It’s been a fascinating few weeks e Labour conference and the start of Parliament with Labour’s new leader. It has been a struggle for some of the MPs to adjust, as they discover just how out of touch with their members their policy positions and statements had become.  It is also a reminder that political leaderships do need to lead. They do have to explain to passionate followers what is possible , and to remind  them they are there to serve the wider public and not just the believers in their causes.

Labour  now say they are against austerity. This is the party which first spent all the money, then announced the need for major cutbacks to get the budget deficit under control. This is the party that slashed capital spending especially heavily prior to 2010 as their downpayment on getting the accounts into shape.

They need to discover this truth. Any sensible politician or party is against austerity. I want prosperity for the many, and an economic policy which delivers it. Labour delivered massive austerity to voters through the great  recession in 2008-9. The issue in politics is not between proponents of austerity or prosperity. One of the central issues is how do you best create prosperity for the many?

Labour seems to think you create prosperity by raising taxes on business and successful business people. It thinks you create prosperity by spending more on benefits. It wants to legislate its way to prosperity with more laws and regulations. History tells us this is the opposite of how you bring prosperity about. You do not make the poor rich by seeking to make the rich poor.

Labour also hopes you can create growth by more public spending and more public  borrowing. As our economy recovers the danger of such a route is you might end up with more inflation, and far too high a debt interest burden. Labour is wrong to say the Conservatives are balancing the books at the expense of the poor. Conservative tax cuts take people on low incomes out of tax altogether. Conservative economic policies promotes more jobs and better paid jobs. The best way out of poverty is to have a job, and to move on to a better job.

The tsunami of closures and sackings which the Euro has unleashed on the southern economies of the zone has now washed up as a wave of closures of heavy plant here in the UK. We do not suffer the intense misery of the fixed exchange rates and EU managed budgets afflicting Greece, Spain and Portugal, but we are suffering from the dear energy policy and from the lack of EU action over fair trade in steel.

I have often warned of the threat of EU policy to energy intensive business in the UK. Our aluminium industry has already been dealt bad blows, and our petrochemical and chemical industry is struggling. Today the threats to steel are large. Redcar has been closed. Llanwern and Scunthorpe are under review.

The steel industry has made three requests of the government at its Steel Summit this week. The first is to get our energy prices down. Under EU rules this is difficult or illegal. However, Germany subsidises her heavy industry to combat this problem. All the time we remain in this job destroying body we may need to do the same. The subsidies are needed to offset the high costs of energy built into the energy policies. The longer term solution is to have our own cheaper energy policy based on more modern gas fired power stations and based on the extraction and creation of more of our own energy.

The second is business rate relief. This too would be a possibly legal way of assisting our industry at a time of cut throat competition from abroad threatening to destroy our domestic capacity. Taking a smaller percentage in tax now would be better than attempting to sustain a higher percentage of nothing once the plants have closed.

The third is anti dumping cases where foreign suppliers are dumping. Proving that is never easy , but as the custodians of our trade policy the EU could at least try to do that to help.

The UK is going to need a lot of steel to build cars in our successful motor industry, to modernise and expand the railway, to add to the stock of taller offices and flats in our main cities, to sustain our oil, gas and petrochemical industry and for many other uses. This is worth fighting for. It once again highlights just how much damage to jobs and living standards some EU policies do.

Hard on the heels of Mrs Merkel’s generous invitation to too all Syrians to go to Germany as migrants came her U turn telling them not to with demands to spread refuges and economic migrants around the rest of the EU.

This time Mrs Merkel is doing a deal with Turkey. In return for promises that Turkey will do more to restrain migrants from going through Turkey into the EU, Mrs Merkel has promised in the name of the EU that the EU will make more rapid progress to letting Turks into the Schengen common borders area and will allow relaxation of travel and visa restrictions for Turks. How does she think this will help? By whose authority does she do this? Will the rest of the EU and the Schengen area go along with this? The EU we are told has agreed to give Turkey Euro 500 million of aid in an attempt to restrain more migrants passing through Turkey. Mrs merkel is talking about Euro 3 billion. Where does this leave the agreed policy that the UK pushed for a lower EU budget?

Mrs Merkel is coming in for more criticism in Germany for her ill thought through migrant policy. This will not restore her popularity. It is another reason why the UK needs to control its own borders. It is a reminder that the EU is a German driven and led Europe. This is not what most UK people want, especially when the leader of Germany is so head strong and unsure of touch.

