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Toton Trees - Urgent

14 October 2010

Hi all -

The following comes from the Toton Environmental Protections Society, who as an MP I worked with to fight for the replanting of the tree site. The owners have appealed and urgent action is needed.

I gather from unofficial sources that the owners are continuing to seek a deal in negotiations with the Forestry Commission and council, and the appeal should be seen as part of that. I'm told that the owners are pressing to be allowed to extract the ballast from the site before any replanting is done - with all the noise, disturbance and congestion which that could involve. No deal has yet been done, but my understanding is that none has been ruled out either.

There is plenty of other local news in the form of the County Council cuts - the main targets of which appear to be people dependent on social care and day-care centres, though there is also a big cut in the road mainteance budget and the centre that advises people on their rights to help will be closed. Since this will rapidly be followed by the national cuts next week and some of those may make the local picture even worse, I thought I'd reserve comment until we have the full story.

There are, by the way, still 4 places left at the debate on prisons on Saturday, if anyone would still like a slot - let me know!

Best wishes

Nick
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TEPS - URGENT

As you will know, in mid July the Forestry Commission served a restocking notice on the new owners of Toton Sidings. This notice required them to plant a minimum of 2,200 silver birch trees and maintain them for a period of 10 years as a result of the illegal felling on 6th and 7th January 2010.

The owners were given 3 months to appeal against this decision.

Anticipating a late appeal, - why would developers spend £600K and walk away? – members of TEPS have met with Neil Riddle and Tristan Galletly from the Forestry Commission, Anna Soubry MP both on site and in her offices, David Watts – leader of Broxtowe District Council and Richard Jackson – County Council Cabinet Member for Transport & Highways.

The common theme has been, `If there is an appeal, what should TEPS members do? And, what support can we expect from the aforementioned officials?'

Obviously playing for time, with only 3 days left, an appeal has been lodged by the developers.

Anna, David and Richard, as elected representatives, independently gave assurances to the seven TEPS members that no deals had been done and that they supported the notion of some form of permanent nature conservation area on the site.

However, the Forestry Commission representatives are advising us to show that the strength of local feeling against potential development has not diminished since the initial uproar at the beginning of the year.

OBSTACLES

1) We may have as little as 1 week to make our feelings known
2) Only 124 people gave their e-mail address to TEPS

POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS

1) Would you e-mail, or write, to any of the addresses below stating your concerns over the changes in dust and noise pollution, the visual impact that the devastation has caused, the impact on local wildlife and the loss of a valued amenity. It doesn't need to be lengthy, it's the number of complaints that is crucial and should mention Toton Sidings and support for Forestry Commission notice No. RN15/ 10-11 Ref. AIF/014/03/09-10.
a) tristan.galletly@forestry.gsi.gov.uk or
b) Neil Riddle,
FC Grants & Regulation Manager,
East Midlands Region
Edwinstowe
Mansfield NG21 9JL or
c) Mrs Christine Batham

3 Edale Rise

Toton

Nottingham NG9 6JJ - If easier, Christine will forward any letters passed to her.

2) Please show this e-mail to neighbours, friends and family as a matter of urgency and encourage them to write as well. We had in excess of 350 people at our initial protest meetings and we need at least that level of support again. I think we would all feel dismayed if development took place without the strength of feeling being considered.

3) Please e-mail me to say `I have contacted the Forestry Commission' or, better still, `I + .. + .. have contacted the Forestry Commission'. We will then be able to gauge the level of support that the restocking notice gained from local inhabitants and hopefully add a number of new supporters to our e-mail list.

Thanks for your support from all the TEPS committee. steve.bakewell@ntlworld.com

Lots of news!

11 October 2010

Hi all –

1. Eat'n'debate details

Just to confirm details of this: it'll be at the Commercial Inn on Wollaton Road from 12 to 2 on Saturday – we've reserved the room on the right as you go in. The new management are keen to show off their culinary skills and promise a nice buffet of hot food. It's on `What should we do about prisons and short sentences?' The cost is £20, reduced to £12.50 for `unwaged' (anyone not currently in paid employment), including all the food you can eat. I'll introduce it and then there will be a general discussion with everyone welcome to comment: I'm hoping to have some people there with personal experience, perhaps including a former offender. There is currently space for about 10 more people – please let me know if you'd like to come and haven't yet confirmed.

2. Stapleford Walk-In Centre

The PCT plans to close this, referring people to the QMC's A&E. The doctors and dentist on the premises will continue, but the ability to go in without an appointment will go. This is clearly a big blow for Stapleford, since the centre has 12,000 users (not all local). The centre has never fulfilled the potential that was originally hoped, for a one-stop shop for health and social service enquiries – social services pulled out before it started, and it's always struggled since. There is a local petition to try to get the PCT to think again, though they seem pretty set on it. There is a 100-day consultation period, and if you use the facility I do urge you to raise your concerns. Issues to point out:
• All governments have urged PCTs to provide more local health facilities – this goes in exactly the opposite direction. The QMC is not local to Stapleford in any meaningful sense.
• There is often considerable difficulty in parking at the QMC and there is a charge.
• The Government is abolishing the limit of 4 hours on waiting at A&E, so the "walk in" can lead to a wait of indeterminate duration.

3. The open-cast proposals returns

As long ago as last year, we spotted that UK Coal had bought the Shortwood Farm site and we've been expecting an application for open-casting ever since. This has now gone in, and opposition is immediately starting to mobilise.
Briefly, the site is between the Trowell motorway station and Cossall. It's likely, in my view, that if granted it will be followed by a fresh attempt to mine on Robinettes, where we defeated an attempt to get permission by ministerial intervention back in 1998 – that would effectively mean that all the country between Trowell and Cossall was being mined. They are seeking permission for a licence for 5 years and 7 months, mostly for coal but also for some fireclay. They would work the site Monday-Saturday (midday), with eight HGV movements an hour. The last year would be for restoring the site. They would employ "up to" 56 people, not necessarily local (typicallly open-cast operations involve specialists who move from site to site). There will be an exhibition of the plans at Trowell Parish Hall on Sunday October 17 from 10 to 2, and at Awsworth Village Hall on Thursday October 21 from 4 to 8. The trade-off of open-casting is basically that the countryside is ruined for several years and there's a good deal of noise, dust and HGC traffic; on the other hand, it generates revenue and provides some employment, and the site is normally restored to look reasonable enough (though existing biodiversity may be left permanently).

I'm opposed to this, as are local Conservatives and LibDems, and there will as last time be an all-party coalition to fight it. You can join it by emailing cossallnocoal@gmail.com . There is also a Facebook group set up by Richard Robinson to support CATAC – if you search on Facebook for CATAC you'll find it. Last time with Robinettes, it was approved by the County Council, but the Borough Council sought judicial review, and after I spoke to the Minister the Government withdrew support for the project and the company gave up the application. It may be that we'll again need to ask the current MP, Anna Soubry (who also opposed the project) to intervene at Government level in the same way, but for the time being the focus needs to be on the planning application.

4. Greene King auction brewery site

After a lengthy period seeking a buyer for the former Hardy and Hanson site, Greene King have decided to auction it off on December 7 by Allsops (London auctioneers), with a further auction of nine homes linked to the site on December 14. Sitting tenants' rights remain, but obviously we need to find out the buyers' long-term intentions.
The main issue here has always been that everyone wants a coherent plan for the site with a mixture of employment and housing that respects the historical appearance and tradition. Since road access to the site is not great and the economic outlook discourages new investment, Greene King have struggled to find anyone. Part of the site has listed protection. In an ideal world I think the county council would step in and bid for the site to redevelop for the community, part-financed by sale of housing – that's the sort of proactive approach that I'd like to see councils pursuing. I don't think there is any realistic prospect of the current county council doing anything like that, so we'll need to negotiate with whoever gets the site.

