Andrew's blog

13 November 2024

BLAMING THE OTHER GUY

The government's playbook is to blame its predecessor. Fills the gap where we should be seeing the fruits of the 14 years it's been preparing to govern. 

But to be fair we have seen some changes. It has removed the winter fuel allowance, for example, handing the cash to well-paid doctors (I am one) and rail workers - like most youngsters I wanted to be a train driver but the closest I got was summer jobs as a steward for a subsidiary of British Rail. Oh, and on good old BR, the government wants to recreate it evidently.

Well, I'm afraid my recollection of BR isn't quite as rosy as ministers'. I'd be worried if it thinks going back to the 80s is going to transform the kind of traveler experience I'm having in the South Western Railway cattle truck I'm in as I write this. Still, on the bright side, there's no risk of a DVT since there are no seats and standing next to the loo is good for the circulation.

I jumped up to ask the transport minister whether he'll look at improving efficiency and safety through automation and if he'd finally deal with the notorious Tisbury loop which routinely prolongs journies from London to Exeter. Nil to report I'm afraid.

I continue to be non-plussed over the government's unforced surrender of the Chagos Islands. On Wednesday I berated the minister for allowing left-liberal lawyers and a shed-load of post colonial guilt to get in the way of UK national interests, its safety and security. The whole thing is murky and ministers are not being transparent. Let's see if the upcoming administration in the White House is as sympathetic to Sir Kier's rolling over on the US base at Diego Garcia. I rather suspect not. Watch this space.  

So, what to make of the President-elect? Actually his first term was pretty good for America. President Biden's really hasn't been. We need to stay close to the US and work with whoever's chosen by Americans. If I was the PM I'd offer up the Foreign Secretary as a token of goodwill in the upcoming reshuffle. He has anyway been making an appalling hash of things (Chagos obviously but the list grows and grows) and the jaw dropping insults he's on record as offering Donald Trump make it unlikely he'll have any sort of relationship with the US State Department. If Sir Kier really does put country before party, out Mr Lammy must go.

A Bill to remove the remaining hereditaries from the Lords arrived in the House on Tuesday. I agree that, great guys (all men obv) though they are, they now should as a body quit the stage,  I hope with those who contribute a lot to Parliament being offered life peerages so they can stay.

But what timidity from a government with such a majority. It seems ludicrous that Church of England Bishops, who in any event are infrequent attenders, should sit in the UK's legislature. I reckon the CofE - to which I belong with ever decreasing enthusiasm - has plenty on its plate right now without sending its top team to be dog-collared politicians in the Westminster bear pit. I'd like to see far fewer Bishops - in parliament and out - and more humble, godly, parish curates and clergy intent on the cure of souls, the mission surely of all in holy orders.

I'm getting lots of messages about legalizing Assisted Dying - maybe 40/60 for/against. Of course I keep an open mind on something like this and I do very much get arguments on both sides. I even have some small experience both as a healthcare professional and as witness to the terminal decline of a relative. However, I do not plan to support a change in the law. It is often said that hard cases (and these are very hard) make for poor laws. The sea change in the way we see and manage the frail and vulnerable that legalizing euthanasia would bring troubles me greatly. The Bill before the House would likely just be the start of it.

It's said that the art of taxation is plucking the maximum number of feathers from the goose with the minimum amount of hissing. Well, there's a loss of hissing right now. NI hikes will likely tip many small and medium sized businesses over the edge and will mean others will have to trim headcount.

On taxing farmers, I have no problem with Treasury measures aimed at stopping hedge fund managers buying up land to avoid inheritance tax, inflating land values in the process and deterring new entrants who actually want to farm. None. I do have a problem with modest family farms being broken up which they will be as a result of the budget. Most simply don't have the cash to pay 20% of the value of the business on the death of the farmer and little prospect of saving for it given that farm incomes are so slim. I suspect that this'll be the end of many farms, including in my constituency. Indeed, the minister admitted as much when I challenged him in the Commons.

Corporations will happily buy the acreage in forced sales so they can plant coniferous forest and solar panels to offset carbon belching industries - so-called greenwashing.

UK land-based businesses have been quietly, efficiently, maximizing crop yields over time to feed a hungry, burgeoning population and make this country food secure. This latest seems an odd way to reward it.

Remembrance weekend in the constituency is a fixed point in my year. The numbers attending have grown over the near quarter century I've been the local MP. It seemed to me this year was a record in Trowbridge, the county town, and in Warminster, our garrison town, where I joined the tributes paid to our war dead.

Lest We Forget. 

17 September 2024

The number of emails I get on Gaza fluctuates depending on the latest horror story from the region. At the moment they are crystallising around the UK continuing to permit a very small inventory of arms to be sold by UK companies to Israel. The new government, spooked by the loss of some seats at the general election where Palestine is a major preoccupation, has decided to stop a small element of UK security related exports. It needs to be careful. Iran has been directly and indirectly attacking Israel and has long called for its complete destruction. Israel must be able to defend itself at the same time as behaving proportionately, doing all it can to minimise civilian casualties and holding to international humanitarian law. 

In an attempt, no doubt, to be balanced the broadcast media is attempting to equate Boris Johnson getting someone to pay for expensive wallpaper in Downing Street with Sir Kier and Lady Starmer accepting thousands of pounds worth of clothing and specs from a millionaire who was then granted special privileges. 

Are they the same? Well, not really. 

Unless he steamed the luxurious wall-hangings from the plasterwork of Number Ten and took them with him, which I doubt, I’m struggling to see what personal benefit Boris received. The adornment of a public building doesn’t cut it. The Starmers getting togged out at someone else’s expense is another matter. 

Whether or not Sir Kier declared the gifting appropriately, you have to wonder at this early display of poor judgement by a couple who aren’t exactly short of a bob or two. 

The clothing story reminded me of Dobbie the House Elf. Harry Potter fans will remember him. Dobbie was obligated to Harry when he gifted him an item of clothing - a sock as it happens - which freed him from the sinister Lucius Malfoy. All those hours watching repeats of the Chamber of Secrets with my daughters were not wasted. 

Should we be bothered about ‘passes for glasses’ or ‘Wardrobegate’ when there’s so much going on in our world with real life consequences? At one level, of course not. War in Ukraine, terrible things happening in Gaza, people drowning in the Channel, pensioners here facing a chilly winter. The list goes on. 

And yet, it rather exposes the preachy, sanctimonious claptrap Sir Kier and his people specialised in when they were in Opposition, does it not?

2 September 2024

Welcome to the season of mellow fruitfulness everyone. This year, the anteroom to our colder months will have pensioners contemplating the unexpected loss of their winter fuel payments. That's a particular issue in our area because of the number of older, difficult to heat properties, many of them off grid. 

But Sir Kier has been laying out his political choices and priorities. He immediately cancelled the Rwanda plan. It was the only scheme that might just curb murderous, illegal, small boat migration. Instead we've had Labour homilies about talking nicely to the French. A pragmatist would have let the scheme run given that the planes were already sitting on the tarmac - and bin it after a few months if the plan didn't work. A diplomat would certainly not have gone out of his way to embarrass a country like Rwanda. 

Then we had the caving in to trade unions representing relatively well-paid rail workers and doctors and filching the money from pensioners' winter fuel allowance. Although this doctor thanks Sir Kier very much, how can it possibly be right?

Of course, everyone else in the state sector, especially those represented by trade union backers of the Labour Party, now expect an inflation busting pay rise. Who'd have thought?

Being a fair man, I'm reserving judgement on Labour's - rather pasty - assertion it's going for economic growth until I see the details of next month's budget. However, early signs aren't great. You get growth when individuals see a prospect of a meaningful personal return from the risk they take to achieve it. If the government's growth deal involves business failure meaning personal financial hardship whilst success means no obvious personal benefit because you're being fleeced by the Chancellor, its bound to fail. It's not surprising wealth creators are looking elsewhere, a process accelerated by the new Prime Minister talking down the country's prospects in his zeal for suggesting, contrary to the evidence, that he's inherited a dog's breakfast. 

Growth in this area will plainly be impacted by Sir Kier's cancellation of improvements to the A303 at Stonehenge - incidentally, leaving the Sparkford upgrade nearing completion as a bit of a white elephant.  Meanwhile, it looks like Defence, one of the biggest employers here, is being singled out for cuts. 

Just two months in, we're seeing the dire impact this administration is going to have across West Wiltshire and the Blackmore Vale.  Buyers' remorse is already kicking, but sadly it's not Amazon Prime - you've got to wait another 4 or 5 years to bag this lot up and send them back. 

13 May 2024

I would not want to belittle Angela Rayner’s property and tax difficulties but do wish that the media would focus more on policy than personality, particularly in the run-up to a general election.  My constituents are frankly more interested in when their mortgages are going to come down rather than the Labour deputy leader’s personal housing arrangements. 

And on the mortgage front, I do so hope the Bank of England begins to cut rates next month as predicted. Inflation is tumbling and, although better than forecast growth is giving the gloomsters and doomsters a good kicking, we need the sort of energy in the economy that the prospect of sustained interest rate cuts can deliver.  At the moment the Bank of England is looking like the problem rather than the solution. It needs to buck up. 

We need attention to policy because at the moment all the polls are predicting a Labour government. The public needs to know what the incumbent and the alternative will do for them, beyond not being the other lot. 

After 14 years any government carries biffs and scrapes from making tough choices. Particularly this one given the long shadow of the pandemic. And electoral gravity is a strong drag on incumbents with a cyclical temptation in many quarters to think that a change would be nice. 

What I hope for is a sober examination of the promises and manifestos of the two contenders and an objective appraisal of what Sir Keir Starmer or Rishi Sunak in Number Ten would mean for the UK economy and the jobs and public services that flow from it. How will either candidate for the top job advance the UK’s interests in an uncertain, increasingly unsafe and ferociously competitive world?  What will life in this country feel like under either leader at the tail end of the decade when we will have the next opportunity to pass judgment on our political masters?

Trust and credibility plays into this too since election promises can be shed after the event by political leaders trying to manage competing equities and fractious memberships. There are two jobs in politics I would never aspire to - Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition!

24 April 2024

As MP for a garrison town and a lot of soldiers, as a defence minister, former serviceman, active reservist and proud father of two servicewomen, I’m very pleased the PM announced on Tuesday that spending on defence will rise by £75 billion over the next 6 years to 2.5% of GDP. It’s a sad fact that the current world situation demands it.

Since January 2015, 6,000 bank and building society branches have closed in the UK or are due to close by January 2025 - equivalent to 61% of all branches in 2015. Seems that cash is no longer king with the onward march of cashless transactions. Cash was used in just 15% of transactions in 2021 and UK Finance predicts that the number will fall to just 6% by 2031.

So, there’s a problem. Not everyone is comfortable managing or able to manage their finances remotely. Others just prefer actual money. For some small businesses there is a need to deposit cash safely. The spate of bank losses locally began with the conversion of Lloyds in Mere to nice flats. Westbury and Warminster have followed.

Thankfully, the banking industry body LINK has been looking at how we’re suited locally. It’s announced plans to open a new banking hub in Westbury which will provide basic banking services including counter services run on a rotational basis by the big banks and Post Office. There’ll be dedicated rooms where customers can meet community bankers from their own bank. In Warminster there is still a banking presence but no way of depositing cash which is bad for many small businesses. LINK is onto that too and hopefully there will be a solution shortly.

Last week I wrote to Treasury minister Bim Afolami calling for renewed efforts to support financial inclusion. In my letter, I asked the minister what consideration the government has made of recommendations by the Bank of England and Financial Conduct Authority to place new obligations on service providers to facilitate access to cash as they close branches.

However, access to cash alone is not enough. For those looking for help navigating the labyrinthine world of fixed and unfixed interested rates, savings accounts, and loans, in-person conversations with knowledgeable people is essential to keeping afloat. That’s why I specifically asked that the Treasury includes access to financial services in their financial inclusion strategy.

This element of the problem is much less discussed than access to cash. I suspect this is because most people are aware of the shift toward a cashless society since it is evident in their daily interactions. All the exchanges that used to find us fumbling for change, from bus fares to a cup of coffee to money in a collection tin, have become routines performed with the tap of a card, or a phone.

One of my earliest memories is being passed a brown ten shilling note by my grandfather. Those were the days.

8 April 2024

Some promising news on the incinerator front. DEFRA minister Sir Mark Spencer has directed the Environment Agency to pause permits for waste burners to allow a review.

Truth is we don’t need any more of these horrible things. ‘Energy from Waste’ or ‘EfW’ is a misnomer in my view, a fig leaf offering a trickle of energy in return for consigning the by products of combustion to the great landfill in the sky.

Don’t be fooled by the name. EfW returns a paltry amount of power to the grid. Far from offering an efficient means of creating a circular economy, they produce around 7 million tonnes of carbon emissions countrywide each year and scatter potentially unpleasant substances across a wide area. They disincentive recycling. We are projected to build excessive incinerator capacity, drawing more and more waste away from more sustainable forms of management. That an inspectorate (from Bristol) granted planning permission for such a monstrosity in Westbury last year in the face of vociferous local opposition is, in my view, a disgrace.

I have long called on DEFRA to place a moratorium on the building of new incinerators and introduce other, largely fiscal, measures to create an inhospitable business environment for the sector. It seems my calls are being answered.

On 4 April, Mark Spencer wrote to the Environment Agency directing them to stop issuing permits for new EfW facilities until 24 May. A consultation will be carried out to determine whether continued EfW construction is desirable. There can to my mind only be one answer; a big, resounding NO!

I have written to Mark and the EA welcoming the move and also pressing the minister to go further. The powers he uses under the 2016 Environmental Permitting Regulations also allows him to revoke permits. Surely, given the clear evidence of our over-capacity and the risks of incinerators, it would make sense to revoke the permit given to Hills for their planned Westbury plant?

I would ask the EA to keep in mind that it conducted a formal interview under caution in June in connection with Hills Waste’s failure to manage the smell from its existing waste operation that blighted the lives of many of my constituents during summer months. Residents had to stay indoors with windows shut as the gut-churning stink pervaded the neighbourhood. This is not an outfit I feel comfortable with.

An initial pause on permits followed by a consultation is how the moratorium got going in Scotland. Pressure is building on EfW facilities and operators like Hills/NREL must be feeling the heat, so to speak. Time to dial it up. Many areas will have local government elections on 2 May. Incinerators are set to be a key issue in several of them. Their continued construction is not just a local issue but a national one.

If we are serious about protecting our environment, we must as a country deal with our waste in a more sustainable way by giving incinerators the boot.

25 March 2024

Potholes make for curious photo ops. Wherever one goes in the UK, whatever the character of the local politics, you can always find pictures of local councillors and activists standing on broken roads, gazing into a hole full of debris or murky water as if it is the most mesmerising thing in the world. At the present, there are around 50 million potholes across the country. That’s a lot of opportunities for hole-gazing.

But there is good reason why people pose for these admittedly odd pictures. Pass over an unseen pothole and you could cause some serious damage to your vehicle. If you’re a cyclist it could be much worse.

HGVs rumble through villages with little regard for residents or for rucking up the road. I work closely with local campaigners on these issues and see first-hand the frustration this (quite rightly) causes. In Wiltshire we also suffer from bad neighbours. Bath has exploited the green agenda to keep HGVs away from their gracious Georgian town houses, shunting them instead onto our tightly packed doorsteps.

Thankfully we have a county council attempting to meet the challenge. Wiltshire Council – so successful that they recently had a BBC feature praising their financial management which is pretty good from the BBC – have earmarked £10 million for extra investment in filling potholes and road resurfacing over the next two years. Meanwhile, other councils are going bankrupt while their roads do their best impersonation of an apple crumble.

Recently I looked at roads in the south of my patch that are the worst I’ve seen. I have drawn them to the attention of the council as I truly believe they are now dangerous. It has a plan to fix them but must do all it can to bring forward remedial work.

Central government has introduced a £2.5 billion Pothole Fund that runs between 2020/21 and 2024/25 to help local authorities and to stop potholes forming in the first place. It is encouraging to see central government taking a preventive approach.

Unfortunately, local councils cannot always be trusted to make financially sensible decisions. I have been greatly disappointed at the millions Trowbridge Council has spent on the now cancelled Doric Park project whilst failing to address more pressing infrastructure needs. So up goes council taxes.

It’s not the same story everywhere. I’ve worked productively with town councillors in Warminster to have a derelict building demolished and improve the local high street, and the BBC’s feature on Wiltshire Council describe their work as actually life changing for many vulnerable people. Properly funded local authorities are a vital part of what makes Britain tick, and it’s important to remember what a good council can do.

Can I wish readers every blessing at Easter.

8 March 2024

It’s been a good budget for my Wiltshire constituents.

In the second full budget since the global pandemic, Jeremy Hunt delivered what he had promised: a forward-looking economic plan that cuts taxes in a sensible way. My hard working constituents will particularly benefit from the 2% cut to National Insurance. Combined with a similar cut in the Autumn Statement, it delivers several hundred pounds in annual savings for working families and an incentive for the large number of adults who are not currently economically active to return to the workforce.

Raising the VAT threshold for businesses is a positive for the local economy which is characterised by lots of  smaller enterprises.

After launching my TechTrowbridge initiative last year, I’m chuffed with the Chancellor’s emphasis on digital technology and AI such as the £7.4 million upskilling fund pilot to help SMEs develop AI skills. I’ll be exploring how we can have some of the action locally.

In my view, the Chancellor has done a good job against an incredibly challenging backdrop. Look at any graph of government debt or spending over the last century and you’ll notice two massive peaks- one during the Second World War and one during the pandemic. The Treasury spent big time keeping the UK afloat during both. It’s either disingenuous or childishly naïve to suggest that its paymasters – us - wouldn’t have to settle the bill for covid, just as we, our parents and grandparents did in the post war years when the standard rate of income tax shot up to 50%.

Since the pandemic, much has been made of data showing taxes to be the highest as a percentage of GDP since the war. But we need to devil into the detail to find who those taxes are falling on. Jeremy Hunt’s NI cuts mean that a person on the average wage actually has the lowest effective personal tax rate since 1975. So, the government’s strategy is clear – it wants to get its sticky fingers out of the pockets of the hard working people who power our economy.

But what, back in the day, Harold Wilson called ‘the pound in your pocket’ isn’t much good if it’s being inflated away. Since coming to office, the Sunak government has more than halved inflation. The OBR is now saying inflation is on the point of dropping sharply - below 2%. That’ll reduce borrowing costs, personal, corporate and governmental. I’m hoping the latter will free up more headroom for further tax cuts later this year as we continue the post covid recovery. Indeed, though His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition can hiss and spit as much as it likes,  the truth is the UK emerges from the pandemic in a distinctly advantageous economic position compared with its European peers.

The challenge now is to improve the metric that we have for many years struggled with – productivity.

23 February 2024

Such a pleasure to attend Wiltshire College Apprenticeship Awards ceremony in the county town on Thursday. Fantastic achievement across the board. A big thank you to local employers who have supported the learning provided by the college. Apprenticeships and skills from horticulture to hairdressing power our economy.

It was good to attend the defence logistics school at Worthy Down near Winchester for apprenticeship week. It has recently been rated highly by Ofsted. Defence as a whole is the biggest single employer of apprentices in the UK with roles at all levels from aircraft engineering to catering. I feel enormously privileged to serve as a minister in the MOD,  surely one of our most dynamic engines for upskilling the UK workforce and for social mobility.

It’s not been a great week in the Palace of Varieties. Mercifully I missed the Speaker/Gaza ruckus as I was visiting sailors and marines in Devon. For cunning arch lawyer Sir Keir Starmer to browbeat the Speaker into overruling procedure - ostensibly on the grounds of his MPs’ safety but more likely in my view to get his party off the hook on Gaza - is jaw-dropping.  

To paraphrase what Churchill rather unkindly said of the US, Sir Keir always does the right thing - but only after exhausting all other options.

We saw that in the tardy reaction to clearly unacceptable remarks by his candidate in the Rochdale by election. We’re left with the dismal  impression that anti-Semitism only matters to the extent that its an electoral liability. The Rochdale hand break turn comes hard on the heels of yet another screecher, this time crashing Sir Keir’s flagship £28 billion spending pledge to sort out the environment. That one had become a big liability in Sir Keir’s campaign to bamboozle  the public into believing his party had come over all sensible after he’d booted Jeremy Corbyn out. Yep, that’ll be the same Mr Corbyn he’d energetically campaigned to get into Number Ten.

It’s hard these days to get our wonderful national media interested in anything other than hysteria and hype. But setting aside the constant diet of outrage, there are less shouty things quietly making life better. For example, many of my constituents are reliant on land based businesses. They will be pleased, I hope, with this week’s announcement by the PM of a £427 million package of grants for British farmers linked to productivity and resilience, the largest ever of its kind.

I am eagerly awaiting the finalisation of sanctions on those responsible for the murder of the remarkable Alexei Navalny. The Russian people through time have been cursed by the tyrants and despots that have led them. Navalny and his brave supporters offer a glimpse of the bright future awaiting Russians when Putin’s parasitic grip finally falls away. Until that day, I’ll be wearing my official sanction by Putin’s Russia as a badge of pride - even more than the bronze Duke of Edinburgh’s award and swimming badges I won at school.

9 February 2024

Everyone will be wishing His Majesty The King well as he and his family deal with his cancer. From what we know, it was caught early so hopefully all will be well. Half of us will get some form of cancer in our lifetimes. Pretty much all of us are touched by it one way or the other. 

When I was at medical school the general sense was that in our working lives cancer would be defeated as other diseases had been. Well, it hasn't been, but perhaps at least the edge has been knocked off it. All the while it seems that we are on the cusp of a breakthrough. What has been happening is treatment that is kinder and palliation that is more reliable. For now, cancer remains a dreaded word but we can look forward to a time when most forms of it are compatible with long term survival, a time when it becomes a chronic disease to be managed like any other. 

Money is important - and, having risen steadily, the amount the UK spends as a proportion of national wealth on healthcare is about the same as our peers - but how we spend it and the productivity of our system is at least as important in generating the very best clinical outcomes. That's why I welcome innovations such as the empowerment of pharmacists to see and do more and the use of physician's associates as ways of delivering a better, more convenient service and ensuring precious resources are used as efficiently as possible. 

Our NHS must always find ways of doing things better and it must be remorseless in rooting out waste. At the moment our survival rates for common cancers are not where they should be - they need to be the best among our neighbours and we're not there yet.

Well done Wiltshire Council for balancing the books. We're surrounded by local authorities that have got themselves in trouble financially - just look at the financial emergency in next door Somerset, a county with residents who have similar needs to ours. It matters because of real life consequences for residents if their council fails financially. For example, the planned leisure centre opposite County Hall in Trowbridge is on track. It wouldn't be if the county council hadn't been managing the accounts as prudently as it has. 

26 January 2024

The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) may not sound exciting but it has huge consequences for Wiltshire. Michael Gove’s welcome revision of it was announced less than a week before Christmas and, understandably, the implications haven’t yet fully sunk in. However, it is the antidote to the sort of speculative development that has been concreting some of our best countryside in recent years.

The revised NPPF gives more muscle to local planning authorities, protects Green Belt, removes the requirement on councils to demonstrate a five-year land supply on an annual basis and gives greater protection to the best agricultural land, especially in relation to food production.

The reduced land supply the council now has to show will put a stop to the sort of speculative applications from developers we’ve been plagued by locally. 

I’m also delighted that land quality will now be a material factor in determining planning applications. We have very high-quality agricultural land in our area so the change will mean less building on what should remain productive land. That’s all the more welcome in an increasingly dangerous, conflicted and protectionist world in which supply-chain and food security can no longer be taken for granted. It is entirely sensible to keep growing as much of our own food as we can.

Some of the material we rely on as a trading nation comes and goes through the Red Sea and Suez. Yemeni Houthis, backed by Iran, have been attacking the merchant shipping carrying it. We cannot allow Iran’s proxies to threaten freedom of navigation, hence our strikes against them from HMS Diamond in the Red Sea and Typhoon jets from our base in Cyprus alongside our allies.  

Israel has a right to take action against Hamas terrorists in Gaza that butchered its people in October but we do now need a plan based on unhindered humanitarian aid, a sustainable ceasefire and a roadmap towards a two state solution. That’s the only hope for achieving rational, civilized leadership in Gaza that works to better the condition of its people rather than plot the sort of murderous rampage we saw in October.

We have to take action against extremist groups spreading hate within our own borders. That the banning of Hizb ut Tahrir has been so long in the making is a tribute to this country’s tradition of tolerance. But its leaders have long been overstepping the mark. Preaching violent jihad against the State of Israel and Jews wherever they are cannot be permitted.

Hizb ut Tahrir is a thoroughly nasty outfit with a medieval approach to any non subscribers to its sick world view and attitude to human dignity.  

So on 19 January the UK proscribed Hizb ut Tahrir and on 27 January we mark Holocaust Memorial Day. Words matter, but actions matter more.

15 January 2024

Cash is a thing of the past. Right? Most of us have no problem paying our way with online transfers and contactless. But 48% of the population is not comfortable with cashless banking. People who rarely use cash or can’t remember when they last wrote a cheque generally want to keep actual money as a payment option for emergencies, small payments, privacy and money management. Their concerns aren’t a knee-jerk opposition to change. There is a worry  that forcing people to digital could lead to a loss of control over finances and spiralling debt.

So I’m unhappy about Lloyds’ plan to close their Warminster branch as part of a swathe of closures across the country. With this closure goes the town’s last bank, pushing residents not only into using cashless payments methods but also forcing them to rely on telephone and digital banking. Bank closures disproportionately impact more elderly people who, as a generalisation, are less agile online or able to travel further to bank.

The major banks have obvious incentives to close physical branches where there is less footfall and cashless transactions are popular. But there are still many people who need in person services and are at risk of financial exclusion. As long as that is the case there will be a place for ATMs and banks with a physical presence on our high streets.

I am doing what I can to get something that looks like high street banking in Warminster and Westbury.

It’s hard to blame people for not trusting technology. The Horizon scandal and Fujitsu’s apparent complicity in the Post Office’s gross miscarriage of justice is making us more wary of the computer.

The first thing that needs doing is exonerating and compensating wrongly prosecuted sub-post masters. This has taken far too long and too many lives have been ruined. I welcome government action taken this week on compensation and general exoneration. I’d rather the odd wrong-un went unpunished than hundreds of innocent people are done in by big government or powerful organisations, as here. Paula Vennells returning her CBE is of course appropriate but it is just a small part of making this right. All those highly paid and pensioned folk who are responsible for this mess must be held to account.

However, calling for scalps – Sir Ed Davey’s stock-in-trade until the tables turned – is all very well but what I really want is stronger procedures to prevent recurrences. How do we stop a big institution with deep pockets, arm in arm with a tech giant, turning feral? Alex Chalk’s rethink of rules for private prosecution by companies are a good start. Too many lives have been destroyed for serious justice reform not to be pursued.   Never again.

29 November 2023

News hounds in this country are nose blind when it comes to good news. Always sniffing for ‘ain’t it awful’ and ‘gotcha’ type stories, they project a bonkers image of constant chaos and catastrophe. Meanwhile, in the real world, inflation has been halved even as wages have increased. The impact of that for my constituents has been rusticated to a few peripheral column inches and graveyard broadcast slots.

So we had better seek out facts for ourselves rather than consume the UK media’s refraction of them.   This week I have been immersing myself in data from the World Bank. The picture that emerges is no fairy tale. But what stands out is that this country, having been through the wringer like everyone else, is emerging in good order compared to the bulk of countries with which we can reasonably be compared, particularly in the EU.

The key is figures that matter. GDP is pretty meaningless. It can be artificially inflated, for example with an open borders policy as West Germany did in the 1980s. My constituents won’t directly feel it in their lived experience.  GDP per capita, by contrast, gives a real sense of how the average person is faring.

Take France, our closest continental neighbour. French GDP per capita was higher than ours in 2010 – Frenchmen were richer than Brits - but it’s come in lower than the British equivalent each year since 2012. As an aside, I’m bound to point out that in 2016 the mainstream media was telling us that Brexit would cause the sky to fall in. Plainly not.

Sir Keir Starmer has been suggesting that Poles will be richer than Britons by 2030. He implies that Poland is a backward country and invites us to be shocked by its economic growth compared with Western Europe. I represent a significant Polish community. Sir Kier is skating on thin ice. In any event, his claim that Poles are overtaking Brits is just not supported by per capita GDP figures – look them up.

Nationalised railways are a thing of the past. Or are they? Franchising, regulation, subsidy and price control mean that the State retains tight control of the network – correctly in my view. We have seen that in the government’s intervention on ticket office closures. Plainly unpopular with the public – I have four mainline stations in my patch - the train operators have been obliged to go back to the drawing board.

Can I suggest ticket pricing simplicity, the reinvention of proper, platform-based, station masters and the end of constant onboard ticket checking often within minutes of purchase. There has to be a better way to run a railway. Train operating companies must buck up or ship out.