It is not a good idea to offer Mr Erdogan of Turkey these advantages just before an election.Many in the EU are concerned by the drift of Turkish policy on many matters including the Kurds, and do not wish to see Mr Erdogan buttressed by visits and deals just before an important election.

Devolving power is often a good idea. I think it is best done by devolving more power to individuals, families, charities and companies to make their own decisions. It is a good idea to leave them enough of their own money to spend so more can be self reliant. I regard lower taxes, greater prosperity, and more jobs as policies which empower people and devolve power from government of all levels. Often the best way to implement true devolution is to abolish governing quangoes and layers of government. Conservative abolition of regional government in England was just such an excellent move. In successive votes people in various parts of England had made clear their hostility to extra government at regional level.

Many in politics think devolution of power is about shuffling power down from higher authorities to lower or more local authorities, but still keeping it with government. Quite often this policy ends up taking more power away from people and business, and giving more power to government in total. It can lead to higher tax rates, more public spending, larger bureaucracies, more elected officials, more laws, more regulations and more public projects restricting the individual. It is all too easy for a new regional or local government to wish to tax spend and regulate by more than the national government sheds when power passes. Often indeed no power does pass, but local and regional is granted new and additional powers to tax and regulate people on top of existing government demands and decisions.

So what are we to make of this government’s devolution proposals? They have promised us English votes for English issues, which would be a welcome shift in who makes decisions. This does not mean more laws and spending as these decisions are already being made by the Union Parliament. They are encouraging clusters of local authorities to form new more powerful devolved local government, sometimes with elected Mayors. We will need to see if these locally driven schemes pass my true devolution test. Do they reduce central power by enough to ensure people do not end up more highly taxed and regulated? There will be substantial differentiation of these schemes depending on local wishes.

Some object to the development of more of a postcode lottery in our local government arrangements, as different parts of England want different answers. Surely postcode lottery is proof that local decision making has a more important place? If all local areas wanted the same structure and the same policies what would be the point of local decision making? Labour argues a contradictory position. They say they want more local devolution than the government (or indeed than their last government) offers, yet they also say they want a one size fits all solution! That would need to be imposed from above, the very opposite of true devolution.

Yesterday we had an important debate on removing the deficit that has dogged UK public finances for more than a decade. Labour switched sides again, opposing the idea that in normal times there should be no deficit.

The present government plans to cut the deficit from around £70 billion this year to £6bn in 2018-19, and to move into surplus in each of the two subsequent years. This will end a long period of huge build up in public sector debt, which will exceed £1.6tn by 2017-18 (excluding the capitalised value of future unfunded liabilities and without imputing a value to future tax receipts to pay for them). Net debt as a percentage of GDP hit a high of 80.8% of GDP last year and is planned to fall this year and over the next five years, down to 68.5% by 2020-21.

The government assumes the economy will be operating at full capacity by the end of this decade, so the cyclically adjusted borrowing or repayment is the same as the actual one planned. The reduction in deficit comes about through a large increase in tax revenue. The plan is to raise £210 billion a year more in 2020-21 than last financial year. This will both remove the deficit and allow an increase of £109 billion a year in total public spending over the same time period.

It is curious that Labour have decided to ignore the deficit again and to argue for more borrowing. As the debt and deficit fall later this decade so the interest burden reduces, giving more scope to spend on public sector services with less going on interest charges.

UK state debt was £380 bn in 2001-2. It soared to £1080bn by the time Labour left office, and has risen to around £1600 bn since. It is currently falling as a proportion of GDP but still rising in cash terms.

Yesterday the House gave a second reading to the Immigration Bill. This bill strengthens the powers of the authorities to remove illegal migrants. It introduces a deport first appeal later policy to prevent an individual deemed illegal using appeal rights to remain in the UK. It requires all public sector workers dealing with the public to speak fluent English. It makes it a crime for an illegal migrant to open a bank account, obtain a driving licence, rent a home or take a job.

The new law will help the authorities in detecting illegal migrants who have got through the border controls. Many illegals enter the country legally as visitors or students, only to outstay their visa. Anyone offering a job, renting a property, handling a bank account for an illegal migrant will be assisting a crime. Illegal migrants may be located and apprehended if they try to carry out any of the usual tasks of daily life requiring them to drive, to use a bank account or live in a house or flat. Some will object to private landlords and banks having a role in enforcing our border controls, whilst others will welcome this use of intelligence from the community. Immigration officers will gain additional powers to help them require illegal migrants to leave the country.

I made the point to Mrs May in the debate that it is best if illegals are detected at the port of attempted entry and not allowed in. She agreed, but reminded me of the numbers who enter legally only to become illegal later.

