Author: johnredwood

I do not favour condescension or a triumphant blast of how wrong Labour has been, should Mr Corbyn prove victorious. We need to recognise that Mr Corbyn speaks for an important minority, and need to understand why the things he says are both popular to his audience and in some cases may make some sense to a wider group of voters. We need also to recognise that even if Mr Corbyn finally fails to secure the job of Leader, he has changed the Labour party by challenging the ” left of centrist” cynicism of Blair/Brown politics and by driving all his opponents leftwards as conventionally defined.

It is easy as a Conservative to disagree with the old and discredited parts of Mr Corbyn’s creed. He wants higher tax rates on the rich, which would mean less tax revenue, not more. He wants to nationalise large chunks of industry that has been privatised. We do not have the money to do that, and when they were nationalised they were riddled with troubles. Working for a nationalised industry was one of the best ways to lose your job, and the customers usually got a raw deal. He wants to undermine private rented housing, which will make the housing problems worse. He does not seem to understand that the main part of the railways is already nationalised and performing very badly as a result.

Mr Corbyn has issued three major more modern challenges to past Labour leaders and to the wider political nation. He thinks it would be wrong to continue with more wars and bombings in the Middle East. I agree we have fought too many wars in the last twenty years and need to be more circumspect in future. He wishes to oppose austerity. I agree that our aim should be prosperity, not austerity, though I disagree with his understanding that austerity is all about public spending.He also seems unaware that real public spending has risen, not fallen, in recent years. He wants to remove nuclear weapons and take us out of NATO. I disagree, but accept this is could be an argument to re-run in the post Cold War world we now live in.

I want the Conservatives to be the anti austerity party, showing how strong private sector led growth, more and better paid jobs and wider ownership are the way forward.

Mr Corbyn’s tunes of anti austerity and anti war can be attractive, which is why he is doing so well in his party’s contest. Conservatives should take him seriously. We need to repeat the arguments against nationalisation, bigger government and higher tax rates, where we have the best case and considerable popular support. These Corbyn policies help create a poorer country, not a successful economy. When it comes to the issue of the Middle East we need to be more careful. He is not all wrong. As for austerity, we want prosperity, which also requires working smarter and better in the public sector to get the deficit down.

In the last Parliament I raised the issue of overseas visitors coming to the UK to get free treatment. Ministers told me they were taking action to stop any abuse of our system. This week the Daily Mail has revealed that a person could come to the UK from another EU country, register with a GP, then return to that other country and claim UK money for the costs of any treatment there. It is good that the government wishes to stop this theoretical possibility. I doubt much of that is happening, and the figures for how much the UK has to pay the countries mentioned implies this is not a big loss at the moment. It is part of a much wider set of questions.

In order to run a National Health Service rather than a free service for the world Ministers need to ensure the following happens:

1. No visitor from outside the EU to the UK can have free access to non emergency health care. Visitors should be advised to come with insurance, and told they will be billed for any treatment they need whilst they are here. Panorama ran a programme showing that there have been scams with visitors obtaining expensive operations whilst staying in the UK for non urgent conditions. GPs should decline to register temporary visitors as NHS patients and should see them privately and charge the consultation to the patient or the insurance company. NHS hospitals should not offer free treatment to anyone who is not registered with an NHS GP, other than emergencies. They too should bill any overseas visitor needing treatment.

2. No visitor or worker from the rest of the EU should receive free treatment on the NHS without the GP or hospital filling in a claim form for the costs to be recharged to the country of origin of the individual concerned. Other countries are better at sending the UK the bills for our citizens needing treatment abroad, than we have been acting the other way. There is an agreed system for recharges.

I am writing again to Ministers to see how much progress has been made with enforcing these commonsense rules over access to care free at the point of use.

The Sunday Times raised the question when will the march of the makers speed up? When will the UK make more items and export them? It was a good question, but the answer was disappointing. The article concluded the government’s target to double exports by 2020 would not be hit, and gave as its main reason economic weakness in Euroland.It doubted the ability of the manufacturing sector to increase as a proportion of the whole economy.

The background is the relative strength of the UK service sector, and the resulting inability of manufacturing to grow faster than services. The reasons are more complex than recent weakness on the continent.As the article rightly pointed out there are some good successes in UK manufacturing. There has been strong growth in vehicle manufacture. UK pharmaceutical and aerospace are still good strengths. The main reason the proportion of the economy represented by manufacturing is not growing is the strong growth of the much larger service sector, itself no bad thing.