5. Toton trees

I've made enquiries and it appears that negotiations are still i train over the site between the Forestry Commission, the owners and the council. The owners are still hoping to extract ballast from the site before any replanting, which would almost certainly need council planning permission. I really urge local councillors to get on top of this, as otherwise the progress made at the beginning of the year will simply evaporate.

6. Political comments

I've refrained from any partisan comment above, but I need to respond to some recent comments. David Watts, who stood for the LibDems last time, and Richard Jackson, a Conservative councillor, strongly criticised me at a recent council meeting for saying that the Boots cutback of 750 jobs, mostly in Beeston, will be partly due to the tough outlook for high street sales in the coming years. David's latest email says the cuts `might have been far worse' and quotes Boots as saying that most are in middle management positions and Boots `hopes' to redeploy them. Meanwhile, Anna Soubry's last email on the subject implied it was something to do with the city council's Workplace Parking Levy (which will cost Boots £250,000/year, compared with the £58 million/year that they're aiming to save), so by implication it's the fault of the wicked (Labour) city council. (In the same spirit, she suggests that the closure of Stapleford Walk-In centre is the fault of savings by the last government.)

Look, unlike all the above, I've worked in private industry management, and you really don't cut 10% of your workforce if you expect (currently very healthy) profits to continue. Moreover, the eagerness of local politicians to defend the Coalition is actually going beyond what the Government itself is saying. The Treasury is *predicting* job losses from the cuts because of the impact on consumers: the Government merely claims that it's necessary to press on at high speed, since they think this will help reduce the deficit. There's an argument over that, since if the economy deteriorates tax revenues will fall, worsening the deficit, but there isn't anyone serious who pretends it won't have an impact. One of the depressing sights since the election has been the way local LibDems, who put out misleading leaflets before May claiming that `only we can stop the Tories', are now eager to defend everything the government does – even if, as in this case, it involves swallowing company spin wholesale. There are also significant further redundancies on the way (Bell Fruit Machine are cutting back 55 staff) and we don't do anyone any favours by pretending that everything is fine.

Moreover, there's a pattern developing of local politicians covering themselves with meaningless `campaigns' that don't actually do more than give the appearance of activity. All Conservatives who have expressed an opinion on the Bramwell home sale have criticised it, except for those who actually have the power to stop it, namely the two local Chilwell County Councillors whose votes are needed for the County majority.
Best wishes

Nick

Boots redundancies/Beeston Square talks collapse/Eat'n'debates resume on Oct 26

6 October 2010

Hi all,

Two news items to report, both unfortunately bad. I'm also restarting the "Eat'n'debate" events where we discuss a current issue over lunch – the first one being on October 16 on `Short prison sentences'. Please see point 3 below for details – and let me know if you'd like to take part. I'm not going to write about the party conferences, enjoyable though the Labour one was – you're getting plenty of press coverage of those, so I think it's better that I concentrate on issues you may not see covered in as much detail elsewhere.

1. Boots redundancies

Boots have announced 900 redundancies, around 750 of which will be at the Beeston/Nottingham site, which is a tenth of the staff there. They promise to try to find people places elsewhere, but don't promise no compulsory redundancies – and since the reductions are group-wide even though they're concentrated here, it doesn't look too hopeful. Their press release is frankly scanty, but for what it's worth it's here:

http://www.allianceboots.com/news/Three-year_programme_to_further_improve_efficiency.aspx

Job losses will actually start in April and continue into the following year. Their chief executive, Alex Gourlay, told the Evening Post that they intend to reduce the number of management layers from 20 to 7, perhaps implying that middle management may be particularly affected. The background for the cuts is the anticipation of a worsening economic climate as the VAT rise kicks in and consumer spending falters: Boots is much more exposed to changes in consumer demand than the prescription-only pharmaceutical companies.

I would previously have hoped to get advance notice of this and be able to make representations as the MP, but as things stand I have to leave that to the current MPs, the councils and the union – I understand that all of them have sought urgent meetings.

The immediate issues that need to be tackled seem to me to be these:

a) What terms will be offered for voluntary redundancies?
b) When will staff know if their particular positions are in danger?
c) When will they know if there is a realistic chance of a placement elsewhere?

The main objective for the union and politicians of all parties should be to try to get clarity as soon as possible, and whatever assurances are possible that there won't be further rounds of redundancies in 2012-13. I'd think that a basic assurance about the site continuing will be forthcoming, but it's not enough – we need more clarity over the prospects both at an individual and corporate level. It's obviously not possible for the company to be certain how things will look years in advance, but they should be able to give a range of possible outcomes so we know the best and worst case outlook.

2. Beeston Square negotiations collapse
The council has been in lengthy negotiations with the leaseholders of Beeston Square over a major revamp. They had originally been keen to do this in conjunction with the expected tram extension, but as delays over that continued they developed cold feet and became increasingly awkward in negotiations, refusing to commit to doing anything over the next four years. David Watts, the council leader, writes in an email that his preference remains to reopen negotiations with the current leaseholders, but I think the time is overdue to pursue alternatives seriously – as it stands, the leaseholders can feel they have the council over a barrel, since there have been no discussions in progress with others. If an alternative bidder can be found and an alternative negotiated, I suspect it will improve the council's negotiating position: just asking the current leaseholders to think again seems unlikely to get anywhere.

3. Eat'n'debate series resumes

Before the election campaign got under way, Broxtowe Labour Party and I had a series of lunches discussing current issues, and now the election is behind us I'd like to return to them. The format is:
- Everyone who attends gets a luscious buffet lunch in a good restaurant with as much food as they can eat
- We pick a theme for the day: I introduce it and then there's an open discussion. We often try to ensure that participants include experts on the subject.
- There's a charge of £20 to take part - £10 of this goes to the restaurant to cover the meal, and the rest goes to the organising costs and Broxtowe Labour campaign funds. Anyone not currently in work is welcome at a reduced rate of £12.50.
- You don't have to support me or the Labour Party to take part, though the charge is partly designed to discourage people who really just want to disrupt the discussion. We've always tried to shed more light than heat and dissenting views are actively encouraged so we can have a proper discussion.
I'd like to suggest lunchtime at Saturday October 16, with a discussion on

"What should we do about short-term prison sentences?"

The position here is that
• It's generally agreed that short sentences are ineffective deterrents, and may actually increase crime (by introducing minor criminals to serious criminals)
• Many of the public feel that the answer is to have longer sentences, which they hope would be a bigger deterrent. There is a significant cost to that.
• The Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke, is proposing to have fewer offenders go to prison at all, and he's supported in that by many on the left.
• If offenders don't go to prison, it's generally agreed that they need close supervision and support instead. There is a significant cost to that too, and Mr Clarke is reportedly planning to reduce the budget of the Probation Service.
• There are many groups who believe they have better answers to rehabilitation, and as a member of the Justice Select Committee I took part in a study of over 200 different approaches worldwide.
So we can estimate numbers, please let me know if you think you'd like to take part in this? I hope to have others there who can cast a light on the issue from personal experience. It will probably be in Beeston, but if transport is a problem for you let me know and I'll try to arrange some.

Finally, a last effort is being made to persuade the county Council to reconsider about Bramwell – a joint petition will be delivered by representatives of all three major parties.

Best wishes

Nick

Local events and news/should we cut benefits?/the pastor and the Koran

11 September 2010

Hi all –

Sorry I've been a bit quiet lately. I've been getting to grips with my new multi-tasking world.

