Author: johnredwood

The government has promised us a Statement of British values to inform School Governors and Headteachers as they guide and manage their institutions.

Today I invite you to tell me what should go into such a Statement.  For my part, it would include a belief in democracy, equality before the law, tolerance, seeking to resolve conflicts and tensions within a community by discussion and democratic procedures. It would encompass religious tolerance, the banning of bullying and violence, and the pursuit of excellence in both academic and non academic subjects. The aim of a school should be to find that spark, that enthusiasm for learning and for achievement which stays with the individual as they move into adulthood.

David Cameron gave his definition of British values as “freedom, tolerance, respect for the rule of law, belief in personal and social responsibility and respect for British institutions”. I will be writing more about Magna Carta later.

The Governor of the Bank grabbed the headlines on Thursday night for hinting that official interest rates may go up earlier than  markets expect. As markets expect a rate rise by the second quarter of 2015, that could bring it forward to later this year.

The Governor’s speech was more balanced and careful than the headlines suggested. It is true he said rates may go up “sooner” than  anticipated. He also said “there remains scope for spare capacity to be used up before policy is tightened”. He went out of his way to remind us the Bank wants to see a good recovery and does not wish to take action which is too early or too tough which could damage the progress being made.

He drew attention to fast rises in house prices. He said the Financial Policy Committee of the Bank and the banking regulators would seek to prevent a mortgage inspired house price bubble. New rules have already come in making it more difficult for people to obtain a mortgage, and further  action is planned to prevent banks being too expansionary in the mortgage market and to prevent people borrowing too much money to buy a property. He does not think the interest rate weapon is the right one to tackle this issue.

The Governor’s speech also drew attention to two longer term weaknesses of the UK economy. He pointed to the large balance of payments deficit, and to the need for more business investment spurring productivity growth. He inclined to an optimistic view of how the UK will respond to these challenges. He thinks in due course as the rest of the advanced world recovery gathers pace there will be more opportunity for UK exports. He also hinted that the current strong pound may reverse at some stage if the current account does not correct naturally. Business investment is now picking up and may in due course raise productivity. As I have commented before, the decline in North Sea oil output and the movement  of high earning people in financial services to lower tax jurisdictions has of course hit the productivity figures.

He did not comment on one obvious reason for a poor balance of  payments performance – high energy prices and shortage of domestic energy. The UK is importing increasing quantities of high energy using products, and is importing more electricity from France and other energy from abroad. Cement, for example, is often now imported despite the high transport costs because UK production is so expensive given energy prices here.

The outbreak of religious war in Iraq should not lead to UK or US military intervention. Many people living in  the west are unaware of the issues in dispute between Sunni and Shia Muslims, and are not on either side. We are not well briefed over the theological. social and political differences, which clearly mean a lot to those involved.

When Western Europe lived through its own religious wars, with Catholic fighting Protestant, issues of national identity and borders came up in the conflicts, just as the religious wars in the modern Middle East also pose these secular issues and power struggles. The revolt of the Netherlands against Spanish rule was both a religious battle, and a quest for national identity and self government. It was good that Islamic armies and navies stayed at home and did not come to Western Europe to help one side or the other or impose their view of the right answer on the warring factions. If they had tried to intervene there might have been more deaths and a more complex struggle.

In today’s complicated world the great western powers do have duties as members of the UN. Where the international community thinks international law has been breached by one side in the dispute and not the other, and where they think their military intervention could put right the wrong, then there is a case for doing so. The liberation of Kuwait is a good recent case. Most in the Arab world thought the liberation of Kuwait was a just cause. Kuwait herself wanted military assistance. The west was able to do it quickly and successfully.

The internal wars in modern Syria and Iraq, part religious, part power struggles, do not pose the same straightforward moral issues. Nor is their the same opportunity for western military might to enforce a new and better solution at an acceptable cost in human life and destruction of property. The government of Iraq can ask for  military help, and it may be that technical advice or supplies of equipment are possible and permissible. Going further would be unwise. The West has taken sides, backing the government in Iraq  but against the government in Syria. It has wisely fallen short of backing the opposition in Syria, given the varied nature of that opposition and the difficulty of knowing how stable government could emerge from the violent overthrow of an unpleasant regime. Sometimes the west has to accept there should be limits to its interventions.

Mr Hunt is a breath of fresh air at the Department for Health. As a strong believer in the NHS, he wishes to raise the quality of the service and support high professional standards throughout our hospitals and surgeries. He has been shocked by reports of poor treatment and lack of care in some wards and some hospitals, and is seeking ways to ensure patients do not suffer in future as some have in the past from hospital infections, lack of food and water, or bad medical interventions.

The Secretary of State has decided the best way forward is to encourage and require honest reporting of incidents. Hospitals which fail patients need to record and report the problem, and then make sure it does not happen again. In the private sector many companies use quality systems which seek to design out any error in their process or performance. When someone reports an accident or mistake, the first issue is how do you put right what has immediately gone wrong, and the second is how do you redesign the process so it cannot happen in future. The main purpose of reporting is to improve, not to have a witch hunt over who made the mistake.

