There is general agreement in Wokingham and West Berkshire that our local schools need some more money. Just before Parliament was dissolved for the election, the government published proposals for fairer funding. The idea is to narrow the gap between the best financed and the worst financed schools by changing the formula for financing them.

I look forward to the government’s response to the consultation, as there could be improvements to the formula they proposed. I argued the case for more cash in the last Parliament.

It will be important in the new Parliament to find additional money for education in the years ahead to benefit all state schools. We want good provision for teachers and for all the support staff and buildings it takes to provide a good education. This can come from the proceeds of growth, as tax revenues rise with a growing economy. The best tax collector is growth and success. Often the worst tax collector is higher tax rates, which may curb growth and lead to loss of revenue if ill judged.

I will take the argument to Parliament if elected to find more money overall for schools, and to offer a better share to the lowly funded areas like Wokingham and West Berkshire.

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Several parties are out to show they can deliver more money to public services without hurting most voters. The Lib Dems say they will increase Income Tax by 1p to deliver £6bn more for the NHS and social care. Labour argue for a big hike in the Corporation Tax rate to pay for a wide range of extra public spending and various expensive renationalisations. These views are based on two common fallacies in UK debate.

The first fallacy is an extra few billion will make all the difference. The truth is all parties in government do increase the spending on the NHS, social care and other priorities every year, and all wish to see these services properly funded. Since the Conservative led coalition entered government, total public spending has risen by 20% from £669 bn to £802 bn. Health spending has gone up more, by 23%, from £96bn to £117bn. The Conservative government has promised another £8bn to the NHS and £2bn more to social care, and will doubtless review the figures regularly to see if they are enough or need increasing if re elected to government. Just adding £6bn as a one off will not suddenly transform the NHS, I doubt there is a thought through budget of how to spend that money and what improvements it would buy. The extra pound has no magical powers not shared with the pounds already being spent.

The second fallacy is the idea of painless tax rises. 1p on Income tax rates sounds modest. That is a 5% increase in the standard rate, a 2.5% increase in the 40% rate and a 2.2% increase in the 45% rate. It means hundreds of pounds extra for most earners. That is money which families cannot then spend on their priorities.

The proposal for a big rise in Corporation Tax might well backfire. Having a low rate by international standards is one of the ways the UK attracts substantial inward investment, building a strong presence by many dynamic international companies here. Over the period when the reductions in rate have been put in, our revenue from Corporation Tax has gone up. Why wouldn’t we lose some revenue if we push the tax rate up, especially at a time when the USA is planning a major move the other way. I have no wish to be a soft touch for big business, but it does seem we are finding the right levels of Corporation Tax to get them to pay more.

In 2009-10 the Corporation Tax rate was 28% and the tax take was £36bn. £6.4 bn of that came from North Sea oil. This year the rate is 19% and the estimate is for £46bn of tax revenue with no revenue from North Sea oil. The take has gone up in recent years despite a major reduction in North Sea volumes of output. So by cutting the rate from 28% to 19% we have gained 28% more revenue, or an impressive 55% if you adjust for the ending of North Sea taxable output.

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It was good to hear Mr Juncker say the EU had made a mistake in briefing in the way they did about the Downing Street dinner. Just as it makes sense for the UK to be friendly and positive in its offer and dealings with the EU as we prepare to leave, so it makes sense for the EU to be the same. We, after all, are an important market for their exports, a valued partner in many collaborations, an important part of their defence and security alliance, and a frequent ally or coalition partner in international matters. We are happy for that to remain true in the future but expect reciprocal good will.

There is a clear need for strong and stable leadership in the UK to represent our interests. The UK needs to explain patiently and firmly that we will be taking back control of our laws, our money and our borders. We also need to make clear that we are making a generous offer of continuity over trade, defence, security and many other joint ventures and common workings across a wide range of areas. There are technical matters to be settled over market access, transport rights, the rights of citizens living in each other’s territories and the rest that need not be difficult to resolve if there is good will on both sides. I see no lack of good will on the UK side. That is why Mr Juncker’s recalibration of the EU response is welcome.