20 November 2023

It's been a big week.  However, what part of it will have the most immediate impact on the lives of my constituents - the cabinet reshuffle, lawyers blocking the government's attempts to stop the boats, the ongoing tragedy that is Gaza or the remarkable fall in UK inflation? It isn't a difficult question. 

The pundits are now being to talk about an early cut in interest rates as a result and to get a bit of sustainable growth into our post pandemic economy. It will also get the frozen housing market going with mortgage lenders already anticipating what's likely to come in the New Year with better deals.

But on the reshuffle, three cheers for Steve Barclay becoming environment secretary. I've lost no time in cornering him over waste incinerators already. I reminded Steve that we jointly went to see his predecessor in the summer as we are both threatened with these appalling monstrosities in our constituencies. 

I will not rest until the plans for the Westbury burner are up in smoke, as it were. 

3 High Street Warminster is a mess that scars an otherwise very agreeable high street. After so many years and with such a tragic history enough is enough. I want action now and am weighing in. The existing building is beyond salvation and needs to come down and with it the scaffolding that's holding it up. 

Our high streets are still the beating heart of our towns. They deserve respect. 

The season of Remembrance is important to me. An early memory is my grandfather's sitting room transformed into the poppy-strewn HQ for the annual Royal British Legion fundraiser. Like him, I'm President of my local branch. In my 43rd year of Naval Service, defence minister and MP for a garrison town and immensely proud father of two Servicewomen, a lifelong interest in standing with those who serve goes on.

The Legion tells me its early fears that an increasingly cashless society would decimate tin-rattling have been confounded.  Contactless has actually increased donations. The happy paradoxes of technology! 

30 October 2023

Happily, Wiltshire seems a long way from the mean streets of Westminster with its angry 'from the river to the sea' pro-Palestinian protesters. Nevertheless, I have written to our Chief Constable in the light of the reported behaviour of the Met for assurances that her constables will be enforcing the law regarding banned terrorist groups like Hamas and hate crime against Jews. The oldest hatred has no place here. 

I have over the past year been engaged as minister for defence people in making the Armed Forces a better place for LGBTQ people. My interest was heightened when I was the PM's point man for the centenary of the Great War. No shortage of gay people who fought with valour and distinction in that conflict. Did the sky fall in when the ban on homosexuality in the Armed Forces was lifted eighty years later? Eh, no, any more than it has since women began serving in front line units. Indeed, Defence is inestimable the better for it. 

Irony on irony, the rainbow flag has been spotted on the streets alongside Hamas supporters. Really? One of the reasons the exposition of Islamic extremism in our liberal democracy is so objectionable is its literal interpretation and advocacy of the penalties for homosexuality contained in sharia law. I fear our bewildered flag wavers quickly got a sense of that.

People have written asking me to support a ceasefire in Gaza. I have written back to say that I support urgent humanitarian assistance and the rule of law. I have visited Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Jordan and Lebanon. I'm no expert, but I do understand the context. And I know enough to understand that there is no moral equivalency between Israel and Hamas and its confederates. None. Consequently, I expect Israel will continue to prioritise the safeguarding of civilians as it does what it must to release Jewish hostages and expunge Hamas. If Hamas is permitted to simply retreat behind a ceasefire whenever it has launched one of its murderous rampages against women, children and the elderly, the whole grisly experience will go on and on. 

Persistence pays - hopefully. I have written to ministers again after new evidence has emerged of possible health effects from waste incineration. We surely have enough now to halt the development of any more of these toxic monsters. 

23 October 2023

I made several trips to Mid Bedfordshire to help in the by-election. For my party the outcome is a disappointment and cause for reflection. However, by-elections are poor prognosticators for general elections. They are an opportunity for voters to give incumbent governments a good kicking without penalty which is especially satisfying when times are hard as they undoubtedly are here and across Europe in the wake of covid, Ukraine and the energy crisis.

Last month the Middle East seemed at last to be turning a corner. We had the Abraham Accords - a programme in which I was privileged to play a, very small, part - and even the prospect of a relationship between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Then we had 7 October. 

I used to be minister for the Middle East. One of the most disquieting visits I made was to Tehran in 2019. It seems quite likely that Iran, not liking the way things were heading, sparked off the murderous rampage by the butchers of Hamas knowing that the Israelis reaction would probably spark much wider unrest, as it has.

I have never admired Israel's conduct in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and seen for myself conditions in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. But nothing, repeat nothing, justifies the disgusting events of 7 October. Neither does it justify hounding Jews in this country which should chill all decent people or the invalidate the right of the State of Israel to defend its population in accordance with international law. 

What has happened since 7 October has uncovered a disturbing level of anti-semitism here and across Europe. How readily the left-liberal cognoscenti concluded that Israel was responsible for the explosion at Gaza's al-Ahli hospital. Far better to form your version of the truth around full facts. As I write, with the picture changing substantially since the awful news broke, they still remain to be discovered.  But truth is often an early casualty of conflict and a lie gets round the world before truth gets his boots on.

Time for good sense, cool heads and old souls. 

2 October 2023

Concreting the countryside

What remains of our countryside really matters to me. It matters to my constituents as my mailbag attests. I get lots of complaints from people pointing out how house building threatens the natural environment. Although its likely they are themselves comfortably housed in properties they own - unlike many of the families who contact me about homelessness or overcrowding - I definitely share their concerns. Indeed, over the years I’ve been active in campaigning against concreting the countryside.  

Most people aspire to own their home. Who am I, a contented home owner, to deny them the stake that home ownership brings? To bring house prices within reach, it’s plain that we have to create new build and repurposed homes.

But we cannot build new houses just anywhere. Concreting the countryside destroys what remains of England’s precious green loveliness, so gloriously evident right now as summer tips into autumn. I do not envy Michael Gove the job of satisfying both environmental campaigners and, predominantly young, housing aspirants.

I believe, however, that Michael is on the right track. For example, repurposing redundant commercial premises is surely win-win. They are so often  unattractive thorns in the side of  townspeople who would like to enjoy Wiltshire’s once vibrant high streets. For those seeking a home, they’re an appalling missed opportunity. I’m actively promoting repurposing as a way to boost our flagging town centres and create homes - without destroying habitats and green spaces.

The role played by EU law in blocking housing development was one of the reasons Michael Gove supported Brexit. For example, he proposes dealing with cumbersome EU nutrient neutrality rules which are not effectively protecting our rivers but which prevent homes being built. The vehicle would be his flagship Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill.

The truth is that nutrient run-off is minimally associated with house building – it’s a product of agriculture and wastewater – but is currently used to block new homes under retained EU rules. Sir Kier Starmer must know this but has opted to oppose reform anyway. The politician in me supposes that he’s sniffing an opportunity to generate mischief in the shires as we approach a general election. But his political choice would have dire human consequences. What it means is blocking around 100,000 homes by 2030. 100,000 families, think of that.

Mr Gove’s plans, as I understand them, will contain a new duty on our unloved water companies to upgrade wastewater treatment works in designated areas by 2030. In other words, he seeks to remove spurious blocks to building homes and  improve the environment. If anyone can square that particular circle, Michael Gove can.

25 September 2023

Rishi Sunak’s net zero speech came on the same day as good economic news. To everyone’s surprise inflation fell again last month and even our wonderfully hang-dog Bank of England was obliged, grudgingly one suspects, to hold interest rates after fourteen consecutive increases. At the risk of tempting fate, it may well be we’ve passed the peak of the economic pain caused by pandemic aftershocks and the war in Ukraine. That has to be right. A pause then cut in rates may stave off the recession that earlier this year the talking heads were telling us was a racing certainty and which has afflicted Europe’s biggest economy, Germany.

In Rishi’s first Prime Minister’s Questions last year, I asked him about the polluting incinerator planned locally by Hills Waste. Last summer he came to my constituency and heard the opposition to waste burners. He, like me, is committed to greening the environment but it must not make us cold and poor, must be at the same pace as our neighbours not vastly ahead of it and it definitely must not incentivise the sort of throw away society that incinerators feed off.

I was pleased to hear that the government is delaying the introduction of the boiler ban for off-gas-grid homes to 2035. I have previously written to ministers to convey the concerns of my constituents in more remote areas, where there is no gas and where they must rely on oil. Phasing out oil boilers from 2026 would have imposed a disproportionate cost on them. Many would simply not have been able to heat their homes.

Making my constituents poorer and colder is not an equitable or sustainable way to reach net zero. Increasing the boiler upgrade grant by 50% is a welcome measure which will ease the pain of green transition and makes it more viable.

Polling indicates widespread support for net zero but opinion gets flakier when voters are asked how they want to get there – giving up the car, paying thousands to replace boilers, no more red meat, avocados or anything really that’s vaguely exotic, southern hemisphere or out of season, ratcheting down the thermostat to chilly, not jetting off for that recuperative week in the sun?

In getting to net zero I’d prefer to start local. How about canning the awful Westbury incinerator? If it happens, it will be a hideous polluting monster that pumps waste into the oh-so-convenient landfill in the sky. I have time and again pleaded for an incineration tax and moratorium on incinerators. I will keep going until Hills Waste and its investors give up and divert their undoubted talents to more responsible methods of dealing with rubbish. I will keep going in the certain knowledge that eventually incinerators will have the carpet pulled from under them as government incentivises waste management further up the waste hierarchy.

4 September 2023

BACK TO SCHOOL

Monday, sun's not yet up and I'm being driven from Wiltshire to London for a meeting of departmental ministers with the PM on RAAC called late last night. Evidently the lightweight concrete has been used for decades in public buildings, especially schools, throughout the UK and Europe. Now much of it needs replacing. An unwelcome cost when budgets are tight and construction trades in short supply. So far, no Wiltshire schools are deemed to be at risk so no closures. Hopefully that'll remain the case. 

The short parliamentary return before the conference recess is a relative innovation - back in the day we sailed through until mid-October.  It tends to be very busy as the Opposition seeks opportunities to have a pop at the incumbent government before the conference grandstanding season. Challenging for ministers who are at risk of being put on the spot!

New economic figures out. Turns out, to the disappointment of gloomsters and doomsters, the UK was significantly ahead of all other major European countries coming out of the pandemic. Let's remind ourselves who the Chancellor was then. Yep, Rishi Sunak. And who was leading the charge for keeping us locked down? Ah, that'll be Sir Keir. The Leader of the Opposition can mud-sling as much he likes but the bald, unvarnished truth is that the cost of living crisis would be a darned site worse had he been in the cockpit.

Very sorry to see the departure of my friend Ben Wallace as Defence Secretary. I've obviously seen him close up and was hugely impressed with his command of the brief and way he handled people. He will be greatly missed by Defence. 

Much talk of net zero targets. My view is we should be in lockstep with other major economies on this noting the very small contribution this country makes to global emissions. Given our abundance of renewables, especially offshore wind, there's a real opportunity to wean the UK economy off reliance on insecure oil and gas from challenging parry of the world. Can't do that though without an energy supply for when the wind doesn't blow. 

Out of frustration with the challenge of stopping small boats, there's also talk of extracting the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights. The European Court of Human Rights' attitude - contrary to that of the UK courts - to plans for relocating migrants to Rwanda to have claims assessed there is a road-block to dealing with the issue, coupled with the unhelpfulness of safe country France where most of the boats originate. 

Oddly, ECHR appears to have no particular difficulty with the UN using Rwanda, only the UK. I hope it can be persuaded that the government's plan is fair and reasonable and that domestic pressure to quit ECHR then recedes. I would prefer to remain within the Convention which the UK was instrumental in setting up. Meanwhile, insofar as the government's political opponents have a plan, they appear to be suggesting the solution to the crisis is for the UK to remove any attempt at control and simply adopt an open borders policy. My mailbag's telling me that would be far from popular with my constituents. 

My mailbag isn't short of suggestions on how to handle people coming here in small boats. On the one hand I'm being harangued for luxurious 'hotel' accommodation migrants allegedly have access to and on the other for the nastiness of barges characterised as prisons. The same barges, incidentally, used by other Western European countries and that are deemed perfectly good for housing workers in the offshore sector. The reality is that the Home Office, which has to manage a bleak situation, will seek to provide no-frills, safe and affordable accommodation. None of it is either bad or luxurious, it's basic. I appreciate that's not what either the Mail or the Guardian wants to write, but there it is. 

I'm still taking stock of my recent visit to Kyiv as news emerges that President Zelensky has replaced his defence minister. That of course does not affect operational command which is unchanged with Ukraine making progress especially in the south and in taking the fight to the aggressor and his warfighting infrastructure. UK can be proud of the leading part it's playing in supporting Ukraine.

29 August 2023

I have just got back from my second defence ministerial visit to Ukraine. Ministerial visits are always pressured with very little time for anything other than meetings. However, I was able to visit the town of Bucha near Kyiv. You may remember this was occupied by the Russians early last year as they threatened to enter the capital before they were repelled by the Ukrainian Army.  I viewed the memorial wall to civilians, including children and elderly, massacred by Putin’s thugs. 

No decent person can fail to be upset by what happened in Bucha.  As the aggressors are moved ever further back towards Russia, I fear we must steel ourselves for the revelation of more horrors.

The small crumb of comfort is that these days evidence is much more readily gathered than in the years preceding the Nuremberg trials. It has been in this case. Those responsible, wherever they lurk in the chain of command and whichever stone they crawl under, will, in God’s good time, be winkled out and held accountable for their crimes. I am pleased that the UK is contributing significantly to the judicial process that will achieve it. 

I am getting letters from people who are either concerned that small boat asylum seekers are being welcomed ashore and hosted in the lap of luxury or that they are being imprisoned in nasty, insanitary accommodation. Both sets of correspondents want to know what I’m going to do about it.  Whether illegal or not, migrants have to be managed decently and with dignity in reasonable, if basic, clean, warm, safe accommodation. That’s what the Home Office is trying to do.

Good to see Westbury’s iconic white horse being restored to its full glory after years of being the grey mare. It was a pleasure to inspect the work at Bratton Camp with English Heritage. The monument is probably not as ancient as some of our other chalk carvings, but it’s no less well loved by residents and travellers. The horse was likely carved to commemorate the defining 878 Battle of Ethandun in nearby Edington. This is the one in which Alfred defeated the Danes. Thus my constituency can properly be said to have witnessed the dawn of what we know as England. A proud boast. 

Whatever the truth, Westbury’s iconic white horse never fails to bring a smile to my face. 

31 July 2023

Some good news on the economy with inflation falling more than expected. There seems to be an expectation in the media that the government will cook up some sparkly hand-outs well in advance of the general election. Don't bank on it. All the indications are that PM Sunak is focussed on getting the economy right after the pandemic and energy crisis. We all want tax cuts, but may have to wait a wee bit longer. 

Nigel Farage isn't my cup of tea but the way Nat West/Coutts Bank have behaved towards him is nothing short of a disgrace. I'm delighted my ministerial colleagues are taking prompt action to rein in the banking sector.

Banks must not decline banking services to law abiding people just because they do not share their 'values.' If we don't stop this madness now there will be no limit to the businesses and services that can arbitrarily decide they don't much like a particular sort of customer and send them packing. In this dystopia, customers not professing a particular world view would be cowed into submission or face ruination. 

Its reported that the chief executive responsible for Nat West's behaviour is paid in excess of £5 million a year. If you're a junior bank official on a modest salary you can be allowed a mistake or two. If you're the boss on that sort of money you cannot. I'm not sure a simple apology cuts it. 

To be fair, banks have been encouraged to behave in this heavy-handed way by the UN concept of 'Politically Exposed Persons.' This notion is apparently to prevent money laundering by those supposedly at risk of bribery and corruption because they are seen as powerful. The UN believes PEPs need special scrutiny by banks to make sure they aren't up to no good. Presumably, it's chiefly worried by less enlightened realms. In this country over-zealous banks have gone for special scrutiny of the high-profile UK salariat - politicians, senior military folk, judges and civil servants and their families. In this censorious environment, Nat West/Coutts decided to have a go at Farage on very dubious grounds. The good old BBC, of course, was quick to weigh in. Both have ended up eating humble pie, as well they should. 

11 July 2023

Sometimes you wonder who politicians on the left think they're representing. Certainly not constituents. Take their apparent open borders policy on migration. Why would they hand a virtual right of abode to folk wanting to move to the UK for economic reasons? However, what is not seriously in dispute is the onus on the UK to take its fair share of people with a legitimate asylum claim. Traditionally that's what we've done and that's the basis of the Immigration Bill before the House. I would prioritise women, children and the otherwise vulnerable,  which we do, as determined by the UN, over the fit young men we see arrive in small boats from another safe country, France. Taking those who can't help themselves is the true measure of a compassionate approach to asylum. 

Lots of people have been getting in touch about train ticket offices.  I'm looking into what's being proposed before forming a view. On the face of it, having staff in front of glass screens helping passengers rather than behind them would be a positive. I can see how that might facilitate a station master type approach but strangely that's not how it's being portrayed by train companies. What I find odd, as a regular train user, is having my ticket checked by an onboard staff member within moments of it being sold to me by another staff member at the station. I honestly can't see how that's efficient or a good use of resources if the intent is to help customers.

Our NHS won't make the progress we want to see without reforming its sister care sector.  We cannot avoid the fact that if you don't pay an attractive wage people won't do care work. I'm awaiting a response to my letter to ministerial colleagues about the need for the NHS 'backlog bonus' or similar for people who work for organisations closely aligned to the NHS. The omission is a very significant demotivator in a sector already struggling to recruit. I feel sure it's unintentional. Understandably I've had a fair amount of correspondence about it. 

I continue to badger anyone prepared to listen on waste incineration. This week was the turn of Rebecca Pow in whose ministerial bag this falls. I have no doubt England will eventually follow Scotland and Wales in stopping these horrible things. If I was one of the institutional investors on which incinerator businesses rely, I'd be waking up, smelling the coffee and moving my money elsewhere. Will the Westbury incinerator ever be operational? I'd give it 50/50. Would it then generate a meaningful return for its investors? I doubt it. My job is to persuade ministers to make it plain that the likely profit margins for incinerators are shrinking as we move towards a far more responsible approach to waste. That approach has to include  removing all plastics and food waste from the maw of incinerators. No waste to burn, no incinerator. Simple. 

30 June 2023

It was a privilege on Saturday to represent the government at the National Armed Forces Day event in Falmouth as Minister for Defence People. Across the UK including in Trowbridge there were over 100 similar events celebrating the work of our sailors, soldiers and aviators, veterans, cadet forces and families. The national event in Falmouth was a huge success with great support from the public.

This Saturday I will be making a speech before the London Pride March following publication earlier this month of the Etherton report. Judge  Lord Etherton was asked by the Defence Secretary to review the way LGBT people were treated in the military between the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967 and the lifting of the ban in the Armed Forces more than three decades later. The review makes for very uncomfortable reading. Lord Etherton  makes a number of recommendations that ministers are now working through. I have already issued a ministerial apology but Saturday is an opportunity to restate it to assembled veterans before the march.

Another veterans event on Sunday when I will be at the annual Fovant Badges service. It’s a very British event well attended by veterans and - fingers crossed - generally in fine weather. 

A number of frontline community health workers with Wiltshire Health and Care and other health organisations that are closely allied to but not formally part of the NHS have been in touch. They tell me they will not be getting the recently announced covid-related ‘backlog bonus’ awarded to NHS staff. I’ve looked into it and agree that it looks odd. Consequently, I’m writing to the Health Secretary and hope we can find a resolution.

15 June 2023

Prime Minister Sunak is clearly highly regarded among his fellow Heads of Government. He is rightly seen as serious, hard-working and on top of the detail. That's why his recent trip to the States was such a success. 

Our American cousins are wily operators not known for giving ground. Why should they? However, the PM came back to Britain with his Atlantic Declaration strengthening trade in key areas - nuclear materials, critical minerals (the next big pinch-point globally) and defence. On one of the main areas of concern dealt with in Washington last week, Artificial Intelligence where the UK is already well ahead of the game, President Biden said of the UK, "There is no country we have greater faith in to help negotiate our way through this." So we'll be tackling a new challenge with an old friend.

Rishi has often spoken about turning the UK into a tech superpower. There's much to do and the competition is fierce but we're in a good place. Last week, as the PM was meeting the President in the Oval Office, Z/Yen, a leading City think tank, published its latest Smart Centres Index which ranked London top among the work's high tech cities. So Rishi's international AI Summit, endorsed last week, could not be better placed. 

But it's not just about London. Wiltshire's county town has been recognised by the National Endowment for Science Technolgy and the Arts as a nationally significant tech cluster. Meanwhile, Trowbridge College is enabling the tech-savvy young custodians of all of our futures to realise their potential. 

I hope in promoting TechTrowbridge I'll be riding the crest of a national science and tech wave that will go well beyond our existing world-renowned hubs in places like Cambridgeshire. Our ambition in the rural south west should be equally boundless. Silicon Valley here in the shires?  Absolutely!

2 June 2023

The seemingly relentless rise in interest rates is causing real pain to businesses and householders. It continues to threaten the housing market, despite an ongoing demand-supply mismatch. I am though a bit wary of talk of 'underlying inflation' as if cherry picking the worst affected items and ignoring others, notably energy, in the basket that makes up CPI is legitimate. That's an approach that Eeyore would choose. I want to hear from Tigger.

The sober truth is that energy underpins most of our economic activity - including food production - and hikes in the cost of it have fuelled much of the inflation we have seen since Putin's violation of Ukraine. Inflation is now receding as a threat in this country and elsewhere. Action taken now will take a while to have any real-life effect. I worry that in continuing to bump up interest rates the Bank of England risks overshooting causing avoidable hardship to householders and businesses. 

It should be completely obvious that being less reliant on oil and gas is sensible, whatever you might think about the extent to which human activity contributes to climate change. Happily, the UK has a vast territorial sea that can accommodate wind turbines and it possesses the associated industrial base, including bits of it locally. When the wind doesn't blow (and it blows more reliably offshore) we will be able to smooth supply with nuclear, the decision having now been taken to invest in it. 

However, announcing that an incoming Labour government would close down the North Sea offshore oil industry seems reckless even if appealing to Sir Keir's North London bien pensants. Pumping oil and gas thousands of miles is plainly considerably less green than producing it here. Further, only a fool would fail to learn the lessons of Putin's hydrocarbon blackmail. But, given the international nature of the energy market, that only works if our neighbours too approach green energy with the same enthusiasm. 

We also learn that Sir Keir will 'decarbonise' the steel industry. What that means in practice, as he must surely know, is rendering it non-viable again against cheaper imports from countries whose credentials are far less verdantly green than our own. So, more UK jobs exported. Not an immediate problem for Islington but a real one beyond the M25. 

I'm proud that this country is taking a lead on net zero but to have an effect that goes beyond virtue signalling the greening of our economy must be accompanied by similar action on the part of our planet's big polluters.

19 May 2023

A great privilege to travel to Ukraine with my defence Minister hat on. On this occasion my mission was to better understand the management of military casualties and their rehabilitation after injury, a matter of increasing interest to the UK and our allies. We want to see what more we can do collectively to help, an undertaking the UK has taken an early lead in because of our acknowledged experience and expertise in military medicine gathered over the past two decades. 

I am always struck by the tenacity and resolve of the Ukrainian people, wherever I’ve encountered them - in country or training on Salisbury Plain. What a contrast to the aggressor, reliant as it is on mercenaries and the disgorged contents of its prisons. The moral component of the war, as much as the kit and munitions being gifted, is why Ukraine will ultimately prevail. 

Housing on a densely populated island is never going to be easy. In general I’ve been resistant to concreting the countryside and believe there are still plenty of ‘brown field’ sites that builders can consume (they’re allergic to this because cleaning up developed sites cuts profit margins). I also believe we can build vertically more than we have with three or four floor townhouses with nice roof terraces and balconies instead of gardens the norm rather than the exception. Too often in the past we’ve been hoodwinked by avaricious developers and a fistful of big builders. That must stop. 

I’m cautious about laying into so-called NIMBYs. It’s true that your take on house building is influenced by where you’re placed on the property ladder but home owners are parents and grandparents too, anxious to see family members in homes of their own. 

24 April 2023

TechTrowbridge: Next Steps 

My TechTrowbridge campaign made a great start in February with the Google Digital Garage at Wiltshire College. The next step is aimed at small businesses. Access to Finance on 12 May will bring together the experts, financial leaders and those with experience in the tech sector to discuss FinTech, public funding opportunities and more to help small businesses discover their financial options. It will be followed in short order by a roundtable discussion of challenges facing the tech industry, TechTrowbridge Business Leaders. Details for that will be available shortly. 

The thinking behind Access to Finance, generously hosted by Elevate Online Marketing in the heart of Trowbridge, is that small businesses face unique challenges at the moment in accessing finance. One particularly pressing issue is that small businesses often lack the resources to conduct in-depth research on what funding opportunities are available to them. But they are key to innovation in tech and carry the entrepreneurial spirit that’s needed to grow the economy and good quality jobs, locally and nationally. Lastly, but by no means least, the event is intended as an opportunity for networking. Research shows that’s vital in getting tech clusters to realise their potential and small businesses to upscale. 

The event itself has been developed in partnership with the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and the University of the West of England's Bristol Business School. They will bring together experts and local businesses that use tech for a morning of networking and panel discussion on accessing finance. I’m hugely grateful for their support and indispensable expertise. The event will include speakers from FSB’s Funding Platform, The British Business Bank, SWIG Finance, Francis Clark Accountants, Tech South West, Fintech West, Tech Spark and the Swindon and Wiltshire Growth Hub. 

Research shows that Trowbridge already has the talent to really take off as a tech cluster. There’s every reason to be optimistic about the county town’s future. You can sign up to attend for free here: https://www.fsb.org.uk/event-calendar/techtrowbridge-access-to-finance-…. See you on 12 May!

11 April 2023

I am so very pleased further action has now been taken against water companies discharging sewage. I don’t underestimate the challenges they face and accept that renewing our, often Victorian, drainage systems will take years and billions. I also acknowledge improvements that have been made in recent years - fish can now live in our iconic River Thames where until quite recently and for so many years it was a toxic chemical and biological soup. However, the job of ministers is to regulate and turn up the heat on otherwise sluggish utility companies on behalf of the public. That’s what’s happening and in a way that is realistic and do-able in terms of outcomes and timeframe. 

The solution on water quality goes beyond fines on water companies though. I’m intimately acquainted with wet wipes, for example, after bringing up five children (fortunately now adults) and very useful they are too. However, floating in the sea they are perfectly disgusting and definitely harmful. Time to call time on them I fear. We have to discover and rediscover ways of greening our personal care and hygiene. 

If last year was my party’s annus horribilis then 2023 has every prospect of turning out to be a similar nightmare for the Scottish Nationalists. I am an avowed unionist, emotionally and intellectually. Belief in the integrity of the United Kingdom informs my world view. In my view the separation of the nations that comprise this great country would be a disaster that would impact not just on the citizens of these islands but much further afield. 

It may not be a fashionable, metropolitan view but, taken in round, I believe our country, united, has over time been a force for good in the world and it continues to be. Splintered it would be greatly diminished. 

Happily then, the SNP’s travails look set to reverse what at one point looked like a remorseless march towards separatism. 

Our membership of the European Union is now history. Time to celebrate the union that really matters - the United Kingdom.

27 February 2023

Roads minister Richard Holden has written to me about his department's north-south strategic study which is likely to report soon. Richard tells me the A350 south of Warminster is unlikely to be involved. That's hardly surprisingly given the challenges that would pose, notably at Melbury Abbas but also at Crockerton, Longbridge Deverill, East Knoyle, the long climb up Sem Hill at Semley and Shaftesbury.  However, he left open the possibility that the A36/46 through Bath or the A350 at Chippenham could be. The former would be fascinating given the local council's declaration of a Clean Air Zone in Bath and its unneighbourly shunting of traffic through Westbury. Naturally, I will oppose any move that would put more traffic through the middle of Westbury or discommode my constituents along the way. 

Well done Wiltshire Council leader Richard Clewer for standing up for Westbury and against Bath's programme of shifting its traffic onto Wiltshire roads.

Still on roads, I'm pleased Highways England will impose a temporary 40mph limit through Chicklade for the duration of a road safety survey which will take about a year. I hope it will be made permanent in due course to bring it in line with other settlements along the A303. I also hope it will look at pavements in the village pending the bypass that will attend the top to tail upgrade of the road. That's presently being held up by challenges over the Stonehenge stretch. 

It was a privilege to meet Ukrainians training on Salisbury Plain. They are remarkable - the youngest 18, the oldest 68. They are extremely able, grimly determined, full of fighting spirit. As Bonaparte said, the moral is to the physical as three is to one. That's why they will prevail. Thank you to UK soldiers and civilians going the extra mile to train these extraordinary people.

Slava Ukraini.

