I visited Winnersh triangle industrial park on Friday, to see the progress with new office development. I also saw the works on the new park and ride facility for buses into Reading, and discussed future plans for improved road capacity on the approaches to the park and the A 329 M.
The owners are pressing ahead with the development of a new potential headquarters building of 60,000 square feet.
Leaving will be better for business.
Business now agrees we were right to quit the Exchange Rate Mechanism, which damaged jobs and closed factories.
Business now agrees we were right to say No to the Euro, which has helped to create mass unemployment and property crashes in several countries of the EU.
Out of the EU the UK can negotiate her own free trade agreements with China, the USA and India, after 43 years in an EU which has stopped us doing that and has not done it for us.
Out of the EU the UK can decide what regulations and taxes to impose on all our domestic business and all our exports to non EU countries, which represents around 85% of our total income and output.
The UK will continue to trade with the EU, and they will not wish or be able to impose new tariff barriers on us and certainly will not want us imposing barriers on them.
The UK will avoid new taxes like the Financial Transactions Tax, and unfriendly changes to Corporation Tax and VAT which the EU currently carries out.
Some have wrongly argued here that the government has failed to set out what it wishes to achieve from the current renegotiation with the EU. This is not the case, so I will remind people of what the government has said about its plans.
My view is I want “the fundamental change” in the UK’s relationship with the EU that the PM talked about. I want to trade and be friends with them, but to be outside the centralising treaties which force laws and policies on us that we would not choose for ourselves.
More recently the government has identified four big areas for change. They say they are negotiating over each of these areas.
Competitiveness and Regulation – the government wants an EU based on the primacy of more jobs and prosperity, that regulates and interferes less
Sovereignty and competences – the government wants powers back and more ability to stop mandatory policies from the EU through the actions of national Parliaments
A new and clearer relationship with the Eurozone – so the Uk does not have to accept Eurozone requirements on banking, finance etc
More UK control over migration and access to welfare – removing the “pull” factors that are swelling migrant numbers into the UK.
The current debate is over whether the government is asking for enough to satisfy the many voters in the middle of this argument who have not made up their minds on whether to leave the EU or not, and whether the EU will give the UK anything meaningful under these various headings to enable the government to recommend the deal. The government recognises that Treaty change will be needed, but may settle for a promissory note on treaty change which then raises the issue of the powers of the ECJ, what happens in the interim, and the ability of the rest of the EU to deliver given the complexities of securing the consent of all 28 to treaty changes.
Many will conclude leaving is an easier way of resolving the lack of power and democratic control the UK currently suffers from under the present treaties. If it looks as if the UK will vote to leave there will be more chance of securing that fundamental change Mr Cameron has talked about.
I have received an update on changes to planning policy in regard to Travellers from Greg Clark and Brandon Lewis:
We would like to draw your attention to recent changes in planning policy, which will help restore fairness to the system and ensure all communities are treated equally. They mean:
• Special planning rules designed to support England’s travelling community will only apply to those who lead a genuine travelling lifestyle. Anyone from the travelling community who no longer travels will have their planning application considered in the same way as any other member of the settled population.
• Greater protection for the Green Belt from unauthorised development. Applications for new developments on Green Belt land should not be approved, unless in very special circumstances. This remains true even where councils do not have an up-to-date supply of caravan sites, and extends to sites including Sites of Special Scientific Interest, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and National Parks. Councils must now place very strict limits on the numbers of new traveller site developments in open countryside.
• Reducing burdens on those who play by the planning rules. Where previously councils were required to plan for the increased housing need created by evicting large-scale unauthorised sites such as Dale Farm, this requirement has now been removed.
This is on top of the range of powers that councils and the police already have to deal with unauthorised development.
The new Planning Policy can be found at:
Rt Hon Greg Clark MP Brandon Lewis MP
Several constituents have written to me about the current disputes over indexation of pension benefits at BA. They asked me to attend the debate on this matter, which I did.
On Monday evening this week Kate Green held an adjournment debate to highlight the problem. The Minister in response reminded the House that one of the issues is the subject of court action preventing the government from expressing a view. The Adjournment debate was well attended for a such a debate after 10pm, showing the concerns of constituents and their MPs from a range of constituencies with affected BA staff and pensioners. If any constituent needs a transcript of what was said, please let me know.
Out of the EU the UK will regain her own seat on the World Trade Organisation, and be able to press for world agreements that we want.
