Author: johnredwood

Apparently people want me to go over this again. Here’s a few of the proposals I have put to government

1 Legislate to remove the NI Protocol by resuming the Bill in The Lords which passed the Commons with a majority of 71. That will remove EU laws from NI.

2. Abolish VAT on domestic fuel

3 Abolish permanently VAT on green products

4 Repeal The Ports Directive

5. Replace product specifications with a strong general duty on product safety and a merchandise quality rule

6. Suspend the emissions trading and carbon tax scheme which makes the UK very uncompetitive leading to more imports of energy intensive goods with no CO 2 savings

7. Remove the ban on making petrol and diesel cars after 2030

8. Change rules and taxes governing UK auction houses to match New York, removing EU imposed charges and taxes which lost us market share

9. Amend General Data Protection Regulation to cut costs and bureaucracy  to small charities and businesses whilst keeping suitable protections for individuals

10. Change fishing regulations to give priority to UK vessels and landings in UK ports

 

Some  of the ones from the Duncan Smith report:

.
1.5. Use digital sandboxes to test innovations more quickly and ensure regulation
is based on evidence of impact.
1.7. Give regulators statutory objectives to promote competition and innovation in
the markets they regulate.
1.8. Delegate greater flexibility to regulators to put the principles of agile regulation
into practice, allowing more to be done through decisions, guidance and rules
rather than legislation.
1.14. Set a UK standards strategy to promote the use of British standards
internationally as a way to boost UK influence and promote trade and exports.
SECTOR PROPOSALS
UK START-UP AND SCALE-UP FINANCE
3. Amend the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) and the Enterprise
Investment Scheme (EIS) to maximise Private Equity and Venture Capital
investment in growth industries.
3.1. Amend the age eligibility requirements for companies to access investment
through EIS and SEIS to ensure businesses outside London and the south
east benefit equally.
3.2. Increase the maximum level of SEIS investment.
3.3. Commit to the continuation of EIS beyond 2025.
DATA
7. Replace the UK General Data Protection Regulation 2018 with a new, more
proportionate, UK Framework of Citizen Data Rights to give people greater
control of their data while allowing it to flow more freely and drive growth
across healthcare, public services and the digital economy.
7.1. Reform GDPR to give people meaningful control of their data.
7.2. Reform GDPR for artificial intelligence, including by removing Article 22 of
GDPR and focussing instead on the legitimacy of automated
decision-making.
11.6. Streamline clinical trial set up by HRA adopting automated AI or digital
processing of ethical and trials approvals.
11.7. The MHRA and HRA should accelerate the adoption of novel clinical trial
processes through better digitising of trials applications and data and use of
novel models like UK Trials Acceleration Programme (TAP) and IMPACT with
the capacity to deliver registration level trials.
11.8. Replace the Caldicott data guardians with a HRA Single Data Controller
˜One-stop shop€™ for Health Research Information Governance with
harmonised committees to reduce bureaucracy and standardise processes.
11.9. Establish a centralised health dataspine, where all data is stored for ease of
access by approved users across the health network, with standardised
format and approval routes for data collection and curation.
11.11. Accelerate Access to innovation by establishing clear digital framework for
Conditional Approvals and Adaptive Licensing of new therapies like gene
therapies based on data including from the new Electronic Patient Recorded
Outcomes Measure (EPROMs) dataspine.
11.12. Expand the MHRA remit and Innovation Team to include promotion of UK
leadership in innovative trial design, new accelerated access regulatory
pathways, standardising format and approval routes for data collecting,
curating and collation, and use of novel clinical and digital biomarkers and AI.

11.14. MHRA to work with stakeholders to establish a UK Regulatory Innovation Hub
on the same model as the US Centers of Excellence in Regulatory Science14. MHRA to work with stakeholders to establish a UK Regulatory Innovation Hub
and Innovation (CERSIs).
11.15. Regulation of medical cannabinoids and medicinal CBD should move from
the Home Office to DHSC / MHRA to create a regulatory pathway for
assessment and approval based on patient benefit.