23 February 2023

Like many, I've become transfixed by Everest-like graphs showing financial data and forecasts. The most reassuring is inflation which suggests we're on the way back to basecamp in part because of fiscal tightening in the autumn statement. It's unlikely that the budget next month will reverse the strategy or that unrealistic public sector pay claims will be met for the same reason - we must drive inflation down. 

Beware selective financial data and dodgy predictions. I've seen some crackers over the past few months, some generated to validate particular world views, others to sustain media stories. 

Turns out the disaster predicted by gloomsters and doomsters for the UK economy has so far not come to pass and that last year the UK recorded the fastest growth in the G7. Now, to be fair, if you select different timeframes any advantage is far less clear but that rather underscores the importance of handling data with care. 

I'm pleased to say that my responsibilities as Minister for Defence Personnel, Veterans and Families include the Gurkhas. It was a privilege to take part in the remarkable Attestation ceremony of the most recent batch of recruits in Pokhara, Nepal earlier this month and to visit Royal Gurkha Rifles in Brunei. I also saw the great work of the Gurkha Welfare Trust in communities in Nepal including in providing earthquake-proof housing for veterans, healthcare and clean water. For over 200 years Gurkhas have served the Crown. Their courage and steadfastness have earned the public's respect and affection. We continue to owe them a great deal. 

Sadly, messages I get through social media have deteriorated overall over the years, part of a pattern of abuse contributing to some of my colleagues deciding to call it a day. Hate mail has caused some MPs to stop using social media entirely. Rather than delete my twitter account entirely which has 17,700 followers, my policy is to report threats, block the significantly abusive and mute SM notifications that are downright rude or just nasty.  I do so reluctantly as non-abusive two-way conversation is part of what SM should be. So, trolls please save your time - your missives live on for anyone to find, anywhere, anytime. Except this target won’t be seeing them.

Indeed, my general advice to anyone is think carefully before pressing 'send.' The web is a mine of open-source material for anyone who may in the future want to form a picture of the sender. Content usually says more about the author than the intended target. 

22 February 2023

A Blight on Westbury

Horrible news. After years of back and forth, obfuscation by Northacre Renewable Energy Lmt, protest and appeals, on 21 February 2023 the Planning Inspectorate in Bristol gave the green light for the Westbury incinerator.

The decision underscores an argument I have been making for some time now: we need an incinerator moratorium or at the very least a firmer national framework to limit incinerator inflation. Planning needs to take account of Government’s direction of travel. This decision does not.

The Inspector refers to the Government’s recently released Environmental Improvement Plan (31 January) and its targets to halve residual waste by 2042 and interim targets for its reduction. According to the Inspectorate, ‘The achievement of these targets will likely require a number of new policies and legislation. Whilst the Improvement Plan is a material consideration, I am required to determine this appeal on the basis of existing national and local planning policy.’ In other words, because the stated national strategy has not yet been translated into legislation, it was not held to be a major consideration in the decision.

The impression given here is that the target is a new idea which is not yet on a firm enough footing. But January’s Improvement Plan was not the first time the 2042 target has been floated. The decision runs against the government’s intended direction of travel as outlined in the Environment Act of 2021 and subsequent consultation on air quality targets. It has been stated by the Department for Environmental, Food and Rural Affairs on multiple occasions. The decision acknowledges that the 2042 target was established by a Defra consultation pursuant to the Environmental Act, but only in a footnote.

It seems that the Inspectorate was effectively able to overlook, or at least barely take account of, the Government’s national framework for reaching its environmental aims. There is a clear need to clarify the National Planning Policy Framework to ensure compliance with our ambitions.

This is not just a local issue. I am not the only MP facing the prospect of a horrible waste burner on my patch. Other operators will be heartened by this decision and will now be planning more incinerators to add to the over-capacity we already have. That’s madness, plain and simple.

Besides medium-term targets being compromised, Westbury will be facing the adverse impact of this decision in the near term. Northacre’s monstrosity means more pollution, more noise, more traffic and a blight on the character of this countryside town. I am truly horrified that this massively unwanted thing has been green-lighted. I am not done yet.

15 February 2023

TechTrowbridge 

On Friday Wiltshire College will host Google’s Digital Garage as part of my TechTrowbridge campaign. It’s designed to help upskill individuals and small businesses in tech and multimedia.  

Turns out that Trowbridge is a bit of a tech hub according to research by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA). So, the potential locally to capitalise on one of the driving forces in Britain’s economic future is clear. It just needs a bit of a boost.  

Meanwhile, last week’s mini shuffle saw the creation of a new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. It comes from Rishi Sunak’s personal passion for tech and his understanding that Britain’s economic prosperity depends on being at its cutting edge. The move has been welcomed by numerous industry leaders; https://www.gov.uk/government/news/science-innovation-and-technology-takes-top-seat-at-cabinet-table 

As Chancellor and PM, Rishi has sketched out a compelling vision to transform the UK into an engine for tech and innovation. Last year in his Mais Lecture, the then Chancellor summed up his plan in three words: ‘Capital. People. Ideas.’ This means reforming regulation to mobilise private investment, supporting skills training to enable life-long learning and backing the innovators in SMEs that are at the heart of our economy. During the summer leadership contest Rishi talked of turning the UK into a ‘Science Superpower’. More recently in his New Year’s speech outlining his five point plan he said ‘the most powerful way to achieve higher growth is to make sure the UK is the most innovative economy in the world.’ I agree. Indeed, his ideas are already being implemented, tying together work strands across government with levelling up a constant theme. 

South West Wiltshire is home to a high number of small but innovative and fast growing businesses. Trowbridge is a tech cluster according to NESTA which is impressive by national standards. I’m running my TechTrowbridge campaign to foster this cluster because, as Rishi recognises, tech is vital to our country’s future prosperity and I want a piece of the action right here in the county town 

It won’t all be plain sailing. SMEs face serious challenges in accessing the right skills, training and finance, However, the government has launched some helpful initiatives to plug the gaps.  

Upskilling is at the heart of Levelling Up. The Lifetime Skills Guarantee, Higher Technical Qualifications and increased financial support for work-based training are key. As Rishi said in his New Year’s speech, the UK is becoming a country in which training and education are not just seen as things that stop in your late teens or early twenties. He wants us to be a country in which there is genuine ‘parity of esteem between vocational and academic education’. 

Money matters in tech as in all startups. In his 2021 Mansion House Speech, Rishi pointed to government support for FinTech as one way in which the government was putting ‘the UK at the forefront of technology and innovation in the 21st century’. The Federation of Small Businesses’ Funding Platform, which offers financial services to the small businesses in South West Wiltshire that I want to back, is powered by FinTech. Small businesses can send key information to the Federation who then locate the right sources of funding out of hundreds of options. FinTech should not be oversold – it has great potential but risks too.

Indeed, there are particular challenges facing small tech businesses and startups that need to be addressed as part of TechTrowbridge, including awareness of what funding is available and how to apply. Big companies can afford expensive financial advisors and simply do not face the same hurdles. I aim to convene online events to help join small tech businesses with finance and workshops to examine the challenges faced in the tech sector locally and find solutions.

Strikes, inflation, the pandemic's long tail, energy prices and war have made the last few months pretty rubbish for many. Jeremy Hunt had to make some hard decisions in the Autumn Statement. But through the difficulties there was a clear indication of better days to come. Outlining the budget in the Commons, the Chancellor said, ‘I want to combine our technology and science brilliance with our formidable financial services to turn Britain into the world’s next Silicon Valley.’ Tech and innovation are the foundations on which the future of our country is being built. I want our county town and its environs to have a slice of the action just as they did during the Industrial Revolution. That's the inspiration behind TechTrowbridge. 

3 February 2023

Trowbridge Place Partnership

I was delighted to chair a meeting of the Trowbridge Place Partnership on Friday. The meeting convened councillors, representatives from Wiltshire College (who kindly hosted the event) and other local leaders to discuss plans to invest in Trowbridge infrastructure, bolster community pride and encourage economic development.

I’m pleased to say that the meeting was a great success. It’s clear that everyone’s working toward the same goals: fostering an attractive, vibrant town centre and cultivating the local technology sector. The latter for example means engaging with Trowbridge’s surprisingly promising computer game industry. When I first became an MP in 2001, I certainly had no idea that my countryside constituency would one day be a hotspot for eSports. But times and perceptions change. Trowbridge is a wonderful town with both a special historical heritage and a thriving tech sector.

These assets are two sides of the same coin. In order to attract entrepreneurs to start and base their tech businesses here, we need to continue to ensure that Trowbridge is a great place to live. That mean renovating old historic buildings and infrastructure, harnessing all the town’s creative potential and easing pedestrian movement to sustain that vibrant town centre. In sum, these aims mean pursuing both regeneration and innovation in Trowbridge.

Regeneration

In the nineteenth century, Trowbridge had such a thriving textile industry that it became known as the ‘Manchester of the West’. But we are living in post-industrial times. Places across the UK, including the South West, not just the North, are in need of ‘levelling up’.

Fortunately, there is some good news in this area. The meeting began with a discussion of the Future High Street Fund, introduced in 2018 to boost local investment which will increase footfall to town centres. I supported Trowbridge’s application for some of this pot and was delighted in December 2021 when it was awarded £16,347,056, a very good outcome against stiff competition.

On Friday, we focused on where £2 million is going. That part is being split three ways. Some goes to public highways, which are necessary to keep people safely and comfortably travelling to Trowbridge. A substantial part of the fund goes to town hall, whose renovation will do much to improve the image of the town as a whole. The largest chunk of the £2 million is reserved for a vacant unit fund. Wiltshire Council are helping local businesses bid for grants from this fund which are awarded based on their business merit. Vacant buildings are hugely unattractive and give an impression of decline, so this fund is a welcome measure which gives local businesses a great opportunity for investment and will strengthen pride of place.

All this fits into Wiltshire Council’s broader plan for the use of the £16.3 million, and other sources of income, to create a town centre that works better. Special attention is being paid to the town hall and easing pedestrian movement along the potentially wonderful but neglected River Biss.

I was also delighted to hear about the town hall’s programme. I am particularly looking forward to the dramatization of The Odyssey, developed in collaboration with the National Theatre. Trowbridge has a high number of participants in performing arts. It is great to see that asset harnessed to the goal of building a sense of community and vibrancy in the area. The town has done so well attracting partnership from the National Theatre, again against strong competition. We are now definitely on the Arts Map! Well done Alan Wright of the town hall especially for getting this going.

Innovation

Most of Friday’s meeting was concerned with a burgeoning technology cluster which you wouldn’t necessarily expect from such a place. Trowbridge is a medieval town with old churches and rural surroundings. It also happens to be one of the top locations in the country for small, fast-growing tech businesses. The think tank Nesta has shown that such ‘creative clusters’ grow faster than other sectors in the UK and that Trowbridge is both highly concentrated and high growth – other creative clusters are only one of these.

Recognising this great potential, much of the meeting was spent discussing creative technology and events which will make up my TechTrowbridge campaign to foster the technology sector in the town. The first of these is a Google Digital Garage which will take place at Wiltshire College on 17 February. These Digital Garage events train small businesses and individuals looking to develop their careers through expanding their skill sets. We have geared ours to focus on building an online presence, engaging with analytics to review success and even video editing for YouTube. The event is free of charge and open to all looking to boost their careers. You can sign up here: https://protect-eu.mimecast.com/s/y4V-CjZpltnAr24QHWfwHT?domain=rsvp.withgoogle.com

After discussing the Google event, we went on a tour of Wiltshire College. I was definitely inspired by what I saw. The college has some really impressive facilities, including a room with projectors on three walls, kitted out with a dummy patient to simulate the experience of treating people in an emergency ward. I was also impressed by the creativity the students clearly possess. We were given a glimpse of the computer game development courses the college offers and the games that they have actually been creating. Students learning to animate, code, fine-tune interactive software and develop concepts inspired by such themes as ‘duality’ showed just how innovative tech-based education has become and how many avenues are available to young people to develop their talents in diverse ways. We were given a glimpse of the future in which Trowbridge is an active contributor.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn about the promise of competitive gaming. eSports, we learned from the college and the Local Enterprise Partnership, is one of the fastest developing phenomena of recent years. eSports – organised competitions between teams of gamers – attracts huge audiences and investment from private sector giants like Amazon. Between 2016 and 2019, the sector grew at an average annual rate of 8.5%. The huge potential here is largely due to the fact that there is an entire sports infrastructure built around gaming, including security, management, data analytics, cloud solutions and broadcasting, comparable to that of football which generates jobs and profits for a wide array of people. Who new computer games could be so productive?

Future action

We are already in a good place in our efforts to foster regeneration and innovation in Trowbridge. But there is more to learn and more work to be done. After the Google Digital Garage, the next step in TechTrowbridge will be convening a roundtable of business leaders in the tech sector to discuss actions to help the creative cluster thrive and grow. Making a strong business case for investment in the area will also be important. Ensuring our country town is as attractive as possible in every way is essential to brining investment in and creating high quality jobs. I am excited to look for opportunities to expand the tech sector in Trowbridge, bringing more capital and footfall to the county town.

20 January 2023

Bath’s clean air zone 

On 21 December, Bath & North East Somerset Council (BANES) resolved to charge the owners of Euro VI diesel powered vehicles whose weight exceeds 12 tonnes for passing through the Bath clean air zone (CAZ). The inevitable consequence of this decision will be to push more heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) into nearby villages including in South West Wiltshire. In cooperation with my colleague Michelle Donelan, MP for the neighbouring constituency of Chippenham, I have written to the Secretary of State for Transport to object to the plan to extend Bath’s CAZ. I am usually in favour of policies which help us get to Net Zero because I believe in the importance of tackling climate change. But I also believe that environmental policy should actually be about protecting the environment rather than an excuse to shift heavy traffic onto your neighbours’ doorsteps. 

Unfortunately, that is just what the new plan is. The CAZ was designed to help Bath meet UK air quality legislation which sets a legal limit for concentrations of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) at 40μg/m3 as an annual average. By 2021, that average was 22.99μg/m3. The target has been met and exceeded. Further action is not necessary to meet our national environmental aims. 

Instead of helping to limit climate change, this looks like an attempt to divert heavy good vehicles (HGVs) from Bath. Since 2011, BANES has been trying to limit the use of Cleveland Bridge and it recently imposed a temporary weight restrictions on vehicles to prevent HGVs from using the bridge. The stated priority of the decision to ban Euro VI vehicles is to protect Bath’s road infrastructure and historic bridges and conserve the World Heritage Site by reducing the levels of vehicular congestion and traffic. The decision therefore seems an improper use of climate legislation. 

Adding insult to injury, BANES has not conducted the engagement with neighbouring authorities upon which the decision was supposed to be conditioned, at least as far as Wiltshire Council is concerned. I share the dissatisfaction of Wiltshire councillors with the way our neighbours have acted, or rather failed to act, and support their objections to the decision which is not even justifiable in environmental terms. I eagerly await a response from the Secretary of State which will, I hope, help to remedy the situation. 

16 January 2023

I spent much of New Years Eve and New Years Day sorting through crates of papers in my new London office that had accumulated over a decade or so. One of the paradoxes of being promoted - appointed or reappointed to the front bench - is that you immediately lose the relatively spacious office enjoyed as a senior backbencher. Your stuff is boxed up into crates and removed to a Stygian cupboard-like room on the lower ministerial corridor. Trouble is this one is so small that there isn’t enough room for me and the papers and paraphernalia that had built up. A radical sort out was imperative. Bit of a sad way to start the New Year, but there it is. 

Access to NHS dentistry in our area isn’t great. On Friday I visited a local dental practice to discuss the state of dentistry in the UK. In the old days dentist were paid for items of service - number of fillings etc - which government didn’t much like as it incentivised interventions such as drilling and filling and the costs were uncapped (no pun intended). Indeed, my mouth is full of mercury because of an excess of dental enthusiasm half a century ago. 

The Blair government came up with a method of paying NHS dentists called Units of Dental Activity. But UDAs always have been clumsy and clunky. Once a dentist’s UDAs were used up that was it for the year. It also meant that a new patient coming in with a mouthful of work needing to be done was going to cost the practice a fortune as they were paid the same for six fillings as one. This disincentivised dentists from taking on the most needy or indeed from taking on new patients at all, given the risk. You can't blame dentists for refusing NHS work or for giving up early.

We need to go back to basics and either radically overhaul UDAs to make them fit for purpose or scrap them altogether so that those in greatest dental need get seen far more easily. We also need to enable other dental professionals - hygienists, nurses, therapists - to be employed for routine dentist work just as the role of pharmacists is expanding and options around physician’s assistants are being explored in the UK. 

So pleased Ukraine will be getting a dozen UK Challenger II tanks along with AS90 artillery. Hopefully other European countries and the US will follow our lead. The courage of Ukrainians and their resourcefulness are extraordinary but they need to have quality heavy weapons and armaments to make further progress against the invasion, put Putin back in his box and restore peace to our continent. 

Slava Ukraini. 

11 January 2023

Rishi’s Plan and the NHS

It was great to hear Rishi Sunak reveal his Five Pledges in his New Years’ speech. I entirely agree with them. The pledge to stop the boats trafficking illegal immigrants is a welcome measure to thwart criminal gangs and stop tragic deaths. The remaining four pledges – halving inflation, growing the economy, bringing the national debt down and cutting NHS waiting lists – are especially important to my constituents and their living standards that have been buffeted by global events since the 2008 financial crisis.

Pledges 1, 2 and 3 all touch on economic matters which shape the experiences of everyone in the country. The moral case for tackling inflation is clear. Savers should be rewarded, not punished, for their prudence. People should not be struggling to meet their normal spending requirements on basics like food and pharmaceuticals, and to stop that from happening inflation must come down. Global institutions including the IMF and World Bank have been downgrading growth forecasts for 2023 and 2024. The Prime Minister’s pledge recognises the immensity of the problems we face whilst still offering light at the end of the tunnel. When it comes to the national debt, who better for the job than a former Conservative Chancellor with a proven track record who made stewardship of the economy central to his leadership bid?

Then there comes the pledge on our NHS. If you have recently sought medical help, picked up a newspaper or even spoken to another human being you will know that the NHS is struggling. NHS Trusts have been declaring critical incidents and we hear horror stories of severely ill people waiting hours for ambulances if one is available at all.

There are numerous reasons behind the mounting pressures on the NHS. But the problems with the NHS cannot be simply pinned on ‘cuts’ from Conservative Governments. Indeed, Shadow Health Minister Wes Streeting have also now admitted that simply spending more will not improve the situation. Even European countries who spend more on health than us are experiencing this crisis. There was a great article in The Guardian last month, ‘A ticking time bomb’ (14 December), explaining how the ageing population, more long-term illness and the impact of Covid have conspired to produce healthcare crises across the continent.

The crisis in the NHS is really a crisis in social care. Too many beds are occupied by people whose discharge has been delayed despite the fact that their needs need addressing in a social care setting, not a hospital. This problem is central to cutting waiting lists and it is also personal for me. Last year I put forward a Ten Minute Rule Bill, ‘Selma’s Bill’, which introduced measures to accelerate the discharge rate of those fit to leave hospital beds, thus freeing them up for sick patients who need further medical intervention. The bill is named after my mother-in-law who died in an inappropriate unit. The unit was not equipped for elderly terminal care. The problem is therefore not only about increasing hospital capacity, but about ensuring that the elderly are cared for in an appropriate setting in the community rather than a busy, bewildering hospital ward.

Rishi Sunak understands this. In elaborating his fourth pledge, that ‘NHS waiting lists will fall and people will get the care they need more quickly’, he said that ‘patients aren’t receiving the care they deserve’. Later on, he detailed that the big problem was the 13,000 patients who should be in social care and that the government is working to deliver 7,000 new beds in hospitals, get more people cared for at home and to get more funding for social care to increase the rapidity with which patients are discharged. He also mentioned that the government has spent £500 million since September to help local councils support hospitals through expanding social care. This figure was criticised as misleading by some because some of that money will only be delivered by 23 January. But the money was clearly guaranteed, allowing councils to plan ahead, and indicates the Prime Minister’s correct assessment of the problem. The Chancellor also announced an increase in funding to social care of £3.3 billion in each of the following two years in the Autumn Statement. That is higher than the £2.1 billion proposed by John McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. The government is ambitious, willing to spend where necessary, and most importantly has its priorities right. That is good new for the UK, and good news for South West Wiltshire.

3 January 2023

Happy New Year everyone. I'm hoping for a better one than '22 and certainly no repetition of our '21 annus horribilis!

The auguries are quite positive with gas prices coming down and with them things like construction costs. However, we must tame inflation and improve productivity in key industries. That means wage restraint and more intelligent modern ways of working of the sort now routinely seen in successful European countries. A big part of the block is the resurgence of 1970s style militant trade unions. Rail is a good case in point. The rail unions want bigger pay settlements for its members, some already very well paid, than other workers, many of whom are not, at the same time retaining restrictive practices and resistance to technology. Trade Union protectionism makes putting the rail industry on a sustainable basis impossible. In the long term it threatens jobs and the safe, efficient running of the network.

Residual Blairites on the Opposition front bench know this but, with their party handcuffed to the unions, they refuse to condemn strikes and, because they don't want to scare undecided voters, won't be drawn on what they would do in office. In the absence of an answer, we have to rely on the Opposition's track record in office, recalling the 'beer and sandwiches' era at Number Ten. So, the working assumption has to be that they would cave in to demands.

The Opposition has apparently conceded the obvious point that the RCN trade union demand for 19% for the country's 700,000 nurses is just impossible. We all want more money for healthcare workers - declaring my own interest as I'm still one - but huge, inflation busting rises in one, very large sector come straight out of the pockets of others.

The UK is now spending about the same on healthcare as our European neighbours after many years of growth, though with generally less good outcomes, so we need to be careful about suggesting more money is key. 

I'm still getting a few political pressure group inspired but unsubstantiated emails about 'cuts' to the NHS. But I prefer fact over fiction. In reality, there's been a very significantly uplift in the number of junior docs, consultants and nurses over the past few years, notably as the service recovers from the pandemic. 

In my view, as stated in my ten minute rule bill last year, a central plank in reducing healthcare pressures is getting frail elderly out of acute hospital beds into more appropriate setting in the community. So, the focus in 2023 has to be on social care. In my bill I lay out how that could be achieved. 

16 December 2022

Bath is once again trying to tick its boxes on clean air by shunting traffic out of the city up the A350. That means, for example, through Westbury. Could it be that there are local government elections next year? Wiltshire Council Leader Richard Clewer and I met virtually and agreed that Bath's plan is not acceptable. I am taking it up with the Department for Transport.

I do try not to be too partisan in this column but the detailed announcement in the Commons by the new PM on dealing with illegal migration contrasted with the Leader of the Opposition's yah-boo response so achingly that even his own thinly populated backbench looked shame-faced. Illegal migration is at least as big an issue in the rest of Europe as here and if there had been a quick and easy solution that didn't turn the UK into a pariah state it would have been taken. 

Sir Kier must know that sniping will only go so far and that sooner or later he'll have to get some policies. They will then be open to public scrutiny. Bring it on.  So far all I've seen is a plan to abolish the House of Lords which may excite his activists but is a marginal issue for most people struggling with the global downdraught of covid, Putin's war and the energy crisis. As it happens, I too am far from happy with the upper House but, to be honest, it never comes up on the doorstep. Lets please modernise the Lords when we can but Sir Keir bigging it up as a top priority really is very odd. 

On thursday it fell to me to make a Statement in the House launching a Statutory Inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Afghan deaths that were highlighted in the summer in which the Army was criticised and that has been the subject of lititigation. Lord Justice Haddon-Cave will investigate independently and report with recommendations. 

The Overseas Operations Act last year was designed to reduce vexatious claims against soldiers whilst allowing the most serious, credible and non-repetitive allegations to continue to be investigated. In short, fewer speculative legal claims and no witch hunts whilst ensuring the high reputation of UK forces is maintained. 

2 December 2022

Heavy traffic through villages laid down in the age of the horse and cart is a thorny issue throughout my patch. For example, a trio of Wiltshire villages - Chapmanslade, Corsley and Maiden Bradley together with the Deverill Valley - are cooperating against rat-running lorries ignoring the strategic freight route. Residents have been very patient but enough is enough. The ancient buildings along village roads and the fabric of the streets have had enough too. What should happen now is a weight limit on traffic through blighted villages directing lorries to roads built for them. A useful spin off would be a reduction in the council’s road repair bill caused by destructive heavy traffic, fewer potholes and a saving to Wiltshire’s hard pressed council tax payers.

Meanwhile back in the Palace of Varieties, MPs across the House are announcing that they will not stand again. And it’s not just veteran retirees but also some of the newbies. What’s going on? To be honest, being an MP has never been for the faint hearted - and contrary to popular belief it won’t make you rich! In recent times I think people have been reacting to increasing challenges to personal well-being and family life, the heavy and mounting demands of the job and the inherent insecurity. On a personal level, I have always considered it an honour and privilege to serve and for me the rewards certainly exceed the cost. I plan to continue for as long as voters want me to.

Inflation which is bedevilling western economies has been seriously eroding spending power. So its hardly surprising people want more pay. Nurses want 17%. The difficulty is that sort of figure for a huge workforce like the NHS would have to come from somewhere else or from more taxes, it would bump up inflation significantly and would invite further demands throughout the workforce. We’d then be locked in to an inflationary spiral making everyone poorer. Striking hurts. Trade unions hope the hurt experienced by the public will persuade politicians to concede. I so appreciate the pressures on daily living that apply across Europe and beyond but would plead with people not to strike and to consider carefully the recommendations of the independent pay review bodies.

The budget, which was aimed squarely at helping those most affected by the pandemic’s long shadow, Putin’s war and the energy crisis, has given the earliest of glimpses of better times ahead, like snowdrops heralding the spring. For them to be realised we will need patience and restraint, along with a much more benign international backdrop.

9 November 2022

It was great to ask Rishi Sunak a question in his first PMQs since his arrival at No. 10. I used my slot to ask about the issue of the Westbury incinerator and to press the case for an incinerator moratorium Parliamentlive.tv - House of Commons.    

It is right that local authorities are responsible for planning in their own area, and I welcome the environmental restrictions on incineration which have helped to prevent Northacre Renewable Energy Ltd from moving ahead with their damaging plans in recent years.

And they are indeed potentially damaging. There is now good evidence to show that incineration, once seen as a greener alternative to landfill, are not a convincing part of a Net Zero future. Firstly, there are the high levels of carbon emissions which have been calculated at 6.4 million tonnes per annum across the UK. Secondly, incineration stands in tension with recycling. The Department of Environmental, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) have estimated that 55% of English residual waste feedstock could be readily recycled and that 76% is potentially recyclable. The more we send to incinerators, the less likely we are to move towards a circular economy.

On top of this, expert testimony received by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on air pollution makes clear that dioxins produced by incinerators can have an adverse effect on farm produce and human health within a radius as large as ten miles.

Clearly, incinerators are far from problem free. And yet England is still on a trajectory to go overcapacity and fail to meet our environmental goals. In March 2022, the UK Government proposed its target of ‘halving the waste that ends up at landfill or incineration by 2042’. To meet this goal, we surely need fewer, not more, incinerators. With the current number of incinerators, including those under construction, we have the capacity to incinerate 18.9 million tonnes per annum. To meet the 2042 target set by Defra, however, we need to reduce our capacity to 13.9 million tonnes per annum. We are therefore likely to be 8.5 million tonnes over capacity by our target date. Even more troubling, this figure has been calculated (by the group UK Without Incinerators) under the assumption that we put a moratorium on new incinerators now. If we do not, we will end up 14 million tonnes over capacity.

Both the Welsh and Scottish governments have introduced moratoriums, whilst Defra currently has no plan to introduce one in England. My mission is to change its mind. ‘Resource efficiency and waste reduction’ was one of four priority areas laid out in the 2021 Environmental Act under which the 2042 target was set. Moreover, as of May 2022 Defra is considering ‘legally binding long-term environmental targets’. Does it make sense to continue building these unwanted, unnecessary, toxic waste burners whilst these are under consideration?

Such problem are, as the Prime Minister said in PMQs, largely in the hands of local authorities. But central Government can still help. As the Government-commissioned Climate Change Committee recommended in 2020, they do so ‘with limited guidance as to how these decisions feed into a national strategy for meeting the UK’s Net Zero objectives’. That isn’t just a problem for Westbury. It’s a problem for the entire country.

With the political storms of the last weeks finally settling, we MPs can focus fully on what the job is really about: representing our constituents. But in representing our localities we need support from the centre. Only that way can we tackle the big environmental challenge we face as towns, counties and as a nation.

25 October 2022

I cannot tell you how delighted I am that Rishi Sunak is Prime Minister. I’ve always supported this remarkable man, actively so as part of his team during both the summer and autumn campaigns. What struck me this time was not just the huge number of Conservative MPs endorsing Rishi but the fact that they come from all parts of my broad-church party. That’s important because he will have to quickly unite the world’s oldest political party after, let’s face it, a fractious and highly problematic interlude in our long history, one that most of us take little pride in.