There are many parts of the patient expereience in some of our hospitals that needs improving. Do they control the drug round properly? Is eveything logged so the right medicine in the right dose is always offered? Is there a fail safe system to prevent the dispensation of the wrong mediicine, or the wrong quantity or at the wrong time? Do they control hospital stocks and supplies effectively, to ensure lower costs and shorter periods holding the items so they are fresher for use? Are staff used to best effect? How easy is it to transfer staff from less busy to busy wards or periods of the day? Are the staff effectively led and do they understand what good quality service looks like? Who checks that patients have the water and food they need? Who is responsible for ensuring reasonable patient requests are responded to promptly?

Shining a light onto poor performance is a necessary part of improvement. I would be interested in your obsaervations on the successes and weaknesses of our hospitals.

Behind the scenes work is advancing quickly on what should be in the manifesto for 2015. The Conservative leadership will want to have a good idea of what the party will be offering by this autumn. The Prime Minister will want his speech to conference to set the scene for the manifesto to follow. Doubtless Labour and the Lib dems are also well into the work on their proposals.

Central to the Conservative approach will be the renegotiation and the referendum on our membership of the EU. The other two main parties in Parliament think they can avoid discussion and much action on EU matters, offering a passive acceptance of all the powers that have already passed to the EU. Their line on a referndum is they will offer one only if there is a new Treaty transferring yet more powers. They say this knowing no such Treaty is currently planned. They will fail to set out how they think the UK can remain a full member of the EU when most of the EU is busily completing a political union to back its currency union.

Central also to the Conservative approach must be further measures to build on the economic recovery now underway, and to complete the task of eliminating the deficit. This is also likely to be distinctive as an approach, as both Labour and Lib Dems are likely to want to spend and borrow more despite the very high levels of borrowing already undertaken.

Today I would be interested to hear youtr ideas on what should go into the manifesto.

There is a general welcome for legislation to allow the recall of MPs announced in the Queen’s Speech. There is also a campaign email doing the rounds to say that the planned recall proposals do not go far enough. So today I am inviting comments on how a decent recall system could and should work.

The first issue to sort out is what is recall for? It should be a facility if an MP has behaved badly in ways which damage his work as an MP for the constituency. It should not be a chance to re-run the election in any given seat because people did not like the result. An MP who does the job should be able to do it until the next election, when people have the chance to persuade others to change the MP for political or other reasons.

The problem is how do you define bad behaviour. If the MP is convicted of murder or rape then we would all agree he can no longer represent the constituency and will go to jail. Of course there should be recall, though under the current system there would also be resignation followed by a by election in such circumstances. If an MP has to pay a parking or speeding fine then that would not presumably be a cause for them to face recall. Somewhere in between the different levels of lawbreaking lies a cut off point which the new law will enforce and lead to recall where the line has been crossed.

Bad behaviour does have to be proven. A system which allowed anyone to trump up an allegation against an MP they did not like and then force recall would create lots of by elections where the individual was innocent.

More difficult is bad political behaviour. Some constituents think an MP should face recall for breaking his or her word or reneging on promises made in an election. Tempting though this is, it could prove difficult to enforce and would probably lead to parties and candidates declining to make any promises at all that could later force their resignation.

Let us take the case of the Lib Dem promise to oppose tuition fees in the 2010 election. It was a clear promise. In the circumstances of coalition it was a Lib Dem Secretary of State who presided over the development and implementation of a tuition fee system. Should there have been 56 by elections immediately that happened, with a possible change of government and a period of instability? Or is the change of circumstance and the formation of coalition sufficient reason to change a party’s stance?

The issue also arises of who settles whether an MP or party has broken its word sufficiently to justify recall? Some say if a given proportion of an electorate demand a recall there should be one. In a marginal seat there might be 10% of the electors who feel very partisan in favour of the main losing candidate. Should they have the right to demand a re-run at the worst time for the incumbent MP?

Recall is a popular idea but the problems lie in the detail of how it would work. The fact that there has to be an election every five years at the longest means no-one is lumbered with a rotten MP indefinitely, if their neighbours agree with their judgement.

Read all about it. Michael Gove and Theresa May have had a disagreement involving an exchange of letters about how to develop a policy and respond to extremism.

This sort of thing should come as no surprise. In any active and lively government Ministers are always disagreeing with one another. Government proceeds by departments and Ministers setting out different views and proposals. These are then honed into an agreed common line which all Ministers stick to in public conversation.

So what is surprising here is not the disagreement, which is common and healthy, but the release of a letter giving one side of the argument, and the briefings about the exchanges. This was quite common under Labour when Ministers and spin doctors often spun their side of disputes, most notably the many disagreements between Chancellor and Prime Minister under Blair. It is not so common under this government.

Mr Gove takes the very sensible view that in combatting extremism you need to deal with its verbal and non violent manifestations in schools before they could become major and violent manifestations outside the classroom and when the students are a bit older. This is also now the general government’s view. The disagreements are not as great as the spin would suggest. The Home Secretary clearly stated in the House yesterday that she is in agreement with the PM and Education Secretary that government has to tackle extremism in speech and teaching as well as extremism with bullets and bombs.

Most of us want to live in a peaceful community where we tolerate each other’s religions and allow a wide range of belief, but where certain human rights and home truths are self evident and inalienable. These include equality for men and women and the right to a decent state education which reflects our democratic values. It was good to hear Mr Gove say there will be a statement of British values to inform schools on the ethos and approach they should adopt to education and looking after children in their care.