There are suggestions in some places that now the economy is beginning to grow at a faster pace and confidence is picking up, we can somehow go easier on getting the budget deficit down. This would be a mistake.

Faster growth in the economy will accelerate the reduction in the deficit anyway because the economy will generate more tax revenue, and fewer people will be out of work claiming benefits. This effect will however be dampened where tax rates are not optimising revenue, and where many people coming into jobs from unemployment still receive substantial top up benefits in work.

An improving economy makes it easier to look for improvements to public service delivery at lower cost, as people know there are jobs available in the private sector where the public sector can no longer carry on recruiting as better ways of doing things are brought in.

The Conservative critique of Mr Brown’s approach in 2007 was correct. Near the top of the boom all state borrowing should have stopped. Today as we climb out of the Brown slump, we should continue to throttle back on state borrowing.

One way we need to examine is the issue of helping more people who live in the UK to take on the many new jobs that are becoming available. The government is seeking new powers to stop exploitation of labour coming in from abroad, and is wanting to limit benefit entitlement for EU migrants. More work on this will require a renegotiation of our relationship with the EU, but in the meantime when this Parliament has no majority for such action the government will see how far it can go within the current EU legal framework.

I have had a number of copies of a standard email and a few variants from constituents worried that oil and gas companies may be able to drill beneath their homes without needing permission from the land owner, and go on to frack where this is needed to produce gas.

With other MPs I will of course consider the proposed legislation very carefully. I have  no wish to see people’s homes damaged by seismic movements beneath their properties, nor to see chemicals leach into water courses, nor has the government. The proposal only allows new rights to drill more than 300 metres down. There will be compensation to local communities where drilling takes place.

More importantly, gas and oil companies have no wish to damage homes or contaminate water. They will be well aware of how much damage that would do to their reputations and bank balances. I do not expect the new law to be any more lenient on ensuring  a prohibition on the  pollution of water, nor to suddenly allow companies to damage people’s property.

Much of the possible drilling will be way below the surface level, so it should not in anyway disturb foundations and gardens. People who live in London have had many more large holes and tunnels drilled close to the surface to contain large water pipes, cables, tube trains and other underground services without damage. The extraction of any gas found may  be less harmful than water extraction licences which people accept water companies should enjoy, which can take water away from near the surface with more potential impact on structures.

We can learn from the problems coal mining created in the past. There a whole layer of rock was hewn out, and in some cases the rocks and soil above were allowed to collapse behind the miners. In other  cases pillars of coal were left supporting the strata above, but these too were subject to collapse. Taking gas out of a reservoir rock  at great depth will not have anything like the same impact as removing a whole stratum of rock.

Water companies will continue to have a duty to supply potable water to every household. They will continue to measure and monitor the water they put into their supply pipes in great detail to ensure there are  not adverse chemicals or dangerous  bacteria in it. They will have every interest in working with oil and gas companies to ensure the water courses remain clean, or to ensure proper treatment of the water before supply. The issues are not as difficult as the water company’s current task of cleaning up everyone’s foul water  before returning it to the river and sea. Handling all that foul water is a problem. People just expect the companies and authorities to be able to take it away and process it without harm.

I do think we need to produce some of the gas and oil we are now finding. It is not particularly friendly to say oil and gas should be extracted from under the homes of foreigners in their countries, but never here at home. It also leaves us worse off if we import more and produce less here. We do need to get our oil and gas from somewhere to heat our homes, drive our cars and fuel our factories.

Today I will write about UKIP, as they like attention. I will offer the talkative UKIP contributors to this site the chance to answer two simple questions. Which seat or seats do they think they will have most chance of winning in May 2015 as they set about a further quest for their first seat in Parliament after 20 years of campaigning? Which seat will Mr Farage fight, or will he conclude he has an important job as an  MEP? The polls continue to indicate no UKIP seats after May 2015.

The failure of UKIP to win either Eastleigh or Newark in more favourable by election conditions for the challenger poses them a problem. The fact that Mr Farage has not chosen a seat to contest for 2015 yet shows he himself is unsure of where he would have the best chance or indeed any chance at all.

