George Osborne mocks the Government's growth projections

It was Treasury questions yesterday.

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne poured scorn on the Budget growth forecasts:

"As the Chancellor knows, the growth forecasts that he gave us in the Budget last week, which predicted a return to boom levels of growth in just two years, and that the economy would stay at those boom levels, were greeted with near-universal derision, yet they were the fiction on which he constructed every other Budget forecast. When he gave those forecasts, did he know that the IMF was planning to contradict them flatly just an hour later?

Mr. Darling: Yes, of course I knew the IMF forecasts. The IMF takes a more pessimistic view, not just of our economy but of every economy across the world. However, we ensure that our forecasts are based on the information that we have. If hon. Members look at the IMF and its forecasting over the past three months, they will see that it has downrated its forecasting three times since last October, which demonstrates the uncertainty in the system. However, I believe that because of the action that we are taking, because of the fact that we have low interest rates, because inflation will be coming down this year, and because of the action that most other countries are taking to look after and support their economies, that will have an effect, which is why I remain confident that we will see growth return towards the end of this year.

Mr. Osborne: Frankly, I do not think the Chancellor is in any position to lecture anyone else about downgrading their forecasts after last week. Is not the truth this—that the dishonest Budget has completely unravelled in the space of just a week? We have seen the IMF produce those growth forecasts, which were wholly different from the ones given an hour earlier to the House of Commons. We have the CBI saying that there is no credible or rigorous plan to deal with the deficit. We have the Institute for Fiscal Studies pointing to the black hole, and yesterday a former member of the Cabinet, beside whom the Chancellor sat at the Cabinet table, said that his tax plans were a breach of a manifesto promise that is damaging not just to the Labour party, but to the economy. Today we had the Prime Minister getting a lecture in prudence while he was in Warsaw. We are used to Polish builders telling us to fix the roof when the sun is shining, but not the Polish Prime Minister as well.

Does not the collapse of the Budget in the past week and the damage to the Chancellor’s credibility make an almost unanswerable case for an independent office for Budget responsibility, so that we get independent forecasts on Budget day and the assumptions of the Budget are believed by the public?

Continue reading "George Osborne mocks the Government's growth projections" »

Philip Hollobone: "We spend far too much time in this country celebrating cultures other than our own"

The House of Commons returned yesterday, and launched into questions to ministers from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Kettering MP Philip Hollobone ensured that he won't get an invitation to join the front bench any time soon:

"Given that we spend far too much time in this country celebrating cultures other than our own, is it not time to start redressing the balance by creating a public holiday to celebrate St. George’s day?

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Barbara Follett): I commend the hon. Gentleman for the work he does in promoting Englishness and the flag of St. George. I would have to discuss with Government colleagues the idea of holding a public holiday to celebrate St. George’s day, but I hope that people will follow the suggestion of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and celebrate St. George’s day, while also remembering that we will also be celebrating the birth of William Shakespeare."

Shadow DCMS Minister Tobias Ellwood asked about lapdancing clubs:

"As the Minister will be aware, the so-called designated premises supervisor is legally responsible for the conduct of any pub, club or lap-dancing establishment. However, there is no requirement for that supervisor to be present in his establishment at any time; he can verbally hand over responsibility to an untrained manager with no qualifications. Will the Minister examine whether that is the best way to ensure that pubs, clubs or lap-dancing operations are run properly? The feedback from local authorities with vibrant town centres is that it is not.

Mr. Sutcliffe: Designated door supervisors have been a force for good in the sense of working with establishments, the police and local authorities. I made an enjoyable visit in my Bradford constituency to police on the licensing route late one Friday night, to see at first hand how door supervisors were working. [ Interruption. ] No, lap dancing was not on at that venue that evening. We are trying to ensure that local authorities, the police and the industry are working together in trying to protect the public."

Continue reading "Philip Hollobone: "We spend far too much time in this country celebrating cultures other than our own"" »

The Government doesn't know how many kids drop out of school

Kettering MP Philip Hollobone has received an extraordinary written answer:

"To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many pupils dropped out of school before the age of 16 in (a) Northamptonshire and (b) England in the last 12 months. [261672]

Jim Knight: Information on pupils dropping out of schools is not collected, nor can it be accurately derived from the data currently collected on pupils."

It is quite staggering that the of all the statistics ministers swim in, this one is not available to them. It is surely a key measurement of the effectiveness of their education policy.

Tom Greeves

Greg Clark says Government complacent on gas storage

The House of Commons had Energy and Climate Change questions yesterday. Shadow Secretary of State Greg Clark was very concerned about Britain's gas reserves:

"On 20 February this year—two weeks ago—Britain hit a new low, with just four days-worth of gas in storage in the reserve. Does the Minister consider that an acceptable margin for safety?

Mr. O'Brien: It is not about how many days worth of gas there are. The amount of gas in storage at a given point cannot meaningfully be assessed in terms of days. Stored gas is not used on its own to meet UK demand in any way. The North sea gas reserves put the UK in a position unlike that of other countries. Yes, we need gas storage, and we will need to increase the amount of storage as our imports increase, but we still have a substantial amount of gas coming from the North sea. That means that we do not need quite the amount of storage capacity that other countries do, although we will need to improve gas storage capacity in future as North sea gas depletes, and imports rise.