The key challenge facing the Sunak administration will be economic as the country is buffeted by dire financial headwinds, many of which lie beyond our direct control. But the auguries are good - we have seen the markets respond favourably to Rishi’s election already. Markets may seem an arcane metropolitan preoccupation but their importance lie in the real-life consequences they have for the public, most importantly my constituents. 

The general sense at Westminster is that we now have a grown up in charge. Rishi Sunak is a decent, hard-working, competent, compassionate individual; definitely, the man for the moment. 

I continue to lobby on the air quality issues I wrote about previously. The incinerator industry competes with more responsible reducing, reusing and recycling strategies for waste feedstuff, domestic and commercial. We already have too many incinerators yet more continue to be allowed. The cost is measured in terms of air quality and, possibly, human health. 

It’s a pleasure to chair the Place Partnership for Trowbridge, Wiltshire’s county town.  Whether you live in a village or a market town, town centres are almost certainly important to you. Too many have fallen victim to changing retail practises in recent years and need to be helped towards rejuvenation and, where appropriate, repurposing. 

I’ve now heard back from the department for transport about progress on the eagerly awaited Dorset coast to M4 strategic study that we expect to have implications for the A350.  So, it turns out that the study isn’t now expected to report until early in the New Year.  That’s disappointing but I will continue to apply pressure so that the schedule does not slip further.

10 October 2022

Politically, I've known better months. The 45p element of the fiscal event was unwise - the economic rationale was tendentious and politically it was bound to be completely toxic. I would say the same for the banker bonus issue. They cast an unfortunate and unnecessary shadow - a long one I fear - over the bulk of the mini budget which was good and likely to command widespread support. In particular, record and highly necessary government intervention as we all, householders and businesses, face massive energy cost hikes thanks to public enemy number one, the criminal and international pariah Vladimir Putin. 

I strongly suspect the proposition that benefits should shrink in real terms to help balance the books will not come to pass. I absolutely believe we should get people into work and off benefits and that work should pay. I commend the focus on growth that will help do so - it is overdue. However, I also believe people should not face destitution which they would if welfare does not keep up with inflation. Book balancing will require, I suspect, some level of public service trimming but if you're on the breadline there's nothing to trim. 

The war in Ukraine is going far better than many of us dared hope thanks to the valiant efforts of Ukraine's armed forces. I know and have shared vodka with quite a few of them, including one, a father of two, killed in action in March. The UK government is rightly in the first division of Kiev's supporters. Our advanced weaponry and training, including much conducted locally, will make a considerable difference in pushing Putin out of the territory he invaded in February. Crimea though is a far, far harder proposition. I do not believe Putin will ever give up Sevastopol. It would surely be the end of him. 

I'm personally grateful to Putin for one thing - the sanction he's put on me and several of my colleagues. Its a badge of pride, a bit like featuring in the honours list.

More seriously, we must thank Putin for ending decades of torpor and navel gazing by NATO which, post 1989, was scratching around for a role.  The organization, resolute and united, has stood against the aggressor and is proving decisive, even though not one of its soldiers has been anywhere near the frontline. 

Putin has driven two highly capable new members into the NATO fold. Our message to the poor, benighted Russian people is clear - we wish you well and want to be amicable and cooperative partners, but imperialism and wars of conquest have no part in a shared European future. If you persist with them, you will lose with tens of thousands of your young men killed to service the vanities of your appalling leadership. I salute the bravery of ordinary Russians calling time on Putin and his cronies. Bring it on. 

23 September 2022

REFLECTIONS 

An unforgetable fortnight in which we changed PM, lost our beloved Queen and acclaimed a King. His Majesty's surefootedness from his very first appearance as monarch bodes well for the future. He can be forgiven a slight show of irritation over pens and inkpots. Indeed, I and other Privy Councillors experienced  'inkpotgate' too when trying to sign the acclamation document at St James' Palace. Otherwise the series of events appeared faultless, a seamless transition and a fitting tribute to Elizabeth the Great.

On our first day back I spoke in support of better social care to ease pressures on the NHS - a longstanding cause I've been agitating about for a very long time. I'm pleased that the new health Secretary announced extra resources for social care and look forward to examining plans for their deployment. As I said, I can't see how we can make progress without offering care workers a competitive salary and a recognisable career structure.

Also on the agenda of course was an update on Ukraine where the news is encouraging thanks to the incredible resistance of Ukrainians and western resolve and support. However, as I said in the Commons on thursday, given the aim is to liberate Ukraine, not attack Russia or change its regime, a negotiated settlement will ultimately be needed. Plainly Putin or whichever of his murderous lieutenants succeeds him will need some sort of off-ramp that he can dress up as a result to the Russian public. But Ukraine's right not to cede territory to an aggressor has to be respected. As Kiev continues to advance and thus strengthen its hand, we need to think about what that looks like. The alternative is stalemate, years of bloodshed in a land that has seen centuries of it and the risk of a mis-step with potentially devastating consequences.

12 September 2022

Elizabeth the Great

A big week got immeasurably bigger. On Monday a new head of government, on Thursday a new head of state.

I was a strong Rishi Sunak supporter but always said I’d get behind whoever won the contest for leader of my party since they were all good candidates. 

Liz Truss’s early announcement on energy costs, recognising the huge, looming, significance of the issue for households I represent, was reassuring. I look forward to detail on support for small and medium sized businesses. My patch is home to a large number of them. It would suffer enormously if bills were allowed to climb as forecast. The only political controversy appears to be on furthering the windfall tax. I have no principled objection to such a levy but would say that it's a secondary issue since even the most punitive tax would be dwarfed by the borrowing needed to fund the package already announced.

On Friday I was able to pay my tribute to the late Queen on the floor of the House and record the condolences of the people I represent. On Saturday I attended the Accession Council of the Privy Council at St James' Palace where the passing of Her Majesty was formally announced and King Charles III proclaimed. What a privilege.

Like many, I've found the events of the past few days disorientating. Emotions have swung between great sadness for loss and celebration as we proclaim the new monarch. I suppose that's how transition is meant to be. Seamlessness is a strength of the institution of constitutional monarchy.

I'm pretty stiff upper lip, welling up just twice in my adult life - when my father died and on Thursday night. The first is understandable but the second more difficult to explain. After all, I only met the Queen once, when I joined the Privy Council. She and I were hardly intimates and her passing after a very long life well lived was not unexpected. Sometimes we surprise ourselves. 

In 878 Alfred the Great beat the Danes at Ethandun, now Edington near Westbury. The battle secured the Kingdom of Wessex, a seminal event in the creation of today's nation state. 'Great' isn't a  descriptor to be dispensed lightly. But, in my opinion, our late Queen is Elizabeth the Great.

A good and gracious lady has been taken from us. We are all the poorer for it. But in his first days as King, a grieving son and his consort have stepped out strong and surefooted.

Rest well your Majesty

God Save the King

15 August 2022

Town planning may sound a bit dull but it impacts on all of our lived experiences. Derelict, sad, neglected townscapes depress and demoralise. I want the heart of our towns, large and small, to be vibrant happening places not forlorn threatening spaces with tumbleweed blowing through them. So I have high hopes for the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill and for the government's future high streets funding, some of which has, happily, reached our little corner of England. 

But we do need to future proof our high streets rather than hanker after a retail past that consumers no longer want. That means in many cases contracting town centres allowing change of use from commercial to much needed residential, in turn reducing pressure on precious green field sites. Truth is that many of the core elements of our town centres are handsome buildings that have been allowed to deteriorate. How can we foster civic pride and a sense of space and place if we neglect the built environment of our town centres? 

As a conservative, I'm ever vigilant for the heavy handedness of government, national and local, but I do welcome powers in the Regeneration Bill that will allow action against owners who wilfully neglect commercial property. That stems from flagrant examples in my constituency, one of which, in Warminster, has blighted the town centre and the experience of townspeople for several years. I'm pleased that our lobbying has helped, at last, to inculcate some common sense. 

Please can I in passing mount a defence of often maligned coffee and charity shops. I'm particularly fond of independent cafes which allow people to chill out in congenial surroundings. The bone of contention with charity shops is the favorable tax status they often have and we do need to ensure that small retailers are not too disadvantaged. However, they do serve an important function both charitably and socially. The important thing is the mix of premises on the high street, aesthetics, safety and access. 

Significant work is underway in Trowbridge town centre, as befits Wiltshire's county town. In Westbury there is a conversation about the layout of the top end of the classic 1970s shopping centre with a view to improving flow towards the library and gardens. Tisbury is a favourite of mine, a rural gem, full of interest. In the smaller centres, like Mere, housing developments, always controversial, should at least help to sustain shops and services for residents old and new. 

28 July 2022

BURNING ISSUES

It’s the summer recess but there’s nothing recessional about it as work continues to roll in. I’m writing this after an advice surgery but sadly plans for the roving one I liked to do in the summer had to be put on hold because of security concerns following the murder of my colleague Sir David Amess.

A triumph at Wiltshire Council strategic planning on Wednesday over the proposed waste incinerator at Westbury. This thing was meant to take waste from across our area rendering it into irreducible slag for landfill and whatever goes up the stack. In return the plant was to generate a few electrons to justify calling it an energy from waste plant which sounds nicer than waste incinerator. Not green, not green at all, especially when dumped on a densely populated town. 

So, on Wednesday I attended Wiltshire Council’s strategic planning committee again.  The applicants wanted to get this signed sealed and delivered before welcome new government environmental targets come in that would undermine their case. 

Truth is we don’t need any more incinerators. The 1989 film Field of Dreams has the line ‘If you build it they will come.’ The same is true of incinerators. If you allow them to spring up waste will be found to keep them going. Far better to do things like separate food waste for disposal by biodigestion. That happens in some parts of the Blackmore Vale but not in Wiltshire despite capacity. I must add that biodigesters should be as far away from homes as possible because they smell as Warminster residents will tell you.

Just before recess I again called for a moratorium on incinerators in the Commons which is the logical consequence of the new environmental targets we have seen in draft form and that are likely to be formalised at the end of the year.

Wiltshire Council having stoutly rejected the incinerator application on Wednesday, the matter now gets determined by a government inspector in November. So the fight goes on. 

I'm actively supporting Rishi Sunak for leadership of my party and thus Prime Minister. The candidates have all been impressive but it's Rishi who is connecting with the wider voting public. They will determine the outcome of the general election in two years. That really is the test if my party is serious about winning rather than debating. In the hustings the former Chancellor's grasp of the detail around the economy and the NHS has put him well ahead of the field, particularly as cost of living and healthcare are my constituents' chief concerns.

16 July 2022

LEADERSHIP

Leadership contests are an opportunity to showcase a party's wares, human and political.  Not too much of the latter, mind, as each candidate is bound by the manifesto on which we all stood. Can't go too far off piste. Unless, that is, the incoming leader wants to call a general election, which is unlikely. 

A standout in this contest is the diversity of the candidates. It seems highly unlikely that the Labour Party, and most certainly not the Lib Dems, would have anything like such a line-up. 

I've just seen the Channel 4 hustings. Of the five that made it through to the weekend, just one was a white middle-aged male, confounding the stereotyping beloved of my party's political opponents. What's more each of them was there for one reason only - merit.

The challenge facing my party is acute, How to look and feel fresh, new, exciting twelve years in. We have to defy the political gravity that sooner or later is the slayer of all incumbents. Right now, we have a particularly severe backdrop of a global economic downturn, cost of living pressures, a war in Europe that shows no sign of resolving anytime soon and the linked energy crisis. Brilliant though they all are, none of the candidates will be able to magic these things away - though we punch above our weight, the UK's impact is finite. Unfairly but nevertheless, incumbent parties are always punished when people are hurting. 

I like all the candidates and would happily serve under any of them. But in my view Rishi Sunak, disciplined and economically highly literate, is by far the best placed to lead my party, deal with the challenges we face as a country and prevent the nightmare of a Lab/Lib/SNP minority, coalition or confidence-and-supply mess.

Meanwhile, back at base, I've been having a go at the trains minister and South West Railways over the particularly shoddy London to Exeter service. I'm also tackling Wiltshire Council and the Environment Agency over the horrible smells emanating from the Warminster biodigester and the Hills Waste rubbish site at Westbury. My constituents want to sit in the gardens in the nice weather but can't because of the stink. 

On Hills Waste, if it can't operate its current rubbish plant without obliging its neighbours to shut all their windows in the hot weather, what hope if it gets permission to build the huge incinerator it plans next door? Again, I urged a moratorium on waste incinerators in the Commons last week. DEFRA's consultation on new environmental targets surely heralds the end of these appalling, unwanted and unnecessary waste burners. 

12 July 2022

READY FOR RISHI

It’s been a busy few days!  

Last week I spent 48 hours doing back-to-back media interviews following my resignation as one of the Prime Minister’s trade envoys. I was the third resignation on the Tuesday when it all kicked off (the other two, rather more importantly, were Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid) and the only one immediately hitting the studios. After a lull there was then a tsunami of resignations leading to Mr Johnson announcing his resignation on Thursday.

Some of Mr Johnson’s supporters have not taken it at all well with some unfortunate and unnecessary unpleasantness, but there it is. I struggle to believe they seriously think we could have muddled on for another two years, jacked up on bluster and boosterism. That road would have led to electoral oblivion. Some of us had to take a stand. The price was paid by the so-called rebels in our jobs and positions. I feel the loss of mine acutely. But we move on.

At the 1922 committee of backbench MPs yesterday a tight timeline for the replacement was announced. 

From the get-go back briefings started against Rishi Sunak - it's always the way with front runners. In the fevered heads of his detractors he has been disloyal. I know that to be a fib because months ago, in despair, I asked to see Rishi to urge him to do something about the rolling chaos that was Boris' government. I gave him every opportunity to show a bit of ankle but he was having none of it, refusing to display even a chink of disloyalty to the Prime Minister. I speak as I find. 

Today we have Rishi's campaign launch. I have committed to him for reasons that are well rehearsed. He is head and shoulders above the rest of the field in my view. That said, I would be happy with any of the front runners. In particular, I have always admired Penny Mordaunt and sincerely hope she features prominently in the new administration we now expect to be in place by 5 September.

4 July 2022

I'm in my 42nd year of regular and active reserve service in the Armed Forces, my brother's an admiral, two of my five girls are military officers and I represent a very large number of service personnel and their families. In other words, I'm heavily, personally invested in defence. 

So you would expect me to be echoing calls this week, based on what's going on in Ukraine, for lots more defence spending. But it's important to draw the right conclusions from the conflict. What we've learnt, to our very great surprise, are the severe military limitations of the Russian Federation. A relatively poor eastern European country is humbling the Kremlin"s much vaunted military. NATO with its overwhelming might hasn't even engaged yet. I hope it never will.

Since NATO - even before Sweden and Finland joins - seems to have more than enough men and material to tackle Russia conventionally, the issue then isn't so much hosing more money on defence but whether the west has the political resolve to face Putin down were he to try his luck with, say, Lithuania. In what manner and how soon would NATO respond if Putin mounted a 'special military operation' at the Suwalki Gap in order to link its client Belarus with its Kaliningrad enclave? Or maybe, safer from Putin's perspective, take another bite out of Georgia?

My point is that our weakness in dealing with Putin's imperialism isn't military, it's political. 

Closer to home I've been looking at how we reconcile the greening of land-based business to meet net zero targets with the need to grow more of our own food. I had no idea fertiliser could be so interesting! 

7 June 2022

Vote of no confidence

Further to my last post, I don’t plan to say how I behaved either in sending in a letter to Sir Graham Brady or not or in the voting last night. Letters and ballots for party leadership are secret for very good reason. However, reflecting on the vote this morning, I’d just make a couple of points.

Firstly, it’s important to distinguish between an election and a confidence vote. In an election people are choosing their preferred candidate, probably from a list of individuals they could live with. In a confidence vote those voting for the individual will do so on a scale of wild enthusiasm (Culture Secretary Nadine Dories is the vocal exemplar) to guarded acceptance of the status quo. 

It really does take quite a lot for people to vote against their leader. 

Nevertheless, political opponents will now be sharpening their knives. They will likely try to conflate all the undesirable characteristics with which they’ve been associating Mr Johnson with a parliamentary party that has just endorsed him and, singularly, with each of its MPs. Of course that’s pretty tenuous, certainly in respect of ordinary backbenchers. However, fairness demands that I concede that in respect of ministers you can’t have it both ways - Keir Starmer is constantly - correctly - berated by my side for happily serving under Jeremy Corbyn.

Secondly, what will my backbench colleagues who have expressed no confidence in Mr Johnson (that is to say most of them) now do? Generally once you rebel you keep a taste for it. However, in my view they should not allow antipathy towards Mr Johnson to get in the way of supporting the manifesto on which they were all elected (in my case with 60% of the vote). Personally, I’m in politics to improve the lot of the people I represent, not indulge in perpetual infighting and personality cults. On policy matters arising, that’s to say those issues not directly referenced in the manifesto, I would expect colleagues, as always, to behave in accordance with their wit, their principles and what they’re getting from their constituents rather than to regard every issue as an opportunity to have another pop at the leadership.

Yesterday’s vote does not mean that colleagues who opposed Mr Johnson are expected to revoke their lack of confidence in him - for this the action is on the leadership, not them - but it does mean respecting the majority outcome. 

No sulking then, and no sour grapes. 

26 May 2022

The Prime Minister, 'partygate' and the Gray report

I'm grateful for the numerous messages on Mr Johnson and ‘partygate’ I'm currently receiving. I've been reflecting carefully on the views expressed. Hopefully this gives an overview of where I currently am on the matter.

I've examined the Gray report [HERE] and associated evidence. In my view Sue Gray's findings, whilst shocking, do not materially alter what we already knew or suspected. Consequently, my previous remarks on the matter are unchanged including those made online and in the national press [HERE].

I do not intend to comment further at this stage on Mr Johnson’s future or on any confidence issues relating to his status as leader of the Conservative party. However, I will continue to actively support the government in carrying forward the policies that flow from the manifesto on which I was elected in 2019. 

Of course, I keep all matters under review.

23 May 2022

I have no principled objection to windfall taxes - Margaret Thatcher imposed them on banks in 1981 and George Osborne did something similar with oil and gas producers in 2011 when prices and profits were high. Those who claim they're unconservative are plainly operating from a different script to me. I would be prepared to support them as part of a package of targeted measures in order to help relieve the energy price hit we're set to take in the autumn if the industry cannot demonstrate quickly that it will using its big profits to shift to geopolitically reliable, green, cheap energy streams for the future. 

But there are drawbacks to this windfall tax. They would not be a panacea since even if you fleece producers receipts won't be nearly enough, they would hit pension funds and savings, reduce confidence in the UK as a place to invest and, inevitably, cut the amount industry can be expected to put towards shifting from fossil fuels to renewables.

Meanwhile the government's support package is worth over £9 billion. This includes a £200 rebate on energy bills for all, to be paid back over the next five years at £40 per year from April 2023, a nonrepayable £150 cash rebate for homes in lower council tax bands and a cut in fuel duty by 5 pence. It seems quite likely that the Chancellor will lower VAT to help with the mounting cost of living, an intervention previously disallowed by virtue of the UK's membership of the EU.

However, polling suggests a substantial majority of the public wants windfall taxes. OK, so let's do it. But we should be alive to the consequences - good and bad. 

3 May 2022

Trouble in the House

I’m writing before polling day but have been out knocking doors so have a keen sense of where we’re heading, at least in the south. My guess is it’s not great for my party which will have to do some long hard thinking in the days and weeks ahead.

Meanwhile sleaze has been in the news again. I try to avoid being judgemental particularly when I’m not in full possession of the facts. I’d just make one observation though. It makes no sense to suggest MPs are any more or less venal than any other group. Why would they be? Indeed, since they're pre-screened for criminality, misdemeanours and otherwise colourful pasts, you might expect them to be less likely than average to indulge in questionable behaviour. So what’s going on?

Talk of parliament being institutionally racist, misogynistic, corrupt etc is, in my view, a gross oversimplification. It isn’t my experience as a fairly seasoned and, I hope, objective observer of workplaces and the people that work in them. In reality, like every other place of work, parliament has undergone an attitudinal and behavioural transformation over the two decades I’ve been an MP, reflecting the society from which its drawn. It is a very different place to the one I entered in 2001 - I'm pleased to say.

No, the big difference is that MPs are not so much in the spotlight as under the microscope.  And it's relentless, 24/7.  I'm struggling to think of any other walk of life where every utterance, every move is potentially not only career ending but reputationally terminal. A stand-out feature of the UK media is the particularly salacious delight it takes in amplifying politicians' faults and foibles.

The danger is that parliament is seen for what it isn’t and people shift from the healthy scepticism that characterises a vibrant democracy to outright cynicism. It means that able individuals are put off politics as a form of public service and others quit early - as is happening now, an exodus that I expect to accelerate towards the general election.

That said, it remains a genuine pleasure and great privilege to serve our neck of the woods. I'm certainly planning to continue - as long as voters are prepared to put up with me! 

29 April 2022

Rwanda, incinerators ….and the usual

Returning after the Easter recess, the bright new policy is a scheme for processing asylum claims in Rwanda.

Under the £120 million UK-Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership, people who enter the UK illegally, including by small boat across the Channel, may have their asylum claim considered in Rwanda rather than in the UK.

The policy is designed to disrupt the business model of people-smuggling gangs and I give credit to the Home Secretary for trying to grip this issue. More than 28,000 migrants crossed the Channel from France to the UK in small boats last year and at least 44 died or went missing – creative solutions for saving lives and disrupting organised crime are very much needed.

It is important to emphasise that the UK still welcomes those in need. In the last year alone, the UK has provided sanctuary to over 97,000 Hong Kong British Nationals and over 13,000 Afghan nationals. More than 50,000 people have been granted visas under the Family and Homes for Ukraine Schemes, though I regret it was not exactly fast off the blocks.

The Opposition has offered no alternative plan. They voted against the Nationality and Borders Bill and criticise this plan. Interestingly, it was Labour who introduced legislation permitting offshoring of asylum seekers in 2004. Then Home Secretary David Blunkett said it was a ‘21st century solution to asylum issues.’ The governing centre-left party in Denmark last year legislated for asylum seekers to be processed in third countries and reports suggest that they too could partner with Rwanda.

Although well-intentioned, moral and politically defensible - notwithstanding a flurry of confected outrage from those with no alternative plan - my reservation would be that the scheme could very well fail in practice to reduce crossings and deaths. Although the plan is meant to act as a deterrent and kill off the traffickers’ business model, in the years following Australia’s implementation of a not dissimilar plan, illegal boat crossings actually went up. So, I’m comforted by assurances that the Rwanda scheme is a pilot.

Meanwhile the Navy has been tasked to get a grip on the small boat situation in the channel. Given that the fundamentals and rules of engagement have not changed, I really can’t see how this is going to make any difference despite the esteem in which I hold the Senior Service. I worry that it is being set up to fail, which is a pity.

More locally, Wiltshire Council has voted to defer its planning decision on the Westbury incinerator. This comes after attempts to have the decision ruled on by central government failed. I argued at County Hall on Wednesday that a new DEFRA consultation document on environmental – including incineration – targets should be considered, as should the impact of granting approval on the adjacent dairy factory, Arla. So, partial victory in this week’s battle, but the campaign goes on. 

The usual? Partygate, of course! As I write it looks like an Opposition motion that Mr Johnson should be referred to the privileges committee to adjudicate on whether he lied to parliament will not be opposed. That means his case will, eventually, be heard by the committee. In my view that’s right and proper given the circumstances but only in the light of all the evidence, including the outcome of the full Met investigation and Sue Gray’s report. In practice that means it’ll be some months before the committee opines - and that’s a very long time in politics.

14 April 2022

PARTYGATE

I have been watching the ‘partygate’ saga unfold with dismay and am appalled that the Prime Minister and Chancellor have been censured by the Met for involvement in a gathering at Downing Street contrary to the rules when my constituents were engaging with severe restrictions on personal liberty unprecedented in peacetime. I note that Mr Johnson and Mr Sunak have, rightly, apologised and expressed their contrition. 

Hardly surprisingly, I have had a huge amount of correspondence on the issue. 

Most of the letters I have received have asked me to submit a letter of no confidence in the Prime Minster to assist in triggering an election for leadership of my party and thus a new PM. I have not done so. Disposing of a Prime Minister mid-term, particularly one who was central to securing a huge popular mandate in 2019, is a very serious matter indeed. The responsibility weighs heavily on my shoulders as it does on the shoulders of all my colleagues.

I am actually not convinced by the argument doing the rounds that the terrible conflict in Ukraine alone should prevent my colleagues removing the PM. The UK is not at war. Even if it were, there are plenty of examples over the past 250 years of changing PM when we have been. France, closer to the frontline than the UK, could be changing its President in a few days’ time. It appears to be managing well, as the UK would. 

No, the dilemma I have is how the best interests of those I represent are served. I supported Mr Johnson’s leadership bids because I considered him the person best placed to deliver for the country and for my constituents. His government has been delivering in the most challenging of circumstances. As Mr Sunak emerges from a terrible fortnight for him, it is worth remembering the way in which he kept the UK economy alive during covid. 

In the heat of the moment it is easy to forget the Brexit deadlock that was acting as a sheet anchor on this country. The defining issue of the 2019 general election was effectively dealt with by Boris Johnson. He got it done when nobody else could. I’m bound to observe that some of the animosity being directed at him now is coming from those who are still unreconciled to Brexit or who see an opportunity to destabilise a government that they would never support whoever led it. 

We await Sue Gray’s report. In the meantime, it is possible that further fixed penalty notices will be awarded by the Met and there is the PM’s response next week to the challenge that he deliberately misled parliament. 

On letters of no confidence, my position remains - I rule nothing in or out. I’ll continue to take careful note of all opinion expressed to me - from those of all political persuasion and none - and of events as they unfold. 

Can I take this opportunity to wish everyone a restful bank holiday. 

Thoughts and prayers this Eastertime very much with the victims of Vladimir Putin’s war.

Slava Ukraini.

1 February 2022

SUE GRAY'S INTERIM REPORT ON 'PARTYGATE'

I supported Mr Johnson's leadership bids in 2016 and 2019 and have continued to be strongly supportive of the policy direction of his government and the manifesto commitments we both made at the general election.

Mr Johnson has accepted the interim Gray Report, apologised and set out what he intends to do. To be honest, Ms Gray's update adds very little.  Frustratingly for those wishing to inform their position with the anticipated full and objective statement of the facts,  it will now be necessary to await the outcome of the Met investigation and Ms Gray's subsequent report. I sincerely hope both will be available for public scrutiny soon.

Please be assured that I take what is alleged to have happened in Number Ten very seriously indeed. As Ms Gray observes and Mr Johnson accepts, there were failures of leadership and judgement. However, I must also acknowledge that Mr Johnson has delivered on Brexit when nobody else could, has generally make the right calls on covid, particularly recently, that there are far more jobs in the economy than we thought possible eighteen months ago and that of G7 members, the UK is leading the economic recovery from the pandemic in part because of the courageous decisions the government took at the start of the crisis and at the end of last year. Those things are having a real-life impact on my constituents today.

The situation remains dynamic. You can be assured that I will be watching developments like a hawk. At this stage I rule nothing in or out.  However, I am bound to say that what continues to matter most to me is delivery by government and the betterment of the lived experience of those I have the privilege to represent. The position I adopt and the actions I take will always be driven by an assessment of how that can best be served.

15 December 2021

Covid vote

Yesterday the Commons debated measures the government wants to take to tackle omicron. I was fortunate to be able to contribute and my remarks are Public Health - Hansard - UK Parliament. Yesterday's Statutory Instruments (SI) given legal force to the government's intent followed a statement the day before in which the Health Secretary finessed the controversial measure on so-called passports. His artful change of tack meant that the default would be a recent lateral flow test for access to certain venues -nightclubs, big crowd events etc - but with an exemption if you'd be fully jabbed. That hardly constitutes a 'passport' and in any event the SI falls away at the end of January - it is 'sunsetted'. 

On both occasions I pressed for the House to sit at least twice over the Christmas break since the evidence on omicron is evolving so very fast we need to be on top of things and be able to give a steer to ministers if necessary, either to wind down the restrictions if the variant looks like being less of a worry than some predict or to escalate if there's an unpleasant twist. At the moment - avoiding confirmation bias - we just don't know.  We should have a better idea next week and certainly by the week after by which time South Africa will be well into its current wave and we will be able to deduce what we're in for.

The other SIs, less controversially dealt with mask wearing in more places and allowing people to come out of self isolation, taking a daily lateral flow test instead. 

The LFT alternative to a vaccination 'passport' certificate and the fact the rule falls automatically at the end of January persuaded me to support the government on that SI. Nevertheless 100 of my colleagues voted against the government, I suspect a significant number using the issue as proxy for expressing their frustration over other issues. I took the view that this was a far too important matter to be clouded with other things and spent a lot of time absorbing the 'passport' SI particularly plus the associated papers dealing, not least as a significant number of constituents had asked me to vote against.