It is never a good idea to try to punish your main customer. I still expect reality and commonsense to break out in due course in the EU over the UK departure, as it has done over the commentary on a dinner.

Meanwhile I see the Evening Standard on line gives prominence to the fear that university research will be damaged by Brexit. Have they not heard Ministers stating clearly talented and well qualified people will be free to come to the UK. This will include faculty members, with an open door for foreign students to undertake courses at our universities.

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The April retail sales figures were good. Total sales were up 6.3%. The delayed Easter reduced the March figures and flattered the April ones as I argued at the time of the March release. We can now see the underlying pattern, which is still one of decent growth. Food has been stronger than non food, with the BRC itself saying that taking the two months of March and April together food sales “were up by around 4% on last year, exceptional growth by all recent standards”. More importantly, there was no overall shop price inflation, giving the lie to those who have argued rising prices will follow from a weaker pound.

Why haven’t prices risen as some said? There is considerable competition in world goods markets. There is even more competition in UK retail. The main store groups have increased their trading areas at the same time as on line retail has provided formidable competition to them. Discount retailers have kept their prices down, whilst use of the web has enabled shoppers to look around for the best deals especially for the larger items. The pound is now strengthening again, some 8% up on its lows. I do not expect that to suddenly cut prices, just as I did not expect a price surge from the previous falls in sterling.

The construction outlook has also brightened. Recent figures imply good growth in house building coming through, and a quickening of the pace in industrial property. New offices are weaker. Overall the PMIs and the recent starts figures point to a growing industry with more investment in buildings.

It is interesting to note that the FTSE 250 Index of smaller companies with more UK business as a proportion is now up by one third since June 27th 2016, whilst the large companies in the FTSE 100 with more exposure to foreign currency earnings are up by 23%.

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There is a lot of nonsense talked about how the election of Mr Macron will lead to a much tougher French stance over Brexit. Mr Macron, after all, was not so long ago a Minister serving the outgoing President, who has not been critical of the outgoing President’s stance on all this. Anyone leading France will of course be putting EU and French interests first, but this does not mean they will wish to punish the UK.

Recent press comment tells us that the EU itself has researched the legality of sending a leaving bill and realised there is no legal basis for any such payment. That is doubtless why they did not put the phrase leaving bill or equivalent into their statement of how they wish to handle the negotiations. They want the UK to settle the bills it owes, which the UK has always said it will. We are still paying our regular contributions even though we have told them we are leaving, and will doubtless do so up to departure.This implies Mr Macron will be unwilling to make a huge financial demand on the UK, knowing there is no legal back up to it.

Mr Macron has already stated his task – to bring greater unity to France by dealing with the economic hurts parts of the country feel. This will mean securing a good deal for French farmers and others to carry on selling produce into the UK market on favourable terms. IT is difficult to see how Mr Macron could keep faith with farmers if he insists on World Trade tariff levels on agricultural trade between our two countries.

His language of wishing to mellow the discourse and soothe tensions would also sit ill with stoking a wider trade war with the UK. People are affected by the emotions of the moment when they make decisions on what to buy. There are global alternatives to many well known French products, so it behoves the President to help woo the UK customers, just as the UK government wants to reassure and keep UK exports to France which we value.

I wish the new President every success in his stated aims after the election. I see no reason the UK cannot get on well with him in our mutual interest. I expect him to take a firm line in defence of French interests, but to see that it is in France’s interest to have a good deal with us. The French people will of course decide next month just how much power to give him ,when they decide on a Parliament to promote his ideas or to tame his reforms.

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For many years and under many governments the UK has puzzled over the relationship between social care and the NHS. All governments would like a seamless transition from the one to the other for patients who need both. All have looked at whether some administrative or management reform would make all the difference. No-one so far has come up with a perfect solution.