The UK will gain a seat or have more influence on world standards bodies which in turn inform EU standards.
The UK will have her own seat and policy at World Summits like the World Climate summits.
The UK will be better treated by France and Germany who will need our support on various issues in the future and will not be able to outvote us in the EU to stifle our opinion.
The UK is the world’s fifth largest economy and one of the world’s most important military powers after the USA, China and Russia. It is high time we were fully represented in our own name in all important world fora.
I would be interested to receive comments on Mr Corbyn’s “new style” of handling PMQs.
I attended a meeting with the Chief Executive of Network Rail this week.
He made clear his commitment to improve services and the efficiency of the rail network. He has accepted the case many of us have made that there is insufficient commuter capacity at morning and evening peaks.
He wishes to invest heavily in digital train control, which he thinks will enable more and faster trains on the existing track. Services into Waterloo are a priority for this new wave of investment. He aims to raise capacity into Waterloo by 40% by introducing digital signals. This would be helpful for our local train services on the Waterloo lines. Network Rail is in receipt of very large sums of government grant, so this should be an achievable objective.
Last week I met the Chairman and Chief Executive of the Office of Road and Rail. This body spends £32 million a year of our money on acting as economic and safety regulator of the railways, and acting as a new regulator of the Highways Agency, the government body that runs England’s roads.
I asked them why they had taken no action over Network Rail’s decision to take out foreign currency borrowings which I have warned against before. I asked why they had apparently taken no action over Network Rail’s derivative trading and hedging, nor intervened to stop losses or to complain about them. They reminded me that Network Rail’s finances are now under the control of the Treasury and they will not be making any more foreign currency loans, as if I was unaware of that change. They had no answer on the broader questions, and were taking no action over derivative losses.
They have been agonising over £2m of fines to Network Rail for poor performance. They wish to express their displeasure, but they do not wish to take too much money off a company owned by taxpayers and funded by taxpayers. They clearly have no sense of significant numbers. Network Rail happily lost more than £2m a day every day last year on financial derivatives , so I guess a single £2m fine is neither here nor there to them.
They were also asked about their attitude towards the prolonged closure of the M20 this summer in Operation Stack. They were asked about other options to allow this crucial highway to continue in use. Again they had no helpful answers, and showed no sign of wishing to change things for the better by using their powers.
I came away seeing little value in much of the £32 million spent each year on this body, as it is quite incapable of keeping a major motorway open, and uninterested in stopping major financial losses at Network Rail despite being their economic regulator. I think they said they had to add road regulation to their rail remit to meet EU requirements.Maybe their safety role for rail is better done than the financial regulation.
Two weeks ago Mrs Merkel told the world that Germany would invite in all Syrian refugees who wished to come. Many commentators waxed lyrical about Germany’s generosity. Some in the UK wrote pieces contrasting Germany’s compassion favourably with the UK government’s wish to avoid false hope and encouragement to people to undertake dangerous journeys. Anyone who raised problems with Germany’s approach was in danger of being condemned as heartless.
This week the German approach has suddenly changed. Germany now wishes to place a limit on how many refuges she can take. Germany now wants other EU member states to undertake proper border checks at the EU’s external border, denying economic migrants access. Just in case they do not manage to do this, Germany has placed new border controls at her frontier, against the spirit of the Shengen open borders policy she subscribes to.
Some of us queried at the time how Germany would distinguish between Syrian refugees, refugees from other countries and economic migrants. We asked how she would avoid a very large number of people deciding they wanted to take advantage of Germany’s apparent generosity. We wanted to know how EU law could be changed overnight by a German statement of policy, when EU law seemed to say in most cases Italy or Hungary or Greece had the task of deciding entry into the EU if the migrants turned up there first.
There remain serious problems with Germany’s latest policy statements. How can a quotas system work? What if the refugees allocated to some of the countries have no wish to stay there, but insist on travelling on to another EU country like Germany with more jobs on offer? For how long will Germany suspend her open borders required of her by the Shengen agreement? As Germany is now cancelling trains that come in from Italy, how much impact will this new policy have on the movement of people and goods other than refugees and economic migrants? Above all, does Germany now regret her previous statements.? What does Germany say to a genuine refugees that has been attempting the dangerous journey to the EU, encouraged by Mrs Merkel’s statement? Why is there now a limit on numbers when before there was no limit?