AGRI-ENVIRONMENT
13. Replace EU rules with an integrated agri-environment framework which better
supports the development of more environmentally sustainable agriculture,
with more proportionate and evidence-based, outcomes-focussed regulation…
13.6. Deliver a common-sense solution to transitioning chemical registrations from
EU to the UK REACH.
13.10. Remove burdensome EU regulation on the animal feed industry, whilst
maintaining rigorous safety standards.
AGRICULTURAL GENOMICS
14. The UK Government should actively support research into and commercial
adoption by UK farmers and growers of gene edited crops, particularly those
which help the transition away from agrochemicals to naturally occurring
biological resilience.
14.1. Interpret current GM rules on a case-by-case basis, to permit specific crops
with proven benefits and which are consistent with the UK s rigorous
standards on food safety and environmental protection.
SPACE AND SATELLITES
15. Through reform of the Space Industry Act, the Government should address the
indemnity and liability issues currently holding back investor confidence in the
UK as a satellite launch and operations hub.
15.1. Amend the Space Industry Act 2018 to cap liability and indemnity
requirements for licence applicants to launch and operate satellites from the
UK.
(EO) data regulatory policy framework.
NUTRACEUTICALS
OTHER TARGETED REFORMS
17.1. Amend the Weights and Measures Act 1985 to allow traders to use imperial
measurements without the equivalent metric measurement.
17.2. Develop an optional e-labelling system for devices with screens or that can be
connected to a screen, to display compliance information.
17.3. Repeal the Port Services Regulation 2019 (SI 2019 No. 575) to remove
unnecessary, EU-derived regulatory burdens on UK ports.
17.4. Liberalise parallel import laws to reduce prices and increase choice for
consumers.
17.5. Urgently review guidance on hand sanitisers so that tested, effective
non-alcohol based sanitisers can be used

 

 

Kemi Badenoch in her Telegraph article implies she had to back down over removing a lot of needless or damaging EU law because the civil service were unable or unwilling to do the work to sort out the good from the bad amongst the 4000 laws they had identified and transferred to the UK from the EU. Her critics will say it is for Ministers to decide. She could have insisted that this was her priority and could have ensured enough resource to do the job. Her friends will say she was victim of a civil service that intends to defend every EU law, wishing to keep the UK aligned with Europe as closely as possible, and working with the EU and Opposition parties that never wanted the UK to leave. She certainly did not  herself identify some of the more obvious ones and make the  case for their repeal in public as you would  have hoped she might do.

I do not buy the line that the civil service could not read and understand all the EU law in the seven years that have passed since the vote and offer sensible advice over the merits and demerits of the inherited laws. There is plenty of evidence that the civil service is alive to the EU legislative inheritance, and many cases where they have been keen to save it in  case Ministers wanted to amend or remove it. The latest Energy Bill has a big chunk of draft UK legislation confirming EU laws and schemes and putting it into UK law. The civil service note providers were kind enough to tell us they are doing that in case the EU Retained Law Bill otherwise dropped these laws! The civil service was particularly keen to keep us aligned with EU data rules, so Ministers were persuaded to put all that into directly acting UK laws as well as transferring it as part of inherited EU law. There are other cases from finance to environment.

Conspiracy theorists will say the UK gave in to all the EU demands over the Northern Ireland  Protocol. These always included stopping the NI Protocol Bill in the UK which would have resolved matters unilaterally and might have also included a secret promise to dump the EU retained Law Bill. Others will think this is just another example of weak Ministers giving in to officials who did not want to lose any EU law and who therefore decided to make it more difficult for any Minister wishing to do so.

We are offered a list claiming to be 600 measures which will go. Most of the items on the list have already time expired or relate to EU international agreements which clearly no longer affect the UK as we are not members covered by them. There are items relating to 1990s agricultural settlements long gone, to Olympics special measures for the London games, and a range of temporary controls for things like BSE which have passed. It is tidy to clear them up but makes no difference to the costs of doing business or the freedoms in our daily lives.

For this policy to work there needs to clear areas where unhelpful rules and charges disappear, so people and businesses can do more more easily. So Kemi should include getting rid of the  carbon taxes and emission trading, the complex product specifications, many of the VAT impositions, simplify the data regime, abolish the Ports Directive, and many others often mentioned on this site. She should revisit Iain Duncan Smith’s Report on repealing EU laws which sits unimplemented.

 

There is something badly wrong with the Bank of England’s forecasts for inflation. The absence of money and credit from their thinking seems to guarantee they get it wrong. Because they get the forecasts wrong they get the policy wrong.

Their aim is to show inflation will be around the target of 2% in two years time. Quite reasonably they allow themselves some shorter term flexibility around this longer term target. Their problem includes an overwhelming tendency to lurch based on what has just happened to inflation. I call it rear view mirror driving, when what they need is a better view of the road ahead to avoid a crash.

Let us take the last two years. In May 2021 the Bank concluded that inflation in two years time would reach 2%. Because immediate past inflation was below target they decided to carry on with an interest rate of 0.1% and with printing more money to buy up bonds. The more bonds they bought the higher the prices went so the lower the longer term interest rates went. It was an invitation to a credit party where the credit was so cheap. Some of us at the time warned against more money printing and further lowering of longer term rates, pointing to the already visible recovery in the economy and the increases in money and credit. “I see no inflation coming” meant they were looking the wrong way.

