Author: johnredwood

Lower for longer – money printing, low interest rates and helicopter drops

October 31, 2015 80 Comments

The UK has moved on from creating new money to buy government bonds, but it’s still mighty fashionable elsewhere. Sweden has just announced a new programme. Japan lives by it. The Euro area is pumping out new Euros like there’s no tomorrow. Interest rates remain close to zero in the USA, UK, Euroland, Switzerland, Sweden,  and Japan. At the Bank of England the Chief  Economist muses about some future need to create money, impose negative interest rates, and drop the cash so it can be spent. In China the authorities still have scope to cut their interest rates and relax rules on bank credit to stimulate their economy. The economic world is summed up in the phrase lower for longer about interest rates.

Risk averse savers see this as a nightmare world, where they can get practically no return on their deposits. Other savers have made good money out of rising share and bond prices, as the official money created has been pumped into markets and pushed asset prices up. Borrowers have been benefitting from the low rates, with many able to borrow or refinance at low rates of interest for long time periods. The main winners have been most advanced country governments, able to spend and borrow large sums at very low rates of interest.

So how does this all end? Does it end? Is it just the new normal? Crisis low rates imposed in 2009 have been in place ever since in most cases.  If the west is now more like Japan after her excessive boom and bust at the end of the 1980s, we can look forward to more of the same. Japan has had low interest rates and intermittent programmes of money creation for 25 years.

My problem with all this monetary experimentation in the Euro area, Japan and elsewhere is that it does not directly resolve the underlying problem. The main reason rates are low and these overseas economies are weak is the state of the commercial banking system. All the time the banks are weak or are made to be extra cautious by the regulators, there will be insufficient credit growth through the normal channels. If companies cannot borrow enough to expand, if individuals cannot borrow enough to buy new cars, homes and other  major purchases, if the corporate sector is forced to run a surplus by prudent banks  the economies do not grow. Too much credit is a bad thing. Too little credit makes it difficult to grow, stifles enterprise and stops people accumulating assets for the future. The UK banks are now in stronger shape and more capable of financing the recovery. The pity is they were not sorted out immediately after the crisis, and a bigger pity that Labour’s regulators allowed the mega mergers which created RBS and Lloyds HBOS in the first place. Now it’s the turn of other parts of the world to get their banking systems into recovery shape.

Website launched by government for people who want to buy a home

October 30, 2015 0 Comments

New website brings home ownership schemes together including Right to Buy, Help to Buy and the Help to Buy: ISA available from 1 December

A homebuyers website has been launched by the government to help hard working people who are looking to own their own home: www.ownyourhome.gov.uk

According to the British Social Attitudes Survey, 86% of people have the ambition to own their own home, and the government aims to support them with a target of helping one million people into home ownership through government backed initiatives by 2020.

Since 2010, over 200,000 people across the UK have already benefitted from the government’s home buying initiatives, opening the door to home ownership.

Visitors to the government’s new website are able to quickly find the schemes that could help them by answering a few simple questions.

Anyone thinking about home ownership – and those who believe it is out of reach – can find out more here: www.ownyourhome.gov.uk

Should we charge Germany to sell us their cars?

October 30, 2015 100 Comments

I wish to reassure our German friends.  I see no need to impose a charge on Germany to go on selling us so many goods if we leave the EU.

In return for this friendly and comradely act, I am sure the Germans would not seek to impose a charge on us for importing their vehicles, or for selling them a few back.  The Germans know they sell us twice as much as we sell them.

There is no need to pay a surcharge to buy their imports in the form of sending a contribution to the EU budget. We do not have to send a contribution to the US or Chinese budgets in order to trade with them, though they are both  bigger and more powerful than us.

The UK voters will be happy to carry on trading with the rest of the EU on the same basis as today if we leave the EU treaties. We are not seeking to leave to take our deficit elsewhere. We will not want to  seek to find Asian or American sources for goods we currently buy from the European continent.

The day after we leave everything will carry on as before with our trade. The only difference will be that both the EU and the UK will be able to negotiate changes bilaterally to our arrangements, and the UK Parliament and people will have the last say on the line the UK takes in any negotiations. The UK will gain its place on the World Trade Organisation. Both the EU and the UK will remain bound by WTO obligations to keep tariffs down and markets open. The best way of proceeding is to keep in place current trade arrangements until we negotiate better ones.

Germany has made clear they would not wish to face a special 10% tariff on car exports to the UK. We would not wish to impose one, and assume Germany with the rest of the EU would therefore not impose one on us.

Our trade is not at risk from Brexit. Scaremongering by some pro EU people shows how devoid of positive arguments they are to persuade us to stay in.

