Category: Blog

Last evening after a day pounding the streets of Henley I went to see a Beating the Retreat at the Officers’ Mess at REME in Arborfield in my constituency. It was such a pleasure to find a small corner of Labour’s great public sector where the people are professional, courteous and keeping high standards. Even more encouraging, I found when talking to the younger officers a varied range of backgrounds amongst people who were using the discipline, education and training that the army still offers to make their way in the world. They are proud of what they are doing. There was an ease of communications between the differing ranks and the differing ages. They organised their evening with precision, and were attentive to their guests in a way that is so often absent at other public sector events.

The latest survey shows that all too many people in our country do not think they are making headway, and think class still plays an important role in people’s futures and achievements. The worst feature of the NU Labour years is the way that having a rich Dad has become so important to getting a good education. The growing gap between what the best public schools achieve, and what is achieved elsewhere in many comprehensive schools is alarming. The best public schools turn out well mannered self confident people capable of reading and writing to a high standard. All too many comprehensives struggle to achieve the necessary levels of attainment in the basics, and struggle to remedy a lack of success at the primary level in equipping young people for life.

The Henley by-election result reminds us just how Labour has lost the plot. I found so few standing up for Labour during my canvassing. The general view was the government had failed, was in its long death throes, and needed to be told again just how badly it is doing. People feel stretched financially, and dislike the bossy incompetence that is the government’s main hall mark. If the government could find ways to raise standards in schools, and raise the sights of the many young people who feel they do not have a chance because of their background, they would earn more respect. If they could apply the lessons of the army to other parts of their rambling public sector that too would help.The cruel irony is that because the services retain a quality which does work, and still have that ability to bring leadership out of people from humble backgrounds, they have been starved of cash whilst other parts of the public sector have been showered with it. Labour is reaping what it has sown. They have seemed to dislike the emphasis on discipline, training and politeness which characterise the armed forces. Instead, they should have applied those values in parts of the government where they did spend so much money.

Legislation has become an extended press release to this government. As the government of the spinners by the spinners for the spinners detects movements in public opinion through its copious professional polling and focus group research, so it wishes to send out messages. “We feel your pain”, “We will do something about your problem”, “We will legislate to put it right”. Unfortunately for the government so often it requires administrative action – or cancelling incorrect administrative action – not legislation. They don’t seem to care, as they have given up on trying to make their huge public sector work properly. They prefer instead to retreat to their comfort zone of trying to manage some of the media some of the time to repeat their idiot soundbites. Passing laws helps to reinforce the message of the day.

The events of recent days are much easier to understand once you have grasped this cynical and futile approach to mass producing more law codes. We finished the Commons stages of the Planning Bill yesterday evening. I, along with several other MPs, wanted to speak on the Third Reading of the Bill. It makes much more sense to wait until Third Reading, as the government rewrites huge chunks of the original proposals during the course of proceedings, so it is only at Third Reading that you can have a proper Second Reading Debate on the overall structure and impact of the legislation. This government, of course, does not want that. Once again their anti democratic timetable meant we had less than thirty minutes for Second Reading, which allowed no time for a single Opposition backbencher to speak.

This Planning legislation was born of the correct perception that it takes too long to make decisions about major projects in the UK. Communities face years of blight from wanted and unwanted planning proposals before the state gets around to making up its mind on whether to allow them or not. Doubtless the business lobbies and the focus groups told the government this was a problem. Instead of improving the existing administrative framework, and setting meaningful deadlines for the different stages of a planning application, the government decided to legislate for a new system. Drawing on what they think of as their success with an “independent” Bank of England ,(see my blogs on why this is misleading) they decided to create an “independent” planning quango to take these decisions. It has been fun watching many MPs who have bought the nonsense of the so-called independent Bank of England lining up to say planning had to be subject to elected democratic control. We had the pleasure of watching as the government eventually buckled and put in a very complicated system of Ministerial statements of national planning policy on major projects to be followed by the so-called independent quango “taking” the decision! They did not seem to see the contradiction in their views.