By May 2022 the inflation was already well set. It hit 5.5% before the invasion of Ukraine, and then went higher as the energy and food price consequences of that came in. The Bank set an interest rate of just 1% and said rates might in future need to get up to 2.5%. On that basis they forecast inflation would be back down to 2% by 2024 and below target at 1.3% in 2025. Some hope.

This May they decided to hike interest rates by an additional  25bp or 0.25% to 4.5% and continue with a large bond selling programme designed to cut money and credit further and drive rates higher. On that basis they forecast 2% inflation by 2025 which may be nearer the mark. Unfortunately it comes with the price of overdoing the tightening meaning a bigger real income squeeze and a big slowdown in growth. They are  now mesmerised by the inflation they have created and unable to see that the dramatic money tightening they have undertaken will come through. So they now want to do too much too late. The rear view mirror tells them to slam on the brakes when the  vehicle is scarcely moving.

I am told grown ups follow Treasury orthodoxy and admire the Bank of England with its independence. The governments that have followed these luminaries have usually put the economy through a boom/bust cycle and have invariably lost if they own the bust.

Edward Heath accepted advice to introduce competition and credit control in the early 1970s when the dollar went off the gold standard. A big inflation was created, to be followed by a sharp collapse just in time for the 1974 elections which Heath lost. There was a secondary banking crisis and property slump. The Labour government which followed i chose an inflation prone high borrowing high tax strategy of its own which ended in a further bust when it collided with financial reality.

John Major adopted Treasury and Bank advice by joining the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. Some of us warned this would be damaging and destabilising but the grown ups knew best. They brought on an inflation by printing too much money to keep the pound down, then a savage recession by slashing money to try to rescue a tumbling sterling. The Conservatives went down to a huge defeat even though Labour , the CBI and TUC had all backed the failed policy.

Gordon Brown and Tony Blair in the period 2005-9 accepted Treasury and Bank advice that they could allow a major expansion of banking credit and debt because there had been a new model of global banks that would magically smooth away the risks of excessive leverage. Indeed Gordon Brown didn’t just accept this woeful official advice but was part of the world foolishness that generated the idea. The Parliamentary opposition warned against so much state debt and private borrowing. The official advice shifted to demanding a deep recession to wipe out the inflation and some of the debts. Gordon Brown as PM agreed and was thrown out of office as a result.

Today it is possible to avoid the bust. The official advice has already given us the big inflation. According to government and Opposition the Bank is independent and is responsible for enforcing the 2% inflation target. It has lamentably failed, allowing inflation to hit 11%. It blames external events beyond its control, yet it did not warn us of the big inflation coming and fails to explain how Japanese, Swiss and Chinese inflation stayed down if it was just a matter of high international energy prices.

As constitutionally the government is responsible for the huge balance sheet the Bank of England has created by borrowing to buy up a load of bonds, the government should tell the Bank to stop selling these bonds back into the market at large losses as they are currently doing. taxpayers should not have to take the hit. Money and credit are tight. To avoid the recession action is needed now. The Bank has done too much too late to conquer inflation. Its inflation forecasts yo yo around  undermining the credibility of its actions.  How can anyone admire a Bank which deliberately bought too many bonds at crazily high prices and then wants to sell them at much lower prices to make the taxpayers pay for the losses?

John Redwood, Wokingham, Conservative: 
I agree with the Secretary of State that we need more energy independence and more domestic energy, so why does the Bill propose a 140% increase in imported energy through interconnectors, which will make us more dependent and very vulnerable?

Grant Shapps, Minister of State for Energy Security and Net Zero:
My right hon. Friend makes an excellent comment, as ever, on interconnectors, but I would point out that with the growing number of interconnectors, particularly electricity interconnectors, last winter, for example, we were able to export 10 TW to France through interconnectors, providing us with income. The answer is that they work in both directions, and in some cases, they provide the reliability of, for example, France’s vast nuclear fleet of 56 reactors. When whose reactors were down last winter—because even nuclear power sometimes has to come offline—we have been able to export our power to France, and it has been a net export. Our mission is to secure the clean and inexpensive energy that Britain needs to prosper.

Brexit has delivered two important changes that get no mention. We no longer pay annual contributions to the EU – and have increased the NHS budget by more than the savings and by more than proposed on the bus. We no longer come under the large amounts of new law coming out of Brussels, leaving us free to decide if we want a law at all and if so what would be the best one for us. Many hundreds of pieces of legislation passed since we left do not apply in GB.

The PM promised to carry on with the Bill planned by his predecessors, the EU Retained Law Bill. He saw the advantage of tailoring law to our needs. The aim was to remove all those inherited laws from the Statute book that were no longer relevant to us, the ones we had opposed unsuccessfully as members, and the ones where we could put  in place something more effective for us. Jacob Rees Mogg when Business Secretary got the civil service to produce a website or dashboard with all the pieces of relevant law listed.