While being an MP is diverse, there's a common narrative to everything one does, but in the last couple of weeks, I've been researching the animal testing record of dozens of companies and exploring the situation on the Continent while giving a lecture series on IT management to two Chinese delegations and translating a dozen documents from contracts to tourist guides to medical records.

It's a complicated life, but a fulfilling one, and it's nice to be in demand. However, before saying anything else, I'd like to respond to the readers of my last email who asked if my new activities meant that I no longer planned to stand again in Broxtowe. I've every intention of standing again (though of course it'll be up to local Labour members to decide if they'd like me to) and look forward to the return match.

This time, after an overview of where things stand on a range of local issues, I'd like to discuss benefits reform and the Koran issue. But first some events that I've been asked to mention:

1. Events

Sunday 12th September 19.30
Paradiso Cinema presents: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (18)
Chilwell Arts Theatre, Chilwell School. Tickets £4.50, £3 (conc) on the door.
Come at 7pm for refreshments.

September 16 19.30, Maycliffe Hall, Stapleford; a meeting on "What George Spencer Academy Status will mean for the community". This is being organised by the Broxtowe Anti Academies Alliance, who argue among other points that the change will reduce access to the school for local families. For details contact Andrea Oates 07742 655036 or email broxtowe@antiacademies.org.uk .

September 24 morning: the embattled Beeston Middle Street centre (see below) is still thinking about others as well as their own situation, and are holding a Macmillan coffee morning, all welcome.

Also, on September 16th Beeston Station cafe will be officially opened – a useful step forward in building it up as the main stop west of the city.

2. Local updates

* The tram
We're still waiting. There is a side-issue that's emerged; the City and County are arguing about a bit of land in Chilwell along the route, and the County is trying to push it to yet another public inquiry, which would cost a couple of hundred thousand pounds and almost certainly do no more than impose another six months' delay. The real question remains the money: most people are expecting the Government to announce whether it's going to provide funding when Mr Osborne presents his spending review next month: all kinds of controversial decisions from reduced Equitable Life compensation to reductions in policing and the armed forces are all going to be announced on the same day. It's known that sections of the Government have been lobbying hard for the tram to go ahead, so the outcome remains.

• Attenborough flood defences

The route championed by AFAA round the back of the sports field has now been approved so the work will proceed without further delay. This was intensely controversial for a while, and I'm glad to say I've been proved wrong, since I thought that using this route would lead to long legal wrangles.

* Kimberley Medical Centre

There were no bidders willing to adopt the centre as a satellite so, sadly, the closure is going ahead. I've not so far heard of problems in finding other surgeries ready to take on patients – please let me know if there are any difficulties.
As a sidelight, the Kimberley by-election was won by a candidate who up to polling day was still claiming to have "Saved the Medical Centre"; the announcement was made immediately after he'd secured his victory.

• Middle Street

The campaign to save the Middle Street Resource centre in Beeston (an attractive place for people with mild to moderate mental difficulties to relax or socialise in peace) is going full blast, with no fewer than 1600 signatures collected in Beeston yesterday. This one is a County Council decision rather than one for central government, and I still hope that the County will see how valued the centre is and back off.

• Bramwell

A similar position but further along; the County is still bent on selling all care homes including this one, and they've called a meeting on the 16th to discuss possible terms and conditions for the sale. This appears to be to try to move the debate on from "should the County be selling it?" to "how should the County best sell it?" The Friends of Bramwell group is polling members on how they feel about this.

Meanwhile, Anna Soubry has said that Dr John Doddy will be running the consortium of doctors taking over local services from the PCT under the Government's changes, and that he's taking an interest: it's been suggested that the consortium could bid for the centre. I'm not sure how it's known that the group led by Dr Doddy, who was a Conservative candidate for the County Council, will win the bid to take over the PCT, but even if he does I doubt if the GPs will be in a position to buy centres, and will just use services from them, if they still exist. With luck all this can be clarified before the County takes a final decision.

• Toton trees: no news that I'm aware of – has anyone heard more?

3. Should we cut benefits or just test eligibility more carefully?

The last few days have seen not particularly helpful exchanges in the media on benefits. The impression given is that either there is a vast army of people defrauding the system and few genuinely in need, or it's outrageous to even mention the subject. The reality is, surely, more subtle than either position.

First, we're talking about two quite distinct groups:

a) People who are seeking work but not finding it
b) People who have been medically assessed as unable to work.

The position of group a) varies according to the economy. If you've been out of work for a long time, and perhaps have had some difficulties in the past (a conviction for something, or simply lack of formal qualifications), you are with the best will in the world going to find it hard to get work. If the economy is in great shape, employers may take you because they're keen to get anyone willing, but when there's a downturn the outlook is bleak. In the short term, there isn't much you can do about this except get lucky; in the longer term, retraining and special schemes like the (recently abolished) Future Jobs Fund may help.

It's in group b) that there is most public scepticism, partly because there are clearly some genuine fraudsters and partly because medical problems aren't always obvious to casual observers. It's complicated by the fact that a great many medical conditions vary from day to day – with anything from rheumatism to depression, there may be days when you're pretty much OK and days when you really can't get up at all. This makes it something of a lottery when you're examined by the independent medical assessor, but the reality is that if you're often unable to work employers will tend to pick someone else. The Government can force you to sign on and go to the Job Centre every fortnight, but it can't force an employer to take you on.

Now the Daily Mail line on this, echoed by Mr Osborne's recent speech, is that we need to crack down on benefits and prevent them being a "lifestyle choice". That's quite a popular line, but it blurs two quite different things: are you genuinely unable to get a job, and what sort of benefit should you get if that's the case?

If it's felt there are too many cases of people claiming when they shouldn't, then the correct response is to scrutinise the claims more closely – have two doctors instead of one, for instance. But cutting the support given to the cases that they've decided *are* genuine is nothing to do with this, is it? That is simply a savings measure, and shouldn't be disguised with rhetoric about fraudsters.

If the government decides that someone is genuinely ill, or genuinely doing everything (s)he can to find work and not finding any, then it's a serious matter to slash away their means of support, especially if other aspects of Government policy are making it harder to get a job. In the case of JSA, recipients get up to £65/week for 6 months, and only if they have a full NI record and are not recent immigrants. Is it reasonable to cut this further?

My own view is that there is enough public unease about benefit fraud to justify further measures to ensure that all recipients genuinely deserve support, but people *are* willing to support the genuinely desperate, and the Government should not deliberately confuse the two.

4. Burning the Koran

It seems to me that the issues around the Floridan pastor are actually quite simple.

a) It is legal to burn any book that you own, including the Bible or the Koran.

b) It is an unpleasant thing to do, with nasty historical connotations, and in this context clearly a deliberate proovocation by a very obscure preacher who is enjoying the limelight.

c) The reaction of the American Muslim group who merely said, "We have no comment - we don't respond reactively to everything that anyone says" is sensible.

I felt the same when an artist had an exhibit showing a crucifix in urine - it was clearly an unpleasant provocation, and best ignored. The fact that something is legal doesn't mean it's a good idea, and although it's perfectly reasonable to engage in debate about the virtues and drawbacks of beliefs, it's nasty and unnecessary to mistreat each others' religious symbols. It is both an example of freedom of speech and an example of how to abuse it.

Best regards

Nick

What he did next...

23 August 2010

Hi all –

This is just to update those of you who may be interested in what I'm up to personally. There isn't any politics in it, or Broxtowe news, but so many of you have kindly asked how things are going I thought I'd give you an update.

As many of you know, I've always been keen on animal welfare, and I'm pleased to say I start a new job tomorrow with the BUAV, who work to reduce and ultimate end experiments on animals by persuasion, negotiations and encouragement of alternatives. I'll be their Director of International and Corporate Affairs, reporting to the CEO. This is of course a non-partisan job and I'll be working with people of all parties on the issue.