I asked if someone wanted to build a new power station, how long would it take starting today to get a decision under the present system, and how long would it take under the new system. You would not have thought that a difficult question, as the main rationale for the new system is to speed things up. Indeed, I felt I was being kind to the Minister, John Healey, offering him a free hit to advertise his Bill. Mr Healey was unable to give any answer. He also failed to intervene or object when the Conservative front bench told me they think it would take longer under the new system than the old, and that there is a severe threat of judicial review of decisions under the new system!

It all goes to show that the purpose of the Bill is not to speed up planning applications, but to appear to be speeding up planning applications. In practise it will probably take the next couple of years to establish the Planning Quango, and to write the government statements of national policy. People and businesses planning major projects might well opt for the existing system to get their permission, or might decide to wait and see how it all settles down. I am pleased to report that the Opposition stated they will abolish the quango, as they see it as another spanner in the planning works,

Today we learn there will be new equality legislation. I am all in favour of trying to prevent discrimination on grounds of race, age and sex. I do see that having framework legislation in place can set the tone and avoid the more extreme examples of unpleasant discrimination. I am also aware that there are many subtle forms of discrimination which no legislation can ever prevent or ban. We have all been discriminated against for one reason or another at some points in our lives. One person’s unfair discrimination is another person’s criteria for choosing between candidates or deciding who to favour where choices have to be made. The government is perplexed by the fact that equal pay legislation for women has been on the statute books for years, yet the figures show men still earn more than women on average and there are doubts about the justice of pay between the sexes in certain walks of life. They have yet to show us the problem is the shape and nature of the legislation. If they cannot demonstrate that legislative change will fix this, their new Bill will be yet another in their sequence of posing Bills, well intentioned but ineffective.

Yesterday we heard one year after the floods the result of a government review into the floods. It is pathetic that it took so long to conclude the blindingly obvious – that our flood defences are inadequate and a lot of buck passing occurs between the different authorities and levels of government over who should do the work. Once again we are told there will be legislation to deal with the problem in the next Parliamentary year. Why on earth do we need legislation? We need women (or men) in JCBs to get out there and enlarge and cleanse the ditches and cut some new ones. We need schemes to build bunds and other means of retaining water in safer places, better conduits and cleaner pipes, with a few non return valves and bigger pipes to handle sewage in some places. We need these now, in case the rains come again as they did last summer. One school in my constituency has already been flooded again this year, as it was last. I doubt that a new law will make any difference. I showed the Environment Agency the other day what might solve the problem, and it wasn’t legislation.

There is a simple message for the government. Stop trying to pose as saviour by legislation, and start taking some practical action where action is needed. Stopping future floods would be a good thing to do. Getting your own recruitment and retention right in the public sector would go a long way to tackle inequality in the workplace. Let Parliament have longer to discuss fewer Bills, and you might also start to get some sensible legislation.

I just turned on the New Zealand versus England cricket in time to see the collision between bowler and batsman and the run out of the New Zealand player as a result.
In the spirit of cricket England should not have appealed for the run out.

Yesterday’s debate on the rising cost of living reminded us just how driven by soundbites modern Labour politics is.

Ministers stuck doggedly to their task – to put the word “world” or “global” in front of anything unpleasant that is happening to the economy, and to claim endlessly that everything being done in the UK meant we could ride out the “world” storm better than most. They failed to engage with any of the points and questions raised.

I asked them what the true UK borrowing and unfunded pension liability total now is. I suggested it is a massive £1500 billion. There was no denial from the Treasury bench.

I asserted that the Bank of England had been gravely damaged by taking away its responsibilities for banking supervision and debt management, leaving it unable to control or understand the money markets. There was no reply.

I argued that the Monetary Policy Committee was far from independent, as the government overruled it with a change of target and refused to explain why some members were reappointed and others were not. Again there was silence.

