Category: Press Releases

The Rt. Hon John Redwood MP has today criticised the huge increase in the number of Whitehall staff taking early retirement over the last two years. In response to a series of parliamentary questions tabled before the summer, the government has admitted that the number of staff in some Whitehall departments and its related agencies taking early retirement has more than doubled.

Amongst the figures obtained by John Redwood are the revelations that there has been a 59% increase in the number of staff in the Ministry of Justice and its related agencies who have taken early retirement between 2006-07 and 2007-08. The Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, formerly the Department for Trade and Industry, has seen a 167% increase in the number of staff who took early retirement. The number of Department for Work and Pension staff employees and those of its related agencies who took early retirement has increased by 52%, and at DEFRA the figure is a staggering 174% increase over the last few years.

The number of civilian employees at the Ministry of Defence taking early retirement increased by 24%. The biggest increase was at the Department of Health, where the figure is 217%.

Speaking about these figures, John Redwood said: “At a time when people are feeling their pay packets under pressure and companies are struggling in the face of rising inflation and falling demand, it is disappointing to find yet another example of the Government’s failure to get a grip on public spending and the Whitehall bureaucracy. Of course if someone is really ill and needs early retirement an employer should be caring, but I cannot believe this is true in all these new cases.

“The huge increase in early retirement figures in these departments will lead to even greater liabilities on the public balance sheet. How are these commitments to be paid for? Alistair Darling has said there is to be no more money for schools, hospitals, defence, transport or policing, but he apparently has no difficulty in finding the money to pay extra pension entitlements for the large increase in Whitehall staff who have taken early retirement over the last few years”.

“David Blunkett recently suggested that employees should carry on working until they are no longer capable and questioned the assumption that the Government should support the elderly throughout retirement. Once again, it seems there is one rule for those who pay the money and another rule for those who spend it”.

John Redwood recently took part in Total Politics magazine’s “Daily Politico”. A transcript of the questions, and of John’s replies, follows:

Why did you get involved in the political world?

I was fed up with so many things working badly in the UK. I wanted to privatise the inefficient nationalised industries and create wider ownership.

When did you join the Conservative Party?

As a student.

What is your earliest political memory?

The Cuban Missile Crisis.

Which one law would you repeal?

Capital Gains Tax.

Which one law would you introduce?

A Deregulation Act.

What’s your favourite view in the world?

Lord’s Cricket Ground in the sunshine.

What’s your favourite political quotation?

“I have no desire to make windows into men’s souls” – Elizabeth I

What music gets you up to dance?

Anything with a good rhythm and if I’m with good company.

If you could have been present at any debate in the House of Commons over the last three hundred years, which would it have been , and why?

The repeal of slavery.

Imagine you are planning a dinner party, pick six people (living or dead) to invite

Nelson, Wellington, Elizabeth I, Victoria, Josiah Wedgwood, Cory Aquino.

Who is your best friend in politics?

Michael Fallon.

What’s your favourite form of transport?

Car.

What’s your favourite dish?

Fish Pie.

Do you have any phobias?

No.

What do you dream about?

Some things are private!

What’s the last thing you bought in a shop?

Shoes.

What’s the funniest You Tube video you’ve recently seen?

Gordon Brown in the Commons picking his nose.

What is the best speech you have ever heard (and been present at)?

Bill Clinton to both Houses of Parliament.

What is your favourite comedy?

News Diary.

Which is your favourite political biography or autobiography?

Elizabeth I by J. E. Neale.

What is your favourite novel?

Lord of the Rings.

Name a book you have read which has failed to live up to expectations

Too many to name!

What job would you be doing if you weren’t involved in the political world?

Executive chairman of a large company.

Do you have a party trick, or hidden talent?

I like reading poetry for others.

What’s the best holiday you have been on?

Scilly Isles.

Where in the world would you most like to go on holiday?

Australia.

When was the last time you used public transport?