I abstained on the final measure which had to do with making health workers have a jab. I don't object in principal but in practice it's likely that tens of thousands will quit at exactly the time we need health and care workers in the system. There should be an alternative to jabs for them which is a daily LFT of the sort that this triple jabbed vaccinator did when he was vaccinating earlier this year. LFTs are a better measure of telling whether you have a current viral load and thus pose a viral threat to those in your care than the ability to show you've been jabbed up. 

In summary the measures taken together are moderate and in my view proportionate. They are far, far less intrusive than the steps taken in recent days in comparable jurisdictions. They will in any event fall on 26 January. I hope Parliament will be recalled next week and the week after to take stock and if omicron looks like being a busted flush we should be able to wind back the restrictions sooner. Meanwhile I hope the government is able to double the number of jabs in the remaining days of the year but, to be honest, I am not sure it can. One things for sure, the way forward lies with the continuing success of the UK vaccination programme of which we should all be very proud.

4 November 2021

STANDARDS - I’VE HAD BETTER DAYS

A report from the Standards Committee to the House of Commons sounds techy and dull. But Wednesday’s debate on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards investigation into the conduct of my colleague Owen Paterson MP was, nevertheless, very important, far from just another Westminster bubble obsession without traction in the real world.

My colleague was found to have engaged in paid lobbying for two businesses, an activity that has been rightly proscribed in Parliament since the seventeenth century and especially since the ‘cash for questions’ scandals of the 1990s. The penalty awarded - 30 days suspension triggering in all probability a recall, a by-election and quite possibly the loss of his seat - was in my view severe given the mitigation and on compassionate grounds. You may recall Mrs Rose Paterson tragically committed suicide, probably influenced by the lengthy and complicated investigation into her husband’s conduct.

Another of my backbench colleagues tabled an amendment to the required motion that would have endorsed the verdict and sentence. It passed narrowly, eviscerating the motion. It aims to change the rules allowing, among other things, Mr Paterson a further hearing, different verdict or possible penalty. 

That makes me very uncomfortable. Parliament set up the standards system in its current form very recently. It shouldn’t change it when it dislikes one of its outcomes. Where on earth does that lead us in terms of credibility at a time when parliament is hardly riding high in the public’s estimations? 

We badly need an appellate system to improve the safety of the disciplinary mechanism for MPs, that’s for sure. Every other professional outfit you can name has one. Mine is the GMC, one of the most rigorous, an exemplar if you like. But you can’t just make these things up on the hoof. It should have been done quite separately from the Owen Paterson case, not in response to it.

So, I just could not support the amendment but I do feel Mr Paterson has been badly handled and has been managed in a less than compassionate way. That’s why after a lot of thought, having read the Commissioner’s report thoroughly and noting Mr Paterson’s lack of access to any recognisable appeal mechanism I decided to abstain. That’s a big deal for any loyal government backbencher. It’s a very big deal for me. Despite the Opposition voting against and large numbers of my side abstaining, the amendment passed.

It isn’t clear what will now happen. I suspect the Opposition will not engage with any alternative structure created by the amended motion passed today by the House for dealing with MP conduct matters. That means it will collapse. In short, a bit of a mess.

11 June 2021

Bugs of War

The vaccination programme has been truly awesome. It’s been a privilege to be involved at the coalface, leading military vaccination teams that have protected thousands of people. So successful has the national programme been, there can now be no question about the government’s proposed timeline for opening up.

On Monday ministers are scheduled to make the final decision on when to lift the remaining restrictions. In my view, their original plan for 21 June must stand because I’ve seen no evidence to warrant a delay.

It’s been a struggle reconciling Dominic Cummings’ select committee download with a series of NAO reports on the government’s handling of the pandemic. God they’re dull, but there’s useful stuff between those beige pages for those that can be bothered to look. By the time the full public inquiry comes around workmanlike scrutineers like the NAO will have likely made all the learning points. Hopefully this government and the next will have actioned them. The only thing for the inquiry will be to send out the tumbrils. That’s what the media, opposition and some figures on the government benches are slavering over like Pavlov’s dogs.

Meanwhile government will be broadly content with the ‘learnings’ published by the NAO last month in the latest of its pandemic handling series. But privately ministers will have been less pleased with the rusty old tool box they opened fifteen months ago. On that at least – the absence of state preparedness in the UK and across the western world - Cummings is right. To their credit, ministers have been retooling public health institutions at pace to deal with infections – the old enemy that never went away.

Happily, I’ve spent ten weeks well away from our barely functioning parliament giving and supervising thousands of jabs in London and the South West. I have some learnings of my own, none of which feature in the NAO report.

Firstly, we need to decide what price in lives lost from a particular cause is societally acceptable before kicking off a war economy with all its downside in liberty, livelihood, health and the future of young people. What triggers future government intervention on the unprecedented scale endured since last March?

We have some figures that help frame the debate. Six years ago we lost over 28,000 to seasonal flu. Don’t remember? Me neither, and I can’t find any reference to it in Hansard for that year.  We haven’t – at least up to now - locked down or even done the hands, face, space thing as seasonal ‘flu sweeps through each winter.

There’s an even bigger figure that society is apparently willing to tolerate. As the Chief Medical Officer pointed out last month we lose in excess of 90,000 each year to smoking. That puts a huge, completely avoidable, burden on health services whose protection we were told was one of the prime imperatives at the start of this crisis. Indeed, protecting the NHS was the reason for restrictions incalculably more onerous than a ban on the poison tobacco. Chris Whitty did not say, save lives, protect the NHS, ban smoking, but he might have done because that’s where his logic leads.

But we have closed down society for more than a year to save the same sort of numbers. Here’s where logic rubs up against political reality. In tackling the most agonising question, we don’t ‘follow the science’ at all.  No politician can possibly do so.

I love experts. I used to be one. But it’s in their nature, singularly and collectively, to lay it on thick. Their industry depends on it. They play it safe - none of them wants to be caught understating risk. Wider societal and economic downside is not their prime consideration and ‘could’ is one of the most mutable words in the English language. Chief among experts to be handled with care are behavioural scientists who have been second guessing how people might react to government interventions. Their product – project fear, nudging - verges on the sinister. Furthermore, empirically on the light side, it has a habit of misfiring. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with anecdote, only that it has to be properly weighed and balanced. Chatting with people whilst vaccinating in east London, for example, shaped my thinking about why some groups were proving harder to reach than others. A general scepticism of the State’s good intentions is in play mixed with distrust of the pharmaceutical industry – what readers of John le Carré’s novel set against medical trials in developing countries might call the Constant Gardener effect.

We need to harness the volunteer spirit that has been such a positive feature of this pandemic. The yellow vested volunteer stewards at test and vaccination centres putting themselves at risk and out in all weathers have been fantastic. I have seen medical students drafted in like it’s the 1940s and lay people - St John’s volunteers and combat soldiers - taught to vaccinate. But the crisis teaches us that above all we need trained medics held at readiness.

Armed Forces Reserves, the special constabulary and retained fire service offer models to pick from. I admire my colleague Alan Mak’s attempt through his private member’s bill to create a NHS reserve. I’d sign up in a heartbeat. We need to capture the recently retired and those clinicians currently in non-patient-facing roles whose skills need little updating. Many of them tore their hair at a re-engagement process so achingly Sir Humphrey that many just gave up. Without too much drama we could have a light touch annual online check and update for those leaving frontline service so that they could quickly be drafted in when required. NHS staff typically retire in their mid 50s with many workable years ahead. Many, and one hopes their professional and regulatory bodies - even their trade unions like the BMA that are not listed among the heroes of this crisis - would see continuing engagement as part of the duty that comes with membership of altruistic professions.

If we had had the framework and human resources to undertake proper old-style contact tracing and isolation, the sort of thing that dominated public health until antimicrobials and vaccination did for TB, we might have been able to mount the lockdown busting, intensely local early intervention seen in parts of East Asia but which we had to ditch almost before it started. Building that capacity has to be a priority in preparation for the next big one. For that you need a workforce that can be mobilized fast.

Mobilization reserve service has bookended my parliamentary career to date – in Iraq in 2003 and in the pandemic Great Patriotic War. It has been a massive privilege to serve in uniform on the front line of the century’s biggest geopolitical events. The military has emerged from two starkly different engagements with its public reputation enhanced. This time, much of the military’s work has been in communities where these days it is rarely seen, even regarded with suspicion. But the warmth of the public’s reaction to soldiers. sailors and airmen who have been truly awesome as vaccinators, porters and test site marshals has been humbling. Despite a deliberately low profile approach taken by the MoD, I suggest Operation Rescript has done more for civ-mil relations than any number of Armed Forces days.

In the breach whatever the threat, the Queen’s men and women belong to the public they serve. That sense of proprietorship is healthy in any democracy. There’s no doubt it’s been advanced during this crisis.

Rt Hon Dr Andrew Murrison MP has been leading military vaccination teams in London and the South West. These are his personal views.

12 March 2021

PLEASE - NO MORE DUMPING IN THE GREAT LANDFILL IN THE SKY

I’ve been busy vaccinating people in London following a call-up by the Reserves for the second time - the first in 2003 was during the Iraq war. This is a very different sort of operation against a far more deadly adversary. 

It is a great pleasure to support our wonderful NHS colleagues in helping to protect the public and a privilege to lead a team of Service men and women in doing our bit.

What on earth is the EU up to? I appreciate its messed up big time on rolling out vaccine to its population but trying to distract attention from its own failure by spreading fake news about the UK supposedly banning export of vaccine is unforgivable. And any polity that is prepared to mess with the NI border for political and commercial advantage is just beneath contempt. Definitely not a club to aspire to. How right we were to leave. 

If what it is trying to do is make life difficult for the UK out of pique or to discourage others from leaving it needs to be careful, very careful indeed.  Its operatives need to ask how their actions and the consequences that may fall from them will benefit ordinary Europeans trying to get on with life, as opposed to the self licking lollipop that is the EU’s overpaid, grossly superannuated bureaucratic establishment in Brussels.

Like Her Majesty’s pitch perfect response to Harry and Megan’s bombshell, her ministers’ unilateral easing of import restrictions so traders and businesses are helped is something we should take pride in. Mature, sensible people and institutions are slow to rile, quick to conciliate.

On 15 March Bath plans to implement its Clean Air Zone. With my parliamentary neighbour Michelle Donelan MP and Wiltshire Council Leader Cllr Phillip Whitehead, I’ve written to DEFRA and Transport ministers to protest since the displaced traffic can only go one way - up the A350, straight into the well established Air Quality Management Area in the middle of Westbury with some of it landing up in all probability in another local AQMA, Bradford on Avon. That would contradict the two departments’ own edict on CAZs which says they shouldn’t simply shove traffic onto adjacent areas with air quality issues. I have just had an unsatisfactory response back from the two ministers but am doing what I can to put a stop to this nonsense or, failing that, get a firm commitment to mitigation. A Westbury bypass would do nicely.

Also on the environment, we await the planning authority’s view on the proposed Westbury incinerator. How interesting that these unnecessary, dirty old things are being turned down elsewhere in the country. I think the tide has turned. 

As we head towards net zero and as the UK prepares to host the COP26 climate change summit, we really can’t be dumping more and more of our effluent into the great landfill in the sky.

15 February 2021

LINE IN THE SAND

Great news about the 15 million jab target met. Looking forward now to 22 Feb and the government’s roadmap out of lockdown. I am not a member of the 60 strong Coronavirus Recovery Group of Tory MPs who are leading the charge for an early release from lockdown. However, I have written a piece  https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2021/02/andrew-murrison-i-voted-for-lockdown-but-the-choice-between-savings-lives-and-losing-freedom-is-hard.html on starting a public conversation on what we deem an acceptable level of risk from a virus that its now abundantly clear won’t be disappearing any time soon, if ever. 

I have had had some useful virtual meetings to discuss roads. I support the A303 improvements at Stonehenge but worry that my constituents at Chicklade and in villages used as rat runs will then have to shoulder the displaced congestion. I intend to keep pressure up to ensure the Chicklade stretch is done immediately Stonehenge is completed. I also hope to get some movement on the horrible A303/A350 junction at Willoughby Hedge independently so its sorted and its toll reduced. 

Good to get an update on the North-South strategic route, basically the A350. Highways England is drawing up a report for this that in my view just has to involve a western Westbury bypass. It can’t come soon enough as Bath’s Air Quality Action Plan - declared unhelpfully and unilaterally - stands to shove its problem right onto our doorsteps. 

Bath does this sort of thing. 

But why should my constituents in Westbury’s own longstanding Air Quality Management Area have to take Bath’s traffic, making our situation even worse? Bath’s sandstone Regency terraces may be more elegant than the redbrick Victorian facades lining the A350 in Westbury but my constituents live right on top of the road.  I had a good conversation with Wiltshire council who are in agreement and we decided to write to the government as arbiter to call out Bath’s unneighbourly behaviour.

Meanwhile I have filed an objection to a 67 home outline planning application for land at Sand Hole Lane Westbury. BA13 has greatly exceeded its housing quota, the application is in conflict with the Wiltshire Core Strategy and its a greenfield site. I’ve long been suspicious that west Wiltshire is seen by some as a convenient way of the north of the county not doing its fair share of the five year land supply heavy lifting, especially in relation to Chippenham. This seems like a line in the sand(hole). 

15 January 2021

PARLIAMENT HALF-COCKED

The House authorities are doing their best in the crisis but Parliament is a vestige of its former self. I have been complying with the House’s request to participate virtually although attended in person last week to make a speech on COVID. In my view the place is as disease secure as it can be and its important to that some members are on the green benches to at least keep the place ticking over. 

I also believe that the time is rapidly approaching when the vaccination level among the truly vulnerable is such that lockdown can be eased. After all, we really can’t go on like this indefinitely, economically or societally. Parliament in particular must be returned to normal very soon otherwise there will be a deep and lasting impact on the functioning of the cockpit  of our democracy. 

It’s great that the UK is head and shoulders above the rest in the number of people vaccinated. In the Commons I asked for more vaccination data and for the criteria that will determine easing of lockdown. At the current rate of vaccination, I’d challenge the justification for keeping society locked down past the middle of next month.

I have also been repeating calls for directors of small limited companies who take modest incomes in the form of dividends to be better supported during the crisis. Appreciating the technical complexity of doing this in a way that is not open to fraud, the Federation of Small Businesses has come up with a way of doing it that I have pressed ministers to consider carefully. Others who have fallen through the cracks include those who were between jobs at the time of the first lockdown. The Treasury’s generally commendable pandemic financial package needs to be fine tuned to be as fair as possible and I know ministers are keen that it should be. 

Scenes from Washington have been appalling in the dying days of the Trump presidency - the sort of thing you expect in a banana republic, not the US.  Most of us tolerate Donald Trump because of the great office he holds and the people he represents, others because they perceive he’s been nice to the UK at a challenging time in a way that President-Elect Biden may not be, but I for one can’t possibly respect a man who has done so much to diminish his office, the standing of the US and political discourse in general. As Oliver Cromwell said to the Rump Parliament in 1653 at the end of his famous mace-waving speech ‘In the name of God, go!’

However, I’m deeply troubled by the reaction of the high priests of social media to Trump’s political death throes. Banning his deranged hallmark tweets was in my view very wrong. These social media moguls have shown themselves to be what we might see as a new clerisy. Is it right that half a dozen Californian billionaires, so far removed from and completely unaccountable to the rest of society, should hand down judgement on what might and might not be said and heard?

Talk of media being free or independent generally implies independent of government. But the censorship recently applied to President Trump shows that independence is a quality that needs to be qualified. Are we really extolling the independence of a tiny cabal of eye-wateringly rich Americans against whose name nobody has ever scratched a cross? Say what you like about the wretched Donald Trump but at least he was voted into office. That is not true of our ascendant tech clerisy. Ah, down-with-the-kids left-liberal habitues of fashionable north London salons will say, what about Rupert Murdoch, eh? It’s a fair challenge but the nature of social media and the way it permeates into every crevice of daily life is making editors of traditional print and broadcast media look as quaint as monks illuminating manuscripts when Caxton and his printing press came to town. 

4 January 2021

Happy New Year to all my readers.  Let’s hope 2021 turns out better than the last despite the disappointment that the new strains of COVID has caused and the prospect that this horrible thing will drag out for longer than we had thought.

Constitutionally, the New Year has begun positively with the UK now removed decorously from the EU without the sky falling in or there being plagues of frogs and locusts. Boris Johnson has delivered on his promise. Not only do we have a zero tariff zero quota free trade deal with the EU but we’re signing off deals all the time with other partners. 

On COVID I have just been pinged to say Parliament is being recalled on Wednesday. I doubt its good news. My position has been one of support for the general thrust of government policy in the knowledge that all other European countries are doing pretty much the same sort of thing. 

I am hopeful that the Oxford vaccine will be deployed sufficiently among the vulnerable over the next couple of months to allow a return to relative normality. 

At the moment there seems to be a difference between Astra Zeneca which says it can deliver 2 million jabs a week and the government which says it can’t which is difficult to understand. This evening I will be speaking with the minister responsible for vaccinations to better understand what's going on. 

I struggle to believe the roll-out issue is logistics or manpower since we’ve had months to prepare for this. I am one of 30000 healthcare professionals who have volunteered to vaccinate people. I’ve had weekly emails telling me to stand by and have done the online courses, relevant and not so relevant. 

People appear to have generally kept faith with ministers but some say that they have been too quick to suspend liberty. When I struggle with the finely judged issues at stake I recall a conversation about the restrictions with the PM in Downing Street earlier this year and what seemed to me to be the agony of a quintessentially liberal bon viveur. He absolutely loathes what he has to do. If there was another way right now Boris would surely take it. I am confident that he would have done.

The caveat for me as always is that a cycle of lockdowns just cannot go on indefinitely. Unless the Oxford vaccine proves to be a game changer in weeks rather than months or unless the virus takes a more lethal turn I believe we will need Plan B. That essentially means protected isolation for the vulnerable and the rest of society getting back to relative normality. The cost otherwise in financial, societal and health terms will be just too great.

Happy New Year everyone. 

25 November 2020 

MORE COVID

Holding our breath on spending review day, but I think we know what the Chancellor is likely to be saying. I’ve had the opportunity to give my views in person to Rishi and Boris which is that we have to support jobs, that we should balance costs and consequences of all the measures we take including consequential like deaths from non COVID causes and that you don’t tax your way out of a recession. I don’t expect tax hikes soon and scope for cutting public expenditure is finite. 

In my view we should look on the COVID debt accrued as we did in 1918 and 1945 - a long term problem shared with most other similar countries. One of those countries - Germany - powered ahead in the post war years from being on its knees. There are lessons there. Right now in any event the debt is containable because of low interest rates. Some have suggested a long term war bond equivalent which is worth looking at.

The evidence is that most people accept the government’s overall approach to the crisis which, its worth remembering, is similar to other western economies. I have been getting a relatively small number of people opposed - the ‘let it rip’ perspective. We can argue about the fallibility of tests and the small number of people testing positive for COVID then dying of something else being counted but the two death peaks we have seen speak for themselves. Lockdown works and deaths fall as you would expect from a rudimentary understanding of epidemiology. The moot point is whether the cure will turn out worse than the disease. In my view, based on what I know which is essentially what I’ve read just like anyone else, it is finely balanced. 

I was arguing way back that if we didn’t soon get a game changer we would have to have Plan B which is essentially protected isolation for the elderly and vulnerable as advocated by a respectable body of expert opinion, albeit a minority at this stage. The rest of us would then go about our business with sensible precautions. The reason is that is economically and societally we could not sustain repeated waves and lockdowns. Businesses on which the whole of society depends would never get up again and no budding entrepreneur in his or her right mind would start one up. The toll from non COVID conditions would mount. 

But it looks like we now have the game changer - the Pfizer vaccine and, hot on its heals, our own Oxford Astra Zeneca jab which is in many ways superior. We also know from the Liverpool experience how better to do testing and lateral flow tests offer near real time data that should cut transmission whilst allowing people to go about their business. 

If in the next few days we can start to vaccinate large numbers of people at genuine risk from the virus  we must surely be able then to allow those for whom - notwithstanding as yet ill defined issues around so called long COVID - coronavirus does not pose much of threat set against all the others we live with to crack on.

In closing, five cautionary points;

1. There is a distinction between hard evidence, biological plausibility and supposition. So, for example, the evidence that 10 o’clock pub closing cuts transmission is slim. However, those of us who from time to time have enjoyed the odd pint or several will recognise it as plausible. Evidence would mandate early closure, plausibility alone means you have to balance possible benefits against economic and societal cost, a difficult process. Another example is masks. The evidence for them reducing transmission is mixed. However, it seems sensible, plausible, that they do. The personal cost of wearing one is minor. That means we should.
2. You should always be alive to the corrosive effect of confirmation bias - plucking out bits of evidence from the swirling sea of data available that confirms you in the belief you have originally formed. 
3. Bunker mentality which means that when the position you’ve invested heavily in is under attack you are less and less prepared to countenance the possibility that you are wrong and others have a point. 
4. Linked to 4, humility. At the start of the year very little was known about the behaviour of this virus. We now know a lot and our knowledge is expanding all the time. Policy must be based on best available evidence at the time but with a wide margin of uncertainty. We need to level with people that it may change as the facts change.
5. Conspiracy theories. Yep, they’re at it already. Some people, fortunately a very small if shouty minority, just don’t get that politicians and officials really are doing their level best for the public good. For this cynical cadre of contrarians its all about state control and self interest. I can’t help them I’m afraid but I really do get cross when they suggest without any evidence at all that the vaccine programme I hope we’re about to launch is a high risk malign intervention. As with the MMR scandal careless talk costs lives. 

I’ll leave it at that.

9 November 2020

Free school meal vouchers have featured quite a bit in my inbox and in the local press. I’m grateful to people taking the time to write. I’ll always try to respond personally as soon as I can, unless letters are abusive as some on this subject sadly have been.

As always a misrepresentation circles the globe by the time truth has got his boots on. Social media makes it worse. 

Here’s the truth. Everyone in parliament, regardless of party, wants to support people during the pandemic. Indeed, the scale of government support has been extraordinary, unprecedented and greater than comparable countries. 

This government introduced free meals when schools were closed down from March to June for children who normally get them when schools are open. It has also been spending billions on welfare including £1000 uplift to Universal Credit plus help with housing costs and millions  directed at local authorities, including Wiltshire, for community support like helping vulnerable children. That adds up to massively more support for struggling families than the meal vouchers the Opposition exploited in the debate they engineered after they had sensed an opportunity in the campaign started by footballer Marcus Rashford. The government’s clumsy response to the Opposition’s nimble creativity allowed it to be portrayed as heartless - grossly unfair if you compare our government’s pandemic welfare package with support provided in other countries. 

You wouldn’t know it from the hate mail received in my office but, Conservative controlled, Wiltshire Council quietly got on with provided food over the half term holiday, the correct thing to do.

Of course the trolls whipped up by the Opposition’s craftiness have now fallen silent. Having secured their hit against the government, there has been nothing from that quarter on what should now happen. These political activists will simply hope that ministers allow the same thing to happen over Christmas so they can kick off again. I suspect they will be disappointed. 

There is no question that inequality will widen and life chances fall for poorer children as a result of COVID. Many teachers have done their best in the crisis but the teaching unions have been less than impressive in rising to the challenge. Too often teaching union bosses have popped up on our screens to oppose schools opening without offering any ideas on how to mitigate the damage being caused to young people. Shades of the 1970s. Disappointing. 

We need so much more than lunch vouchers over half term for the poorest, least advantaged kids. Breakfast clubs and summer classes with healthy, nutritious food included but with extra tuition and activities too are needed for children whose circumstances mean they’ve been left behind and who need to catch up. I want local authorities to be in the driving seat. I think Wiltshire’s up for it.

26 October 2020

I hope this update on the two big issues of the day - COVID and Brexit - is of interest. Here, I will try to elaborate on the points which I raised in my brief Twitter and Facebook weekly roundup video yesterday.

Firstly, a big well done to my good friend Somerset MP Liam Fox for valiantly trying to secure the top job at the World Trade Organisation. It was always going to a tough gig with the odds stacked against the UK. Evidently, though sadly Liam was unsuccessful, the exercise has been very useful in flushing out friends and foes. For example, France we hear actively lobbied against the UK, hitting the phones to dissuade countries from voting for the British guy. We even hear that Hungary was told it might be arraigned by the EU because of a perceived failure in its EU ‘duty of sincere cooperation’ for not subscribing to the French operation against Liam Fox.

And they wonder why the British people voted to leave. 

Bravo Hungary and those countries who backed the UK, particularly those who stand to lose from crossing Paris. I can safely say as a former Foreign Office minister that these things are not lost on the UK, neither should France forget that actions have consequences.

As I write, the Brexit talks are formally off, the PM’s deadline having passed. The reality is that talks will continue up to 31 December when we leave the transition period and beyond. It’s in everyone’s interests that a deal is done that promotes uninterrupted trade. The sticking points are fish access and the so-called level playing field for businesses. On fish, our fishing fleet is so denuded now and indigenous fishermen so scarce (it’s a tough, dangerous life with limited reward for most) that we could not in any event fully exploit the fish in our fishing grounds right now even if the French, Dutch and Spanish were denied access. Hopefully that will change over the years as we regrow, but it seems to me that we could allow our neighbours to fish in UK waters for some years to come on a strictly reducing basis with very little impact on British fishermen. It would surely be perverse to ruin fishermen on the continental side of our shared narrow seas just in order to make a point. We don’t do that kind of thing.

So, that’s fish sorted.

What about the so-called level playing field stumbling block? Well, the EU is right to be worried that unshackled from the maw of the Commission the UK will seek to secure competitive advantage, to grow British jobs and businesses. That’s rather the point. The EU’s response should be to fit its own business environment for the competitive challenges of this century, not the last. What we can’t have is a jurisdiction over which we have no control, the EU, setting our rules or supervising them through its courts. We have glimpsed in the attitude displayed by our closest continental neighbour in the Liam Fox WTO incident what that might mean. However, we need to be pragmatic. The EU is apparently concerned about the UK government bankrolling business once freed from EU state aid rules. Curious that since UK governments in recent years have been dead against protectionism and our state aid is much less than France, particularly, and also Germany. So, it seems like an academic point that could be conceded, except of course we must not have the ECJ presiding over any infringement proceedings. 

There is a rumour that Dominic Cummings is planning to massively support UK tech after we leave and that might be putting the wind up the EU. However, I’d support start-ups and translational business ventures with fiscal measures around venture capital and investment which the tech fledglings I know - including locally - would welcome rather more than old style state handouts. Importantly, new and established tech businesses are crying out for skills, a legitimate place for any government to invest regardless of state aid rules. Indeed, that’s exactly how West Germany rebuilt itself after 1945.

There we have it - Murrison’s simple analysis and the basis for a deal. I judge the chances of something being thrashed out at this eleventh hour as 50/50.

I have been supporting the government on its COVID strategy not because I’m entirely convinced by the advice on which its based but, if I’m honest, because there’s a wide margin of uncertainty and because UK interventions appear to be similar to those of other major European jurisdictions - safety in numbers. The detailed critique will have to await the review that will surely come - but not yet. 

I am opposed to another national lockdown which I don’t think the evidence as it stands would sustain. It would be an act of bovine stupidity to shut down businesses in the south west when our transmission is low in order to provide uniformity with areas where it is high. The three-tier approach is based on keeping schools and businesses open. That means reducing interaction in social situations, particularly private homes where there is evidence the virus spreads the most. However, I note the sharp increase in test positives has not been matched by a commensurate uplift in hospital admissions, ITU cases or deaths. Looking at the timelines that suggests to me an autumn bump rather than a second wave. That should mean sensible measures rather than liberty and livelihood wreckers. I would also point out the mounting evidence that suggests that if we don’t get a game changer such as a vaccine very soon the interventions like school closures western governments put in place will over time result in more, not fewer, deaths from COVID alone. Plus of course mortality and morbidity from other diseases left untreated, mental health problems and the health consequences of poverty and unemployment. 

So, if there’s no game changer very soon, what’s to be done? I’ve been lobbying for the drafting of a Plan B. It would allow a general return to normal life but with focussed protection to safeguard those we now know are vulnerable to coronavirus. We just can’t go on with large parts of the UK locked down indefinitely.

16 September 2020

I’m very grateful for messages I’ve had about the Internal Markets Bill. Many, but not all, of those unhappy have written before to complain about Brexit and we have had to respectfully disagree. I do so again.