Over the week end I went to the shops. I saw a stunning array of manufactured consumer products available. Some of them were on sale at very low prices, making one wonder how the supplier of the raw materials, the manufacturer, the shipper and the retailer could all make a worthwhile profit from selling them. I bought a plastic handled washing up brush for 99p, only to given a free one as they were on two for one offer. I bought a pleasant looking and practical dustpan and brush set for £1.99. Leisure shirts were on offer for a few pounds each. I could have bought two excellent folding armchairs with carry cases for £10 for a pair. There was a stylish metal and glass table, four carver chairs and a centrally mounted umbrella for under £50 for the set. Meanwhile a two course lunch with a soft drink and coffee in a typical chain restaurant in the shopping centre would cost about £20 per head.
The value added seemed to be in the service sector. As always, the biggest winner from my shopping was the UK public sector, with a high car park charge, VAT, and fuel duties on my travel.

The UK is unlikely to find investors wanting to make simple plastic or textile items in the UK to compete with these prices, at a time of excess capacity in Asia. The UK’s skills lie in finding ways to retail and use the cheaper items. UK manufacturing is impeded by high energy prices, a common EU problem. Ceramics, aluminium, steel, glass, bricks, cement, tiles, petrochemicals and a wide range of other manufactured materials and products have very high energy costs. Even assembly activities these days may well incur energy costs several times the labour cost given the high degree of automation. UK manufacture usually needs to include strong branding, good design,and a high technical content, to be successful.The branding and marketing requirements in turn provide value added opportunities for the business service sector.

The UK’s long march of the makers will take time. It requires more engineering and science graduates, more manufacturing entrepreneurs, better transport links to raw materials and to final markets, and above all cheaper energy. The government has policies for these, but they are not quick fixes. In the case of energy EU controls make it very difficult to get competitive energy prices here in the UK. Meanwhile services are adding considerable value and are attracting more and more custom. The maker of the cup and saucer or the grower of the coffee or the farmer producing the milk may make less money than the coffee bar selling the finished product of the perfect latte or whatever. Brewing the beverage, retailing and providing a place to relax and drink adds more value in current markets, so that’s what more people do in the UK. If they sell these services to foreign visitors then it helps pay for the imports. If we sell the services to each other it generates incomes.

We are getting close to the time for the ballot papers to go out to Labour party members old and new. I would like to see some better questions put to the four candidates so we could know more about how they would conduct the Opposition in the next year when a number of important issues will be before Parliament. Their voice and vote could be immediately relevant to national decisions, given the small Conservative majority in Parliament.

1. Should Labour support or oppose bombing in Syria?
2. What should Labour demand from the renegotiation with the EU?
3. Are there any circumstances in which they would lead Labour to vote for Out of the EU?
4. What is their view of EU austerity policies? If they are against Euro and EU austerity policies what could they and the UK government do to amend or stop them?
5. Do they wish to reduce the level of migration into the UK? If so, what reduction do they seek? How would they achieve it?
6. Should Labour support Conservative measures to reduce EU migrants access to benefits and subsidised housing?
7. Should Labour vote against English votes for English needs? If so, what would they propose to give some justice to England in some other way?
8. Would rent controls and a private sector tenant right to buy diminish the supply of rented housing?

Labour has the power to decide whether the UK bombs Syria or not given the likely number of Conservative rebels. Labour could also have some influence over the renegotiations with the EU if they were prepared to engage and accept that the EU currently has too many powers.

Let’s hope our independent media puts these questions more clearly to the candidates soon. These are decisions Labour will soon have to make as a Parliamentary party and as the UK’s official opposition.