Those of us serious about winning and holding Westminster seats live and work in the area we want to represent before standing for election. I bought my home in the constituency.  I spent more than two  years living in the Wokingham constituency, visiting many organisations, companies and community leaders, and playing a part in local political life before fighting my first election there. It enabled me to learn many of the things I needed to know to be able to represent people well, and it showed the electors my seriousness about wanting the job. It helps to know all the local leaders and people involved in local and national government in your prospective constituency so you can do the job properly from day one after being elected. Some of my colleagues who have managed to win more difficult seats have spent more than one Parliament offering free help and service to their local communities before being chosen by the electors.

The worry for many of us Eurosceptics is the way a modest UKIP vote in May 2015 could still  thwart us from the renegotiation and referendum we need to settle the EU issue. UKIP say they could resolve many of the country’s problems by taking us out of the EU. I agree we would be better off out of the current EU, but UKIP will break their key promise next time as they have in every other election they have fought. The simple truth is UKIP have no power to take us out of the EU, and are very unlikely to gain  the power in May 2015 to do so.

UKIP after 20 years of trying have to still to win  control of a single council or to win a single Parliamentary seat. Their result in  Newark came in almost 20% of the vote behind the Conservatives after a strong challenge with many leaflets. Newark,  the last local elections and the opinion polls show that the choice  on May 7th 2015 will be between Labour and Conservatives. The choice about  the EU is do you want a party in government that likes the current degree of federal control and may add to it, or do you want a negotiation to see if we can cut the power of the EU followed by a popular vote on whether to stay in. I know which of those two I prefer. I want to be part of making that historic choice. Come the day many UKIP inclined people may decide they wish to help make that choice, by voting for the referendum we need.

Conservative policy has changed a lot towards the EU in recent years. The biggest change came with the Prime Minister’s decision to require a renegotiation of our relationship with the EU and to then let voters decide with an In/Out referendum. Supporting decisions have included the veto on the Fiscal Treaty, keeping the UK out of it, the demands for a lower EU budget, and the extrication of the UK from further financial support for Euro area countries and banks in trouble.

The mood in the Conservative Parliamentary party is supportive of all these initiatives, and understanding of the limits on immediate action imposed by the Lib Dems and the lack of a Conservative majority. This has not prevented us from thinking of other ways of trying to accelerate the change to the relationship we want, despite the present Parliamentary constraints.

There are two immediate opportunities that require decision this Parliament. The government was rightly persuaded to opt the UK out of all the Criminal Justice measures of the Union, using a right Labour put into our version of the Lisbon Treaty as reassurance at the time but would not itself have used. The Lib Dems and Labour wish to opt back in to many of the central measures. If we do so then these powers pass from the UK to the EU in perpetuity or until we leave the Union. Many of us are urging the government to come to separate extradition arrangements with the EU similar to those we enjoy with other non EU countries, to avoid this area falling under EU and ECJ control.

The second is the government needs to respond to a wide ranging and important unanimous report from the European Affairs Committee. This Report recommends that the UK government amends the 1972 European Communities Act to reassert Parliamentary sovereignty. We could for example reinforce our version of the Lisbon Treaty which expressly opted the UK out of any move to include the European Convention on Human Rights in European Union law. A recent ECJ Court case appears to have done just this despite the Treaty, so the Committee recommends asserting Parliamentary sovereignty in this respect. It would be an important precedent, and would mean the UK Parliament resisting erosion of our right to self government in an important area.

These are matters which we have been working on for many months. They are nothing to do with UKIP or the political response to UKIP. The serious business of the UK Parliament struggling to combat excessive EU power and legislation continues daily as it has done for many years, against a background of too many Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs who vote for any extension of EU power.

There is a new round of speculation over what additional powers will be granted to the Scottish Parliament assuming a victory for the Union in the forthcoming referendum. Some wish to see much more extensive revenue raising powers resting with the Scottish Parliament. They point out that at the moment the Scottish Parliament has the pleasure of spending the money and the Westminster Parliament the pain of raising it. All the main Westminster parties seem to be moving towards some version or other of devo max, probably what Mr Salmond wanted all along.