When I set out to write this yesterday officials had taken the dashboard down and left a message saying this useful resource is “no longer available”. That was a chilling message. When I complained it reappeared.   It seems to square with news leaks that the current  Business Secretary wishes to dilute the legislation, turning it into a device to keep most EU laws instead of initiating the proper review we need. Officials were said to always have been reluctant to carry out the exercise and to recommend pruning EU law. Clearly some senior officials and some business lobby groups have forgotten the good reasons the UK had for trying to prevent or to modify endless EU legislative proposals when we were a member. My main recollection from my days as Single Market Minister were  many  discussions, lobbyings and meetings to try to stall or dilute unwanted legislation that mainly served to give the EU more powers over more areas of government and our lives. It was doing the detailed work as Single market Minister and seeing the damage to innovation, small business and enterprise that much of the regulation would do that made me consider changing our relationship with the emerging government of the EU.

The EU Retained law Bill passed the Commons with a large majority and little Conservative disagreement. It would be odd if Labour decided to use their peers to try to wreck one of the gains of Brexit close to an election, after they lost so many votes over trying to stop Brexit in the previous Parliament. I hope the PM tells the Business Secretary if she does want to dilute this to think again. We could be better for freeing ourselves of laws that cost too much and get in the way. Of course the plan was always to keep important employment, safety  and environmental safeguards and where necessary to continue with our UK policy of going beyond the core standards laid down by the EU in those areas.

Please find below my Interview with Talk TV’s Richard Tice where we discussed the Coronation, the local election results and net migration.

You can find my interview below between 26:18-36:48.

 

Yesterday we debated the Energy Bill. This piece of legislation has support from the main Opposition parties and is more to do with the road to net zero than how to have plentiful good value energy for homes and businesses. It proposes additional complex regulations to seek faster movement to a decarbonised future.

It raises a number of questions which I have been posing to Ministers and the wider public in my words on energy. They include

Why does it require a 140% increase in our interconnector capacity to be able to import more energy from the continent? If the aim is energy self sufficiency and more domestic production we should not need that extra spending on connectors.

How will a £20 bn spend on carbon capture and storage be paid for? The Secretary of State says the Uk has storage for £5 trillion of saved carbon costs, but as the saved carbon costs are presumably at least in part UK tax revenues foregone from emissions trading and carbon taxes, it is not obvious to see how the money is raised to purchase the facilities or how the costs of running them are defrayed, other than through other additional tax payments.

What impact will the higher standards for the energy performance of buildings have on the supply of rented accommodation? Isn’t there a danger more landlords will decide they cannot afford the extra costs of installation of energy saving measures and will withdraw their properties from the rented market? What will be the rent increase where they do put in the new measures?

The Bill talks about the need for more smart machines and more time switching to ration available electricity. People will not be able to come home from work, put an electric car on charge and turn on a series of home appliances all at the same time but will need persuading or requiring to run some machines and rechargers overnight when there is less electricity demand. What will the likely balance be between discounted night rates, penalty day rates and cut outs or bans on smart machine use and via smart meters?

The Bill perpetuates a complex system of managed prices, price controls, bidding competitions for rights to supply, windfall taxes, company subsidies and government interventions to try to ensure sufficient power. What impact does this wide ranging and frequently changing set of interventions have on private sector willingness to invest in future energy provision?

The government says it wants nuclear to play an important part of reliable domestic electricity supply, yet on current plans nuclear output reduces substantially this decade with various closures and only one opening of a new station. When will firm orders be placed for small nuclear installations?

Why is grid expansion proposed at only a doubling when if most people had electric cars and heat pumps and industry had gone largely electric we would need considerably more capacity than that?

The ever growing population of the UK means more to feed and clothe, more utilities needed, more to house and more needing school places and medical care. The UK needs to do more to promote extra capacity to meet these needs.

Instead tax and regulation is getting in the way of producing more. This decade we have lost 700,000 self employed when we need more to set up in business. The government should revert to IR 35 rules used prior to 2017. It should be easier to get started as self employed.

The Treasury should raise the VAT registration threshold from £85,000 to £250,000. Too many small businesses turn down business to avoid the need to register.

The government should remove the 31% hike to corporation tax. If it was really serious about more investment and getting the deficit down it would cut the rate to 15% to attract more large companies.

The government should lift the planned ban on making and selling new diesel and petrol cars in 2030. The ban is putting car companies off investing here.

DEFRA should stop offering grants to farmers to prevent them farming. The money for wilding should be switched to supporting growing food.

The Business Department should suspend the emissions trading and carbon tax system. This is imposing the highest taxes on UK steel, ceramics, glass and other intensive industries of the advanced world. It is leading to closures.

We need to foster enterprise and promote home production. That would bring prices under control.