Ministers set out the details of the Housing Bill

October 29, 2015 0 Comments

29 October 2015

The House will shortly debate the Second Reading of the Housing and Planning Bill. The Bill implements a number of the Government’s key manifesto commitments to enable hardworking people to enjoy the security of home ownership, help those who need a new affordable property, and boost overall housing supply.

The Bill includes measures to get the nation building homes faster, by:
• Requiring local authorities to prepare, maintain and publish local registers of brownfield land.
• Reducing uncertainty in the planning process with a new ‘Permission in Principle’ to be granted automatically when housing is allocated in future local and neighbourhood plans or identified on new brownfield registers.
• Maximising housing delivery in London with further planning powers devolved to the Mayor of London to support strategic development.
• Providing more information on the potential financial benefits of major developments.
• Improving the process for establishing Urban Development Corporations.
• Simplifying the compulsory purchase of land or property.
• Allowing planning applications for non-major development to be submitted to and decided by the Planning Inspectorate where the local planning authority has a track record of very poor performance.
• Including housing in nationally significant infrastructure projects.
• Simplifying and speeding up neighbourhood planning.

The Bill includes measures to help more people buy their own home, by:
• Taking forward measures underpinning the agreement with the National Housing Federation to extend the Right to Buy to housing association tenants, including financial powers to pay the housing associations for the cost of the discount, and powers for the regulator to monitor and report on the delivery of the terms of the agreement.
• Requiring local planning authorities to actively promote the development of Starter Homes (at 80% market value), whilst embedding them in the planning system.

The Bill includes measures to ensure the way housing is managed is fair and fit for the future by:
• Requiring social tenants on higher incomes to pay fair rents.
• Placing a duty on councils to manage their housing stock effectively, consider selling their high value assets when they fall vacant, and require them to make a payment to the Secretary of State based on the value of their vacant high value assets.
• Introducing a number of measures to give local authorities tools to tackle rogue landlords.
• Allowing local authorities access to data relating to nearly 3 million tenancy deposits, estimated to cover over 70 per cent of private rented sector properties.
• Simplifying the assessment of housing and accommodation needs.
• Changing the way the redemption of rentcharges and leasehold extensions is calculated by amending a defunct statutory formula.
• Ensuring the Lead Enforcement Authority for Estate Agents is effective, without a single body named in primary legislation.

To assist the House, we have placed a number of fact sheets in the Library, which give further details on all of these measures. If you have any detailed questions on the Bill before or after Second Reading, we would be happy to answer them. We hope that these fact sheets will assist the House in holding a productive debate, and look forward to discussing the issues with you.

Yours ever,

THE RT HON GREG CLARK MP

BRANDON LEWIS MP

That Boston tea party moment

October 29, 2015 90 Comments

Too few people in the UK understand just what vast powers the EU already holds over us and the UK government. More begin to understand the power they hold over our borders and welfare policies. This week in Parliament MP s highlighted the growing grip over taxation.

MPs want to get rid of VAT on tampons, as these are necessities for many women. The UK Parliament cannot do this, as the EU controls this and many matters related to VAT.

The government in the debate promised to lobby the EU about the tax, as they are not masters in their own Treasury and need the agreement of the other 27 countries and the Commission to alter this.

When Britain foolishly imposed duties on the American colony that the taxpayers did not accept it triggered a rejection of British authority over those territories. Let us hope that as more people come to see the high costs of the EU and tus unpopular use of wide ranging powers they will also wish to restore our democracy.

I wonder if the EU will give in on this matter, given their wish to keep us in paying their bills and obeying their laws.

Eurosceptics don’t want the Norwegian model

October 28, 2015 106 Comments

If and when  the UK leaves the EU there is no need to accept any EU migrants the UK does not choose to let in. Euosceptics do not recommend accepting Norwegian type arrangements with the EU. We just want to restore UK democracy which means removing all EU bossiness and controls which stop us making our own democratic decisions.

Pipes and cables should not be buried under roads

October 28, 2015 40 Comments

One of the maddest things about our congested road network in the UK is the way the authorities chose to place most of the crucial pipes and cables for water, electricity, gas and telephones under the carriageway and then seal them in under piles of rubble and tarmac. Each time they need to replace or repair expensive roadworks are undertaken, disrupting the highway, increasing the costs of the utility business, and creating tensions between the utility customers as road users and the utility managements.

I am trying to persuade Councils and utility operators to place all  utilities under verges or pavements when laying new ones, preferably in robust and secure conduits with access. We have long since stopped burying the cables and pipes of an office  in the plaster of the walls, preferring to run them in architectural conduits with easy access usually under floors. Why not do the same for our main utilities?