The "International" part of the job is about building links with like-minded groups elsewhere. This is particularly important in the EU, since experiment policy is largely driven by EU directives, so it's important to find allies in countries less traditionally associated with animal welfare, to promote the arguments for alternatives in their own countries. Otherwise, Britain tends to be isolated and undercut by other countries with fewer concerns. Because I speak half a dozen languages and have worked abroad half my life, I'm qualified to do this.

The "Corporate" part is to help talk with companies who are interested in moving away from dependence on animal experiments and reward those who do with public support, analogously to the way that the RSPCA encourages supermarkets with their "Freedom Food" label if the farms involved have high welfare standards. As I worked in the pharmaceutical industry (in IT) for 18 years, I've got reasonably good credibility as someone who's serious and doesn't have some knee-jerk hostility to businesses in general. The BUAV opposes the sort of violence and intimidation that is sometimes done in the name of animal welfare and it's important to use sensible, scientifically-based persuasion.

They've created the job for me and as it's not in the planned budget it's only a 50% job at the moment (more in some weeks, less in others), and I'll be topping up with translation and contract work. I've been quietly developing my translation practice in a small way for over a year (since I could see that I might well lose my seat), and since the election I've been doing a great deal of it. It's been a fascinating experience, since translation is one of the very first global personal service industries. I translate (and interpret) from German and Danish into English, and get my jobs off the internet from agencies and private clients and businesses.

The snag is that one's competing with people across the planet, many of them in low-wage countries like Albania and China, so initially I found I had to charge as little as 1p/word to get contracts. I can do about 700 words an hour, which is actually quite fast, so that's £7 an hour, not much more than I'd get stacking shelves in Sainsbury, even though translation at that speed is intense and demands a precise eye for meaning. You can only improve on this if you're consistently accurate, on time and write good, fluent English so it doesn't "sound foreign" when you've finished and still means the same as the original. My habit of working till 2am has come in useful and I've never missed a deadline, so I'm now able to get several jobs a day at 7p-8p/word, which adds up to a useful second income.

We're quite likely to need to move to London for practical reasons – some weeks I'll be pretty full time on the BUAV job, and I can't commute from Nottingham. However, one reason I'm quite pleased with the flexible arrangement is that it gives scope to keep up my involvement with Broxtowe, and I intend to continue to keep up the updates on what's happening even if I'm mostly away from base. I'll add a further personal note in a month or two when I know exactly what I'm doing.

In case anyone would like to see more about the BUAV or indeed support it, its website is http://www.buav.org/ and there's a good general background here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BUAV.
Best wishes

Nick

Kimberley and Cossall election/local event

9 August 2010

Hi all,

This update is mainly for those living in Kimberley and Cossall, as their by-election is coming up – I thought I'd give a survey of the issues and some notes on the candidates. My bias is obvious but I'll try to be objective (and I have an apology to make).

Before getting to that (and before you stop reading if you don't care about Kimberley and Cossall!), I've been asked to mention a Stapleford charity event:

On Saturday 25th September at The Jaguar,Hickings Lane, Stapleford, Nottingham, NG9 8PA from 8pm(doors open 7pm). There will be an Audience With Dave Courtney ( www.davecourtney.com )

There will be a charity raffle and all proceeds will be donated to The Anthony Booth Appeal, which is a Stapleford based charity.
A subtext of this event is to support the Jaguar pub – it's a good community pub and you know what happens to community pubs that don't get popular events. If you live in Stapleford, put it in your diary!

Also, I wanted to mention a new blog about the Greater Nottingham area: http://nottinghamnotebook.blogspot.com/. .
This is by a friend of mine, Edward Jacobs, who's now studying politics – he's Labour personally but says he hopes to include news from all sides of the spectrum.

Kimberley and Cossall by-election – final preview

This is coming up on Thursday week (19th) so the first point is to think whether you're going to be able to vote that day (7am to 10pm). If not, it's still possible to get a proxy vote up to this Wednesday 11th – contact your preferred party (me if it's Labour) and they'll arrange it.

There are just the 3 main parties, and unusually it's a genuine 3-horse race – in the last election, each party got one each – though traditionally it's been mainly between Labour and the LibDems as Conservative activity in the town has tended to be more limited. I should start with an apology – I remember saying something dismissive about the election being because of the "failure of the sitting Conservative to bother to turn up for 6 months" or something like that, but I now learn he has Alzheimer's, which is ample explanation. I'm sorry, and obviously sympathetic, especially as I'm told he's a particularly nice man.

The candidates are all local. Labour's Mary McGuckin is a parent of two in the local school and works in the Nelson and Railway. The Tories have Shane Easom, who is chair of the town council. The LibDems have Elaine Cockburn, who is a teacher.

The main issues are finding a good solution to the Hardy and Hanson site; the prospect of decline in local policing; the parking charges; speeding in Cossall; the loss of local banking and shop closures; and the future of one of the two Kimberley surgeries. More generally, there's the need to have energetic local representation in the face of what looks like some very serious funding cuts coming, on everything from policing to schools to roads.

The early leaflets have featured the usual feature of local races – basically everyone is responsible for anything good and anything bad is someone else's fault. I'll give details below for those interested. But as usual I'd like just to make a positive case for Labour's candidate.

Mary is exactly the sort of person who I try to encourage to get into politics. First, she's young, and frankly politics is too dominated by people like me who've been doing it for decades. Second, she's independent-minded – she only joined the party recently, and is clearly more interested in Kimberley as her home town than in zealous party loyalty: if elected, she will, I think be something of a handful for the Labour group at times. Third, she has a direct interest in the local schools through her children, and I suspect that's going to be a pretty crucial factor in the torrid funding times that are coming. And finally, she's open-minded and keen to do the job properly: one of the first questions she had on selection was the main issues in Cossall, since she knows Kimberley well but wants to be a good representative for the village as well. I don't always give a personal recommendation to Labour candidates (you can spot the gaps if you read my past emails), but I'd like to see Mary win and think she'll be good for the area if she does.

Here are the comments on the leaflets, for those who want detailed arguments. The LibDem one has some downright weird claims. First it claims that the police station is under threat from *Labour*, as though the General Election hadn't happened. The position here is simply that the Association of Chief Police Officers have told the Police Authority to expect a 25% funding cut, so any money spent on maintaining buildings means even less money for actual patrolling (which in any case is looking bad). One can argue that the Government is right or wrong to include policing in its cuts, but it's silly to say it's Labour that's doing it. The LibDem argument is that, hey, the police authority has a Labour chair, which is true – but given the cut in funding, I also don't think that "saving the police station" by sacking more officers (and there isn't much else to cut - salaries are over 80% of the budget) is either realistic or desirable.

They go on to say that the LibDems are reviving Kimberley after 'years of Labour neglect'. This is objectively nonsense, since the council is run by a Lib-Lab coalition and has been for ages. If you think that Kimberley is wonderful due to the council, then it's to both parties' credit. If you think it's awful due to the council, then it's both their fault. If, like me, you think there have been some improvements but there's a lot more needed, then that too is a shared responsibility. Pretty much everyone knows that, and I think there's a case for not voting for a party if its leaflet treats you as daft.

Meanwhile, Shane Easom's leaflet says he "Saved Our Surgery". To recap: there were three options – to keep it independent, to invite bids to make it a satellite in partnership with another nearby surgery, or to close it. Most people in the (all-party!) campaign wanted the first, but I could see that the PCT was determined to end the single-handed practice, so I suggested the second, and that's what is happening. At the time, the Conservatives said sourly that "your Labour MP is proposing a solution that nobody wants". It's now, mysteriously, become the Conservative solution. Success has lots of fathers, doesn't it?