I pointed out that they had raised taxes on North Sea oil fields, yet now had the temerity to go and tell other oil producers to raise output, when their actions had reduced potential output from the North Sea. There was no response.

I questioned why they had spent 11 years dithering over whether to have more nuclear power stations and other non carbon power generation. Wouldn’t we be in a better position if we had more non carbon capacity now? The comments went unanswered.

I asked why they had failed to reform the Common Agricultural Policy so farmers grew more corn and has less set aside, to help with food prices. There was no substance to the response.

The Minister responding to the debate was one of the more intelligent ones. She must have been told to keep her head down and not be drawn on anything different, so she did just that and spoke like someone reading from the whips pager. The only Labour backbencher to stay during the middle section of the debate expressed surprise that I had produced an interpretation of the UK Credit Crunch and the poor conduct of the authorities that was entirely new to her. Some of her colleagues who had heard my case looked as if it were not permitted to use arguments outside the prescribed spin doctor approved list. The arguments are those I published in the Conservative Economic Policy Review and have frequently voiced on this blog and occasionally in the media. Analysis so often gets crowded out by the fatuous soundbites of the spin doctor clash.

The Conservative front bench stuck to the line that the government had failed to mend the roof when the sun was shining, to which the government had no economic answer. It confined itself to pointing out that it had mended some school and hospital roofs, deliberately evading the point of the metaphor that they had debauched the public accounts in a time of plenty. The Lib Dems (Vince Cable) promised a demolition job on the seven Conservative proposals to improve the situation. I only counted Mr Cable dealing with five, and agreeing with at least two of the five, so it was a bit like being savaged by a hamster. There were no Lib Dem proposals on offer yesterday to get out of the stagflation that is now upon us.

Today we debate how to get more planning permission through our aged, creaking and unpopular system of planning. The government wrongly thinks that injecting yet another quango into the process, stuffed full of so-called independent experts carefully chosen by Labour Ministers, will do the job. The more their backbenchers disagree, the more the government makes their proposals more complicated, substituting Ministerial decision for quango decision to an increasing extent.

What we need is a rethink. We have to ask ourselves why is housebuilding and the construction of major facilities are so unpopular, and if we can do anything about it.

The main reason most people are NIMBYs – and why many MPs have to be the Chief Nimby in their area – is simple. Large projects and new housing estates do not bring the individuals most affected by them any benefits, but they bring them more traffic congestion, more noise, less amenity and a worse view. No amount of Section 106 money – the bribe to the council to give permission by the developer – can offset this, as it is not money passing to the person who is inconvenienced or loses house value. Indeed, councils often make it an even more unpopular development by spending some of the Section 106 money on a Children’s playground which is captured by feral youths in the evening and plonks that down by the houses affected by the new development!

Any system which wishes to make people more enthusiastic about new development has to transfer some of the planning gain windfall to the householders affected by way of compensation. We need to develop systems to reward long suffering householders, who otherwise will carry on opposing everything because there is nothing in it for them. On the odd occasion when a developer has offered neighbours compensation in my area there has been much less opposition to the planning application.

buy cheap software

The hedge fund manager who told the US authorities that the current oil price is twice as high as it need be thanks to speculators, told them what they wanted to hear and made international news. Readers of this blog will know that I think there is speculative money behind the latest rapid rise of the oil price: at some point the speculators will try to take their profits and the price will fall. Readers will also know that here in the UK the government and its taxes accounts for a far bigger part of the petrol and diesel price at the pumps than the oil producers and the speculators put together, which makes Mr Brown’s preaching on this subject rather difficult to accept. As the BBC pointed out today, a barrel of mineral water or a barrel of Coca Cola would still be dearer than a barrel of oil at current prices.

The problem with telling legislators there are speculators in sensitive markets like oil is that they will want to do something about it. They will want to look for ways of banning speculation. This is unwise, because it is technically very difficult to distinguish a pure speculator from anyone else.