Wokingham Borough has said it is adopting this for its new developments. Thames Water has said it likes the idea. It could be done for replacements as well as for new areas. Once installed the future costs of maintenance, repair and replacement will be greatly reduced. Above all our very limited road capacity will not be so readily reduced by utility works, and fewer people will be disturbed by the ominous sound of a pneumatic drill once again cutting up the highway.

I am taking this up with other  major network providers. It’s a way to save utilities substantial money over the longer term, and to start to cut down on the number of times our roads are disrupted to improve or maintain basic systems unconnected with the roads.

Reply from Heathrow’s Chief Executive on aircraft noise

October 27, 2015 1 Comment

23rd October 2015

The Rt Hon John Redwood MP
House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA

Dear Mr Redwood

Thank you for your recent letter.

Since we last spoke, we’ve now received the report from the independent consultant on flight patterns affecting the Wokingham area. This analysis is one of the first of a series of reports that is being produced as part of the new monitoring programme launched in coordination with the Community Noise Forum, which we established earlier this year. It will be shared at the full meeting of the Forum on 5th November. I have enclosed a copy of the report for you.

It shows that on departure aircraft are on average 1,000ft higher compared with 10 years ago, however there are more of them over this area (on average 45 flights per day). The main reason for this is an increase in the number of flights going to destinations in the Americas.

When the airport is on easterly operations, the analysis confirms that there is a higher density of departing aircraft over particular areas because of the procedural change NATS made to the Compton route in June 2014. I know that, like me, you want to see this procedure reversed. In my discussions with NATS they have reiterated that this change was made to enhance safety. It also means controllers can get aircraft higher, quicker on departure because it reduces the interaction between arrivals and departures.

For arrival on easterly operations – the source of your constituent’s concerns outlined in the letters you enclosed – there are no set routes or heights for arrival aircraft before they join the final approach path. This results in a large spread of arrival tracks across a number of areas which the analysis shows.

I appreciate this is a complicated issue but I hope the analysis will be helpful in explaining why some residents feel they experience more-flight now in particular areas. This monitoring programme will carry on alongside other actions Heathrow is taking to reduce the impact of noise from its operations through our Blueprint for noise reduction, which includes trialling steeper approaches to keep aircraft higher for longer and fitting quiet technology to A320s.

Finally, I would like to put your constituent’s mind at rest that the air quality in Wokingham will not be affected by aircraft emissions from Heathrow. Once in the air, emissions from aircraft disperse rapidly and once above 500-600 feet, the contribution and they make to local air quality is negligible.

I would be happy to meet to discuss these issues in more detail.

Yours sincerely

John Holland-Kaye
Chief Executive Officer

Wokingham School funding – Reply from the Minister

October 27, 2015 0 Comments

Dear John

Thank you for your letter of 1 September, enclosing correspondence from Mr Andy Couldrick, Chief Executive, Wokingham Borough Council, about school funding. Thank you also for taking the time to meet with me last month and setting out your concerns about school funding in Wokingham.

I was sorry to read about Mr Couldrick’s concerns about school funding. We recognise that there are anomalies in the current school funding system, and are committed to making schools’ funding fairer. As Mr Couldrick will be aware, the coalition government allocated an additional £390 million to the least fairly funded local authorities in the country in 2015-16. This meant that Wokingham Borough Council gained an additional £716,000 in 2015-16. Despite the progress towards fairer funding, we recognise that there is more to be done, and we will put forward our plans in due course. As I hope Mr Couldrick will understand, we will only be able to come forward with detailed proposals once we have set budgets for education and other public services after the Spending Review.

As Mr Couldrick noted, the allocation process for high needs funding, and consequently the amount of high needs funding each local authority receives, is currently derived from local authorities’ own past spending decisions. There is widespread recognition that this arrangement is unfair and out of date, with a wide variation in the funding provided for children with similar needs. Our aim is to make the funding distribution fairer.

To help inform this, we undertook a substantial research report on the future funding of special needs. The report contains a large number of recommendations that we will be considering. We hope to introduce changes from 2017-18, although this is still under consideration within government, and to consult on them by early 2016. One of the recommendations we will be considering is to implement a national high needs funding formula, driven by pupil numbers and characteristics.

Funding for schools is calculated on the basis of pupil numbers from the previous year because this enables local authorities to set school budgets before the year starts, which helps schools with their financial planning. It is difficult for schools to change their expenditure at short notice and this system protects schools against sudden changes in the amount of funding they receive. We believe that this is preferable to the alternatives of basing funding on unreliable estimates of pupil numbers or the uncertainty for school budgets caused by real-time tracking of pupils.

