Nicky Morgan MP: Reform of the ombudsmen should be a priority for this government

Nicky Morgan is MP for Loughborough and a member of the Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee.

Access to independent, impartial ombudsmen should be a cornerstone of any democratic society that values transparency, justice and checks on power. Organisations offering services to the public – often at a cost of millions of pounds of taxpayer’s money – must be held to account when things go wrong, and cannot be allowed to blame a lack of resources as an excuse for poor service delivery.

The public sector and private sector ombudsmen play a vital, if often overlooked, role in ensuring this accountability really happens. I firmly believe that if the ombudsmen are truly effective, and if the organisations investigated actually learn from the judgements made against them, then there are real gains to be made – both in terms of cost of service provision and in user satisfaction.

As the Public Bodies Bill returns to the House of Commons this week for consideration of Lord’s amendments, I think it is an ideal time for the Government to review the role and remit of the public sector ombudsmen. The ombudsman sector is clearly a candidate for reform, a subject I sought to address in my recent pamphlet, The Ombudsmen: Time for Reform? (published by Bretwalda Books), which explores the role of three particular ombudsmen, two from the public sector and one from the private sector, respectively: the Health Service Ombudsman, the Local Government Ombudsman for England and the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Nicky Morgan MP: Our SMEs need real support at this time from banks and investors

Nicky Morgan is MP for Loughborough and a member of the Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee.

We cannot have a solid economic recovery nor a growing private sector if our SMEs cannot expand.  We need those businesses which started off as a great entrepreneurial idea keeping perhaps one or two people employed to start taking on other staff.  We also need to support those businesses which have managed to keep themselves afloat as the recession raged.

My first experience as an MP of an SME not getting the support it might expect from its long-term lender related to the sudden announcement by the building society that it wanted to renegotiate the company’s mortgage because they believed the market value of the company’s premises had fallen.  Unsurprisingly the lender’s surveyor concurred with that view although an independent surveyor commissioned by the company did not. The result is that the trust built up between lender and company over a period of time vanishes and new relationships have to be built up from scratch.

But this is not an isolated case.  I am hearing more stories of businesses not getting the support they need from banks (and others such as insurance companies) with whom they have a long-term relationship.  Overdrafts which won’t be marginally extended or even renewed (particularly necessary to allow businesses to trade if they cannot arrange credit with their suppliers), arrangement fees of over 300%, an encouragement to enter into an obviously unsuitable factoring arrangement,  finding insurance harder and harder to arrange to the point where, if the final insurer says no then the business cannot continue to operate despite the fact it is highly successful.

Another example given to me is a company with a £1 million turnover which has just signed a five-year contract worth about an additional £800,000 per annum.  It was looking for funding to expand to new premises and received a number of offers of loans from banks.   The banks wanted 75% of the debt covered by the Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme; the remaining 25% guaranteed by a director with a 30% shareholding in the company, plus a debenture over all the assets of the company. This is essentially a risk free loan, but the premium interest rate is 3.95% above base.

The banks, however, seem to believe that  all is basically fine in the world of bank lending  and claim that businesses are paying back their borrowings.  I am sure in many cases that is simply because the businesses are fed up with having to deal with the difficult and mostly deaf local banks.

Nicky Morgan: The next generation of MPs must change the relationship between Parliament and Government and not be afraid to show some independence of thought

Nicky Morgan is the prospective parliamentary candidate for Loughborough.

David Cameron’s speech earlier this week makes thought-provoking reading for those of us aspiring to become Conservative MPs at the next election. 

The Party is, of course, quite right to examine the costs of MPs, quangos and politics generally.  But as anyone running a business, particularly in the current economic climate knows, cutting costs is one thing but making your assets (in this case our MPs) work better and smarter is another way of getting more value from the same level of spending.

The last few months have clearly demonstrated, if those of us who have been campaigning as PPCs for years and years didn’t already know, that there is something badly wrong with levels of engagement in politics.  There is far too much bureaucracy and far too many layers of Government.  As a result MPs frequently become conduits to other levels of government or public bodies.  I am often contacted by residents who have a problem and have literally no idea which way to turn or, if they have tried to deal with the issue themselves, they have become enmeshed in tiers of government and are now desperate for help.

It is of course true that a well phrased letter from an MP can often force those wheels of government to turn just that little bit quicker.  But MPs are elected to represent their constituents in Westminster – not in the local council chamber.  So, why don’t we make efficiency savings in politics by letting our hard-working local Government teams do what they do best and let MPs do what they are meant to do?

Nicky Morgan is the prospective parliamentary candidate for Loughborough.

Nicky Morgan: The real hunger for investment in the NHS, Mr Brown, can be found on hospital meal trays

Nicky Morgan is the prospective parliamentary candidate for Loughborough.

The recent debate over future public spending levels has missed at least one point.  All of our GDP can be “invested” (to use Gordon Brown’s preferred terminology) in our public services.  But if the money isn’t used in a way which improves standards and, in the case of the NHS, quality of care it is all, frankly, irrelevant.

An example of this is the case raised with me by Loughborough resident, Mr L, whose wife died in a Leicester Hospital recently.  Mr L and his family are incredibly stoical about the turn of events.  But the reason they feel so let down by the NHS and want lessons to be learned is that Mrs L didn’t receive sufficient help to eat.  Mrs L was unable to sit up on her own and therefore could not eat and drink without assistance.  Over time she became malnourished and dehydrated which caused further complications.  How can we expect patients to recover from surgery or ill health if they are not eating or drinking enough or anything at all?

To try to improve the situation a meal chart was started so that Mrs L’s food intake was monitored. Needless to say it was not filled in.  Meals arrived and were then taken away uneaten.  Despite persistent efforts by the family to raise the problem no one seemed to question this and to try to find out why she was not eating. 

On the same ward another patient I have spoken to lost 3 stone during her stay at around the same time. This is a common problem.