I’ve been asked why MPs like me supported the Withdrawal Agreement last year but on Monday night voted - as I did - to potentially renege on elements of it. It’s a fair challenge, though the answer is very simple. In the past few days Michel Barnier has confirmed the impression he has given since December that he is not at all acting in the good faith required by the Agreement. He is now saying, in commendably plain terms, that the EU may enforce a customs border down the Irish Sea in violation of the 1800 Act of Union, the Good Friday Agreement and, in the view of many of us, the Agreement itself. Such an action, one that was certainly not being socialised last year when we signed the Agreement, would have the effect of essentially blocking the passage of goods between constituent parts of the UK. There is no way that can be allowed to happen. So, it’s absolutely right that HMG, in response to this new threat, should take out an insurance policy against it. That insurance policy is the Internal Markets Bill.

I still dearly hope the comprehensive Free Trade Agreement that would make all of this academic - like the one offered then withdrawn by the EU in 2018 - will yet be achieved by the middle of next month especially since the reason the EU has come up with for not doing so, our close geographic proximity, is plainly nonsense. But if there’s no deal, what are we then to do? 

Well, we could roll over and let the EU - not a benign or benevolent undertaking but a clever adversary jockeying for political and commercial advantage - have the better of us. We could concede, although the EU has plainly acted in bad faith contrary to the Agreement, to Brussels’ interpretation and that of its sympathetic lawyers. It is being put about that if we don’t do this our vaunted reputation internationally will be toast. 

Really?

The Germans have no truck with this sort of thing. Their muscular basic law takes precedence over all else, including that constructed by supranational institutions like the EU. Indeed, Germany has been reasserting its position recently. The fact that the UK constitution is unwritten does not matter. It’s also reasonable to observe that what is spoken of as international law is often, in practice, mutable as the EU itself has shown in, for example, the indulgence it shows on state aid.

Friends, we need to understand that this negotiation isn’t a love-in, it’s a brutal bare knuckles affair. Pique is never far away, nor the desire to make an example of the errant UK pour encourager les autres. That much was obvious when I had the, genuine, pleasure of meeting suave M. Barnier a couple of years back in Brussels.

The PM made clear on Monday that if the talks collapse and we have to, with the greatest of reluctance, invoke the Internal Markets Bill, Parliament itself, not the government, will have to give the final green light. Parliament is sovereign. 

We also have to be mindful of the increasing willingness of the judiciary to challenge government - not so much rule of law as rule by lawyers. Constitutionally it would be an entirely different matter if the Supreme Court was to go head to head, not with the government but with Parliament itself.

3 September 2020

The UK is now in the premier league for COVID testing which is good. However, the more you look the more you’ll find. Some have suggested figures on the rise mean we are about to get a second wave. Personally, I think they’re indicative of more testing particularly since hospital admission and death rates have been declining sharply. We’re also getting better at treating COVID so even if we don’t get a vaccine soon - and I suspect we will - the virus is looking less of a threat than it did. We also know now that its a problem overwhelmingly for elderly people and those with certain co-morbidities. We should be able to protect them whilst allowing the fit working population and children to mix more freely, getting the economy back underway and restarting important activities like healthcare. That’s why I’m using any influence I have to support the government in relaxing restrictions and applying an unadulterated evidence based approach in its interventions that recognises the wider consequentials of actions taken.

I spent some of the week talking with colleagues to help socialise the idea that the Commons should be leading by example in getting the country back to work. At the moment the restrictions in place at Westminster, set up with the best of intentions, have made it virtually impossible to do our job properly and I feel really bad about it. 

The COVID wonderboy has so far been the Chancellor Rishi Sunak. But he’s a very level-headed individual and I suspect he's approaching the public’s adulation with caution. He’ll know that popularity is easy when you’re handing out money, less so when you have to rein back spending or tax people. There is a general nervousness about being too quick to repay extra debt entered into as a result of the crisis. Thank goodness interest rates are low and we can add borrowing onto the tab, as it were. I’m among those who are counselling caution about tax rises since taxes kill growth and its growth that’ll power us out of the recession, grow jobs and bring down the debt/GDP ratio. Indeed, when we’ve tried taxing our way out of a fix in the past its ended unhappily. Looking towards the autumn budget, I also hope we can retain the state pension triple lock. Obviously it can’t go on forever as over time it would imply pensions moving ahead of wage growth which is unsustainable but my best reading of state pensions in similar jurisdictions is that the UK has still some moving up the league table to do.

10 August 2020

The Beirut explosion was deeply upsetting. I was involved with Lebanon quite a lot as Middle East minister and met quite a few of the key personalities from the President and PM to Palestinian refugees in Tripoli and Syrian refugees in the Bekaa Valley. At times like this ‘talking heads’ like me get to give our views on national TV as editors seek perspectives on what’s going on. 

My expressed view is the catastrophe was a symptom of a failing state in which institutions don’t operate and the normal systems and checks we take for granted in a country like ours just don’t apply. I saw something of this in the Lebanese electricity distribution system which is chaotic. Streets in cities like Tripoli have networks of power cables strung across carrying pirated electricity for the few hours a day the grid sort of operates. Its pretty scary. Donor countries have been generous, including the UK, but with corruption rife there’s a reluctance to throw money at long term remedies without reform. 

I continue to worry about the economic impact of coronavirus and have been urging ministers to ease up. That’s because it seems to me the cost of the cure now risks exceeding that of the disease. Our NHS has been effectively closed down to routine work for months and with distancing and new hygiene processes its productivity remains down. So is it any surprise if we’re becoming sicker? Things like mental health have been particularly severely impacted. People have not sought timely help for big killers like stroke and heart attack with inevitable consequences. Unemployment is associated with increased mortality and nobody should underestimate the impact a long deep recession will have on general health and wellbeing. 

In weighing cost and benefit you have to set lives saved from COVID19 against lives lost as a result of interventions - a grisly, unenviable calculus.

I do so hope we follow the lead of local authorities like Blackburn and Sandwell who have clearly had enough of the inadequate, centrist Public Health England with its telephoning and texting. Those councils have been taking their own initiative with proper door-to-door contact tracing just like their forebears who set up the discipline of infectious disease based public health in the mid nineteenth century, If we do more of that we will reduce the number of area lockdowns and help to restore public and business confidence.

I’ve been having lots of letters about apparent contradictions and inconsistencies in COVID rules. Beauty salons wonder why they can’t do their stuff but barbers can, for example. Its difficult not to sympathise. I can’t arbitrate or advise beyond the gov.uk guidance but I can contact ministers about individual circumstances so they can be looked at and constituents at least get a rationale back with ‘the science’ from the rule-makers.

1 July 2020

Hills Waste has decided to replace its plans for a gasification plant at Westbury in favour of an old style incinerator. I have spoken with and written to the planning authority, Wiltshire Council, and have asked the Environment Agency to opine on the assertions made in the operator’s letter to me in support of the switch. 

On parish boundaries, I’m engaging with Wiltshire Council to prevent Trowbridge town council absorbing huge chunks of neighbouring parishes, an exercise that is, in my view, contrary to the interests of my constituents resident in Trowbridge and the surrounding large villages.

The Opposition is proving good at engineering debates in the Commons to make demands of the government that it must know, if roles we’re reversed, it would not itself do. For example, swab tests for NHS staff. It has been demanding all NHS staff should be ‘tested’ for COVID, more or less continuously. Setting aside the intrusiveness of what, at first glance, was being proposed, when pressed their spokesman admitted that this should only be where necessary which, of course, is exactly what is currently happening. But the headline that the Opposition knew full well would be written is that Tories prevent hard working frontline staff from the tests that they and their patients need - complete rubbish, and some would say indicative of either at best confused or at worst irresponsible opposition, but there it is. 

Another example is nurses’ pay. I’ve had a fistful of angry, quite abusive, emails demanding to know why I voted against a pay rise for nurses given their heroic work in the COVID crisis. This had me scratching my head. Again, the provenance appears to have been one of the Opposition’s engineered debates. Nobody ever went into healthcare to get rich - I certainly didn’t - but salaries have been rising, though anyone with any sense of the intrinsic value in a job would want healthcare workers to have more.  I’ve replied to the emails drawing attention to the incremental pay scales which are available online that are based on the Agenda for Change prospectus brought in by Labour in 2004, how it is now possible for nurses to secure good pay and pensions whilst remaining frontline clinicians rather than managers and how difficult it is, because it involves more than a million people, to find even a small across the board pay increase.

I have written in my blog before about the toppling of statues and associated markers of Britain’s past in connection with BLM. On the radio this morning a representative of Lloyds of London was asked to apologise for its involvement in the slave trade. It would have been easy for him to do so, but what would his words have meant? Since it started up in 1686, just as Britain’s global reach was really getting going, it comes as no surprise that in its early years today’s insurance giant was intimately involved in the grisly business of buying and selling human beings. Rather than issue easy words, if I understand it correctly, this morning Lloyds pledged to look at itself to see what more it can do practically to level the playing field for black people in its organisation, recognising the hurdles BAME people still face in Britain today. We should all do that.

We have just passed the  Immigration Bill which will end free movement post Brexit. We do rely on a healthy level of migration and should welcome it but equally the public expects government to be able to control what happens at it’s borders. I do feel that people who are being detained whilst their immigration status is determined should not be held indefinitely and they must be treated humanely and with respect whilst detained. However, I could not support an amendment to cap the time a person can be detained without knowing what would happen if the time limit was reached - I don’t think simply releasing potentially challenging detainees into the community would be welcomed by my constituents.

I’ve had lots of letters about amendments to the Agriculture Bill. A hijack was attempted to include protectionist measures aimed at excluding ‘chlorinated chicken’ type agri-food products. The possible health impacts of chlorinating chicken are highly debatable - most of us munch our way through chlorine washed fruit and veg without a second thought, not to mention tap water and what we swallow in swimming pools - but chicken meat treated in this way is banned in the U.K. and that continues after we leave the Brexit Transition Period in December. What actually worries me is that best in class animal husbandry could be sidelined if reliance is put on chlorination to rid products of pathogens like salmonella. Ministers have said that trade deals won’t mean compromise on either food safety or animal welfare and that’s contained in the manifesto I and my colleagues stood on in December. That may reduce scope for trade deals with, particularly, the US but it’s a clearly stated UK position nevertheless. In any event, its actually a matter for the Trade Bill currently in its Commons Committee stage, not the Agriculture Bill. The Trade Bill sets out the proposed new arrangements for trade after the Transition Period and aims to promote competitive advantage for UK businesses post Brexit, including for British farmers and growers. I’m keeping a close eye on it. 

I continue to get pressure to support a delay to the end of the Brexit Transition Period in December. Some people are simply ‘fighting the last war’ and even now desperately hoping we will rejoin or at least remain tied to the EU in some way whilst others, understandably cautious people, worry that our economy faces two shocks at the same time - COVID and the end of the Brexit Transition Period - one of which, they point out, we might avoid or delay. My own view is that a future trading arrangement, that of course will be capable of change over time, will be agreed but not if we perpetually delay our final departure date. 

10 June 2020

PARLIAMENT RETURNS

Queuing round the block to vote whilst socially distancing was not onerous - out in the sunshine, a turn round Westminster Hall, lovely. Not sure about doing it serially in late votes in January however. The minor parties - SNP and Lib Dems - like to call unnecessary divisions that they’re bound to lose just to make a point. They’re going to be seriously unpopular if they persist if this turns out to be part of the new normal. However, I hope and pray we’re back to something like the stats quo ante soon and that chilly, wet divisions in the dark can be avoided.

My noise on the A303 indicator suggests life and livelihood are slowly returning. In a months time at this rate the data should be such that the challenge will be to ensure people continue to take sensible precautions to keep the virus at bay. Sensible precautions need to be tempered with the urgent need to get the economy going again to limit as far as we can the deep recession we’re certainly now in. As furlough recedes like a tide we will see what wreckage is left. I fear it won’t be pretty. 

Quarantining people travelling from countries with less COVID that the U.K. makes no sense scientifically and the airlines (whose managements I’m at odds with over their recent behaviour) are right to be squealing. The economy won’t budge until we get people moving again. I’ve spoken in the Commons about this and will continue to.

The killing of George Floyd by a US policeman was gut-wrenchingly awful. Without question the policing model operated by too many US jurisdictions needs a complete, wholesale rescrub. I truly believe our own police, fallible though all institutions and individuals are, is as good an exemplar of policing by consent that you’re likely to find anywhere in the world. It’s plain wrong to associate them individually or corporately with the criminal who killed George Floyd and beneath contempt to attack them in the way we saw at the weekend. The Home Secretary is right - those responsible for the recent disorder in our cities must be pursued with the full rigour of the criminal justice system. I will be expressing my views strongly with our own Chief Constable and Police Commissioner later this week. 

The job of the police is to uphold the law, the only framework in a civilised society, enacted by our democratically elected institutions. I do not want to hear police officers on duty opine on political matters. Indeed, I’m not wildly enthusiastic about elected Police and Crime Commissioners, good people though most undoubtedly are. Frankly, they were not, in my personal view, one of Theresa May’s better ideas.

Which brings me to the remarks of the unfortunate senior policeman who spoke to camera to justify doing nothing as an enraged mob tore down a statue of slave trader and philanthropist Edward Colston at the weekend. I lived and worked in Bristol for 6 years and throughout was completely unaware of Colston’s effigy in the city centre. Indeed, navigating that particular traffic island, in a car, on foot and especially on a bike, isn’t conducive to sightseeing. However, I can perfectly well see why people closely associating with the victims of slavery might be surprised at the unqualified eulogising of Colston in a modern city centre.

I understand that the majority of those Bristolians polled about it fairly recently said Colston’s brooding likeness should stay. I suspect most did not have strong views though. My personal opinion would have been that, since a significant minority expressed unease about it, the plaque extolling Colston’s charitable deeds should have been joined by another explanatory plaque pointing out his extensive involvement in Bristol’s slave trade. Furthermore, there would have been a decent case for putting Colston somewhere less central, other than at the bottom of the harbour that is. A compromise acceptable to most, kind and empathic to those with genuinely held views and inclusively reflective of twenty first century sentiment should surely have been possible. As it was we had violence. We had the spectacle of Avon and Somerset Police looking on as a mob, hooded young men in the main, committed a criminal act in the heart of the region’s greatest city that could well have resulted in death or serious injury. 

Sir Thomas Moore pointed out that if you diminish the rule of law you shouldn’t be surprised when it’s not there for you. Protest by all means, but beware the mob because eventually it’ll come for you. 

On destroying monuments in general, I wonder where we go from here because I doubt the submersion of an obscure West Country merchant will be the end of it. Next on the list is presumably the much more famous but less accessible Cecil Rhodes statue at Oriel College Oxford. Then perhaps the many monuments to William Gladstone on account of the origins of much of his family’s wealth. In the US, confederate figures have long been vilified by much of the population with good reason in many cases since, let’s remember, the War of Independence meant that in the former American colonies slavery endured, particularly in the cotton fields and tobacco plantations of the south, long after the much maligned British Empire had abolished it. 

Indeed, what’s to be done with likenesses of Father of the Nation  and enthusiastically hands-on plantation owner George Washington? We indulge ourselves in a preferred version of history but from the age of eleven until his death the man whose picture hangs in the Oval Office was a slave owner, no ifs no buts, evidently no better or worse than his contemporaries whose opulent lifestyles were achieved on the backs of other human beings. Two centuries on and its difficult for any person with a heart not to feel viscerally - revulsion, indignation, anger - particularly I suspect if you’re black and if you see, however faintly through the years, a reflection of the past in society today. 

Back to London as legitimate public expression of horror at events in the States was let down by the mindlessness of the mob. Nothing was spared, not even poor old Gandhi - ‘racist’ according to the self appointed judges who daubed their opinion on his statue. Ditto Churchill, generally credited with defeating Nazism and racism of the most vicious kind.

Trying to go about my business in Parliament Square, I found myself unwittingly in the centre of this far from socially distancing rampaging, screaming mix of young adults. It wasn’t great. 

Where’s this rant leading? Well, where history and politics in its general sense collide as here,  the authorities must do their level best to balance sensitivities in a spirit of empathy, a desire for truth, inclusiveness and, above all, kindness. I believe something like that was in progress to deal with the Colston controversy before he was hauled from his perch in a criminal act that is likely to have alienated a lot of the quiet people who are indeed concerned about inequality and who are sickened about what happened recently in Minneapolis. 

27 May 2020

POSITION ON DOMINIC CUMMINGS

Thank you for contacting me about Dominic Cummings. I have received several hundred emails and messages about his conduct and am struggling to reply individually to them. I hope you will accept this as a statement of my position on the basis of what we know at the moment.

I completely empathise with the fury expressed by my constituents. The public has been incredibly disciplined throughout this crisis, many suffering grievously as a result of compliance in good faith with the rules.

From what has been reported, it looks to me like Mr Cummings broke lockdown rules on a number of counts. I have particular difficulty understanding his account of the Barnard Castle outing.

Because we are human we all make mistakes under pressure and our judgement when ill can be impaired. The difference is that those in the public eye have their errors displayed for all to see. It is also the case that Mr Cummings has over the years made many enemies. They and his political opponents are among those who have been calling for his scalp, including locally. Equally, people contacting me with no obvious axe to grind are angry that one of the main authors of the rules has apparently not observed them. It’s hardly surprising if they view that as wrong and unfair.

Mr Cummings has chosen not to step down. Whatever the truth or otherwise of his version of events, there remains the very real risk that his continued presence degrades credibility in the government and thus the fight against COVID19. That must surely be apparent to him and I hope he will be reflecting further on it. However, whatever you or I think about an individual, and I should say I know Mr Cummings only by reputation, we should be prepared to extend the same fairness that we would want for ourselves. We must avoid trial by media. Therefore, for as long as Mr Cummings protests that he acted lawfully and reasonably and insists on remaining in post, and subject to any inquiries by Durham Constabulary, I would say there is a good case for an independent analysis of the facts.

Many of those who have written to me have demanded a public statement calling for Mr Cummings’ dismissal. I have reflected carefully and my position is finely balanced. However, I have concluded that only the Prime Minister can weigh his adviser’s behaviour and the impact his conduct is having on managing the pandemic with the value of Mr Cummings’ anticipated future service to a government whose objectives I wholeheartedly support. I am not in a position to assess the need for Mr Cummings and would be uncomfortable calling for him to be dismissed without a dispassionate analysis of the evidence, facts that I am almost certainly not in full possession of.

I will continue to communicate with government at the very highest level the clearly expressed views of my constituents for which I am, as always, grateful. 

19 May 2020

If the noise from the major road near my house is anything to go by - which it probably is - life is edging back to some semblance of normality. 

I have to say I’m a little bit cautious about chasing the ‘R’ obsessively. It’s a great little number but entirely dependent on the quality of data in and complex modelling that few seem to really understand. I suspect caution is needed in its interpretation. I’m more impressed by mortality data. It’s raw but unambiguous - you’re either dead or you’re not. 

Daily reports of disease incidence are also helpful but what I’m really looking forward to is large scale community blood testing for antibodies (as opposed to the swab test for the virus) which will tell us how many people have actually been infected and thus, we believe, carry some level of immunity.  The reason that’s important is it will give a rational basis for the timing, and potentially location, of easing lockdown. It’s also important for trace, track and trace which I’m delighted to say is, eh, back on track.

I’m getting complaints about people not getting the swab test. We’re now apparently doing more swabs than practically any other European country but recent announcements have suggested the test is available on demand. That isn’t the case. The gov.uk site is helpful in saying who can be tested and why. It’s important to keep in mind that whilst a negative test can help with contacts, isolation and work, there aren’t yet any specific pills or potions that a positive test will lead you to - lots of candidates but so far none that are shown to make you better outside an ITU setting. 

Happily our area appears to be quite low prevalence. My sense is that as we go on the virus will increasingly be found in specific settings, notably care settings. That means ‘R’ won’t just vary regionally. The implication is that our public health effort must focus relentlessly on particular places and institutions whose ‘R’ will be very different from the wider community in which they sit.

I’m pleased to hear from local businesses that the Chancellor’s recently announced ‘bounce back loan’ scheme is helpful and from the council that it has distributed much of the grant money for supporting businesses it was entrusted with by the government. There are still issues around sole traders and home workers who have overheads and I’m seeing what can be done to cover some fixed costs.

The bovine stupidity around panic buying and consequent bare supermarket shelves appears to have largely resolved. Strategies to deal with things like equitable food distribution are surely being refined during this crisis. If and when we have to deal with another pandemic - likely ‘when’ in my view - that should mean things are a lot slicker from the get go.

Well done to teachers and head teachers who have been working hard to find imaginative ways of facilitating continued access to education in these challenging times. It’s a pity they have been let down by some teaching unions who have baulked at an opportunity to lead in working with government to get our kids back into school, as safely for everyone as can be achieved. Education is so very important as in practice few of us get a second chance. We have seen in other European countries a much more constructive approach. As it is it’ll likely be the more disadvantaged children who will slip further behind. Nobody should be happy with that.

PPE supply and resupply has probably been this crisis’ nadir. In due course the public will expect some heads to roll, but for now what’s important is ensuring everyone gets what they need to feel safe. My intel says the situation has been greatly improving. If you’re not getting what you need at work please do let me know ([email protected] or 01225 358584). I will phone up whoever’s in change where you’re working to ask what they need and use the tools I have to navigate the system. 

5 May 2020

Thank you for the positive messages concerning the government’s handling of this crisis I’ve been getting.  I left the government in February so can take no credit but I have passed the pleasing sentiment up the line. I continue to support the direction ministers have been taking which has seemed generally sensible to me.

It’s good to see the death rate from coronavirus declining.  Meanwhile there’s an increasing realisation that lockdown has a huge cost not only in livelihoods but in lives lost.  Whilst the cure applied is, probably, still better than the disease, it’s right that we should calculate its indirect costs, notably the projected rise in death rate from common things like cancer, heart attack and stroke together with morbidity including mental health problems. That’s quite apart from the desperate effect on business and thus the economy. 

My sense is that we need to start easing off now and getting back to some semblance of normality. That will almost certainly increase deaths from COVID19 - a second peak - but cut at the same time morbidity from other diseases and restart the economy without which decent public services will be a thing of the past.

I entirely support ministers in adhering to scientific advice. SAGE, the committee of experts, many turn out not be infallible but it is politically impartial, objective and contemporaneously expert. I worry about self appointed experts, some with a past history of political activism, weighing in encouraged by media looking for their ‘gotcha’ moment, 

It’s important to recall the maxim, advisers advise, ministers decide. Ministers have to own decisions made and ultimately they will be held accountable. They can’t, and I’m sure don’t, swallow wholesale the lines fed by experts. Their job is to challenge and probe, devilling into the detail, avoiding the groupthink that through history has led to disaster. 

In a sense the job of ministers is straightforward at the moment since there’s general consensus on what’s to be done. Indeed the new leader of the opposition has been accused today, a little unfairly, of simply repeating what ministers have already announced. I say unfairly because the media will always pile on pressure for an alternative point of view. That’s encourages opposition politicians to desperately seek new, distinctive lines. 

This biological crisis has prompted concern that governments, particularly as it happens in the U.K, rarely have people with backgrounds in life sciences. Diversity is rightly understood in terms of inherent personal characteristics. We celebrate it and have made lots of progress. But it’s been pointed out that we have a curious blind spot when it comes to the overwhelming preponderance of lawyers and politics graduates at the top table, and no scientists.

As I’ve said, I very much support the government at this most challenging time, but I confess that I was a bit surprised to hear a senior minister insist that the U.K. must exit lockdown as the U.K. Now, I’m very much a unionist but there’s no place for tub-thumping in this crisis, particularly if you’re otherwise insisting on adherence strictly to the science evidence base. As a unionist and politician, I’m all for all togetherness and, as a physician with some public health experience, it seems logical to regard Great Britain and probably the British Isles as one epidemiological unit - but you can’t assume it. Indeed, we know that prevalence of the virus isn’t constant across the country.  If, in accordance with the science, it proves expedient for a differential rate of easing based on region then so be it. Indeed, if you’re going to let politics degrade the optimal evidence-based management of this pandemic, I wish you luck in the inquiry that will surely follow!

24 April 2020

Birthday Blog

I don’t do birthdays but enforced isolation with Jenny and our daughters has meant my little anniversary today has been occasion for a nice lunch, pressies and cake.

I’m getting more and more correspondence about a lockdown exit strategy. There’s a mounting sense that we can’t keep on going like this indefinitely.  Indeed, many of us are learning or re-learning the link between a working economy and a functioning public sector.  You can’t have one without the other.  The centre left seems to understand even as the far left sniffs an opportunity to advance its political ends in our temporary command economy.

There’s no rule that says deep recession must follow a crisis like this.  Much depends on agreed action between the nation states who are in the driving seat.  I say nation states because supranational institutions - UN, EU, World Bank, WHO - haven’t exactly sparkled over the past 3 months.  The big national players financially - G7 and G20 notably - really have to sort this.  Get it right and, optimistically, we might even anticipate ‘roaring twenties’ echoing the years following the Great War and the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918/19. 

Always look on the bright side and, on a beautiful day like today, let’s resolve to make the best of the opportunities, even in the pit of our despair.

20 April 2020

I spent most of last week in bed on antibiotics. Grim. I’m so very grateful to Sir Alexander Fleming His discovery of penicillin in the 1920s was one of the great turning points in medicine. Without it I’d still be laid up ...or laid out!  We need a Fleming moment to deal with novel viruses quickly otherwise we risk lurching from lockdown to lockdown when another wretched bat coronavirus or rat arenavirus decides on a bit of a makeover and crosses into humans. I don’t want to live the rest of my life like that.

It must be abundantly clear now that these viruses are a national security risk, bigger than the Russians, Chinese or Daesh. We have to defend against their malignity with conviction and resolve. In the now delayed Integrated Security Review I’m hoping, for example, we ensure PPE, testing kits and drugs and vaccines are considered sovereign capabilities, just like we consider a credible UK defence manufacturing base a sovereign capability that we must guarantee indigenously. We can’t simply assume we can get goods like that from the international market at the flash of a government credit card. Actually, we did try, apparently, with a shedload of Chinese antibody testing kits but they turned out to be as reliable as fortune cookies. HMG is now trying to get its money back. 

Whilst I’m supportive of ministers and officials who have all been doing their best, an early lesson from this crisis is we can’t be left wanting facemasks and gowns ever again or be thrashing around for lab reagents to undertake fairly basic diagnostics.

So far the NHS appears to be standing up well and the huge and impressive Nightingale ventilator hospitals built at breakneck speed haven’t been needed. If we are at peak that implies we will at some point soon need to decide when to restart the routine and semi-routine procedures put on hold to build up COVID capacity. If we don’t we risk a bitter addendum to this epidemic in which health outcomes from diseases like cancer are significantly impacted. It is good that government is thinking deeply about this as it considers when to ease restrictions.

8 April 2020

A constituent emails to ask if I’d volunteered to return to the NHS to help with COVID-19. The answer is yes, of course. The NHS has a very good coronavirus ‘Learning for Health’ e-learning programme - ideal for home working. I’ve just downloaded my very nice WHO endorsed e-certificate in dealing with severe respiratory infections for completing the modules. 

All of us are rooting for Boris Johnson. My inbox is full of kind and generous messages from constituents. Thank you. I will certainly pass on the sentiments of South West Wiltshire to the PM.

Boris is known as great admirer of Winston Churchill but there is one part of his predecessor’s premiership that he would not have chosen to emulate - the great man’s episodes of serious ill health that took him out of action twice during the war years. We recall also Tony Blair’s brief stints in hospital for a heart complaint. The point is that the middle aged men who tend to be our national leaders are prey to illness and disease and sometimes at the most inconvenient times, as now. But we have a cabinet, not presidential, system of government. As in 1943, there are clear governance arrangements to cover off the contingency we find ourselves in now. I have every confidence in the man deputising for the PM - Dominic Raab who I worked with at the Foreign Office. Let us hope for Boris’ swift return to full health. He’s certainly getting the best possible care at St Thomas’. 

The overall coronavirus strategy has already been put in place and will be carried forward by four coronavirus cabinet committees advised by its experts. Overall most people seem very comfortable with the government’s approach. However, PPE really hasn’t been great and I’ve been corresponding with ministers on it. Testing, also criticised, is important but it’s only one element of the management of this crisis. I confess I was a bit mystified when the WHO’s DG Dr Tedros appeared to be obsessed with testing a few weeks back. Prevention - stay home, wash your hands - is more important. Community testing needs to be ramped up because it should enable people to get back to work quicker and get things going again. We’ve done better on testing than some, like France, but not as well as others, notably Germany.

I hope the Nightingale hospitals being thrown together at a rate that would even impress the Chinese will never get close to full occupancy. However, as an exercise in showing what we are capable of in a crisis they are indeed impressive.

As a warm bank holiday beckons, please stay home so we can manage the pressure on our NHS and save lives.

27 March 2020

Been working flat out on coronavirus enquiries. The trouble is this crisis and government’s response to it are moving so fast that people are being left confused and disoriented.  I can’t answer all the questions but will try to help where I can. I’ve been especially busy helping constituents to  interpret the advice and instructions given by ministers and posted online (gov.uk). Naturally grey areas remain when rules are drawn up fast. Talking through individual situations can often help to find a common sense solution especially as I’ve been in on the statements in the Commons and elsewhere in which ministers have elaborated on what they are requiring us to do.

