Steve Barclay MP: The action on derelict buildings that would drive local growth

Stephen Barclay is the Member of Parliament for North East Cambridgeshire and a member of the Public Accounts Committee. Follow Stephen on Twitter.

Historic buildings and period architecture form the backbone of Britain’s thriving tourist industry. Quaint market towns and grand cityscapes have defined our built environment and shared national identity for centuries. Yet up and down the country, an estimated 730,000 homes and commercial buildings stand derelict and abandoned.

Neglected and dilapidated buildings blight the overall impression of a town centre, and have a damaging knock-on effect on local businesses and the value of neighbouring properties, as well as attracting vandalism, vermin, fly posting and problems of anti-social behaviour.

Walking around Wisbech in my North-East Cambridgeshire Constituency, it is clear that derelict properties left to decay without council intervention. and empty shop fronts where business rates have priced out entrepreneurs, pose a real threat to the safety and the survival of our town centres.

Bringing rundown buildings and commercial properties back to life should be right at the heart of plans to regenerate our towns and boost local economic development. Instead, residents and tourists are confronted with buildings which have been neglected for decades.

Steve Barclay MP: Foreign doctors working in the NHS should be able to speak English to a safe standard

Stephen Barclay is the Member of Parliament for North East Cambridgeshire and a member of the Public Accounts Committee. Follow Stephen on Twitter.

For the family of David Gray, the announcement that from April there will be legal requirement for foreign doctors to prove they can speak English to a safe standard before they can practice cannot come soon enough.

The death of Cambridgeshire resident David Gray in February 2008 following a fatal overdose administered by Dr Daniel Ubani, a German doctor on his first and only shift in the UK brought the issue of language testing for foreign doctors to national attention in the most tragic of circumstances.

Five years on, the Department of Health’s decision to draw up a nationwide register of doctor’s with proven language skills and medical expertise will prevent those unfit to practice like Daniel Ubani from simply moving from one health authority to another. It will also protect future patients and prevent families like David Gray’s from experiencing the heartache of the avoidable death of a loved one.

The reform is welcome and will do much to assure patients that vital changes are being made to improve the quality of care in a system which is undergoing a major crisis of trust and transparency.

It is obvious that the ability to communicate effectively with patients is a pre-requisite to quality care and treatment.

Steve Barclay MP: Conservative Voice is for everyone on the centre right who wants to reach out to a new audience

Stephen Barclay is the Member of Parliament for North East Cambridgeshire and a member of the Public Accounts Committee. Follow Stephen on Twitter.

Yesterday morning I was delighted to join the launch of Conservative Voice, a new group founded by Don Porter, alongside fellow MPs Liam Fox, David Davis, Dom Raab and Robert Halfon.

Political party membership is falling across the board and progressively ageing.  A key challenge is therefore how we engage and enthuse those who hold right of centre views but who do not currently identify with the Conservative Party. In doing this, the focus of Conservative Voice is unashamedly to secure more elected Tory representatives across all levels of local and national government and - above all - to defeat Labour at the next election.

However, it is not, as many media outlets have tried to suggest, a group which is concerned with promoting one particular brand of conservatism as a rival to the leadership. Of course we will help in the development of new policies, but our core principles are those which are shared by the majority of those with centre right views, from all wings of our party. 

Steve Barclay MP: Why a remedy to Eastern European immigration is not at our borders but in our fields

Steve Barclay is the Member of Parliament for North East Cambridgeshire and a member of the Public Accounts Committee.  He writes at www.therealyesminster.com on value for money issues.  Follow Steve on Twitter.

If you drive along any road in my rural constituency in the Fens it is unlikely you will get far before you come across a group of agricultural workers in the fields.  It is amongst these crops destined for your local supermarket that you will find an answer to some of the problems caused by European migration.

A report published by the Joseph Rowntree foundation last week found that migrant workers continue to live in a climate of fear, poverty, subjected to inhuman conditions and indebted to gangmasters.

But these are not the only consequences; the exploitation of migrant workers is also linked to poor accommodation, often in overcrowded houses. This in turn feeds in to increased levels of anti-social behavior for local residents living next to houses of multiple occupation, or with groups of young men drinking cheap alcohol on the streets.

Steve Barclay: Financial Regulation - enforcement not new policy should be the way forward

Steve Barclay is the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for North East Cambridgeshire and has worked for over a decade in the financial services industry, including in insurance, banking and for the city regulator.  His current role involves financial crime prevention for a large bank.

Many commentators and politicians have recently called for more regulation of the financial services industry.  Often these have been the same voices who previously said light touch regulation was essential for the competitiveness of the City of London.

The call for more regulation ignores just how many rules we already have. The FSA Handbook runs to over 6,000 pages.  Adding an extra 500 pages after the horse has bolted is not the answer. Nor is yet another corporate governance report, which will do little to shift the culture of firms away from their focus on the short term.

Instead we should enforce existing rules to drive good behaviour.  It is striking that so many of those who broke rules in recent years still remain in their job, or in similar roles with other firms.

Without individual enforcement, it will always be tempting for executives to play lip service to rules rather than put their bonus at risk.  Most senior executives know plenty of colleagues who have been fired for failing to meet their target.  Few know colleagues who have been subject to regulatory enforcement action.  None I suspect have colleagues who have personally paid a fine to the regulator greater than a single year's bonus.  Missing the target set by their Chief Executive or institutional shareholders is still a greater threat to a career or bonus than the threat posed by the regulator.