We do, however, recognise the importance of funding for growing schools. This is why we have enabled local authorities, with the approval of their schools forum, to hold some of their schools block funding centrally for a growth fund. As part of our wider reforms, we are looking at how to support local authorities experiencing exceptionally high levels of pupil growth, and we will consider Mr Couldrick’s suggestion on diseconomies funding as part of this work.

On teachers’ pay, the last government’s pay reforms have meant that rather than continuing to be locked in to statutory pay arrangements where pay progression was automatically awarded to most teachers, schools now have much more autonomy over the management of their budgets and are able to use their total salary budget more creatively to reward the best teachers. Giving headteachers more flexibility over pay enables them to manage their overall budgets and meet their school’s unique set of needs more effectively.

On national insurance, currently, employees who are members of defined benefit occupational pension schemes, like the TPS, pay a reduced level of national insurance, as do their employers. This is because they are ‘contracted out’ of contributing to the second State Pension. As you may be aware, from 1 April 2016, there will be a single-tier State Pension aimed at providing a higher level of basic benefits that all employees will have the opportunity to build up, including members of the TPS. As a result, all employees will be required to pay the same full rate of National Insurance contributions, as will their employers. In return, employees will receive a larger State Pension than before. The liability for this will fall on the state. Public sector employers will have to absorb the burden of increased contributions.

With regard to schools facing deficit budgets, as I am sure Mr Couldrick is aware, if an academy anticipates financial difficulties and is formally proposing to set a deficit revenue budge for the current financial year, which it is unable to address after funds from previous years are taken into account, the board of trustees should notify the Education Funding Agency (EFA). In the most serious cases, the EFA is able to consider funding to support the academy, but only where appropriate, as determined on the merits of the individual case. Maintained schools should contact their local authority if they are planning to set a deficit revenue budget.

Mr Couldrick also mentions deprivation funding, and in particular the use of IDACI. It is for each local authority to decide how much money to allocate through their deprivation factors. Local authorities can decide whether to use IDACI for this purpose, and if so, which IDACI bands to use for funding schools. The Department does not currently direct funding to local authorities for school on the basis on IDACI.

If schools have not already, they may find it helpful to consider our document Review of efficiency in the schools system, which sets out the characteristics of the most efficient schools. This document is available online at: http://tinyurl.com/p52lxda. In addition, the EFA is developing an online efficiency toolkit that provides head teachers, school business managers and governors with information and guidance to help improve the efficiency of their school. The toolkit is a set of short videos providing practical advice to help schools identify efficiencies and cost savings, and the current content can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/pgpf2vn.

Thank you for writing to me on this important matter.

Yours ever

Sam Gyimah MP

 

Mind the energy gap

October 27, 2015 103 Comments

The closures of perfectly good coal burning power stations are coming thick and fast thanks to EU rules requiring their premature closure. The older nuclear stations are also approaching their shut down dates. The UK has lost its normal margin of reserve capacity, and is now close to the point where on a cold day in winter with no wind we will have to import sufficient  power to meet demand. The ability to import is becoming part of the calculation of how we keep the lights on. This is in accordance with the EU’s wish to create a unified energy market across the EU, so all EU countries come to depend on each other and look to Brussels to control their energy policies as a result.

The UK government is well aware of the dangers to security of supply. Some of us have been arguing about this for years, knowing that it takes years to plan, design and build new generation capacity. Last week the government did decide to authorise a new large nuclear power station at Hinkley Point. The investment will be made by a lead French investor and a supporting Chinese investor. UK taxpayers and electricity consumers will not have to put up any money for the planning and construction phases, but the government is going to guarantee a high electricity price once the station is working. This is the price of pursuing a low carbon economy, as the price of gas capacity would be lower.

The nuclear station on its own will not be enough to take care of all the closures and any increase in demand we might need in the years ahead. The UK has to plan for its rising population, and for the EU passion to switch a lot of transport, both rail and road, to electricity from primary fuels. I would like to see the government announce new gas power stations. They should represent the cheapest and easiest way of increasing generating capacity, and may well in future be fuelled by gas found in the UK.

Unfortunately, owing to the decision to rely much more on wind energy for baseload power, any gas or other similar power will be dearer. As the wind farms take precedence when the wind is blowing, the grid cannot guarantee demand to new gas power stations. They are needed for cold days, days of high demand, and days with no wind. This makes their power dearer as well, as the consumers have to pay for excess capacity anytime the wind is blowing.

Once you interfere as comprehensively as the EU has done in energy provision you create difficulties in keeping the lights on, and you make energy considerably dearer. Now the best we can do is a quick fix of more gas generation at a price. Meanwhile industry has been warned that if we do have high demand days with no wind, they will be asked not to use power at peak times.