There will be a new Director of labour market enforcement. Exploitation of illegal migrants by bad employers is already against the law. The new regime will make it more likely employers of illegal labour will be found and prosecuted. The employment of illegal labour often leads to other abuses, with low pay, long hours, and lack of many of the normal terms of an employment contract.

Marrying the needs of a free society with the wish to control illegal migration is not easy. We want students to come to study at UK universities, investors to come and set up businesses here, visitors to come and enjoy our facilities and friends and family from abroad to be able to visit their contacts in the UK. We want these normal exchanges and movements to happen freely and as easily as possible. At the same time we wish to stop illegal migrants coming here, or visitors turning into illegal migrants, as there needs to be a control on how many additional permanent residents and workers the economy can absorb.

Mr Burnham for Labour showed some evolution in their thinking. They did not oppose all parts of the Bill, and he did say he wishes to place limits on the free movement of labour from the rest of the EU. Labour now recognises that large scale migration can depress wages and place undue strains on public services in places receiving substantial numbers of new residents.

The unexpected reform in the Chancellor’s speech to the Conservative conference was his proposal on business rates. He has offered to local government the transfer of all business rate revenue. This £26 billion a year would replace all the current grant income Councils receive from central government.

The reform will be complex. In order to make it work the Treasury will need to identify additional spending areas to transfer to local government, as business rate revenue exceeds grants. These will need to be agreed with Councils and the necessary arrangements put in place for them to run this extra spending.

The Treasury will wish to keep an overall limit on the level of business rates. They were transferred to central government for that very reason, to prevent local Councils trying to extract too much from business, which can work in the short term but creates longer term problems as business leaves a high tax area or fails to come to invest there.

The Treasury will also need to provide a means of sending some of the business rate money collected in a successful and prosperous area to poorer parts of the country. The City of London is the most extreme example, with a huge business rate income but few overnight residents to spend the tax on. As now there will need to be some formula for evening out the money, and a  new mechanism to claw it back from Councils in receipt of it.

Areas with elected Mayors will be able to increase the tax for better infrastructure. This power will need careful use, as business is more worried in the short term by the level of the tax than by what the tax will be spent on.

Andy Burnham says the government is wrong to tell landlords not to let property to illegal immigrants.  He thinks landlords should let property to whoever asks to rent, for fear of showing discrimination.

I have owned my own home for most of my adult lifetime, and I do not have a property to let out. I wish to see property to rent, at sensible prices, kept in good repair and made available to any UK legal resident who needs it. By the same reasoning I want to see tenants look after the property they rent, pay their rent on time, and stick to tenancy agreements. It takes a decent landlord and a co-operative tenant to have a good relationship.

Problems arise if either side violates these principles. Bad landlords overcharge on the rent and service charges. They may  fail to maintain the property, might  allow in other tenants who interfere with the neighbours’ peaceful enjoyment of their rented home, could  overcrowd properties, and sometimes terminate tenancy agreements unreasonably or pressurise tenants into leaving. Bad tenants fail to pay their rent on time, may build up arrears, can leave without notice, some damage the property, and or prove to be bad neighbours.

MPs often   receive more complaints and problems to sort out with the minority of properties that are rented  than the majority that are owner occupied. Parliament provides a legal framework to try to regulate the conduct of b0th parties to a tenancy agreement. The state often stands behind the tenant with Housing benefit and other financial support to make it possible for them to afford the rents. The law tries to protect tenants from bad landlords who fail to maintain their properties or to offer the security of tenure the law requires.

Landlords are currently unhappy about tax changes affecting the eligibility of interest on rental properties they have bought with borrowed money. Asking landlords to help police our borders by requiring them to ensure a tenant is a legal resident in the UK to many makes sense. Some will worry with Andy Burnham about discrimination. Others will worry that it is another imposition on landlords that makes  it less worthwhile at the margin to invest in rental property. What is your view?

Lord Rose lost no time in getting down to threatening us all with dire consequences if we dare to vote for freedom in the EU referendum. He said yesterday we are “stronger, safer and better off inside Europe” rather than “taking a leap into the unknown, risking our prosperity, threatening our safety and diminishing our influence in the world”.

What a depressing and absurd view of the UK. Most countries of the world trade successfully with the EU without being a member. Switzerland and Norway are the most prosperous European countries but are not members. How is leaving the EU any risk to our prosperity? They will want to sell us their goods and will come to a decent trade agreement, as they do with other non EU members. Meanwhile we will be £10 billion better off every year we are out, the money we have to send to the EU and don’t get back.