This morning.

When was the last time you went to the theatre and what did you see?

I went to see the Merry Wives of Windsor at the Globe last week.

What do you collect?

Memories.

What is your most unusual hobby?

Photography.

Which newspapers do you read regularly?

Daily Telegraph and the Financial Times.

Which websites do you visit regularly?

Iain Dale’s Diary, ConservativeHome.

Which magazines do you subscribe to?

None.

Which five words would your friends use about you?

Honest, energetic, consistent, decent and kind.

Which five words would your enemies use about you?

Cool, logical, humourless (and those are the kinder ones)!

Are you into sport? If so, which ones?

Yes. Cricket.

Who is your favourite football team and player

Reading and Ronaldo.

Who is your political hero?

Elizabeth II

Who is your political hate figure

Karl Marx.

What’s your most memorable time in politics?

Helping with the battle to save the Pound.

What’s your prediction for the next general election?

Conservative win.

Who is your favourite and least favourite political interviewer?

Favourite – Paxman. Least favourite – Kirsty Wark.

Which current foreign politician do you most admire?

Morgan Tsvangirai.

What do you listen to / watch when you get up in the morning?

The Today programme.

Complete this sentence: The thing I hate about politics is…

Spin.

Complete this sentence: The thing I love about politics is…

…when you do something that makes people live better.

What would you like your political epitaph to be?

He fought for liberty, democracy and limited government.

Yesterday, at the second reading of the Climate Change Bill, John Redwood urged the Government to lead by example and ensure that it sets and meets rigorous enough targets for its own carbon footprint.

Later in the debate, he reminded Ministers of the need for multilateral action on climate change, and the danger that unilateral obligations might merely shift carbon emissions overseas rather than reduce them, hitting the UK economy in the process.

The two exchanges, taken from Hansard, follow.

(1) Mr. Redwood: I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way; he is being very patient. I find targets much more convincing and plausible if they relate to the next year or two, rather than to a 40-year period, and if they relate to things that the Government themselves can manage and are responsible for. Will the Minister propose targets for the next one year and two years to cut the carbon footprint of the Government? We would find that very welcome.

Mr. Woolas: On the latter point, the Government’s carbon footprint is clearly a priority. As the Sustainable Development Commission reported, we have made some progress, but we are the first to say that we must do a lot more. The important point about the Bill is that greenhouse gas emissions are cumulative, and therefore whatever one’s end target after a period of years, it is the cumulative gathering of gases that is important. To my mind, therefore, the interim targets are much more important than the end targets. That is why at the heart of the Bill is the idea of five-year carbon budgets—another way of saying targets—with the built-in idea that annual, indicative ranges should fall within them. That, I think, meets the right hon. Gentleman’s point about immediacy. The Government as an organisation will be covered by the carbon reduction commitment, and I expect that that will accelerate change as well.

(2)Mr. Redwood: Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be foolish of this House to impose costs and obligations on businesses operating in Britain that are not matched by similar obligations elsewhere, as that would simply drive business overseas and not actually cut total carbon output?

Mr. Ainsworth: My right hon. Friend makes an important point that I will touch on later if he is patient and that will no doubt receive a lot of scrutiny in Committee. However, it is worth reiterating that we are not dealing here with trivial issues. The Climate Change Bill is a small but potentially important part of a global effort to reduce the impact that our generation of human beings is having on the ability of future generations to live in peace and prosperity.

Yesterday in Business Questions, John Redwood urged the Leader of the House for a debate on tax poverty to address the current squeeze on lower-income households, and the Government overspending which underlies it.

The exchange, taken from Hansard, follows.

Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): May we have an early debate on tax poverty, now that the Government are driving so many people into despair over the ever-rising taxes, charges and impositions? That would give us an opportunity to expose the wasteful and needless expenditure on things such as unelected regional government, over-manned quangos, ID cards and computer schemes, and to offer some relief to people if only the Government would manage things better.