People like to think that speculators are a breed apart – often seen as rich foreign traders capable of running a market ever higher, with impeccable senses of timing and access to vast funds so they can get in and out at huge profits to the detriment of everyone else. As a legislator I can see the attraction of trying to identify such people, and trying to stop them or tax them – it would be popular.

In practice, there are two major difficulties. The first is, if we stopped or taxed them more heavily here in London the business would just transfer somewhere else where there were not the same constraints. The second is that in a rapidly rising market as oil has been many people become speculators.

If people fear a price rise they fill their home oil tanks and keep them full. They are speculating on the future price by buying forward more than they would usually do. If people fear a petrol price hike they go out and fill their car and any reserve tank they hold. Businesses relying on road or aviation fuel buy more forward. When you get the annual report of your pension fund you may find it has bought into oil and commodity investments, trying to exploit the speculative trend. Charities, widows and orphans are as likely to be part of this speculative pressure on the oil price as our fabled rich slick foreign trader.

It is best to leave well alone when so many people have directly or indirectly, knowingly or unwittingly become oil speculators. You may be one yourself in a modest way. All such bubbles come to an end. If you want to help the oil price go down, buy less oil based products and find something else to invest in if you have some savings. (Please take appropriate advice – this is not investment advice!)

Today’s front page of the Independent shows this government’s list of major projects that it would now like to push through. The paper are right that some of these will prove highly controversial, and some may be misjudged. The overall impression, however, is how few there are after a long decade of practically no expansions of capacity for rail, road, power generation or water supply. This government has invited in millions of new people, demanded major housebuilding and shop and factory building programmes from the private sector, yet has done nothing to expand the capacity of the main networks where it is the owner or the main instigator and regulator. The Independent’s map shows that the South east will still be very short of road and rail capacity, with nothing major planned.

Having wasted eleven years the government now claims to be in a hurry. That is why we face its horrible Planning Bill again this week, seeking to transfer the responsibility for major planning decisions to an unelected quango away from elected Ministers and Councillors. What we need is a government with foresight and powers of persuasion to allow the development of the new capacity we need on all our major networks – a government prepared to spend on compensation to homeowners where their amenity is adversely affected by new developments. Instead we have a government which wants to fight another battle against our right to a hearing and representation, as they seek to make the planning process even more remote from individuals affected by major projects. Far from speeding up planning decisions on these major projects, this Planning Bill is slowing them down, by taking yet another year out to have a constitutional battle over how to do it instead. Why can’t they just get on with it under the existing system? Why have they left it all so late? Why do we need yet another quango when we are already groaning under the number of planners and the complexity of the system? Why don’t they at least get rid of English regional planning at the same time, so we have a few major national projects decided nationally, and the rest settled by local government?

Gordon Brown today launches another fightback. This time he combines concern about the broken society the Conservatives have highlighted with the new wish to shower taxpayers’ money on groups who might then become better inclined towards the Government. The new big idea is to offer money to encourage those on a low income or on benefits to change their lifestyles. There will be money to buy food of the right kind, money to seek advice and help with children, and money to live life according to the Gordon Brown rulebook.

It is a typically political package designed to spend cash the Government does not have in a bid to show the Government cares and is looking after its heartlands. The prosperous and enterprising people and areas will have to pay more in stealth taxes and deferred taxes when the borrowing has to be repaid. Many Labour MPs will be praying they get a higher political dividend for this new largesse than they received from the £2.7 billion emergency package of benefit increases at the time of the Crewe by-election to offset the increase in income tax.

The sad fact is that Gordon just does not get it. In the current climate he cannot buy enough votes by spending more of people’s money. He can lose more votes by debauching the public accounts further. He should grasp that ever since he divorced Prudence the economy has performed poorly. Years of spending too much and managing the public sector badly are now catching up with him. He needs to cut public spending and seek much better value for money. He needs to tackle the broken society by spending the huge sums of money they are already committed to spending in a more efficient way.