Labour's leaflet is late, for personal reasons – you should get it this week!

At a personal level, my job-hunting is going well – I should have something to report shortly for those who are interested. I'm giving a talk tonight to Beeston Rotary at the golf club (yes, the place they always have giant Conservative posters – never mind!) on "Is there life after Parliament?" The answer is yes, but more on that anon.

Best wishes

Nick

Toton trees; victory! / what should we do in the AV referendum?

30 July 2010

Hi all –

This is partly to pass on some good news, and partly to discuss the Alternative Vote proposals. Briefly, first, a response to a question I've had from several readers – why am I still sending these updates, seeing that I'm no longer the MP?

There are two reasons. First, having built up a communications channel with 10% of the homes in Broxtowe, it seems just wasteful to stop using it. I can pass on news, initiate discussions and mention local events. I don't stop caring about the area just because I lose an election, and it gives a way to discuss broader political issues with interested people and get thoughtful feedback.

Second, as you know, I hope to stand again next time. I've always been irritated by politicians who fall silent for four years out of five, only to bombard voters with letters as the election approaches. If I stand again, I want to be able to say that I've stayed in touch.

1. Toton tree victory

After the gloomy notes last time about policing, a bit of excellent news this time: the Forestry Commission have issued their final decision after the complaint that I made in January about the feeling of the Toton trees. They are satisfied that the destruction of the trees was an offence, and they have ordered the owners:

a) to plant at least 2,200 silver birch trees across the 6.5 hectare site during the coming autumn/winter planting season
b) to allow trees to regrow naturally
c) to maintain the trees to an acceptable standard for the next 10 years.

The owners can appeal this decision, but unless they successfully appeal they must comply or face a large fine.

This is really a very satisfying outcome for the local campaign, which, led by the environmental group TEPS, bombarded the Commission with requests for replanting. First we thought that the initial dismissive advice from council officials might doom the complaint. Then we thought that the owners might get away with replanting only in a small area. And finally there were persistent reports that the owners were negotiating a deal with the council to allow house development coupled with a promise of a lake.

Without belabouring the point, it's also fair to say that when I made the original complaint, it was dismissed by the local Conservative candidate and councillors, who said that the Forestry Commission would not take action for a relatively small area. Instead, they merely sought assurances from the County that if the owners wanted to dig up the land, they would need permission. The point is actually a non-political one that applies to all of us: never give up just because you think that something won't work – if you don't try, it certainly won't work! Congratulations to everyone in TEPS. Now we just have to watch out for a possible appeal, so we can submit evidence there if it's attempted.

2. Electoral reform

On a more reflective note, what should we make of the current Westminster arguments about the Alternative Vote and the boundary changes?

I'm not sure that the messy technical discussion about boundary changes is widely understood, so a brief summary of what the argument is about. In inner-city constituencies, there is far higher turnover of voters – typically in some areas, a tenth of the voters may move house every year. Most people are swift to tell local authorities that they've moved out (because otherwise they'll pay council tax for nothing), but not so quick to tell the electoral returning officer that they've moved in – it's just not a top priority when you're busy settling in. So inner-city constituencies tend to have electoral registers that are (a) smaller and (b) more out of date.
The Coalition is proposing to redraw electoral boundaries to reduce the representation of inner cities accordingly. The argument for this is that all seats will then have a similar number of registered voters. The drawback is that in reality the inner-city seats will be underrepresented, because of the effect of population turnover. The politics of it are that inner-city seats are nearly always Labour, so the effect will be to shift around 10 seats from Labour to Conservatives. That's why Labour is saying it's `gerrymandering' and the Coalition is saying it's only about `equality'. The equivalent would be if Nuthall got an extra councillor at the expense of Beeston, because comparatively many people in Beeston aren't yet on the register, while the population in Nuthall is quite stable. There's also a small reduction in the number of MPs which in principle shouldn't have a political impact except to make
constituencies larger.

The plot thickens when you look at politics inside the Coalition. The Conservatives are not too keen on the Alternative Vote, but extremely keen on the boundary changes. The LibDems don't much care about the boundary changes, but are extremely keen on AV (since it tends to favour the centre party as everyone's second choice). So the Bill going through Parliament specifies that we can't have one without the other – even if AV passes in the referendum, it won't happen at the next election unless the boundary changes have happened too. To make that more likely, the Bill abolishes the right of local appeals to object to boundary changes. As a final twist, the Bill explicitly exempts a few constituencies from the equality rule – these are, almost without exception, LibDem seats (with thin populations over large areas).

You can see why Labour doesn't like the package (and frankly I think the `gerrymander' accusation is justified), but as each bit is in the interest of one of the governing parties, it's likely to go through. The next question is how to vote in the referendum. And here Labour in turn is in an awkward position, since we agreed before the election that AV would be fairer and put it in our manifesto, but in the current circumstances of a two-party coalition it's obvious that AV will load the dice in favour of those two parties (who can urge their supporters to give their partners second preference).

It's tempting, therefore, for those of us who favour electoral reform (as I've always done) to fall back on saying we only want full proportional representation, e.g. with STV, which delivers fair results without a bias to the centre party. I don't, personally, feel I can do that – I said I'd support AV and I think I have to stick to it.

So I do plan to vote yes in the referendum, queasy though I am about both the consequences and the motives of the coalition in pressing it. AV is fairer than first past the post (because it enables everyone to express their first preference clearly, without worrying about tactical voting, so we can see what support parties really have), and in the long run, it's best to decide these things on the basis of what's right rather than on short-term political considerations.

Finally, a quick note from the German Shepherd Rescue Centre: they've got their Summer Fair coming up, on 7th August from 10.30 to 4.00 at the Midland German Shepherd Rescue Centre, Kings Corner, Derby, DE21 4RG.

Best regards

Nick

Beeston carnival/Kimberley police station closing/more local cuts

8 July 2010

Hi all –

Local updates this time, with a combination of Government and County Council cuts starting to bite quite severely, with policing, schools, mental health and leisure all affected. I've been made campaign coordinator by Broxtowe Labour Party and remain their parliamentary spokesperson: basically these titles give me a basis to continue to work on local issues, as in some examples below.
But first, on a more cheerful note:

1. Beeston Carnival is immiment!

This starts at 10.30 on Saturday (July 10) and carries on for most of the day at sites from the Square along to Broadgate Park. Full details are here:
http://www.beestoncarnival.com/

2. Kimberley Police Station to close

With cutbacks in funding for policing looming, the authority has decided to close Kimberley Police Station almost immediately: it will shut its doors on September 1. The officers who have served Kimberley are being moved to Eastwood Police Station.
The big question is how far this will impact community policing – will the officers be given a wider brief, or continue on their previous patrols and just spend more time commuting from the Eastwood station? To clarify this and lobby against the closure and any further cutbacks, Cllr Richard Robinson and I have arranged to see the chair of the Police Authority next Wednesday – we'll report back.

3. Schools upgrades scrapped

The next stage of Building Schools for the Future was to finance the long-awaited redevelopment of The Chilwell School as well as substantial improvements to all the other secondary schools in the area. The programme has now been scrapped by the Government, and the schools will need to review with the LEA where they go from here. The position up to now was that the schools were holding on with the prospect of major improvements in a few years' time; now that prospect jhas evaporated, a rethink of the medium term will be needed.

4. Middle Street Centre under threat

The Middle Street Resource Centre in Beeston is under review with a clear prospect of closure by the end of the year if the impending consultation doesn't change minds at County Hall. I went round this centre a couple of weeks ago: it's basically a relaxing environment for people with mild to moderate mental health issues, where they can read, play music, chat to others, take courses or get some professional advice: the centre works with the NHS Healthcare Trust but is primarily funded by the County Council. The centre has provided a bridge back to everyday life for people recovering from psychiatric difficulties.

