Category: Blog

I attended one of the hustings meetings, and have had conversations with several of the candidates. I would like to hear some views of what you think of the runners.

Some say the new Speaker should be without criticism on his or her expenses. That appears to be an unrealistic ambition, now that political opponents and other critics are commenting adversely on all MPs for one reason or another. The Telegraph has given their summary of the candidates expenses. According to the Times five of the ten candidates are paying sums back. (Alan Beith, John Bercow, Parmjit Dhanda, Alan Haslehurst and Richard Shepherd). I think it would be wrong to rule out Alan Haslehurst, for example, on the grounds of his expense claims as some have suggested. The truth is that all MPs supported or acquiesced in an expense system which was both too generous and too laxly administered, so it that we sense we are all collectively guilty of an important error of judgement which has done great damage to Parliament.

I myself will not be voting for Ann Widdecombe, because I do not want an interim Speaker who will only be around for less than a year. I think we need to make a decision about someone capable of chairing the Commons well and making a contribution to rebuilding its reputation, which will take longer than a few months.

Nor will I be voting for those candidates who want to take Parliament around the country, as Alan Beith and Parmjit Djhanda wish to do. Whilst I accept their view that we need to make Parliament more relevant and important to people, I think the best way to do that is to do the job of Parliament better. Trying to meet around the country will be costly and difficult. Just imagine the imposition of security on a city or town being visitied by Parliament. I doubt it would be very popular with those inconvenienced. There would be endless issues about how many staff could come, how the books and papers would be made available, and how the ceremonial valuables would be safeguarded. A fortune has been spent on adapting Westminster to modern technology and security, so let’s use it fully.

Some of my colleaguess will be voting tactically, at least on the first vote. If an MP knows who he or she does not want, and feels strongly about it, the PR system used for the voting encourages tactical votes to try to stop momentum for a disfavoured candidate by encouraging modest momentum for a rival. Instead of having a single open vote where the person with most votes wins, we will have a series of private ballots, where weaker candidates drop out until a candidate does get more than 50% of the vote.

MPs will remember the Parliamentary arithmetic. This is still a Labour dominated Parliament, so if Labour come to a unified view they will make the decision. It appears for the time being that members from both major parties are approaching the candidates correctly on their individual merits rather than in a tribal way. Let’s hope that remains true.

I suspect that the front runners are currently Margaret Beckett, George Young, and John Bercow. The contest seems to be wide open with no one candidate having a clear lead.

The heavily edited publication of expenses has done more damage to an institution under fire.

Many people want an institution which does more, costs less, and is more open.

We have discussed – and by a large majority agreed – on this site that Parliament needs to stand up against both the UK executive and Brussels, and assert more of the rights, interests and views of the British people.

We also need a Parliament which is better at controlling the costs of the whole UK public sector. To do so, it needs to be able to show it can control its own costs and give value.

As an MP I am frustrated that there is no effective opportunity to review, challenge or help control the costs of Parliament itself. There is no annual event when someone presents the accounts, takes responsibiltiy for the budgets, and proposes the budgets for the following year, to be followed by a decent debate. Scheduled debates on the annual estimates of spending for the whole national budget rarely allow detailed investigation of the costs of Parliament, and if anyone tried to use time for this purpose there would be no-one responsible responding or prepared to change what was going on. There is no Minister driving value for money.

It is true that there are similar problems in applying effective scutiny to much larger budgets under Ministerial control, but at least with say the welfare budget there is a named Minister responsible and an opportunity during the year to highlight the departmental budget, with a special Select Committee which can also review it.

Parliament needs to get a lot better at controlling and challenging all public spending. The Speaker candidates have not so far addressed this crucial issue. It would be good if under a new Speaker new ways were found to show we are in charge of our own total costs, as a prelude to doing a better job at getting value for money from the rest of public spending.

Reform is much discussed. It comes up at meetings to hear the views of the candidates for Speaker. What emerges when listening to them is that the role of Speaker is quite limited to push through reform, all the time the governemnt controls a strong majority and wishes to impede reforms which alow Parliament to challenge the executive more.