Central to this crucial task is education. Too many young people in deprived areas pass through the school system without learning how to read, write and add up to an acceptable standard. Too many are left without enthusiasm, special knowledge and a confident sense of purpose. Tampering with A-levels, dumbing down standards, or showing pupils more films is not going to solve this. Freeing the schools, offering parents and pupils more choice, encouraging the pursuit of excellence in many fields would help.

Mending our broken society requires many changes. Many of these are chronicled in Iain Duncan Smith’s report on this subject. Simply showering more public money on deprived areas, as we have been doing, will not work. Today’s speech is more spin about a broken strategy of spend, spend, spend, than about the problems of a broken society.

The Poll in the Observer shows how much more sensible the public are about climate change than many of the governments. On a weekend when our Prime Minister jets off to the Middle East to ask them to pump more oil out of the ground to lower the price the public are right to be cynical about their government’s commitment to curbing their own emissions. When the UK government imposes far more tax on petrol than the oil companies and producing countries charge for their product the public understand that the government is using green taxes as a convenient way of raising revenue. It is merely posturing about the price because people are now finding it hard to pay for life’s necessities.

Whilst some people think the pro climate change scientists have had too large an impact on the debate and are not the whole story, the majority still think there is a problem. They are right, however, to be sceptical of the government’s intention to do something about its own insatiable appetite for travel, heating, air-conditioning and other energy uses. I have been tabling questions to try to find out just how much progress is being made in each Whitehall department. The information does not come out readily or in similar format department by department, as their experiences are very varied. It is most important that the government leads by example and shows the rest of us how to curb our energy bills, at a time when the price of energy is causing public-spending stresses, let alone the carbon argument.

Gordon Brown has not explained why he wants to drive energy prices up through taxation and regulation, and at the same time try to bring them back down a little by persuading oil producers elsewhere to produce more. There is a contradiction at the heart of government policy which can only be explained by understanding that this is a Spend Spend government crazy to get your money, which needs ever more green taxes to take the cash from you. Horrified at the polls showing how people are hurting thanks to high energy prices and taxes, the government then poses for the cameras saying it wants others to take the price pressure off.

I support practical greenery. To me it makes sense to waste less, insulate more, reuse where possible, develop carbon and fuel reducing technologies for space heating and personal travel, and invest in alternatives to carbon based energy because of the rising price and growing scarcity. What we want from our government are commonsense proposals and action in all these fields, rather than more carbon burning stunts travelling the world in search of a foreigner to blame for our woes.

Today is great red herring day. The Energy Minister tells us the PM feels our pain when we face daylight robbery at the petrol pumps. The PM is valiantly battling for us and for lower prices in Saudi Arabia.

Is this, I ask myself, the same Prime Minister who governs one of the world’s oil-producing countries, who has put up taxes on North Sea production instead of offering tax reductions to encourage new exploration and development? Is this the same PM who as Chancellor presided over large rises in petrol tax, and who as Prime Minister is delighted to haul in so much more revenue from the extra VAT on the higher prices? Does this Prime Minister understand that UK tax is one a half times the amount of the underlying price of the product?

If the PM really felt our pain and wanted to do something about it he could stay at home and save the cost of air travel. He could announce a cut in the duty on petrol to offset the increases in oil taxes he is now enjoying. He could offer tax incentives to North Sea producers to produce and develop more oil production at home. He could make decisions on nuclear and renewables to increase our output of non carbon based electricity.

Instead we are treated to more expensive spin. Let’s hope the Saudis do decide to pump a bit more oil, and let’s hope that shakes some speculators out of the market. It will not, however, change the rip-off at the pumps that comes not from foreign oil producers but from our own UK government. Why won’t he meet the North Sea producers again and say this time that he is sorry for the extra taxes he has landed us with, and will do what it takes to speed extraction in our own oil and gas fields? Instead of blaming foreigners he should see that the UK energy crisis has been made at home. This government has failed to make the capacity decisions needed over the last ten years, and has seen the green argument as a good excuse to put taxes up on many kinds of energy.