If this were to be closed, the effect wouldn't be that the users would suddenly become healthy and able to mix freely in all sorts of surroundings; rather, many would feel they had to stay at home, which (as anyone who is familiar with mental illness will confirm) can be a vicious circle: people build mental walls around themselves and become more and more fearful of going out. It would be a huge shame if it were lost, and in my opinion a false economy – the effect would be a greater load on NHS and social services. I've approached the NHS Healthcare Trust to suggest that they should look at co-funding, but I hope that anyone who has had contact with this excellent facility will help lobby the County during the consultation.

5. Road maintenance budgets cut

The County is seeking to save on road maintenance, and is withdrawing the contract from Broxtowe council with a view to privatising the work: they are still studying this so we don't have details yet, but the first step will be for staff to be transferred from the borough to the county, and later transferred onwards to the private company if the county goes ahead with this. Since it's actually the same people on the same salaries, it's not obvious why this will save money, unless they simply do less maintenance, as I suspect is going to be the case. I'll keep you posted.

6. Free swimming to end?

Funding for free swimming for the elderly and young people has been withdrawn by the government with immediate effect. Broxtowe Council has decided to continue it till September so that the current school holiday aren't interrupted: they are reviewing what happens after that, but I'm not very hopeful, since other government and county decisions are squeezing their budget.

The areas where I'm afraid there will be further developments are social services and libraries, but I've not heard anything in these areas yet. We also don't yet know about the tram, but expect a decision soon – I spoke to the Minister of Transport, who tells me he has recommended pressing ahead, so it's now up to the Treasury. I'll keep you posted as things develop.

A brief political comment on all this. Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats said that they would protect front-line services, giving examples like "less waste" and "fewer political advisers". The reality speaks for itself.

The Coalition's supporters have fallen back on the claim that "the finances were worse than expected". Inconveniently, the new independent Office for Budget Responsibility found that the economy was actually in less bad shape than Alastair Darling had predicted (mainly because Darling was estimating on the pessimistic side to be safe): the head of the OBR, who had described the job as "the most exciting of my career", has now announced his resignation. Independence isn't always valued by politicians of any stripe.

This doesn't mean that reductions in spending or increases in taxation weren't needed as the economy emerged from recession, and I've suggested both savings and tax rises too, but I'm afraid that the ferocious focus on public service reductions reflects the ideology of the dominant faction of the government. Why are the LibDems going along with it? Presumably they feel that being in power makes up for a lot.

You'll have an early opportunity to vote on these issues if you live in Kimberley and Cossall, where the elected Conservative councillor has been disqualified for 6 months' non-attendance (partly due to serious illness): the by-election is, as predicted in my last update, on August 19. If you might be away or busy that day, don't forget to get a postal or proxy vote! See

http://www.broxtowe.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=109&p=0

for the form.

Best wishes

Nick

Leadership/by-election in Kimberley/the prison debate/news of Anna Soubry/

1 July 2010

Hi all –

Thanks to everyone who took part in the poll I conducted on Labour leadership preference – you gave a very clear lead to David Miliband, with Ed Miliband second and Andy Burnham third.

I've decided to endorse David for the leadership, partly because of that and partly because he seems to me to be offering the most rounded set of ideas to put the case as alternative Prime Minister. I particularly liked his comment that we can't measure success just by saying we're spending a lot of money on something – it's often necessary for success, but it's no proof of it. It's a mistake we used to fall into in government ("we have increased investment in X by 43%" rather than "results in X have improved as follows") and it's healthy that he's identified it. I'll be introducing an event that he's holding for members and supporters in Nottingham tonight.

Mainly, today, I wanted to offer a serious contribution to the debate on prison sentences; there's also an update on what my successor is doing! Briefly first, though: the councillor elected for the Conservatives for Kimberley and Cossall failed to attend a single session for six months and has therefore disqualified himself. My understanding is that the Conservatives intend to rush the by-election in the middle of the holiday season, in the hope of holding the seat while people are sunning themselves on the beaches: a likely date is August 19. If you live in the ward and would like to vote, I'd urge you to get a postal vote (which will give you a couple of weeks to get it in, so it doesn't matter if you're away or not well on the day): you can do this by ringing Electoral Services on 0115-9177777 (go through to the switchboard and ask for them) but the simplest is to download it from here:

http://www.broxtowe.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=109&p=0

Kimberley Labour Party, who aren't easily caught napping, have already picked their prospective candidate: Mary McGuckin, a feisty and very local person: she lives in Norman Street, works at the Nelson and Railway and has children at the local school.

1. The shorter prison sentences controversy
As one of the co-authors of the Justice Select Committee report on alternatives to prison, I'm very interested in the debate which Ken Clarke's speech has kicked off. I'll try to summarise the state of the debate, though it's very complex and I'm over-simplifying. I know that many of you know more about this than I do because you work with offenders every day, and if anything I say seems wrong to you, please advise.

• Simply locking up repeat offenders does seem likely to reduce crime in the short term, simply because they're not on the street reoffending. The steep fall in the number of crimes over the last decade (which despite popular scepticism isn't really disputed by many people who've studied the issue) coincides with an increase in the prison population of nearly 20,000, and it does seem likely that this isn't a coincidence.

• However, secure prisons are hugely expensive (more than Eton, as Clarke points out), so we're paying a great deal of money to reduce crime without reducing reoffending once the prisoners come out (and you can't really lock up more and more people forever).

• Extensive international studies show *zero* examples of prisons proving really effective prevention of reoffending. Regardless of whether prison regimes are tough or mild, reoffending rates are normally well over 50% (and that's just the ones who get caught). The intuitive belief that severity (chain gangs etc.) deter reoffending seems to be disproved by practice, and so does the attractive belief that kindness (lots of counselling etc.) deters it. No prison regime seems to be effective on its own – most criminals serve their sentences, putting up with whatever is thrown at them, and then go back to crime, perhaps because it's simply what they and their friends have become used to in order to finance drugs or other lifestyle aspects.

• There is some evidence that short prison sentences are counter-productive, since minor offenders are introduced to serious offenders, who advise them on "lucrative" opportunities when they get out. Rehabilitation work for people on short sentences tends to be minimal – prison governors feel it's hardly worth starting something if they'll be out in a few months.

• It does appear, however, that intensive individual advice before AND intensive supervision after release does reduce reoffending quite significantly. Many criminals would quite like to get out of crime (and the addiction which often accompanies it), if they could be shown a clear path out and get ongoing support.

Ken Clarke's speech should be seen against this background. There is the obvious political point that it completely contrasts with what Cameron said on the campaign trail about the need for short sentences. My personal opinion is that Cameron is neither progressive nor reactionary: he simply wanted to be Prime Minister, and took that line to win cheap votes. But I won't dwell on the politics of it.

Bearing in mind the above, I agree with Clarke, with an important reservation. My ideal programme would be this:

a) For relatively minor offenders, replace short sentences by intensive supervision. Don't send anyone to prison for less than three months, probably not for less than six.

b) Use the savings in jail space partly to finance the intensive supervision, and partly to allow longer jail sentences for more serious offenders, with more work on long-term rehabilitation and supervision for them when they eventually get out.

What's the reservation? It's that the current situation is that the probation service is wildly overstretched, and even the current number of ex-offenders is not being supervised closely unless they are seen as very high risk. The big fear in my mind is that Clarke is simply preparing for his 25% budget cut and will have more offenders left at liberty *without* the intensive supervision. That is the worst of all worlds and a dangerous false economy: it's the sort of thing that you get if you slash budgets without proper preparation.