How is our safety threatened if we leave the EU? Does he have such a low view of our partners that he thinks they will undertake military activities against us? That is absurd. They are peace loving democracies that wish to have peaceful relations with us. We will stay in NATO with most of them as fellow members, with the same mutual obligations and support for each other’s defence as before. The UK leaving the EU will not trigger a western European war.

How also will our influence in the world be diminished? It will be enhanced,  because at last the UK will be free to have her own seat at the World Trade Organisation meetings and at world conferences on matters like climate change, without having to tow the EU line or be represented by an EU figure. Leaving the EU should increase our diplomatic weight and range and enable us to follow UK interests more directly.

Lord Rose needs to tell us more about the wild ride to political union the EU is embarked on. He needs to answer these crucial questions:

How far will political union go, under the 5 Presidents scheme?

How would the UK as a non Euro member avoid being dragged into the political union?

As the Euro will need far bigger transfer payments from rich to poor in the EU, how can the UK stay out of the regional and banking policies which will effect those transfers? Wont the UK be expected to pay her share of the costs of the failings of the Euro?

Why did he and his allies get  the Exchange Rate Mechanism so wrong? Does he now agree that was a European project the UK should not have joined?

Why did so many in the Stay in campaign think the UK should join the Euro ? Does he now agree it was right to stay out?

If it was right to stay out of the Euro why is also right to stay in a growing political union designed with the Euro in mind?

 

Lord Rose is not defending some friendly status quo that delivers us from insecurity. He wants us to stay in the EU on its wild ride to political union. He so far has refused to tell us the truth about the EU project, and seems to want to run a negative and misleading campaign. His views on encouraging more people from Eastern Europe to come here to work long hours for low wages has already brought hostile criticism from the Independent newspaper of all things, not a known lover of the UK leaving the EU.

 

There is little meeting of minds between the Franco German controllers of the EU and its most detached and unhelpful member, the UK.  The meeting between Mr Cameron and Mrs Merkel did its best to bridge the large and growing gap between the UK and the continent, but the truth is the political Channel has just got a lot wider.

The British people do not want to join the common borders project, do not like complete freedom of movement within the EU, and want the UK to gain more control over its borders and welfare system. They support Mr Cameron’s refusal to join a quota system for accepting new arrivals to the EU from outside. They  support his wish to reform welfare in ways which would limit access to benefits for recently arrived people from the continent.

The British people do not want to join the Euro. Even Lord Mandelson, one of the main instigators of Euro enthusiasm in the UK, now accepts the UK is not simply waiting for a more propitious time to join the project. The people who have argued the pro EU case recently against  me in debate have rushed to criticise the Euro and agree with me over its present shortcomings. As the Euro is the main part of the present EU project this places a big obstacle in the way of our friendly membership, and will mean hereafter we will always be demanding exemptions and special treatment from outside the principal centralising force.

The Prime Minister rightly argues we do not want ever closer union. The German Chancellor and the French President made clear this week that they do want ever closer union, and they want it now. They also seemed to imply that if the UK does not want it, it would be best if we left.

The UK wants fewer laws and regulations. The main method of ever closer union is for the EU to take over more and more areas of lawmaking so it has control. It is a fantasy to suppose the EU is about to halve its laws and agree to return large powers to the member states as a whole, as that cuts against the thrust of centralising to back and protect  the Euro. Promises of deregulation in a few areas have been made before, but have never materialised. Usually some figures are trotted out purporting to show some old directives and regulations have been discontinued. Usually what has happened is a far bigger and more comprehensive regulation or directive has taken the place of several smaller ones. The trend is continuously for more and  more EU law which any given member state cannot change if it wishes.

The easiest way of solving the UK problem is for both sides to agree that all we want – on both sides – is a free trade agreement, along with a range of agreements on extradition, air traffic, telecoms and other interconnections similar to those we already have and similar to those we have with non EU members. I hope that is what Mr Cameron concludes.It is the logic of his position, which has included opting out of the Fiscal Treaty, seeking to reduce the EU budget, and asking for fewer laws which have all proved contrary to the wishes of most continental governments.

In the meantime I support Vote Leave, as we do need to explain to people how being out of the current EU will be so much better than being in. Germany and France could be liberated by the absence of the UK seeking to restrain their centralising push for ever closer union. We will be free to pursue our global agenda for freer trade and better relations between states. We will also be £10 billion a year better off, or £300 per family every year we are out.