Ms Harman: Taxation and poverty are important issues, but I find it a bit much that that request should come from someone who voted for VAT on gas and electricity to be 17.5 per cent. I might consider that request if it came from someone else, but not from the right hon. Gentleman.

Later, in the debate on knife crime, Mr Redwood encouraged the House to consider the behavioural trend of some youths, rather than simply focussing on their choice of weapon.

The exchange, taken from Hansard, follows.

Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): On a related point, is not the problem primarily one of feral youths in gangs going armed? If they are prevented from going armed with knives, they might go armed with something else. We need to concentrate on how concerned adults somewhere in their communities—parents, relations, teachers, youth workers or whoever—gives them a purpose for living, other than going out on the streets and causing trouble.

Mr. Coaker: Again, that is a perfectly reasonable point to make. Indeed, the young people whom I met this morning made the point that good role models are needed, that people need to be responsible for young people and that their roles and those of schools, voluntary organisations and faith organisations are crucial. However, as well as all that, we are trying to put across the message that there must be a deterrent in the law, so that people also know that the expectation is that they will be prosecuted if they carry knives. That, as well as the other measures that the right hon. Gentleman refers to, is an important part of our work in trying to attack the problem

Yesterday in Parliament, John Redwood urged that planning processes should be more democratic and local. Speaking out against the Government’s Planning Bill, he voiced concern over its creation of a national quango to decide planning matters, removing such decisions yet further from those who have to live with the consequences. He also condemned the way in which the Government had decided to allocate time limits for various sections of the Bill, rather than letting the House decide what merited the most detailed and lengthy debate – a decision which he described as yet another ‘travesty of democracy’.

Speaking after the debate, Mr Redwood said: ‘I am worried that this will be yet a further loss of power to make decisions locally in Wokingham Borough that respond to the needs and wishes of electors’.

The speech in full, taken from Hansard, follows.

Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): I rise to support the opposition to the programme motion. It is another travesty of democracy that we should be expected to be allocated time on a range of sensitive and important constitutional matters about how something as crucial as planning should be decided. It may be that there are provisions for which the time allocated by Ministers is too great. However, there will undoubtedly be occasions on which the issue is so important that many more Members would like to join in and to have the opportunity to be here, if only a more sensible time had been chosen for considering such matters.

I urge Ministers to think again, even now. It may be that we can consider the Bill in the total amount of time that they have made available, but they should allow the House to decide how that time is best spent and how the priorities should be reflected in that debate. Often, when we give people greater freedom, they show greater responsibility, and we get a better quality of debate that concentrates more on the issues that matter.

My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) powerfully made the case that the Bill will set up an unelected quango to make extremely important decisions, whereas I and many of my constituents believe that there should be a stronger democratic input. I would add that many of my constituents feel that there should be more influence from the locality, not less. They do not feel that their local views are properly considered under the current process, because there is so much centralising, railroading and regional, overarching influence. The situation will be even worse if we have an unelected national quango making important decisions and forcing consequential decisions on local authorities once the main decision has been taken. We need proper time to debate safeguards and guarantees for local empowerment and influence over such decisions.

I am not one who wishes to stop every new development, and I certainly am not one who thinks that we need to resist all the important infrastructure and energy projects that this country is crying out for. The reason why such projects have been delayed in the past decade is not so much the planning system, but the Government, who have singularly failed to have a positive energy or transport policy. They have singularly failed to provide a framework in which the private sector can operate, or to make public funding available for public projects, so that that infrastructure can be put in place. They have wasted 11 years, and now come forward with this fig leaf of a Bill, saying that it was the planning system that was wrong. Eleven years into a Labour Government—somewhere near their end, we hope—they have decided that they can reform the planning permission system to try to accelerate the projects that they have prevented by chopping and changing, dithering and delaying and going to endless consultation on all the infrastructure issues to do with energy and transport.