I would like Parliament to meet more often. At the very least we should have a September session, to interrupt the 80 day break from July to October. We need to hold the goverment to account in the summer as well as at other times of year. Too many regulations go through without debate during the recess. I doubt if any new Speaker will be able to insist on this. There should be more evenings when we can go on beyond 10 pm, if a bill needs more attention. There should be far fewer guillotines preventing debate.

I would like Ministers to have to tell Parliament first before telling others of their plans, so we can cross examine them on their intents with sufficient time to do so. A Speaker can urge and advise, but cannot demand, as the government has the votes. Will this government mend its ways for a new Speaker? Probably not.

I would like Parliament to have more time to debate laws and policies which are crucial. This year we lived through several months without a debate on the state of the banks and the economy. Week after week the government chooses for the topical debate a subject that is not central to the political controversies of the day. There are only the occasional exceptions when pressure builds up. Wy can’t opposition parties choose some of the topical debate subjects? This would not be the same as an Opposition day where we can table a critical motion, but a right to choose a general policy area for discussion.

Parliament needs to earn its keep. A strong Parliament will produce better government. Good Ministers relish Parliamentary scrutiny, because it can lead to sensible amendment of their plans. Bad Ministers leak and brief, try to avoid Parliament, and fail to answer the questions. For a good Minister Parliament is an opportunity to get things right by listening to other views and a platform to explain the policy. For a bad Minister it is a nightmare to be endured or circumvented.

Today, finally, the Commons publishes the expense claims of its members. A few of us wanted this done a long time ago.

The BBC this morning criticised the Commons for deleting the addresses and making it impossible to work out if someone had sold a property without paying capital gains tax. It is right that the public should know that the properties concerned are located to allow the MP to carry out the job, and that taxes have been paid where appropriate on properties where taxpayer money is received to pay some of the bills.

This Parliament I claimed for a rented flat in St George’s Square Pimlico, and more recently for a bedsit I purchased in Grosvenor Road Pimlico. Both are in walking distance of the Commons , saving time and money on travel on busy and long days. I did sell a property at the time of the 2005 election. I did not claim for it, and did pay capital gains tax on the sale.

At the beginning of the 2008-9 year I decided to cut my total expense claims by 10% in each of the following two years, as I believed we needed to cut public spending without harming front line services. When they get round to publishing the 2008-9 figures they should show I achieved this target for last year. I stated in May 2009 that I would be making no further claims on the housing cost Allowance, which should guarantee cutting more than 10% from my total expenses again this year.

Most people in the Commons now agree the old system was too generous and too laxly administered. The sooner Parliament can agree a system which is fair and offers value for money to taxpayers, the better.

Yesterday I asked Mr Miliband if we could have some democracy in Europe, to mirror the democracy he says he wishes to support or introduce elsewhere in the world. I was wasting my breath. He is a keen supporter of the European project, which proceeds on its meddling centralising way despite the views of European people.

I pointed out that Ireland is given two referenda, because they did like the result of the first one, whilst the UK is not allowed one at all, despite the government’s promise. Lisbon is being forced upon reluctant peoples, with political elites refusing votes, ignoring votes, or changing the words to conceal the truth of the project.

I also said Parliament should send a message to the countries that have shown reluctance to ratify the Treaty, that the UK public is against it. Come a General Election and a widely forecast change of government, the UK will veto the Treaty for them. They should all hang on refusing to ratify so the British people can once again save Europe from its political classes.

We are not short of regulators, nor lacking rules. The last few years have seen a crisis of regulation as well as disastrous central banking and greedy and incompetent banking.

We should expect less of regulators. They cannot guarantee us all against loss from financial transactions. We should also expect more of them. We should expect them to know when banks and other financial institutions are taking wild amounts of risk, and should restrain them. They do not need more powers to do this. They have the powers already.

Yesterday morning financial regulation was raised with me by the Chief Minister and others in Guernsey when I was giving a speech there on the Credit Crunch. Guernsey is worried lest the EU seeks to extend its regulatory reach to the Channel Islands in clumsy ways that will transfer the business to some other offshore centre well away from us. The topic came up in the Commons debate on Europe yeaterday afternoon and evening, when the Conservatives attacked the government for failing to have influence over the current draft of the hedge funds regulation. Today an unrepentant Chancellor says thank you to his boss the Prime Minister for keeping him in post by defending the indefensible tripartite system at the Mansion House this evening.