Some now say the answer is to put social care under the control of the NHS. Others say the local NHS in each area needs to work more closely alongside the Council’s social service department. There are concerns that the boundaries do not work well, with some Councils not moving quickly enough to provide social care placing greater strains on hospitals with elderly patients.

It is tempting to think we could reorganise to remove any boundaries between different public bodies providing services. Then maybe the unified budgets would lead to more optimal outcomes for both patient and taxpayer. However, it is difficult to see how you can avoid a boundary. If you put social care into the NHS you just shift the boundary to the one with Council provided care homes and sheltered housing. If you transferred local NHS control to Councils you would find it much more difficult to get benefits from national NHS policies, purchasing power and hospital planning. There would be a bigger tension between national and local NHS, with all the money coming from the national level.

As someone who has thought a lot about this problem as a former government adviser and someone helping with past Manifestoes there is no easy answer. I conclude it is best to start from what we have, and build in incentives and requirements for good conduct by both the NHS and local social care.What we want is a wide range of provision, with choice and capacity available for each different and often difficult case.

Someone in social care needs access to a good GP and or to a hospital Consultant for a worrying condition. Admission to hospital when needed is not normally a problem. Decent supervision of an elderly person should enable better management of any medical condition without emergencies or alarms in many cases.

Discharging an elderly person from hospital requires appraisal of their needs and prompt and helpful action by social services, housing and other relevant departments. This is where local accountability and Councillor supervision should wish to shine.

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Yesterday I got involved in an important conversation on a doorstep about education.

I was told by a teacher that she felt strongly the present stretching curriculum backed up by regular testing was getting in the way of encouraging a love of learning in primary school children. She felt there was now too much emphasis on knowing facts and science, to the exclusion of wider education.

It is a difficult issue. I think you can make a case that too much emphasis on requiring mental recall of a fixed body of knowledge with testing to try to ensure pupils have memorised it can put some pupils off. It may inculcate an attitude of learning for the test and not bothering about anything that is not needed to pass the test. On the other hand if you go too far the other way and do not insist on mastery of the basics of number and words children can arrive at Secondary school ill equipped to carry out the more complex tasks there.

I remember at my own primary there was a strong emphasis on learning tables, spelling well, writing neatly, and being able to respond quickly to mental arithmetic challenges. There was a lot of rote learning and endless classroom tests to see if you had put in the work to memorise what was needed. The more creative work took place through projects, where you were encouraged to use your own initiative and time at home to flesh out a folder on the appointed topic. This mixture worked for some of us well.Today we now have the welcome development of smaller classes which should mean we can do better.

I would be interested in your thoughts on what is the right balance and the best approach. I agreed with the teacher that it is best if the system used does develop in a child a wish to know more, and a spirit of enquiry which will lead them to learn more through their own initiatives. If education is just a process of learning by rote and repeating for a test it will miss some of the most important features of personal development, but in the schools I have visited there is usually a balance in these matters which the national curriculum does not prevent. What are your thoughts.

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There are many fears and alarms expressed about the state of various economies around the world. The curious thing is in recent years none of these has come true. The world economy has continued to grow at a modest pace, with contributions from all the advanced countries led by the US and UK growth rates. China too has kept a steady growth of over 6% going, with many critics claiming it is about to end. This year we may also get some turnround in Brazil and less of a drag from the oil and commodity based economies which suffered in recent past years from low oil and commodity prices.

The background with the Euro area continuing to create extra money and buying up sovereign bonds, Japan doing the same, and the persistence of ultra low interest rates outside the USA, is favourable for more growth. It is true there has been an uptick in US, UK and Euro area inflation this year. This owes much to the higher oil price, aided by some Chinese price rises on exported goods to reflect the higher input prices they are paying for energy and raw materials. This may well abate later this year, as oil and commodity prices have been weaker recently. Higher inflation has not so far impeded reasonable growth in consumer spending in all these affected areas.

