced 86.6% in cash terms compared to 106.2% for the UK as a whole.
Scottish voters need to ask some tough questions of their government. Why aren’t public services better for all the extra money? Why is economic growth lagging so badly? It also warns England that a further hike in taxes and public spending would not deliver better results on this evidence.
So Labour wish to run large scale investment projects better than HS 2. They wish to halve the government’s use of consultancies, reduce the use of chartered planes for government Ministers and ensure more private investment is added to state investment to boost output.
This is not going to suddenly change the growth prospects, get inflation down faster or transform public sector management. Consultancies may be due a hair cut, but you cannot say how many you need until you identify what they do and whether they are essential because the civil service does not have the skills and knowledge. Otherwise they should only be used where they are cheaper and better than in house.
Cutting down on plane use may afford some small savings though rail tickets are also dear these days and chauffeured cars do not come cheap. Most of us would like to see more private investment alongside or replacing public investment. The question is does the state identify enough projects that will earn a decent return to attract the investment? Labour’s wish to impose more windfall taxes will put off some private and foreign investors, reminding them that if their investment works the government will want to pocket more of the profits.
Labour promises us iron clad fiscal rules. They want to double up on Treasury forecasts and an independent Office of Budget Responsibility . They will make every decision on tax and spend dependent on a report and forecast by the OBR. They should have learned that that very system allowed a huge increase in spending and borrowing over covid when they backed government spending plans and urged more. It then led to big rises in tax revenues which they attack. Chancellors have to make judgements as they will be blamed for the results. The OBR needs to amend its models so it can forecast the levels of tax revenue and borrowing more accurately than it has been able to do in recent years. We need an accurate guide to help steer the ship. How would they restore lost productivity with public sector Unions keen to expand workforces?
I was pleased to attend the opening of the new unit at Maiden Erlegh School on 29th September. The new unit offer staff and pupils a great new space for their activities and reflects the effort Maiden Erlegh puts into offering a good service and plenty of support for pupils with additional needs. I wish them all well in the new Centre as the school expands, offering a good education to more pupils.
On Friday evening local Conservatives met for an excellent dinner at the Sand Martins Golf Club. Our guest of honour was Iain Duncan Smith
Iain spoke to us as one who has dedicated so much time, effort, and fund raising to working with a range of charities to give people a better chance in life. He has worked with those who help people off drugs and alcohol, help equip people for work, assist those who are disabled and and young people who need access to sport, recreation and other facilities. He was the architect of the main welfare policy, making it always worthwhile to get a job with help from the Employment service to do so.
He gave us the benefit of his experiences, told us an amusing story about his time as a senior Minister, and set out how a Labour government would be damaging to our country.
The Taxpayers Alliance published a study showing that civil service numbers rose by 101,440 between 2016 and 2023. This was an increase of 24% and a bigger increase in numbers than the total strength of the British army. There has been a particular growth in top grades and the higher salary policy oriented posts, with 2,050 paid six figures and 195 paid more than £150,000.
In 2021-2 44,220 people left the civil service, or 8.6% of the headcount. 69,400 new people were recruited. This demonstrates that a decision to freeze recruitment can make a substantial difference quite quickly to overall numbers and to payroll costs. Ministers running such a scheme should be looking for considerably more than the 0.5% productivity gain suggested in the Chancellor’s speech,. given the large 7.5% fall in productivity since 2019.
Of course senior departmental managers should put cases to Ministers to allow external recruitment where a job is crucial and the skills are lacking in the current workforce on the departure of a key member of staff. In most cases there will be plenty of talent in the civil service to find an internal promotion. In many cases the departure of a staff member to retire or go elsewhere will trigger a review of whether that role can be abolished, amalgamated with another or allow the removal of some other role when the person is pro0motoed or moved into the key role.
The Chancellor has proposed £1bn of savings . As the typical cost of employing a person is around £50,000 taking benefits and direct costs on top of salary that equates to around 20,000 fewer posts through natural wastage. This is half the level that could be accomplished in the first year of the programme.