What should they do?

The UK government should say that the tripartite system failed its first big test. The lack of clarity over responsibility for banking risks between the Bank and the FSA was partly to blame. We need a unified command, with the Bank of England taking responsibility for issuing government debt, supervising banks and the day the day operations of the money market. We need people running the Bank who understand markets and are capable of judging the cycle better.

The regulatory system should aim to avoid violent swings in bank balance sheets and the amount of money in issue. The Bank should call for more cash and capital to be held by banks when things are going too quickly, and for less when things are slowing down. Discussion to get banks to strengthen their positions should always be held in confidence.

The government should tell the EU that as it falls to national taxpayers to bail out failing institutions or to pay compensation to victims of poorly regulated businesses, so it should be the task of national governments to do the regulating. The UK has a much larger and more successful fianncial sector than France or Germany. The government should not let the EU use regulation to threaten London’s business, which clumsy regulation can do. That would drive the business away from the EU altogether.

We did not have too few regulators. The Chancellor who is the chief regulator did not understand the system he presided over and apparently failed to read the balance sheets of the top banks, which were obviously over doing it. We need to change people, not build a new bureaucracy. Keep it simple and do it better should be the slogan. And tell the EU to keep out.

How many more of our young people have to die in Afghanistan? How are the US and UK going to prosecute this war, given the way the Taleban can operate over the Pakistan border, in a country that remains a key US and UK ally? What does winning look like? How many troops will it take to pacify the huge territories concerned?

How does all this marry up with President Obama’s wish to have a different relationship with the Islamic countries of the Middle East from that of his predecessor? How can we think Gordon Brown is different in his approach from Tony Blair, when he supported Mr Blair’s wars throughout,and when he seems to be prosecuting them much as Mr Blair would have done?

It is time for Mr Brown to offer us a proper enquiry into the rights and wrongs, successes and failures of his Iraq war. More importantly, it would be good to hear from him in a measured statement about what he is asking the military to do in Afghanistan, how he thinks they can achieve success, and whether he thinks there are enough people with the right equipment to do this huge job.

Every week Prime Minister’s Questions begins with tragic news of further deaths on duty. MPs of all parties are rightly proud of our military, and admire its courage and persistence as it tries to bring peace to a troubled land. MPs generally do need, however, from time to time to ask the government to explain the strategy,and to explain why so many are at risk. We have a duty to all involved to make sure the mission is correctly framed, the troops are well equipped,and success is a realistic outcome from the balance of the task and the ask with the numbers of troops and the firepower.

It’s good news that the rate of decline is slowing. It makes sense for the government’s spin doctors to be trying to inject some confidence, claiming that we are at the bottom, or near the turn. No-one sensible wants the downturn to go on for a day longer, and none of us want to see unemployment climbing sharply.

It’s important, however, to maintain some sense of reality. In recent months there have been two big changes that have led to the current change of mood. The first is, that on both sides of the Atlantic they have been printing money, which has found its way into markets for riskier assets. This has generated some more favourable comment, and given some investors and speculators some hope. The second is, that the new Administration in the USA has moved from criticising the Bush legacy to talking up the Obama measures. In the UK the Chancellor has shifted from talking things down to a more neutral position.

There are several difficulties ahead. I have commented before on the problems they face when taking the economy off the monetary drip of quantitative easing. Unemployment is likely to go on rising, even if this is the bottom of the output figures, let alone if it is not. Most forecasters in the UK assume unemployment will go up to 3 million. At some point the public sector has to stop expanding its workforce, as part of the measures to cut the deficit. That will on its own make quite an impact on unemployment numbers. The public sector has created many of the extra jobs in recent years. If the public sector attempts to raise its productivity at anything like the rate that is common in industry, then there will be a furher impact on public sector employment numbers.