2. Update on Anna Soubry's work

Since the flow of communications from Conservatives has abruptly slowed since the election, I've been asked by a number of you for an update on what Anna Soubry has been doing in the two months since election. I'm obviously biased, so just some factual notes:

- Under the new system that we introduced at the end of the last Parliament, Select Committees are no longer determined by the whips, and MPs can stand for election to whichever interests them. Miss Soubry has gone for Justice, which with her legal background clearly makes sense.
- She has made a brief maiden speech, in which she followed the tradition of acknowledging former MPs: she courteously described me and my predecessor Sir Jim Lester as "moderate and reasonable".
- She has reduced the number of surgeries from the three per month which I had to two, and is holding them in her stronger voting areas of Nuthall and Bramcote (mine were in Beeston, Stapleford and Kimberley, since I felt it'd be useful to maximise the number of people who could reach them on foot).
- She drew a lucky number in the draw for Private Members' Bills (I'm green with envy – never got this in 13 years) so will get time to have an issue debated. She decided against the two obvious constituency issues which I'd discussed (constraining open-cast mining and making it easier to evict unauthorised travellers) and has gone for a Bill changing the rights of privacy for people not yet charged with an offence.
- She hasn't asked any Ministers any questions (written or oral).

I know that she feels that MPs tend to spend too much time on constituents' local and personal problems and I believe she intends to focus on activity where her legal experience is helpful. Another MP has taken up the open-cast restrictions that many of us would like to see, so if the government is open to persuasion on this we may see progress in any case – I'll keep you posted. You can follow Miss Soubry's work on the useful non-partisan theyworkforyou site:
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/anna_soubry/broxtowe

Best regards

Nick

PS I'd like to give a plug to a thoughtful national blog:

http://hopisen.wordpress.com/

The author used to work for Labour and remains a supporter, but takes a wittily detached view. I especially recommend his pieces on audience participation shows and football...

What do we think of the Coalition? / Who should Labour choose?

20 June 2010

Hi all –

I’ll focus on national issues this time – no, I don’t mean the football...too painful...

1. The Coalition story so far

What do we make of the Coalition so far? Trying to be fair, some things I approve of:

• The fact that two parties are working together at all, without too many hints that problems are all their partner’s fault, is a good thing.

• The tone is generally fairly reasonable (and perhaps this itself results partly from the necessity of having two parties getting along together). I thought Cameron got it right over the Saville Report – an apology without ifs and buts, without either over- or understatement.

• As with any new government, some unnecessary things are being swept away. It’s rumoured that the daft rule that residents abroad (e.g. the Costa Brava) get the Winter Allowance is finally getting the chop, and some of the cuts are things I’m relaxed about – why should central government be financing a visitor centre in Stonehenge? And although the reported loss of child tax credits for middle earners is going to cause problems for many families, it was widely debated before the election so they’ve something of a mandate for it.

My basic problem with them is that they seem to me to have got their fundamental economic assumptions seriously wrong. Britain’s position is not especially unusual – contrary to widespread belief, we weren’t unusually indebted before the crisis (average in term of a proportion of GDP, and less than in 1997), and although we certainly borrowed heavily to get through the credit crunch, so did every other developed country, and nearly everyone has moved up from around 40% of GDP to around 70%.

The general international consensus is that the deficits need to be reduced gradually, to avoid triggering the economic crash that we’ve avoided so far. Certainly that means we need to either raise tax or reduce spending over the coming years, but the near-hysteria with which Cameron, Clegg and Osborne are deploying to justify the apparently impending massive squeeze is unique in the Western world – and that’s despite the fact that they’ve excluded all revenue expected from selling the banks back to the market. It’s not something for which they have a mandate: indeed, in the case of the LibDems, who spent much of the election attacking the idea of early cuts, there is the opposite of a mandate, prompting this editorial from the Independent (who endorsed them at the election):

http://tinyurl.com/34v536x

The scale of the squeeze is different from nearly everyone else and it goes against both IMF and World Bank advice – with neither institution known for their free-spending ways. The reason seems to be what Cameron said in an unguarded moment recently: “It’s not just about the money – we want to change the way things are done.”

That’s not necessarily bad in itself, but it’s a separate discussion and should be justified as such. If (for instance) Cameron feels that we are throwing too much money at new schools and we should be making space for private groups to set up ‘free schools’ instead, let’s have a debate on that, but not disguised as a need to cut spending at all costs. Similarly, the rhetoric praising ‘localism’ and ‘an increased role for charities’ is masking what appears to be a severe squeeze coming for social services. It’s hoped that local voluntary groups can fill the gap, and in some areas no doubt they will, but it risk is more postcode lottery. Again, it deserves a proper discussion: otherwise we will be getting society restructured by stealth under false pretences. The Ministerial comment that the poorest areas will suffer most:

http://tinyurl.com/34uacqv

was only being honest: if they cut back central support, that’s exactly what will happen, since Surrey can handle issues locally more easily than Notts (and Notts more easily than South Wales).
If you’d like to look at public spending for yourself, this gives a useful overview:

http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/classic.html

This shows the different spending areas in perspective and if you click on the left-hand column you can see a more detailed breakdown. Note that central and local spending are listed in separate columns – this is why the first entry for schools seems so low (the data is in the local government column).

2. The Labour leadership

Like all Labour members and especially former MPs, I’m being wooed by the candidates, and I’d be interested in input since I’m still uncommitted.

* I started off leaning to Ed Miliband, as I’m on the centre-left and he seems to me a thoughtful speaker in the same general area, but is he too young and inexperienced?

* Diane Abbott is too far left for me – I don’t think we’d be electable under Tribune Group leadership any more than we were under Michael Foot.

* I like Andy Burnham’s willingness to say things we don’t want to hear (e.g. he’s the only one to say that voting for the Iraq war was right based on the information at the time – I now disagree with him, but I admire his honesty).

* Ed Balls has lots of people who don’t like him, but also has a forcefulness that may be appropriate if the next few years are as rough as I think they may be.

* David Miliband seems to me the most intellectually impressive – I particularly liked his warning that we must be careful not to think that just spending money is a measure of success – and I’m currently leaning his way, but I’m concerned that he may actually be a bit too nice for the rough world of British politics.

What do you think? I’ve set up a survey to collect opinions:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LabourLeadership

If you’re copying it over, don’t forget the /s/ bit!

3. Correction

A constituent asked me after my last email to correct a reference to Regional Development Authorities having been “spared”. I said it because there’d been talk of abolishing them, but he writes:

“To say RDAs have been “spared” the cuts is simply not true. We have had a 20% reduction in our budget for 2010/11 announced last week, on top of a similar cut in November last year. This means there is £46m less being spent on job creation, business support and skills development across the region than we had planned for. This is not “waste”, but important services that help create and sustain businesses, such as Business Link, which are now facing significant budget cuts. You may also have seen today’s story in the Evening Post about the reduction in emda’s budget meaning that the refurbishment of Nottingham station and associated development may not be able to go ahead as emda was a major funder.”

Best regards
Nick

PS I’m now contributing fairly regularly to the new Labour website, Labour Uncut – see e.g.

http://tinyurl.com/33asdo3

though you’ll recognise some of the comments from my last email – you get to hear what I’m thinking first!

Earting the seedcorn/Time to raise income tax?/3 questions for Miss Soubry

30 May 2010

Hi all,

As promised, some political comments, some perhaps a little less tactful (to my own party, to other parties, and even sometimes to voters) than in the past. I don’t plan to get into the “should the Coalition have been formed?” debate – we are where we are and the Coalition parties should be judged on what they do. Instead, I’m going to make some suggestions that many people won’t agree with. Feedback is welcome, including critical feedback – I’m trying to encourage a constructive debate and it’s fine if we don’t always agree.