Mr Trump’s new found ability to get a Healthcare reform through the House of Representatives means he may be able to get through some reflation as well. He still has to get the Healthcare Bill through the Senate, who may wish to amend it and cause difficulties. Getting some kind of healthcare reform through is an important first step prior to tax cuts which will be easier to achieve if healthcare reform delivers some expenditure savings. Serious tax cuts in the USA would power more growth, which would benefit the rest of us as well.

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This week we saw a couple of sets of fanciful figures intrude on the debate. There was Labour’s 10,000 police at £30 a year salary, hastily adjusted to £8000 a year, still way below what we normally pay our officers. Then there was the FT’s take on the EU bill for the UK leaving the Union, at Euro 100bn.

The first sets of numbers were mistakes, and have been adjusted upwards as much Labour spending will need to be to make it realistic. £300 m a year is nearer the mark.

The second story that the UK owes up to Euro 100 bn is just silly. There are no legal obligations to pay beyond the sums we owe for our regular contributions over the next twenty two months before we leave. If they want a political deal on money, then of course they would need to knock off our share of the assets. I don’t see that is a sensible or attractive way to proceed for them. They should just accept the Treaty that allows for no special bill.

The UK should continue to be friendly, outward going and positive about it all. We should continue to stress the great deal we are proposing for our future relationship. Free access to our market for all their exporters. Guarantees for all their citizens living and working in the UK. Continued large UK contributions to the defence, security, research and culture of Europe.

Stable and strong leadership is needed by the UK, to be optimistic but to be firm in resisting silly proposals that have no basis in law or political reality.
The EU disobliging briefings sound as if they are coming from people who suddenly realise their negotiating strategy of pressurising a member state into seeing it their way is not going to work. The EU thought the UK would want to stay in the Single market Custom Union. They could then seek to charge us for that. It was always a silly assumption, as the UK clearly wants to make its own free trade agreements with the rest of the world which means leaving the Customs Union. The UK was also clear it wanted to stop paying the money. It is the Commission who are most worried about the loss of the UK’s contributions, as it’s their budgets and salaries that will suffer.

The way countries pay to trade with other reluctant countries is via tariffs. If the EU wants to put tariffs up against us, it can only do so to a limited extent under WTO rules.It would be a lot cheaper than the bills we are hearing about. In return we can impose more tariffs on them given the nature and volume of their exports to us. That is why I have always thought it likely in the end they will want tariff free trade. It is, of course, always possible they wish to self harm. However, it seems it is more the EU Commission that favours a tough approach as the harm is to the member states, not to the Commission itself. The member states are more likely to wake up to the harm it could do their export companies and especially their farmers and want a more sensible approach.

If the EU seriously thinks we need to give them money to be able to sell them goods presumably they would need to give us money to sell us goods. I can’t see that idea catching on.

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The debate between Le Pen and Macron was by all accounts fiery, personal and intense. There may have been less policy detail than some wanted, but the big divides over policy were nonetheless clear.
They both are running as anti establishment candidates who want change. That is more difficult for Mr Macron as he was until recently a Minister in the socialist government. Agreeing with his opponent that unemployment is too high and new economic measures are needed, he had to deal with why he had not done that as Economy Minister. He now wishes to liberalise the labour market, making it easier for companies to take on people. Madame Le Pen for her part wants to place barriers on the movement of people into the country and workforce, and to protect French trade and jobs by direct intervention. She was asked repeatedly for more detail of her measures and how they were supposed to work. They put the respective cases for a global and EU based approach versus a protectionist France first approach.
They differed strongly on the Euro and EU membership. Mr Macron is fully committed, and stressed the central importance of belonging to the Euro in his vision of the world. Mrs Le Pen argued that the Euro is the bankers’currency, not the currency of the people. She wants a French currency again.
Madam Le Pen attacked the powerful role of Germany in the EU and jibed that either way in this Presidential election France will be governed by a woman – herself or Mrs Merkel. Either when elected as President will need to construct a majority of representatives in the Parliament to help implement their programmes, which will make the Parliamentary elections most important after the choice of President.

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