It is always a good idea to be careful when spending public money. You need to know what you are buying and how much it costs.
Successive governments – Labour, Coalition and now Conservative – have decided that Kids company allowed them to buy some important help and assistance for children at risk or leading poor lives. Camila Batmanghelidjh impressed Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg, and David Cameron sufficiently to make them all think sending money to her charity would achieve results for troubled children. She and the charity clearly had something unique to make a favourable impression on such different people and [arties.
The charity appeared to be very successful in its own terms. More and more young people sought its help. Each year it raised more money and spent more money, providing more young people with assistance. The last audited accounts I could find, for the year to December 2013, show a small surplus of revenue over spending, and modest cash balances available for the future. The auditors signed them off with no adverse findings.
Now we learn that some have thought for some time that the charity should have built up more reserves of cash so that it could carry on with its work for longer if money dried up suddenly. The critics do not seem to suggest a charity can or should create reserves allowing it to continue with no new grants and gifts for more than a limited number of months. This charity operated on the model of largely spending as money came in, rather than raising a substantial endowment fund to start with and then living off the income and gains on that. The Charity Commission did not veto that model.
So the issues are why did the charity conclude that it could no longer raise enough money to pay all its bills, and what are the allegations hinted at but not made in public that need to be examined – if any? (PS I do not wish to publish a series of unsubstantiated attacks on anyone, as these are now matters for a proper enquiry or report. It is a pity Parliament is not in session to ask for a Statement)
So far there has been plenty of innuendo and idle rumour, but apart from the criticism that the charity did not have much cash reserve little of substance.
Presumably the two Ministers who overrode civil service advice had reason to believe the charity was a useful means of delivering help to troubled youngsters, and was not the subject of serious allegations of any substance that would bring into doubt offering it more public money.

There are three main reason any the UK would be better off out of the current EU and its all embracing Treaty commitments.  The first is we would free to govern ourselves. The second is we would be better off financially. The third is the UK would have more influence in the wider world and would not be dragged into EU conflicts.

Today let us begin the case by looking at the question of self government. I find in replying to constituents that they are often surprised to be told that something cannot be done here in the UK, or requires a change of European law.  Successive governments have not stressed to electors just how much power has been given away in various treaties. Labour chose to understate and to deny transfers of powers when signing us up to the Nice Amsterdam and Lisbon Treaties. Mr Major was able to stress that the UK opted out of the main point of the Maastricht Treaty , but it too was part of a long journey to ever closer union.

Equally important has been the continuous flood of new Directives, regulations and court decisions coming from Brussels. The UK under a qualified majority voting system has often been persuaded to go along with unsatisfactory texts on the basis that an alternative would be worse. All too infrequently in recent years has the UK been able to resist a new EU law. Each Directive or regulation means another area which is no longer under the control of the UK Parliament and people. It is rare to persuade the EU to repeal or amend anything, unless to replace it with an even more far reaching proposal.

Under the original Treaty of Rome the UK surrendered its farming  policy and fishing grounds to EU control. Since then the EU has come to take over most financial regulation, employment law, health and safety law, competition law, environmental policy, energy policy, general business regulation, VAT and some aspects of Corporation tax, whilst also introducing collaboration on common European networks, foreign policy, Home affairs and borders. Welfare and general taxation, two areas we were always told were outside EU competence, have also been made subject to constraints or interventions by the EU and the European courts.

UK voters believe they live in a  country where public opinion can influence and change a government’s mind and the law, or can lead to a change of government to one who will. This is no longer true in all too many areas of life and law. The polls now show some realisation of this truth, with most people in the UK wanting power back from the EU, even if they still wish to remain a member. The Labour government made a big mistake in not being honest with UK voters about the magnitude of the power sacrificed under Nice, Amsterdam and Lisbon, and the large number of directives and regulations they approved. Each time we were told it was a tidying up exercise, or a modest proposal. In total it was a major slice of our power of self government needlessly given away.

Whilst the UK has held an official referendum and given people in Scotland the chance to vote for independence, the people of Catalunya have been given no such freedom by the Spanish state. The EU seems to be on the side of Spain, reluctant to see a rupture in one of the larger member states. This approach has helped fuel Catalan nationalism.

The forthcoming elections will allow the people of Catalunya the opportunity to make their views known again. The four main parties in favour of independence have come together as Catalyuna Si. If they can stay together with a common platform for the election, polls suggest they can do very well. The Spanish state will have to face the fact that a large and rich region within Spain is serious about leaving and being independent.

In the past there have been unofficial referendums pointing to strong support for independence, and election results that have boosted the independence cause. None of this has mattered, with the  Spanish state using legal Union means to thwart the popular will. The impact of the Euro and EU economic policy on Spain’s economy is clearly not helping those who want to keep Spain together, as it has depressed overall Spanish employment and income levels and left many in enterprising Calalunya thinking they would be better off outside the Spanish kingdom.

Why is the EU so hostile to democracy? Why can’t the Catalans have a referendum like Scotland? What will the EU and the Spanish government do if the Catalan parties win most of the seats and a majority of the vote in Catalonia?