If this is true, it is time to think of England. The present system is unacceptable. Underemployed Scottish members of the Westminster Parliament come to debate the Union matters, but cannot contribute to health, education, local government or criminal justice in their country. They retain their vote and their voice over these matters in England. This lop sided devolution cannot survive a further major increase in powers of the Scottish Parliament.

The immediate need is for a rule which says Scottish MPs do not speak and vote on issues and in debates which the Speaker has identified as non Union matters. In purely English matters the same ruling should apply to Northern Ireland and Welsh MPs. If Parliament grants Scotland revenue raising powers, then Scottish MPs should be excluded from consideration of the devolved taxes being imposed or altered for England or the rest of the UK by the UK Parliament.

Many English nationalists want a separate English Parliament to mirror the Scottish one. I see the English Parliament as being at Westminster. Westminster is the sacred plot of English democracy, predating the Union Parliament. Westminster Hall is the scene of many important dramas in English as well as in Union history. The English Parliament should remain or be refashioned at Westminster. We do not need expensive new buildings with no traditions and history in the walls.

I also think a single person can do the job of representing their voters on English issues when we meet as the English parliament, and representing their voters also on Union matters when we meet as the Union Parliament. The last thing I think we need is more politicians and another very expensive Parliament. Let’s use what we have got more intelligently. Above all let’s make sure we now speak for England, as more devolved power goes to Scotland.

I made a speech yesterday about this in the Commons which I will post later today.

It takes something to get Mr Clegg to say the EU should stop lecturing the UK on growth, yet that is exactly what he said yesterday about the EU’s predictable intervention in our economic policy. The EU, whose policies in Euroland produced a long and deep recession in most parts of the zone, with a late and feeble recovery so far, has presumed to tell the UK how to grow more quickly. Apparently higher taxes are part of the answer!

I write about it not because I am surprised or even shocked, but because others have suddenly woken up to a phenomenon which has been around for several years. Labour gave the EU the power to demand details of our economic policies, and for the Commission to mark our homework with a report telling us what we should be doing. Successive governments have dutifully filed copious pages of information with the EU each year, Parliament has debated these figures, and the EU has pronounced. The only conession to the UK as a non Euro member is we are not subject to EU fines for failing to comply with EU Commission recommendations and requirements on deficits and other matters in the way Euro states are. I am glad that at last others are unhappy about this needless development.

The UK government has indicated that it does not want to see Mr Juncker as the next President of the Commission. He is seen as an establishment EU candidate who will want to make further progress to full political, monetary and banking union. His supporters say the centre right federalist party grouping “won” the EU elections, and should therefore have the right to impose their candidate as President. They say for the Heads of government to come up with an alternative would be undemocratic.

This is far from the truth. The centre right grouping is the largest grouping, but it is still a minority. It has no right or ability to impose its candidate on the Parliament. Under the Treaties the power to chose rests with the Heads of government meeting as the Council of Ministers. These people are all elected, usually on much larger turnouts than the EU Parliament. The UK and others are well within their rights to try to find a different candidate if they wish.

The squabble over this post illustrates just how difficult it will be to find a consensus between so many different interests around the Council table and in the Parliament. It also underlines how difficult for the EU it is when a major country like the UK has an electorate who vote by a majority for non federalist parties who not join the main groups. EU lovers want the EU to settle down to tweedledee and tweedledum demcocracy, alternating power between centre left and centre right on an EU wide scale, when much of the power rests with the Commission and Court, and when policies show considerable continuity between the two blocs. 30% of those voting on May 22nd across the EU do not agree. Managing that minority is going to be quite a task.

The European Parliament has a right of veto on the proposed appointment by the Council of Ministers. If the two federalist groups combined to agree a candidate then they could of course continue to veto any other proposal from the Council.