Given that in a matter of days government has had to design a whole new welfare and economic support structure, re-engineer the NHS to cope with the COVID-19, recruit an army of volunteers and ensure that we have the means to ensure resilience meaning society does not break down if this get a lot worse, it is hardly surprising there have been a few bumps along the way. 

Fortunately, I think the confusion over work is now being dispelled. It’s a pity a distinction between ‘essential’ and, by implication, non-essential work has been allowed to cause so much uncertainty. The gov.uk website makes clear that if you’re not isolating you can work, preferably from home but if that’s not possible you should maintain social distancing in the workplace. Employers are responsible for facilitating it. Where it’s not possible they are shutting up shop, sometimes literally in the case of builders merchants for example, one of which contacted me recently prompting a reference by me in the Commons earlier in the week.

I have been contacted by tourists stranded abroad by the crisis who want government to get them home. I do feel for them. Having served at the foreign office recently I know the consular service will be doing its very best in country and in London, accepting that its diplomats too will be in various forms of lockdown, home working or sickness (we sadly lost a diplomat to coronavirus this week). The foreign secretary, who made a statement on Tuesday in the House which is available online, is trying to facilitate safe return along with his counterparts in similarly affected countries. Importantly he’s trying to unblock hub airports whose closure has meant long haul flights are currently not happening. However, it would be good if people, however frustrated, avoid the temptation to take it out on officials - and MPs’ offices. We’ve had some unpleasant emails here, sadly. Government, whose main priority right now is ensuring citizens are safe and well, at home and abroad is, along with other countries, trying to get UK citizens back.

I would be careful in interpreting the interesting Oxford study which purports to show that the virus is much more prevalent in society than we thought. The implication being, of course, that it’s less lethal than we thought since legions of subclinically infected would greatly increase the numerator in the mortality rate calculation, the denominator (the number of dead people) being accurately know, obviously. We have to proceed on the basis of the Imperial College paper from a couple of weeks ago which predicted that if the current measures were not put in place we would be facing a quarter of a million deaths and a completely overwhelmed health service. 

The good news is that in two or three weeks with the antibody test we should know which, Oxford or ICL, is closest to the mark. That will have quite dramatic implications for lifting lockdowns, flattening curves etc. Bring it on!

24 March 2020

Everything’s changed. Yesterday I took part in the second reading debate of a piece of legislation the like of which I never imagined in this country. The Coronavirus Bill is a horror that will revolt all freedom loving citizens, all who hold our hard won liberties dear and all who love our western liberal democracy and way of life - but it and the PM’s broadcast last night are necessary responses to the dire circumstances we face.

I’m amazed at the bovine stupidity of people crowding together in public places over the weekend. Please, everyone, comply with advice, which as of yesterday are instructions. Make sure you stay home, go out only when strictly necessary and stay at least two metres from those not in your household. Read the coronavirus advice on the gov.uk website. Wiltshire Council’s page www.wiltshire.gov.uk/public-health-coronavirus is useful too.

I have been in demand by the national media who want a medic MP to opine on the current situation. There are a number of doctors in the House but I think I’m the only one with a qualification in public health so people think I might have a special insight into what’s going on. The trouble is this is a novel coronavirus which means we’re learning about its behaviour and epidemiology all the time. That makes predictions very difficult and strategy for dealing with it even more so.

My mailbag has exploded as constituents contact me worried about coronavirus and the consequences of the public health measures the government has had to take. I hope many of the concerns have been addressed by last week’s extraordinary money pledges by the Chancellor. There is though still work to be done to protect the self employed and I expect further measures shortly.

I am socially distancing like mad. However, it is right that MPs should be present in the Commons at a time of crisis like this. I take my duties to represent my constituents here and hold the government to account very seriously. On Monday I took part in the Coronavirus Bill debate asking about the support of returning healthcare workers, urging what has become known as lockdown and raising the delayed appearance of personal protective equipment in care settings. The latter followed concerns raised by the Leader of Wiltshire Council and discussion with my Wiltshire MP colleagues and was followed by a conversation with the council leader, officials at county hall and the national coordinating PPE helpline. I will work on this some more today. This virus is already in our care settings. It’s vital we protect key workers at the care frontline as it extends its grip.

On PPE my understanding is the NHS is being prioritised but that sufficient masks etc are available too for care settings. The issue apparently is getting them to the right places. There are also, I understand, fears that we will get through stocks quickly although with China, the major producer, now coming out of lockdown supply should constraints should ease. I am told that we are better placed than many countries because we had already been stockpiling against the possibility of a serious seasonal flu epidemic and, of course, Brexit. For the future we need to ensure that we can generate more stuff at home and be less reliant on imports. This is particularly true of vaccines. The U.K. leads the world in vaccine research and development yet we have very little manufacturing capacity. One of the lessons of this outbreak is that we have to be able to make vaccine here in sufficient quantities for healthcare workers and at risk groups. When a vaccine or the drugs to treat COVID-19 emerge, I want the UK to be at the front, not back, of the line. I raised this point in the House last week.

I’m still a Navy Reservist so liable to be called up. Last time was under very different circumstances - the 2003 Iraq war. I’ve contacted my Navy bosses to say I’m available immediately, conscious that my medical skills, such as they are, could be useful. I suspect Parliament won’t be returning immediately after the Easter recess so I’ve no doubt MPs will be volunteering to help wherever they can.

We will get through this. But I suspect there will be several months of restrictions, perhaps eased a bit in some parts of the country from time to time. Drugs to treat COVID-19 will emerge, either repurposed ones or new retrovirals. We will be able to test people for antibodies to the virus meaning key workers then people more generally will be able to move about more. Finally, we will have a vaccine. 

Meanwhile, mud slinging has begun in earnest. Who’s to blame? Why weren’t actions taken sooner? Where’s the personal protective equipment? Leading the change, need you ask, the good old BBC. Oh yes, the Corporation’s curled upper lip brigade is on the march again. Evidently this now extends to its little platoons, local radio. 

Now, there will come a time when we have to examine, formally and deliberatively, decisions made and actions taken, or not taken. Now is not that time. But that didn’t stop BBC Radio Wiltshire, for goodness sake, grandstanding this morning with me trying to get public health messages across around staying at home, protecting the NHS and saving lives. Off the glib tongue of our young BBC sage tripped the same old stuff; who’s to blame for a crisis apparently due to ‘vast NHS cuts,’ too little too late and failure to provide equipment. Well, BBC Radio Wiltshire - with its existentially low listener figures - needs to decide whether its in the business of peddling tabloid cynicism about those doing their level best in a crisis or help mitigate the effects of an impending public health catastrophe that will carry off a significant number of our elderly neighbours. I phoned the editor to draw stumps - after 20 years of appearing on BBC Radio Wiltshire he won’t be getting me on his station again. I’ve advised my MP colleagues to give him the cold shoulder too. There are other ways of getting our messages across these days, better ways of engaging with the public. 

As we progress through this particular emergency we need to be conscious that another will likely, at some point, follow. The pity is that the lessons of the SARS epidemic in 2003 and subsequent outbreaks were not absorbed fully by the global community. These bugs are global security threats that far exceed other forms, for example terrorism. Next time we may be faced with an even more infectious, more deadly pathogen. Our defences must start to be built now. 

Wiltshire Council and the Local Resilience Forum are working hard in the community. They, with town and parish councils, are coordinating effort to ensure people are looked after as best they can. What can we do as individuals? Well, good neighbours have never been more important. Please phone or text people you know who may be isolating or isolated. Sometimes a simple call can make all the difference.

Above all my friends, PLEASE stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives.

God bless.

12 March 2020

Keep calm and carry on

It is all about coronavirus.

As I write, governments are having to close things down in a way that is unprecedented outside wartime. Even in our own stiff upper lip capital city public transport seems strangely quiet.

It’ll get worse here folks, but I’m guessing the disruption will be relatively short term – maybe weeks not months - but I can’t be sure. All we can do is keep calm and carry on. We will get through this and our ability to deal with future, possibly even nastier, epidemics will emerge stronger than before.

It was the Coronavirus Budget with £30BN (for starters) signed off for dealing with the consequences of COVID19. As I write we’re about to enter the second, so-called Delay, phase of what is now officially a pandemic.

Have we left it too late? Time will tell but I don’t think so. If we close things down too soon, people’s tolerance to the restrictions will wear off. We’re not China - our western liberal democracies are poorly suited to the kind of authoritarian measures Beijing is able to take. And once the boot slips from the carotid of this disease it’ll likely whip back and bite, hard. Hence the strategy being pursued, on advice, by ministers. I agree with it.

In my view, so far, the government has been very surefooted with Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty impressing particularly. Admittedly its early days but a balanced, measured, evidence-based approach to coronavirus, getting Brexit done and now a well-received budget has propelled the governing party to new highs in the opinion polls. It’s good that the public has confidence in the administration at this time but equally the Speaker is right to insist on the importance of keeping Parliament open so ministers can be held to account.

As my constituents would expect, I’ve been speaking quite a lot about coronavirus in the Commons and in the national media. In my last days a foreign office minister I attended one of the very first COBRA coronavirus meetings. I think I’m right in saying I’m the only MP with a postgrad qualification in public health and will certainly be rolling up my sleeves if and when we move into the Mitigate phase with its need for extra medical staff on the frontline. Meantime, I’m washing my hands with a ferocity I haven’t known since working in operating theatres!

It’s too early to play the blame game. However, although China’s speed in dealing with its crisis, once acknowledged, has been truly remarkable, it was slow to come clean with the global community. Had it been more up front we would all have had more time to prepare.

We now have to live with the consequences.

China is seeking to insert itself across the world dominating, for example, trade and infrastructure in swathes of Africa. Well, this crisis and the way Beijing has conducted itself has dented credentials it may have been nurturing as an open, cooperative and trustworthy global citizen. Though not directly relevant, the atmospherics are likely to impact on the way we view things like Huawei and 5G, a very live debate.

We can’t just rely on vigorous hand washing and appropriate social distancing to deal with coronavirus. Looking to the past for clues to how this pandemic will unfold we have to move at pace to find a vaccine or vaccines and supportive pharmaceuticals, mainly repurposed existing drugs. That will mean we can whack this bug on the head more definitively later in the year or early next. In 1918/19 it was the second phase of Spanish flu that did the damage. A hundred years later we need to be ready for something similar. However, there’s a limit to how much we can short-circuit clinical trials and expedite the licensing process. That’s because mortality from COVID19 is relatively low meaning appetite for serious side effects is far less than in, for example, Ebola.

In the UK we’re great at research but our ability to make vaccine is quite poor. So, it’s all very well pumping money into research but if factories in other countries then make the vaccines we can be sure those countries will appropriate early batches for their own publics. The UK government would be punished if it had not ensured we had vaccine when it becomes available, at least to protect key workers and the most vulnerable. For this outbreak and any future, possibly worse epidemics, we must grow our own means of production. Without that there is a clear national security risk. If I had a criticism of government, it would be that it isn’t appearing to approach indigenous manufacture with sufficient alacrity. I’ll continue to argue the importance of growing it at pace.

Rishi Sunak’s first budget has propelled him to undisputed wunderkind status.  I confess to being agnostic on HS2 but am generally in favour of big infrastructure projects – true investments that can be legitimately borne on the public balance sheet. That’s part of Boris’ appeal. I’m definitely pleased with the intent signalled on Wednesday to get on with the dualling of the A303 which will please my constituents – though after so many years they’ll reserve judgement until the first sod is actually cut.

The new Chancellor did rather (and quite adroitly) skate over social care. Evidently it’s still firmly in the all too difficult box and the spending splurge on Wednesday means there will be even less cash to ease in a fairer mechanism for delivering adult social care. However, he’ll have to come up with something more concrete next time he presents his budget.

Lots of good green commitments in the budget. I note the extra cash for improving air quality and local road schemes. I look forward to Westbury in particular benefitting and will be exploring with stakeholders how we can exploit lines in the budget for improving the local environment. This means a western bypass taking traffic out of the middle of Westbury and routing it through the business district on that side of town.

28 February 2020

I’m conscious I haven’t posted much recently. Been a bit busy - rather a lot has happened! I’m now back on the backbench which is fine as I always said my first duty was to my constituents.

We’ve left the EU. That was the clear instruction of the voters in December and it’s done. To the distress, I’m guessing, of those who are still not reconciled with Brexit, the sky hasn’t fallen in and there’s been no plague of frogs and locusts. In fact the economy continues to outperform continental Europe, there’s a record number of full time jobs and real wages are rising. 

But no complacency. An EU bureaucracy spurned will not bust a gut to be helpful in crafting a follow-on free trade agreement. Those who say it’s obviously in the EU’s commercial interests to do a deal miss the point. Brussels is all about advancing Brussels, that is to say the edifice of the EU, not the daily lived experience of Europeans. If the U.K. is seen to thrive, other member states with serious doubts about the outfit may be emboldened. And that would never do.

So, expect a fairly peppery few months as we work through the Implementation Period.

In other news, I’ve been talking quite a lot in the Commons and elsewhere about coronavirus. I think I’m the only MP with a postgrad qualification in public health but as this is a novel virus that hardly helps. I’ve been following this nasty little bug closely both when I was a foreign office minister and since. It seems to me that it has the potential to cause very serious mischief, both in terms of mortality and morbidity worldwide and economically. However, building on experience of SARS, MERS and swine flu, our NHS and public health systems are relatively well equipped to cope. We can be less sure about countries with poorly developed healthcare systems and where extreme poverty means people are more susceptible. 

I’m mystified by talk of promoting another Melksham bypass before dealing with Westbury. Let’s be clear, Westbury has a big air pollution problem, Melksham doesn’t. Anyone can see the traffic problem in Westbury is acute. It really isn’t of anything like the same order in Melksham. Onto it.

Looking forward to the upcoming budget and arguing for our fair share of infrastructure funding locally. Have been in touch with ministerial colleagues and others about roads - A303, A36 and, obvs, A350 through Westbury - and local SEND provision particularly. 

21 October 2019

‘Super’ Saturday

What an utter waste of time and £58.20 of taxpayers’ money for a standard return ticket to London. 

In my view, Prime Minister Johnson made a truly outstanding opening speech - gracious, generous, compelling. Please look it up, and of course the Leader of the Opposition’s, by googling Hansard.

In sharp and grating contrast, our miserable, disingenuous, conniving parliament once again ratted on its duty to represent the long suffering public it purports to serve. This has been the problem throughout - a Remain parliament pretending to execute the instructions of a country that voted Leave. 

The solution isn’t another referendum - look at the contempt Parliament showed for the first one and for the ‘wrong’ result it delivered. No, the answer is a general election. All those MPs in Leave voting seats who once again today trooped through the Remain lobby will then have the opportunity to explain themselves on the doorstep. Good luck with that. Those who are standing down in any event and thus free agents will have plenty of time to reflect on their legacy - this horrible divisive business going on and on sucking all the oxygen out of politics and public affairs.

If you’re still tempted by the prospect of another 6 months of this, and probably worse, whilst we have a second referendum take a look at the aggression of the Remain mob on Saturday. I’ve had to put up with being bawled and hollered at on my way into the Commons and into government buildings along Whitehall for many months now but we’ve reached a sorry pass when MPs walking home have to be protected by a phalanx of police officers.

Interestingly the strongly pro Brexit DUP has decided to oppose the deal. I’m a former NI minister and until I returned to the front bench in May I had the honour and privilege of chairing the NI select committee. I remain a keen observer of NI matters and have a deep and abiding affection for the people of that fair corner of the British Isles. What I would say to my good unionist friends is this. Demographic change means there may well come a time when, in accordance with the Good Friday Agreement, there will be a case for a border poll to determine if NI leaves the UK and joins the Irish Republic, or not. Being NI, opinion will likely split down sectarian lines but superimposed on this will be the perception that life for people and families is better or worse on one side of the border or the other. In other words on how NI is doing economically and socially compared with the Republic, and by extension the EU. Until fairly recently this was something of a no brainer. However, an unexpected increase in social liberality and economic advance has made the Republic a more enticing proposition. 

Boris’ deal appears to offer NI the best of both worlds. In my view the key to keeping NI in the UK isn’t the absence of a few more checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea but increased economic prosperity for people living there. Boris’ deal makes this more likely.

The so-called Letwin amendment today was, in my judgement, simply an attempt to delay the deal Remain MPs thought Boris would never get in order to generate more opportunity for overturning Brexit altogether. 

Of course the Opposition is rubbing its hands. In an attempt to construct a narrative beyond opportunism, Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition seems to be arguing that the Boris deal threatens human and animal rights and environment standards. We hear from its leaders that the deal is a ‘Trump Brexit’ aimed, apparently, at privatising the NHS. The logic, so far as I can see any, is that the UK needs the EU as protection from trashing its own standards, rules, regulations and institutions. But any government would and could tinker with these things only if it had a mandate. It seems a tad unlikely that the people of this country would vote to deny themselves rights, destroy the environment and sell off the NHS at a general election. We’re also at risk of overlooking the fact that it has often been the UK driving up EU standards, often in the teeth of opposition from other member states. Indeed, if we are to be concerned about falling standards after Brexit, we might worry, as well-meaning neighbours, for the EU rather than the UK since, given our record, it’s standards in the EU going forward, not the UK, that look to be at risk.

I can’t accurately predict where all this is going but I do expect more shenanigans next week. Although I have every confidence in the PM who did a fantastic job getting a better deal from Brussels, my expectations of this thoroughly rotten parliament are very low. 

It’s time we saw the back of it. We need a general election. 

Pronto.

27 September 2019

So, Parliament resumed this week to no good effect. Just more of the same. Expecting more of it next week.

On the Supreme Court ruling, we should reflect on the new law that has just been created and the impact it has on our constitutional arrangements. I accept the ruling, as I’m bound to do, but I don’t agree with the SC and neither evidently does the Master of the Rolls, Lord Chief Justice, the Law Officers or the judges of the lower court. On that basis the PM was entitled to believe it was perfectly in order to prorogue parliament after the longest session in living memory and, as is customary, before a Queen’s Speech setting out a new programme for government. 

It has been lost on many that we were due to be in recess in any event for much of the prorogation because of the traditional conference season. Labour and Lib Dem’s had theirs earlier this month then yesterday in an act of pure spite voted to spike the Conservative event in Manchester. 

So much for a new kinder politics.

As the Attorney General has said, it looks like the unexpected SC ruling has set us on a path to a more politicised judiciary involving, ultimately, US style confirmatory hearings in Parliament in the interest of full transparency. Indeed, it would be naive to expect the status quo to endure after such an important shift in our arrangements.

On language, I would always encourage temperance. However, I was appalled by the confected outrage at the PM’s oratory on Wednesday. The poor man had just got off the red eye from New York, where we had both been flying the flag for the U.K. at the United Nations General Assembly, to be faced with contorted, spittle-flecked vitriol from Her Majesty’s charming Opposition. If you doubt it rerun the footage available online. 

I’m bemused, but not for the first time, by the Bishops of the Established Church who have all chimed in on this language bandwagon. Apparently they consider references made by Boris to things like the ‘Surrender Bill’ offensive and likely to encourage violence. But I haven’t heard a squeak from them when opposition politicians talk routinely about lynching or decapitating Mr Johnson. 

The fact is that the Bill in question does surrender an important card in any negotiation - the ability to walk away. Who would unilaterally do that? Only those who want to frustrate Brexit but are unwilling to say so in plain terms for fear of upsetting their voters. Most, but not all, of them are the very same people who refuse to back a General Election. Their cunning ruse is to pile on the agony, dragging it out, in the hope that it will increase the chances of the government being associated with chaos and ultimately being defeated. 

In my opinion, the prospect of an avowed Marxist and Maoist as PM and Chancellor is a thousand times worse than anything on the Brexit spectrum for both the U.K. and its neighbours.

I just hope that at the EU Summit on 17 October our European partners come to their senses and offer something that stands a chance of peeling off sufficient moderates in the Commons from the entrenched extremes, party political perceived interests and the ranks of the dispossessed and disaffected to get this done. Otherwise this will continue to be a running sore indefinitely, sapping political energy, trashing the UK’s reputation and leaching business confidence.

I want to leave with a deal that delivers on the referendum and allows the U.K. to flourish as cordial and a cooperative neighbour with EU member states and with countries across the world. I want a deal that enables the U.K. to be a sovereign state again and not sucked into ‘ever closer union’ and a Guy Verhofstadt style European federation that is now generally accepted as being where the EU is heading. 

So does Boris. 

We find ourselves in a Remain dominated parliament with a Remain Speaker and metropolitan institutions that are sympathetic to Remain. But there’s a fly in their ointment - the public. They are the masters, not us, they have spoken and they expect the establishment to bend to their will. 

I will continue to do all in my power to ensure it does. 

13 September 2019

I’ve been doing quite a lot of traveling over the summer and conference recesses in my capacity as a Foreign Office minister. There’s a lot of interest overseas in Brexit and I’m forever being asked what’s going on. 

Right now I’m in Geneva, a very European but distinctively non E.U. country. It looks pretty good to me.

I’d say that some of the language around the deal, or a deal, coming from key capitals is beginning to sound a bit more positive. 

We have also seen the emergence of a cross party group of MPs who appear to be suggesting that they may now support a deal that looks a bit like the one they voted against three times when Mrs May introduced it. Had they done so then we would now be out of the E.U. and getting on with our new relationships, with European countries and others.  I’m looking forward to seeing a better deal with the more problematic bits deleted or dialed down, especially on the Northern Ireland so-called backstop. Hopefully enough MPs will see sense and back it so we can all move on.

There should be a path back for the 21 so-called rebels who have had the whip withdrawn and are thus technically no longer Tory MPs - but they have to recognize the will of the people expressed at the referendum and stop blocking Brexit. They must surely recognize the greater danger which, in my view, is the Leader of the Opposition in Downing Street. 

What approaches hysteria about the potential impact of no deal on their part and their inability to accept that a negotiator never removes the threat of walking away (even if he doesn’t intend to) are playing into the hands of people they have spent their political lives trying to deny the keys of Number Ten. 

4 September 2019

The stated purpose of the Bill passed through the Commons today is stop the UK leaving the EU without a deal on 31 Oct 19. It’s actual purpose is to stop the UK leaving at all. The reason for the subterfuge is that MPs don’t want to be seen to negate the majority view of the public expressed at the referendum, especially those representing heavily Leave seats.

Meanwhile Mr Corbyn baulked at the offer by Boris Johnson to go head to head at a general election, thus becoming the first Leader of the Opposition to turn down a punt at becoming PM. Clearly he doesn’t fancy his chances of winning right now. What he wants of course is for Brexit to fail, for the government to be blamed and for him then to hoover up the votes.

In my view Boris was right to take the whip from MPs who were not prepared to back him on this central issue of the day. We have to get Brexit done. It would be nigh on impossible and certainly undesirable to have candidates at the upcoming election who could not back a manifesto that will have Brexit as its centrepiece. I’m sorry if that seems harsh but that’s politics for you.

So, tonight the prospect of no deal has effectively been removed; assuming the Lords don’t block the Bill we’ve just passed. Indeed the Bill passed tonight effectively gives the EU the say on the length of any extension. It’s no exaggeration to say it’s a bill of surrender. It means a Brussels that can’t believe it’s luck will be heaving a sigh of relief. It’s most unlikely now to budge on terms for a withdrawal agreement. If it doesn’t we’re stuck.

Eventually a means to have a general election will, I suspect, be found. Sadly, right now I cannot see any other way of resolving this. Bring it on. 

3 September 2019

I’ve just got back from a week in the Gulf region talking to my ministerial oppos and others, mainly about the crisis in Yemen. Meanwhile back home rather a lot has been going in British politics.

The current session of parliament is one of the longest on record. Arguably prorogation and a refreshed government plan articulated in the normal way in a Queen’s Speech is way overdue. That’s particularly the case given the change of government. 

Nothing that has been done is unconstitutional or contrary to normal parliamentary procedure. Those who are trying to frustrate Brexit are predictably claiming that it’s a scandalous abuse, that it’s antidemocratic, a ruse to ensure the UK leaves the EU on 31 Oct despite their best efforts. That’s a bit rich given that by their own admission they’ve been using every trick in the book to reverse the decision made by the people in June 2016. These folks are intent on continuing to act in this way and the Speaker has indicated that he will help, an odd take on impartiality you may think.

So we will now have the long delayed Queens Speech in which I look forward to a slate of new policies on all the issues that affect my constituents’ lives - health, education, law and order and so on. As far as I can see this will also leave plenty of time before 31 October to debate Brexit. Beyond all the huff and puff and theatrical outrage of those unreconciled to Brexit is the truth - by my calculation the prorogation announced this week shaves off just 6 days of debating opportunity.

I sincerely hope the EU will now offer a deal that can get through the Commons. That’s in all of our interests . However, it has to know that if it refuses the UK will leave on WTO terms on 31 October. 

Boris has always had my support. He has it now.

19 August 2019

On Friday I ran a bumper advice surgery. A wide range of problems and issues were raised. 

I’m also tackling a number of local infrastructure issues. High on the list is the ongoing congestion through Westbury made worse just recently by road works. I’m not best pleased by news that the council is prioritising another A350 bypass for Melksham but not Westbury. I have lobbied for a Westbury western route bypass for a very long time, noting that the air quality is now so bad in the centre of town that it has been designated an Air Quality Management Area. I’ve written to the council to find out what’s going on and am perfectly happy to take the matter up with transport ministers who will have the final say.

On the proposed (and wholly unnecessary - see previous blogs) Westbury incinerator, the focus now shifts to the Environment Agency. I’ve contacted it to insist on rigorous controls if the wretched thing goes ahead that will remove very small particulates under the precautionary principle. Incidentally, if the horrible monstrosity sees the light of day it will put further pressure on the A350 making a western bypass for Westbury even more necessary, a point I’ve made in my letter to the council. 

Ah, now here’s a thought - maybe, since Melksham is evidently being put up for a bypass and Westbury is not, maybe Melksham might like the incinerator too? It is, after all, much easier to get to from the motorway network that will be carting in much of the waste. The point is that when I knock people’s doors in Westbury I find the abiding sense that the town is forever being dumped on - unwanted incinerators, hospital closure, no bypass and so on. Delighted for Melksham, but its a stretch to imagine that its needs are greater than Westbury’s. 

Uncertainty remains over Special Educational Needs plans for Wiltshire, in particular the future of Larkrise school Trowbridge. Readers may recall my debate in the Commons on the issue in March and welcome signs that the council was listening to the strongly held views on the matter locally. My own view remains that the council is right to be spending serious money in upgrading provision but that  children with special needs deserve, as an absolute minimum, primary school education as near as can be achieved to their homes just like everyone else - that means keeping Larkrise. Let’s at least bank that proposition and we can then have a discussion about where to place post 11 and a new sixth form.

On Saturday I went to the Imber open day. I’ve been involved with the deserted village on and off over the years and particularly when we were persuading the fantastic Churches Conservation Trust to take on the only remaining building in one piece which is St Giles. 

16 August 2019

One of the joys of the summer as a newly reappointed minister has been to attend those cabinet committees that have been tasked with making key decisions around Brexit and they have been coming thick and fast.

Before entering the committee bear pit, you’d better mug up on the piece of the jigsaw in hand. The process is facilitated by voluminous briefing notes from the very clever civil servants who populate Whitehall. 

The change of government has infused the corridors of power with energy and urgency on Brexit. The source is Boris himself, charging up government like a political Sizewell B. Nobody should doubt his resolve to deliver Brexit in accordance with the outcome of the referendum. I feel deeply privileged to be in the supporting cast.

No deal planning is paradoxically part of the planning for a deal since only if you’re demonstrably intent on leaving with or without a deal by a particular deadline will the other party seriously engage. Most people with any kind of negotiating experience will readily understand that.

Given the time elapsed since our original Article 50 departure date in March, we are in much better shape to leave without a deal. It’s important to understand that if we did so it wouldn’t be long before we reached a deal with the EU in any event. After all, why on earth would Brussels not want a deal with such a major trading partner and one to which it sells much more than it buys?

As the UK economy outpaces it’s major EU competitors, it appears that business is taking a frosty view of the apocalyptical forecasts of those who want to ignore the referendum and, using all sorts of cunning ruses and subterfuges, seek a path that they believe will lead to a reversal of Article 50 and the UK returning like a lamb to the EU fold. But what if they get their way? What then?

Well, I doubt we would have widespread civil unrest or blood on the streets although there would be ugly scenes. However, we could expect further coarsening and division in our politics with , I suspect, the rise of unpleasant populism, nativism and nationalism. All the toxic ingredients to break up the UK, an outcome that I think is much more likely if we don’t deliver Brexit than if we do.

Far better to deliver Brexit and move on. The sky really won’t fall in. That job done, we can then get cracking on our new, better relationship with EU member states and with the rest of the world.