First, a short plug for Friday’s party at the Boat and Horses in Rylands – we’ve had over 100 acceptances now, so it should be quite an event. The auction will include some historical items – bottle of Commons wine signed respectively by Gordon Brown and Tony Blair. These are of course collectors’ items now and when I last heard were selling at over £200 in London auctions – not sure we’ll hit that level, though!

1. What is the effect of the first cuts?

Although the majority of economic commentators (including both the IMF and the OECD) have advised against major early cuts, the LibDems have swallowed their pre-election reservations and agreed to help carry them out. The issue here is that economic growth repairs deficits much more quickly than policy changes. A small upward revision in the first quarter statistics has reduced the deficit by £20 billion. I’d have hoped that this would make George Osborne reconsider the £6 billion cuts, but he’s going ahead with them anyway.

OK, that’s what many people voted for, so let’s look at the proposals more closely. There are always some cuts one can agree on – as a former supporter of ID cards, I’ve felt for some time that the half-hearted surviving programme just reflected a lack of political will to admit we were wrong and kill it off. And as for that embarrassing plan to hand out free laptops (creating an instant black market and undermining the industry while we're at it), killing it off is too good for it: it ought to be ceremoniously burned at the stake in a special Downing Street ceremony.

But the early attempt to suggest that this was all about cutting waste has been dropped, and there are two general measures whose effects will be gradually insidious, and three major specific cuts:

• A total freeze on hiring for public sector jobs unless personally approved by the Secretary of State. This will mean that front-line services will gradually erode as people who retire, die or simply leave will not be replaced. I’d have preferred to see a freeze on *budgets*, leaving it up to each organisation to work out how to save money. Deciding that nobody can be hired anywhere introduces an element of random micromanagement: if two people leave a department with 100 staff, it’s no big deal, but if two people leave a small unit, the unit will be banned from replacing them and end up completely snookered. That in turn will gradually produce random effects all over the public sector from the armed forces to the pension system. It's not a sensible long-term policy. What makes sense is to abolish posts if you don't need them, but not to leave posts empty if you do need them.

• A requirement that local councils and the Department of Local Government must save £2 billion/year (though the Regional Development Agencies, which cost £2 billion/year, have been spared). This is likely to show up in the form of reduced services down the line, but it’s hard to comment until we see what they are.

The specific cuts are focused in three areas:

- The end of the Future Jobs Fund
- The end of the Child Trust Fund
- The cancellation of 10,000 university student places

These have something in common: the people affected generally either don’t vote or they won’t notice. The Future Jobs Fund is a real loss. Briefly, what this did was offer new jobs for a limited period (typically 12 months) on near-minimum wage with a training element, for around 25 hours a week. I’m told by a specialist in the area that they were hugely popular both with employers (who had a limited commitment that they could afford) and single parents (who could combine them with child care, earn money and get training to help with further jobs later when their children got older). The range of jobs offered was “staggering”, the adviser tells me – from football coaches to music production: the scheme was making employers creative, opening up new jobs which they couldn’t have thought about affording before. The disappearance of the Fund will be a missed opportunity to get people back on the employment+training track, contradicting the rhetoric about getting them off benefits.

For the Child Trust Fund, the argument is that if we’re short of money we can’t really afford to subsidise the next generation. Here the LibDem policy was more radical than the Tories: the Tory policy was to limit it to low-income families, but the LibDems were for scrapping it for poorer families as well. I do see the argument, but I’d have preferred to see a temporary freeze and also (to meet other objections) some restrictions on what it could be used for – university fees, down-payments or advances on rent or mortgage, furniture, etc. We tlak blithely about being worried about the young taking on debt, so why is a scheme to help them as they leave school the first thing to be scrapped?

The scrapping of the promised university places eats some more seedcorn: it’s just a foretaste of an almighty row in the pipeline. More on this in a future email.

2. Isn’t it time to freeze the income tax cuts?

As implied above, I don’ t agree with the basic assumption that the deficit is unmanageably large or that we should be slashing it as quickly as proposed. As Professor Blanchflower (formerly on the Bank of England committee) observes, we’ve been fighting an economic war over the last two years, with a relatively shallow recession as a result; it doesn’t make sense to put that at risk.

However, clearly we do need to make a start on reducing the deficit. Some of the cuts not mentioned above are symbolic and harmless (no more potted plants in the Treasury, apparently), but the total announced is miles short of what the Coalition say they want to do. I suspect the hole will partly be filled by a VAT rise, which disproportionately hurts people on low incomes.

Let me suggest something different. *IF* we need to tighten our collective belts, why don’t we all tighten them a little instead of just hitting the vulnerable groups? Isn’t it time that we got rid of – or at least suspended - the two 1p income tax reductions which Gordon Brown introduced?

These were the political equivalents of one-night stands, except that one-night stands, however morally debatable, are at least supposed to give you a whole night of enjoyment. The pleasure resulting from the 1p tax cuts lasted about 10 seconds: the moments at the end of the Budget speeches where they were produced as rabbits out of Brown’s hat. I have literally never met a constituent who gave us credit for them, and I suspect that most people have forgotten they ever happened. Instead of bumping up unemployment, getting rid of one-to-one help for children falling behind and slashing university places, why don’t we all do our bit by waiving that reduction of a couple of pence in the pound for a few years while the deficit is reduced?

This is New Labour sacrilege, of course. One of the key ways Labour showed it had changed in 1997 was by promising not to do it, and it was solemnly repeated it at every election since. But if we’re in work shouldn’t we be willing to chip in a bit via the progressive tax system that has served us pretty well over the years? The effect? Around £10 billion deficit reduction every year.

3. Three questions for Anna Soubry

As in the past, I’m not going to make any personal criticisms, but in the same way that front-benchers can ask questions of Cameron and Clegg in Parliament, I think it’s reasonable to ask political questions of Miss Soubry, so we don’t just have issues discussed when there are votes to be won. Here are three to start off:

a) What’s happening about the Toton trees?

What actions is she taking over the Toton tree site? As things stood when I last heard before the election, the owners are talking directly to Broxtowe officers and seeking agreement that they can extract deposits and then build housing, in return for which they promise to create a nearby lake. The risk is that the excavation will be noisy, disruptive and lengthy, the housing will close off part of the site, the supposed lake will be used as an excuse not to replant trees, and the lake (which nobody has particularly asked for) will never materialise. However, since Broxtowe Council has earmarked the site for possible housing development, I wonder how energetically its officers will resist (you’ll recall that the first reaction to the tree clearance was to say it was only shrubs and didn’t need replacement). I suggest that Miss Soubry should be seeking direct discussions, and keeping us posted on the position.

b) Will she oppose elected police chiefs?

At a debate organised by the Evening Post last year, she said that there was one Conservative proposal that she did disagree with: elected police chiefs. These can bring policing closer to ordinary people, but risks populist campaigners making justice into a matter of vote-winning. It has nonetheless made it into the Coalition programme, making it a test of the assertion that she will be independent-minded. Will she commit to opposing the proposal, and put down an Early Day Motion to say so?

c) Will she take the pay rise?

MPs were awarded a pay rise of around £1000 this year. In the light of the economic situation and widespread pay freeze, this seems to me inappropriate, and I promised if re-elected to donate it to a charity (Help for Heroes). Can I invite her to match this promise?

Best wishes

Nick

PS For technical reasons it's not possible to change the Yahoo Groups sender from "nickpalmermp" - all of you would need to adjust your spam traps and I'd lose half the mailing list in the process. So just a general note: this is not intended to claim I'm somehow still an MP - I deem it to stand for "moderate person". :-)

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