Talk of a cost of living crisis often degenerates into an attack on the businesses which supply us with energy or other basics. It rarely looks at the architect of many of the high prices, government itself. Nor does the debate regularly include the evidence which shows the worst falls in real incomes occurred at the end of the last decade during the Great Recession.

Take the case of energy. Almost two thirds of the price of petrol and diesel is tax. The last government had a policy of increasing this regularly. The Coalition cancelled the escalators but left in place the high levels of tax already reached as it needed all that revenue from motorists and businesses delivering our food and other needs.

One of the main reasons our domestic fuel bills have been going up is the EU and Labour government policies to shift electricity output from cheaper coal and gas fired plant to very expensive renewables. Delay and opposition to extracting domestic gas and oil has also impeded the arrival of cheaper energy, such that we now pay so much more than the US for fuel to power our factories and warm our homes.

When it comes to the cost of housing, this government has increased Stamp duties. The previous government presided over large rises in Council tax, which have been abated by the present government’s policy of financial help to Councils who freeze their bills. They remain frozen at the much higher levels achieved under Labour.

Extra government borrowing is simply deferred taxation. Those of us who want to complete the job of deficit reduction, and want to see more progress in improving the cost effectiveness of public services do so because we realise that the UK has been suffering from a cost of government crisis. This lies behind the fall in living standards.

The more laws and bigger government brigade will be out in force this week to rubbish the Queen’s speech programme for the last year of the current Parliament. They will claim there are too few new laws. This, they say, means government has run out of ideas.

The UK does not suffer from a shortage of laws. Whatever else you might criticise about MPs in recent Parliaments, failing to pass enough laws would be an unfair complaint. We need to remember that the next session of Parliament will be considerably less than a year, running from June to March 2015 only.

Parliament has many other roles besides passing new laws. It is there to supervise the spending of large sums of public money, approving budgets, probing on value for money and priorities. It is there to cross examine Ministers on how they are using the many powers past laws have given them. It is there to debate foreign policy and our relations with overseas countries. It is there to handle our all pervasive relationship with the EU, and to seek to guide or assist Ministers in how they respond to the endless stream of new laws and initiatives coming out of Brussels. There is plenty to do without having to pass lots of new laws.

I for one think the UK and the EU between them have passed far too many laws in recent years. A period of reflection and consolidation would be welcome. Some more repeals would also help, where there are simply too many regulations in areas where individuals and businesses could be left to themselves to decide, with choice driving what people do and buy. One of the problems of our current membership of the EU is we have two governments for the price of three, with both the EU and the UK legislating on the same topic, and with the EU driving us to more legislation than we would choose for ourselves. As more and more areas come to be covered by EU law you would expect the UK need for national legislation to reduce.

Owning your own home is in some ways one of the most liberating experiences you can undertake. When you move from your parent’s home, or from a rented property, into your first home that you own, you have a range of important new freedoms. You can choose the paint and the wallpaper, have a cat or dog of your own, drill holes in the wall if you need to install items, or take a hammer to the non structural parts of the home and remodel them. You can invite who you like.

Government is always there to take some of the joy out of the experience. They want their pound of flesh before you move in, with their Stamp Duty demand, a tax on home ownership. They demand an annual levy or Council tax for you living in your own home. They require full plans and fees if you wish to make significant changes to the building. They may even have views on hedges, trees and fences around your garden.

A freedom manifesto would try to reduce the nagging and taxing demands government makes on homeowners, and would try to help more into home ownership. The present government has rightly made it easier to buy a home from the public sector where a tenant wishes to change to an owner. It has also launched its Help to buy scheme to enable more buyers to afford the deposit for a home of their own.

A freedom manifesto might include lower Stamp duties on lower priced parties, perhaps by making the thresholds points at which the marginal extra cost of the home is charged at the higher rate, not charged at the higher rate on the full amount. Local and national policies to keep Council taxes down are an important part of the drive to raise living standards by controlling domestic costs.

More planning flexibility for the homeowner, more access to finance for purchase, and less tax would be a good combination.