UK consumption will be affected by the future increases in interest rates which will be necessary to create more normal banking and monetary conditions,and to curb future inflation. A lot of present spending on goods and services by individuals has been made possible by substantial mortgage interest rate cuts. There is still a pressing need for many people and companies to repay debt, against the background of weak banks and the need to calm down after the credit binge of 2003-7.

The reality ahead will be much slower growth. There remains the need to adjust to curb the twin deficits. We have to export more and consume less to curb the balance of payments deficit, still very wide in the UK. We need the public sector to spend less to curb the public deficit. We need both individuals and the public sector to borrow less, as part of the move to live within our means. It is going to feel like recession as the squeeze intensifies, even if output is rising.

On Saturday the predictable calls came from Labour supporting papers. Would I like to confirm that the Tories will cut 10% from budgets? Would I like to send a message to the Conservative leadership that they need to spell out more cuts? They had all the finesse and subtlety of an elephant in a living room. They might have well have asked , would I like to help Gordon Brown smear the Tories with his silly Mr 10% campaign?

It is pathetic that we are still stuck in this idiotic sound bite culture, where Mr Brown seriously believes he can frighten people from voting Conservative by continuing to fib that Tories want to sack teachers and nurses.His main reason for wanting Balls in place of Darling apparently was to have someone as Chancellor who would spend his time rubbishing the Opposition instead of tackling the serious productivity and deficit problems in the public sector.

Mr Lansley was attacked for pointing out the logic of Labour’s own spending plans – cuts of 7% in real terms overall, which would be bigger on other programmes if health and education are protected. We have seen in great detail how much money is wasted in Parliament itself in recent weeks. Now we are beginning to see how this is the tip of a big waste tip throughout the public sector, with too much money spent on needless items or wasteful ways of doing things. As readers of this site will know, the government’s wasteline has expanded, is expanding and needs to be pulled in. Evidence abounds of many things we need not spend money on, without touching a single teacher, nurse, doctor or policeman. Let the real debate begin. I have set out my list of easy targets for less spending. Let others make their contribtion.

In modern manufacturing quality control can mean as few as 100 parts per million going wrong. In the UK public sector error rates of 10,000 per million are commonplace, and in some parts of the benefit administration error rates can be several times this high level. No wonder so much money goes walk about.

I spent the last couple of days in the USA,(not at the public expense) to see how the recession is affecting them, and to see if there is any tangible sign of recovery. I visited the Chicago area, to see if the rust belt is still rusting, and to feel the pulse of the heartlands of automotive country.

There were plenty of cars for sale, signs of job losses and short time working, and downward pressure on house prices. In other ways what was remarkable was how normal, how American everything was. The restaurants were busy and noisy. Huge helpings were sold for modest prices. The roads were busy. The freeways and turnpikes still are well worn by the procession of enormous trucks. Pick ups and large SGVs are still popular.

The great strength and enormous resource of the world’s superpower was still much in evidence. Land is used profligately. There is plenty of waste. Diets and energy use have not suddenly conformed to Mr Obama’s planet watch. Green remains a colour for the political and chattering classes, rather than a way of life for middle America.

Whilst there was some talk of hard times and job losses, some concern about recession, there was a general feeling that what goes down must go up again. There was no great dread of the extent of federal borrowing, no alarm about the size of the twin deficits, no expectation that anything serious would dent the great society. China may be the nation’s bank manager, but the people have yet to feel her wrath on their overdrafts. The US living standards may rest more than ever on the goodwill of the international community, and depend on the attitude of surplus governments and world savers, but there is no sense that people expect crisis any time soon. America will go on doing what it does well – going to the shopping mall and restaurant by car, parking right outside, and enjoying the rest.

This great continent of a country still sees itself as a world apart. Its economy, even in recession, even debt ridden as it is, shows vitality and breadth that is impressive. Meanwhile the dollar tumbles, the Chinese flex their muscles with the Treasury Secretary, and markets fret about the amount the USA still wants to borrow. The US does not fancy cutting it appetite for spending. It just assumes it can go on borrowing. Someday there has to be path out of public debt, but in the meantime the authorities want to create the impression that it is business as usual. Greenery is still greenwash, not a daily reality.