Greg Clark: That is a remarkably complacent answer, because every country in the world is content to denote their storage in days—apart from Britain, apparently. For the second time in only four winters, we almost ran out of gas, and almost did not have sufficient gas to meet demand. According to a written answer that the Minister gave me only this morning, only the depressed state of the economy, due to the recession, saved us from running out. Even the official regulator thinks that we do not have enough storage. In the Energy and Climate Change Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride) asked the regulator whether he thought that enough storage was being planned, and he said:

“I am not happy to talk about this...we were hoping”—

that storage would have doubled in the past five years—

“and we have barely moved.”

Given that record, do we have to hope that this Government run out of time before Britain runs out of gas?

Mr. O'Brien: That is a stunning statement the week after Centrica announced a £1.2 billion proposal to create the second-biggest gas storage facility at the old gas field in Baird in the North sea. We hope that that will come on stream from 2013. There are 17 other projects, too. That is one of the main areas for us, and the Government are setting out their priority of bringing gas storage on board. Let me be clear. The hon. Gentleman’s claims that we were suddenly about to run out of gas take no account of the fact that the Norwegian gas fields were pumping vast amounts of imports into the country. We were therefore able to manage successfully and capably the issues that arose as a result of the recent cold snap and the Russia-Ukraine dispute."

Other Conservative members asked interesting questions too.

Continue reading "Greg Clark says Government complacent on gas storage" »

Britain's cheapest MP is a Tory - but how does he do it and is it healthy?

Philip Hollobone, who was elected as Conservative MP for Kettering in 2005 at his second attempt, revels in being the country's "cheapest MP" and is the subject of a profile published on the BBC website today.

Last year his claim of less than £45,000 on taxpayer-funded allowances amounted to more than £90,000 less than the average MP - and more than £140,000 less than the highest.

He does this by not employing any staff, which generally accounts for the lion's share of the allowances used by his colleagues.

He says:

"I don't need staff. It's public money that you're spending. It helps to economise where I can by doing my own case work. At the same time I'm minimising the risk of getting out of touch, and I can respond directly to constituents' concerns.

"I haven't called for other MPs to do the same as me, but the arrangement suits me. I think people are surprised by my arrangement. If I were a frontbencher I don't think I could do it, but it's do-able for a backbench MP."

Whilst the principled stance he takes may be an honourable one - and I have never heard a complaint about his effectiveness as a constituency MP - I can't help but think that it is not healthy for him.

His casework file cannot be anything like the size of that which a number of MPs I know have to deal with, since in some constituencies he would find a full-time job simply in dealing with that.

But what does he do when he goes on his summer holiday? It's important in any line of work to be able to switch off and recharge one's batteries, yet he must either have to keep on top of work while away or face a huge backlog of letters, emails etc when he returns.

No Conservative would disagree that taxpayer value for money is important, but in the case of an MP, there is definitely an argument that spending money on office staff to organise what is inevitably a busy and hectic life actually makes that MP an even more effective advocate in the long run.

Jonathan Isaby

Philip Hollobone criticises the use of council rent to subsidise the Treasury

Kettering MP Philip Hollobone was elected in 2005. Curiously, he is also a Kettering Borough Councillor. Yesterday during oral questions on Communities and Local Government, he posed the following question:

"Mr. Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con): If she will hold discussions with Treasury Ministers to ensure that revenue from the local authority housing revenue account is directed to social housing. [236263]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr. Iain Wright): The current review of council housing finance is a joint review between my Department and the Treasury. It includes a thorough exploration of the housing revenue account—HRA—subsidy system. DCLG and Treasury Ministers regularly discuss the progress of the review.

Mr. Hollobone: Council tenants in the borough of Kettering pay £12 million a year in council rent, £3 million of which goes into the Treasury coffers and is not reinvested in council housing in Kettering. Why should council tenants in my constituency pay £1 in extra stealth tax for every £4 they pay in council rent?

Mr. Wright: I know that the hon. Gentleman and his constituents are concerned about this, and the Government recognise that the current system can be unpopular and perceived as unfair. That is precisely why we undertook the review of council house financing. The review of the HRA subsidy system will look at how local authority housing is financed. It will cover such issues as the recycling of rental income subsidies and the concept of negative subsidy, and I hope that that will address the concerns of the hon. Gentleman and his constituents."

Mr Hollobone raises an important point. Should there be more or less ringfencing in taxation?

Human rights debate

Yesterday the House of Commons debated democracy and human rights. A number of Conservative MPs made interesting contributions.

Tony Baldry, chairman of the International Development select committee, highlighted the desperate situation in Sudan:

"Before we move on from Sudan, let me point out that Darfur shows the fragility of the international community’s ability to support the emerging norm of the international community’s responsibility to protect. The matter is not just about the failure of the Security Council to enforce that; the international community does not have the military lift capacity to do so either. We are hoping that things in Darfur will not get worse and that something will turn up. There is no UN peacekeeping force in Darfur, effectively, and there is no real process in Darfur. The responsibility to protect is just being forgotten."

David Lidington, part of the Shadow Foreign Affairs team, indicated his determination to make the promotion of human rights a central plank of foreign policy:

"The promotion of human rights should not be seen as an add-on, but as an integral part of our thinking, incorporated in, for example, our national security strategy and our policies on international development. For instance, I should like us to build plans for the reduction and eradication of human trafficking into our poverty reduction programmes, and to find a way in which to integrate our concern for human rights into the pursuit of millennium development goals."

Continue reading "Human rights debate" »