15 July 2019

There isn’t much to report on the Brexit front as we wait for a new PM. I hope the new man will energize the process and persuade Brussels that it’s possible to tweak the backstop (maybe even using my eponymous amendment on a time limit which the Speaker frustrated) in a way that’ll enable the Withdrawal Agreement to pass through the Commons.

That’s the best option since WTO or ‘no deal’ Brexit, the default position, will usher in a ‘Nike Tick’ with an avoidable short term downturn. Any sane person would want to avoid the Nike down tick bit.

Looks like Mr Corbyn has been doing his electoral maths and decided that his party’s interests are now best served by backing a Remain position, sort of. Maybe he’s right on his own short term interest but, in my view, it’s the wrong decision in the national interest.

If we had another referendum and if the result was about the same we’d be no further on. If it went the other way the issue is hardly likely to be resolved and this whole grisly saga would just go on and on and on.

For goodness sake let’s end this, recognize there are risks and opportunities in anything we do and make the best of Brexit. For hard-over extremists in this debate, Remainers or Leavers, I would say prepare to be disappointed. For the rest of us, pragmatists who recognize the democratic outcome of the referendum, let’s hope for a Withdrawal Agreement that will, finally, get through the Commons and the ability then to get on with issues that improve life in the UK. 

24 June 2019

Thursday's Vote

Nobody should be surprised by the names on the shortlist of two for my party’s ballot of members that will result a month from now in a new leader and therefore Prime Minister (since, given the numbers in the Commons, only the leader of my party can form a government). Boris and Jeremy Hunt are both excellent people. Both have committed to Brexit. I’m hoping we will have a month of serious discussion about policy that will enliven and invigorate the current party of government.

I’m proud of what’s been achieved since 2010. The various economic, wage and employment stats I believe speak for themselves. However, it’s difficult for the incumbent to present itself as bright and fresh after nearly a decade at the helm. Maybe this is the opportunity it needs to seize the torch as the driver of change.

I am a serial Boris supporter - supported him in his aborted campaign of 2016 and voted for him in every ballot this year. Because he’s the frontrunner, the left-leaning press has tried to paint him as something he is not. They have, and will continue to, big up mistakes and indiscretions he has made in his career in order to discredit him and remove the candidate best equipped to win against its alternative, Mr Corbyn. That’s politics - to be taken with a wheelbarrow of salt.

The thing about Boris is he reaches places other politicians just don’t. You’re drawn to him like a moth to a lightbulb. He has that wonderful, priceless ability to connect with people. He does human.

I feel sure Boris will use the next four weeks to burnish his credentials as a socially liberal politician of the centre ground, which is where most people are. Widely acknowledged at home and abroad as the two term Mayor of London who really got things done and raised our great capital city’s standing on the international stage, his moment is now.

I’ll be cheering him on, all the way to Downing Street.

17 June 2019

BREXIT AND WHY I’M BACKING BORIS

Some people say that whoever is elected to replace Theresa May nothing will change on the Brexit front because the numbers in the Commons will remain the same. They have a point. But, much as I admire Theresa May, new leadership brings fresh impetus and the chance to reboot a process that has run up against the buffers. 

I hope Brussels will quickly understand that we either leave without a deal on barebones WTO terms - which is far from ideal on either side of the channel - or we depart with a version of the Withdrawal Agreement tweaked to deal with the deeply problematic, potentially forever, so-called Northern Ireland backstop.

Up for a challenge, a veritable constellation of truly excellent candidates have put themselves forward for the top job. It is worth pausing to compare and contrast with their equivalents on the Opposition front bench - a mixture of Maoists, Marxists, people who can’t add up and breakers of bread with any crackpot regime opposed to the western values and way of life we and our allies hold dear. People who are perfectly content to laud Venezuela, parlay with the IRA, Hezbollah and Hamas and get togged up for a white tie dinner with President Xi but choose to snub the President of the United States of America.

In my view this country right now needs a ‘big beast’ in Downing Street, a plain-speaking big personality who does human and has a proven track record in running things, a capital city for example. I want someone who has appeal way beyond my party’s traditional demographic since I want to win the next election, and win with a good working majority. I want a mainstream, One Nation, social liberal who may not necessarily be a details person but is savvy enough to assemble people around him who are. Above all, at this time, my choice has to be someone committed to Brexit, someone who believes in it, someone who will not tolerate officials approaching it as an exercise in damage limitation. 

Ladies and Gentlemen that person is Boris Johnson.

24 May 2019

The EU has sunk yet another Prime Minister. In my view Theresa May has done her level best to carry out the wishes expressed at the referendum. She has been let down by hard-over purists in her own party who have now potentially lost us Brexit altogether and those Remainers across the House who have piously been saying that they will honour the referendum whilst doing all they can to subvert it.

People are right to be angry. I am angry. When the EU proxy referendum results come out on Sunday we can expect Mr Farage’s protest party to do very well indeed.

We will not now see the EU Withdrawal Bill. That means we can’t withdraw. We won’t leave without a deal as the Commons has ruled it out and the EU in October will be perfectly happy to extend once again since that’s in their best interest. Parliament on past form will ensure an extension.

Whoever wins the contest to come will still have the same arithmetic to deal with as Mrs May. It’s a classic poisoned chalice.

I will back the candidate who comes up with the most credible roadmap for honouring the democratically expressed instruction of June 2016 and offers a prospectus that has a fighting chance of giving most people most of what they want.

20 May 2019

Bring on the WAB

Well, there’s a surprise. The cross party Brexit talks have now broken down. Read Jeremy Corbyn’s letter to Theresa May and his reasons and draw your own conclusions. In my view, Mr Corbyn never intended to come to an agreement. His aim, in my view, has always been to maximise disruption because he’s working towards just one thing - a general election that he would hope to win. Classic opposition stuff, jockeying for partisan advantage, which should surprise nobody. 

Where does that leave us? It seems that early next month the Withdrawal Agreement Bill  (WAB) will be introduced in the Commons. This, if passed, would enable to UK to leave before the end of the extension period granted by the EU which expires at the end of October. We would then continue negotiating with the EU on future arrangements in accordance with the Political Declaration in time for the end of the Implementation Period at Christmas next year.

If the WAB isn’t agreed we are in unknown territory although ‘no deal’ Brexit in October seems highly unlikely as the Commons will block it. A vote against the WAB is a vote to block Brexit and for sticking two fingers up at the choice made democratically by the people in June 2016. This last should worry you even if you want to remain in the EU.

The Commons has already voted against a second referendum, and for good reason. There are those who hope and believe a second-go referendum would be won at the second time of asking by Remain. If so, it would be a Pyrrhic victory as I think this week’s EU elections will show. You see, people don’t like being taken for fools. They voted in June 2016 in good faith, expecting that government would do what it was darned well told. It will not appreciate being asked to think again. And the anger of those who voted Leave will know no bounds. They will not meekly slips away. No, this whole business will go on and on and on. 

Nobody should be slating the Withdrawal Agreement without having read it. Now, its 585 pages aren’t exactly a gripping read but you get a sense of something that will work and give most people most of what they want. It will get us formally out of the EU and into the next phase in which we determine our future relationship with, for now at least, our biggest collective trading partner. It would settle us down, draw the poison of this horrible, divisive Brexit process, kill off the uncertainty that has been bedevilling business and result in an immediate uptick in our already robust economic fortunes. 

Sadly, Mr Corbyn (see his letter) has chosen to reduce Brexit to a debate about chlorinated chicken, a proxy for a visceral loathing of the US. Good grief. Surely it’s time for grown ups on all wings of the Brexit debate and MPs of all parties who have the national interest at heart to stop playing up, support the WAB and get this done.

12 April 2019

Last word for a bit?

This week I was meant to be in North Africa drumming up trade for UK businesses in my role as one of the PM’s trade envoys. Instead we were doing Brexit.

We now have an extension of Article 50 until 31 October-ish. In reality that could be flexed even more with a de facto limit in March next year I suspect when the EU Multiannual Financial Framework from 2021 gets signed off. In Brussels, money talks.

I have supported the Prime Minister in her Withdrawal Agreement because since the government lost its majority in the disasterous general election of 2017 I’ve seen Brexit running away from us faster than Darius from Alexander.  That’s why I’ve trooped through the lobbies to vote for extensions, the last time in order to give the government space to talk with Labour. Now, I suspect that’s a forlorn quest but, especially at this time of the year, hope springs eternal. Let’s give it a chance.

Mr Corbyn believes he would persuade the EU to give him a Customs Union in which the UK is a co-equal decision maker. Good luck with that. All I’d say is I gave up believing in fairies at the end of the garden when I was about 4. However, as I put to the PM during her statement on Thursday, since the government, the Irish PM, Michel Barnier and Angela Merkel have all said there will be no hard border in Ireland even in the event of no deal we can safely can the Northern Ireland potentially forever backstop in the draft Withdrawal Agreement that’s so upsetting the DUP and Brexiteers on my side, including me. 

In return for the backstop we should work on mitigating an up-front customs union since Mr Corbyn has made it plain that Labour’s custom union (details to be supplied) is the condition of his corporation. Without that I fear Brexit will never happen thanks to twenty or so unreconcilable zealots on the Remain and Leave wings of my party. Personally I have no difficulty reaching out for support wherever it can be found to get a workable deal across the line. 

Crucially, any deal involving an explicit customs union has to have an exit mechanism. Two reasons for that. Firstly, economic conditions may change. On current forecasts the value of our trade with the EU will decline over the next few years as that with developing and middle income countries outside Europe increases. We need to be able to unshackle the world’s fifth largest economy from a declining  Eurozone as and when its necessary or expedient to do so. Secondly, a customs union of the sort Turkey, for example, has with the EU means trade deals Brussels does with non EU countries give the EU, but not automatically Turkey, access to their markets, whilst Turkey is obliged to open its doors to goods from those countries. We would be exposed potentially to all sorts of hideous goods dumping and would be powerless other than by threatening to pull out of the customs union we had signed up to. That ability to withdraw would keep the EU honest because, as they say in Brussels, if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.

10 April 2019

I’m not sure exactly what the Prime Minister will secure in Brussels but I’m guessing it will be a long extension with some sort of early termination clause. I’ve done everything I can to be supportive of the government (or more precisely Downing Street since some ministers haven’t been loyal at all) up to tonight when I reached my limit, voting for an extension of Article 50 to 30 June on the offchance that the current talks with Jeremy Corbyn come to anything. Of course its likely he’s just stringing the PM along. Should we be surprised? No, of course not. After all, Oppositions oppose and Mr Corbyn is on a mission.

If we go beyond 30 June we are basically kicking Brexit into the long grass as there will be nothing more to be debated in Parliament and no realistic prospect of progress. So I will oppose any further extension, even if offered by the EU, beyond 30 June. 

The bind we’ve got ourselves into is that we can’t leave without a deal, on WTO terms, as a Remain dominated Parliament and the Speaker will block it. So we are left with revoking Brexit, something that  I will rigorously oppose. It will then be for Labour MPs in Leave voting constituencies to explain why they blocked Brexit. Good luck with that.

I think the time has come to smoke out those who have been saying they want to honour the referendum but in fact have been beavering away to frustrate it. I’d have a vote using the single transferable system. The options before MPs would be; 

1. The deal agreed with the EU with any customs union changes that can be agreed with Labour

2. Revoke Article 50 - ie Remain, contrary to the referendum 

3. Leave with no deal

I think the first option would win. We would then ratify the deal with the EU and formally leave.  I would even be sympathetic to the pre-announcement of a confirmatory referendum rather like the Common Market one in 1975 at which people would be asked if they are happy with it or not. I could be persuaded to have a rejoin option on the ballot paper, confident that it wouldn’t by then attract much support.

Would Mr Corbyn cooperate with my sensible proposal? Not likely. It may be in the national interest but, as I say, he’s on a mission to get into Downing Street. So its academic.

Can you see how hair-tearingly frustrating this is? 

4 April 2019

None of the options in the so-called indicative votes that were meant to plot a way forward on Brexit managed to get a majority. I voted against taking departure on WTO terms off the negotiating table since in the negotiations I’ve ever been part of you don’t announce in advance that under no circumstances would you ever walk away.

Yesterday a Bill was rammed through by the Commons in just a few hours and passed by a single vote  the effect of which is likely to be to kick Brexit into the long grass. I voted against it.

Meanwhile the PM has invited Mr Corbyn in for talks. What will the outcome be? Well, if you take him at face value Mr Corbyn wants, beyond what is already in the Withdrawal Agreement, a customs union with the EU. OK, let’s swallow hard - since it would mean being a rule taker and heavy constraints on our independent trade policy - and see what we can do around that if it’s the only way of persuading the Opposition to support departure from the EU in accordance with the referendum. If we do end up caving in on a customs union, we have to retain the ability to change or annul any such union at some future date, according to the national interest. 

It is far more likely in my view that Mr Corbyn’s demands won’t stop at a customs union. To be fair to him - and I like to be fair when I can - he has been extremely successful in formenting chaos and bringing us closer to his heart’s desire - a general election. Other than concern for the national interest, is it really likely he’ll stop now?

However, politics has a way of surprising you. 

I imagine a Bill will be introduced by the government on Monday (the first week of the cancelled Easter recess) to implement the UK’s departure. It is quite likely the Withdrawal Agreement that Mr Speaker is trying to thwart will be contained within it. If Mr Corbyn gets his form of Brexit with its closer alignment to EU rules, thinking perhaps and with good cause that it may irreversibly split the Conservative party, maybe it will get through. The U.K. would, at last, be able to leave, the stated wish of 57% of South West Wiltshire voters and one that I have for months, I hope pragmatically and with sensitivity to the 43% too, been trying to advance.

Maybe as we approach Holy Week we’ll have some calm, common sense and good will applied to this matter at last.

28 March 2019

Update on Thursday’s indicative votes.

Well, I told you so! Indicative votes aimed at parliament ‘taking back control’ ended in farce. None of the options passed. No deal, various permutations on customs unions, single market adherence, annulling Brexit completely, second referendums - all were rejected. So, we’re left with the Withdrawal Agreement negotiated by the UK and EU. As it happens, I voted for the ‘no deal’ option and nothing else, and that only because I think voluntarily surrendering it whilst we can still be said to be negotiating is crazy. I also voted for the statutory instrument to extend Article 50 to 22 May which is the logical consequence of supporting the Withdrawal Agreement which, in turn, is the only workable way we have to remove the UK in an orderly way within a reasonable timeframe iaw the referendum.

Tomorrow we have a sort of vote on the Withdrawal Agreement that does not ratify the agreement but is good enough apparently for the EU to accept a short extension to 22 May and to prevent both a longer delay to our departure and our need to go through European Parliament elections.

Messy? You bet. But amongst all the rancour, bitterness and plain nastiness there is a real interest in process, getting to grips with complex stuff and political engagement. That’s a good thing.

I’ll keep you posted.

27 March 2019

End of the beginning/beginning of the end?

Well, this is fun. 

Today we have so-called indicative votes. The idea is to determine what MPs think we should be doing about Brexit. But if its not clear that there is no consensus among MPs after months of debate, motions and amendments, its never going to be.

Personally, I will continue to vote in accordance with the manifesto on which I stood in 2017, the last General Election. That manifesto was entirely commensurate with the outcome in my constituency of the 2016 referendum - that is to say 57% leave. 

If there is any doubt about what leave means, I’d refer people to the handy booklet posted to every household by the government in advance of the referendum. As it happens, I am ashamed to say, it was a piece of publically funded propaganda advancing Remain. However, it has done Brexit supporters some service as a reference document for what leave is and isn’t and offers an antidote to those who say the public wasn’t told what leaving actually meant. There it is, in black and white.

I will oppose a second referendum. I didn’t much like the first one and the prospect of this ghastly business being dragged out for the thick end of another year with all the attendant rancour, bitterness, sheer nastiness (meaning I’ve stopped reading my Twitter notifications) and business uncertainty makes me feel physically sick. Those advocating what they call a People’s Vote (as if the first wasn’t) of course just want another pop at getting what they want - to stay in the EU - but they must know that even in the unlikely event of them winning the issue will hardly just evaporate.

It should be clear by now to all but the most hard-over unreconcilable Remainers that the UK never has been and never will be an easy fit in the EU project. Surely its better to be a close, amicable, cooperative neighbour than a scratchy, difficult partner.

It seems the Speaker doesnt agree. He’s up to his old tricks. He’s just popped up to try to use a procedural wheeze to stop the government putting a third meaningful vote (MV3) on the PM’s withdrawal agreement to the House. What’s he scared of? Ah, that’ll be the momentum building up in favour of Mrs May’s deal which, for those that have bothered to read its 585 pages and accompanying Political Declaration, actually gives most people most of what they want. 

That, I’m afraid, is about as good as it gets and, in that spirit of compromise, is why I’m supporting it.

15 March 2019

Brexit - the tipping point?

After a week of Brexit votes where are we?

Well, the second vote on the government’s Withdrawal Agreement was lost but not by as much as before. We then had a series of votes that concluded that there should be no departure without a deal - i.e. no so-called hard Brexit. I opposed taking no deal off the table as it seemed to me that only the most credulous negotiator would voluntarily rule out the option of walking away. 

On Thursday we voted on having a second, so-called people’s, vote, a second-go referendum which is supported by those who actually want to reverse the outcome of the first. It was convincingly rejected. Then we had a free vote on delaying Brexit to give the government more time. I would have been happy with a few weeks but the motion potentially delays our departure for a year or more and then we might not have Brexit at all. That would be a betrayal of the referendum. I voted against but the motion was passed. 

The government will now ask the EU for a delay. I suspect it will grant one if it sees the likelihood of progress towards a deal. 

The mood in the House is that we’re approaching endgame and that next week’s third, so-called meaningful, vote (MV3) might just make it over the line. The reason is that MPs are worried about either an abrupt no deal departure on 29 March which remains the default position, or shortly thereafter depending on what the EU says, or a long extension which may well mean Brexit is kicked into the long grass for good.

The Attorney General has clarified the legal position and I feel more comfortable that the U.K. will not be held in the so-called backstop and the customs union therein against its will. I do, however, accept  that there remains some political risk.

Despite this, right now the Withdrawal Agreement  looks to me like the best outcome realistically achievable. It would get us out of the EU more or less on time and allow negotiations to start on the future trading relationship without making assumptions about including a customs union in whatever eventually transpires. It genuinely gives most people most of what they want. Consequently, I will be supporting it next week.

28 February 2019

Opposition parties and unreconciled Remainers on my side have been gradually chipping away at the negotiating hand available to the PM in her talks with the EU. Hugely frustrating - some of them are my friends but you do wonder some times whose side these folk are on. 

We now have effectively taken no deal off the table. Now, very few of us really want no deal but the threat of it has been the only thing concentrating the minds of our EU interlocutors. As a result of this week’s shenanigans I’m less optimistic that our wonderfully Rumpolesque Attorney General will be able to loosen the legal handcuffs that is the Northern Ireland backstop. That makes it is less likely the draft Withdrawal Agreement will get through the Commons. If it does by a whisker it means potentially the U.K. will remain in the Customs Union forever given the legal risk the AG has identified.

Some want us to remain in the Customs Union anyway, like the Labour Party. I put this to its spokesman Kier Starmer yesterday and asked,  rhetorically, why he wasn’t then supporting the Agreement.

If the Agreement passes on 12 March we leave on 29th. If it doesn’t, there will be a vote next day on whether we want to leave with no deal. I suspect the no deal option will be rejected by our predominantly Remain parliament. There will then be a vote on extending Article 50 which will be amendable in terms of the length of the extension and of course it will depend on the EU agreeing. If agreed, legislation would be brought forward to revoke or amend the Article 50 trigger that MPs on both sides overwhelmingly backed 2 years ago. In my view, this is the route being sought by those who are still saying they want to honour the 2016 referendum but in fact are trying to reverse it, in other words to keep the U.K. in the EU.

Meanwhile the Leader of the Oppositions - whose acronym ‘LOTO’ is deliciously appropriate right now - has decided on a second referendum which, again, is code for reversing the outcome of the first. In my view that would mean most of this year taken up with ongoing bitterness and rancour and with an uncertain outcome. Business would be denied the clarity it seeks. It is the heartsink option.

My constituents are telling me to just get on with it. I’m doing my best to comply.

19 February 2019

No frogs and locusts

We knew this would happen – all sort of calamities being blamed on Brexit. Forget the fact that the predicted plague of frogs and locusts never materialised, that the number of jobs in the economy has been going up, not down, since June 2016 and that the UK is the biggest recipient of foreign direct investment. No, whenever a firm relocates or folds its down to Brexit, apparently.

Well, I would gently observe that company executives of outfits whose failure is related to their stewardship of course would look for something else to blame. Brexit’s very handy. I note that Honda made it clear that its highly regrettable departure from Swindon to Japan in 2021 isn’t Brexit related. But that has not stopped Remain insisting it is.

I genuinely take no pleasure in Labour’s rupture. It is a great political institution and its duty as official opposition is to be the alternative, the government in waiting. As a democrat I am bound to wish it a speedy recovery. Indeed, at the moment a small number of my own party are ramping up the rhetoric, confecting a case no doubt for their own departure. I predict their narrative will be that the Conservative party is being taken over by right wingers. I can’t see it sticking and one has to ask why, if they are so unhappy, they were content to stand on the party’s manifesto under the current Leader less than two years ago. The same goes for MPs who have quit Labour.

Either way, my view is that those who have or may quit the parties whose tickets they were elected on are in recall and by-election territory. The best test for their convictions is the white heat of the ballot box. Good luck with that.

14 February 2019

Today I went to see the PM with a dozen colleagues to discuss Brexit. Later she was on the phone to EU leaders on the same subject. Nobody can doubt her determination to deliver a Brexit deal that gives most people most of what they want. She has my full support.

Another day, another Brexit debate in parliament. I have resisted contributing in the last couple for two reasons. First, its like Groundhog Day - going over and over the same ground. Second, Speaker Bercow and his practice of ignoring those he has taken against. I do so hope his successor - may he or she come soon - is more like the great Betty Boothroyd.

I am utterly frustrated by the partisans who insist we should rule out a no deal Brexit. To be clear - I want a deal because I’m risk averse and appreciate the importance of the EU as our biggest trading partner. But only the most inept negotiator would publically announce that they would never leave on barebones WTO terms. The Opposition today were moaning that there has been no movement on the Withdrawal Agreement in Brussels. Just how much movement do they think there would be if the PM stood up and said that she was ruling out no deal? Precisely zero. 

Somebody wrote to me expressing their dismay that a recent migrant from Poland was distressed by Brexit and her future in Britain. I get really cross with unreconciled Remainers who are cynically putting it about that EU citizens will no longer be welcome here. They really should not be setting hares running and upsetting people like that. This government was pressing the EU for months for reciprocal citizens’ rights whilst Brussels demurred. It was more interested in squeezing more money out of the UK. Finally, in the Withdrawal Agreement we have safeguards that people need to be confident in their future here. The PM herself has used every opportunity to reassure EU citizens living and working in the UK that we want them to stay. Absolutely.

In Trowbridge the Polish community long predates the UK’s membership of the EU. It’s an intrinsic part of what we are in our little corner of England. I would also point out our valued Moroccan community. I pride myself in knowing it really quite well. Its established place among us owes nothing at all to Britain’s membership or otherwise of the EU for the obvious reason that the Kingdom of Morocco is neither in the EU or, last time I looked, in Europe.

So, that’s it for another fortnight. The February recess next week is cancelled so we can get Brexit related statutory instruments through (boring but necessary procedural stuff) and ministers will be hard at it with their EU interlocutors. Then we’ll have another outing like today but hopefully reflecting newly minted legally binding limitations to the Irish backstop which is now the only impediment to the Withdrawal Agreement, albeit an existential one. 

Enjoy what looks like, from my vantage point overlooking the sunny River Thames, the first stirrings of spring. Ever the optimist.

11 February 2019

Talks continue with European leaders about changes to the Irish backstop in the Brexit deal. It now seems the backstop may, in any event, turn out to be illegal. It seems that, as currently written, it challenges the Good Friday Agreement. My view is that the backstop might be a temporary expedient if it helps the EU to get the Withdrawal Agreement across the line but it has to be time limited. That’s because it’s actually about holding the U.K. into the customs union, potentially forever. 

I do think people like Donald Tusk need to cool it. Inflammatory remarks are not helpful at this juncture and just put people’s backs up. In contrast, Mrs May’s patience and good manners are remarkable. Ireland’s Leo Varadkar too is coming under pressure from businesses in Ireland for his unneighbourly approach to the U.K. and apparent refusal to look at alternatives to the backstop  in avoiding a hard border. Since the U.K. is now and will continue to be Ireland’s biggest trading partner, I wonder if that’s wise.

31 January 2019 

From the Eurostar in snowy France

On the train to Brussels I’ve got a few minutes to jot down what I think will now happen. I’m in a bad mood as my 0647 departure from St Pancras was cancelled ?cause. Not great.

Two weeks ago I put down an amendment to the Withdrawal Agreement that would have time limit the so-called Irish backstop. This you’ll remember was said to be designed to avoid a ‘hard’ border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. In fact, as most now accept, the border on which as it happens I was standing on Monday between Strabane and Lifford, could be kept like it is today using up to date customs and technology. 

Why then is the EU being so intransigent? Well, the so-called Irish backstop is actually a Trojan Horse that gives the EU the option to bind the UK into its customs union, potentially indefinitely. Apart from the obvious political leverage this gives Brussels, it means that it can say to third countries and blocs its trying to do trade deals with that, in addition to access to its own 450 million consumers, any trade deal on tariffs and quotas means access to 65 million U.K. consumers for free. A valuable and enticing bonus! Unfortunately Ireland, or at least its PM Leo Varadkar and his party, has been suckered into this ruse, I fear at enduring cost to U.K./IR relations.

As a minimum, the backstop with its customs union clauses established a bankable position on which  EU negotiators will expect to build the future relationship. It implies we will remain in the customs union. That’s a bit ripe since the EU has been insisting all along that it won’t do trade talks until we’ve ratified the Withdrawal Agreement.

To be fair to Jeremy Corbyn he has, belatedly, spotted this. Whilst his amendment this week insisted on a ‘permanent customs union’, a perfectly respectable position if not one I’d recommend, its clear from what he’s said subsequently that he sees this as one that the U.K. can withdraw from on serving notice, just like any other trade treaty commitment.

Which brings me back to my amendment which I suspect will return, at least in spirit, in the days ahead. What I expect to happen after the current  Euro windiness has passed over is for a closer description of what is envisaged for the Irish border to be devised and for this to be inserted into the legally non-binding, if serious and weighty, political declaration.  

But the central, and easiest, device to make progress that will get the support of Parliament as indicated this week is for there to be a time limit, or sunset, on the backstop after which the U.K. or the EU can withdraw on giving notice. In the meantime we will certainly have put in place customs arrangements relating to the border that will ensure it looks and feels as it does today.

If the EU says no to this we must draw our own conclusions about its willingness to act in good faith. 

30 January 2019

Tuesday’s complex series of votes

After the comprehensive thumbs down given to the EU Withdrawal Agreement a fortnight ago, the government won by a decent margin on Tuesday. What this means is that Mrs May must now go back to the EU and say that the WA, if amended with limits on the backstop, is likely to pass and ultimately be ratified – before our departure date on 29 March. There won’t be dancing in the streets but the outcome should give most people most of what they want. It would also allow us to move on, reunify a society that has been badly bruised and start talking about important public policy things again.

The ball is now in the EU’s court. But it should be in no doubt that what’s needed at this stage is something judiciable, not a flimsy exchange of waffle in the form of letters or windy political declarations.

The votes yesterday rejected dragging the process out. More delay would just bring more rancour and uncertainty. Precisely what business says it doesn’t want. It rejected a string of indicative votes (haven’t we had enough debate - hours and hours of it?). It did support no ‘no deal’ but in a non-binding way. Note that even if you know you will never depart with no deal it would be plain stupid to take it off the negotiating table.

In two weeks the PM must come back to the House with an amended deal.

Naturally I tried to speak in Tuesday’s debate since I’ve been heavily involved in trying to get a sensible way forward on Brexit but, again, the Speaker did not call me. More on this in due course.

28 January 2019

This Sunday and Monday I’m in Londonderry and Strabane with my Select Committee. Both of course are hard up against the land border that’s front and centre of the Brexit debate. 

On Tuesday we will be voting again on the Withdrawal Agreement. I discern a softening of opinion on both sides of the debate which is good. 

My amendments deal with the main impediment to getting the agreement over the line, if selected by the Speaker, if passed by the Commons and if the E.U. shows a bit of flexibility.  Lots of ‘ifs’ but fingers crossed! 

We need to ensure most people get most of what they want. An amended WA would deliver that. 

17 January 2019

Nobody seriously anticipated the scale of the government’s defeat on Tuesday. But, as with everything in the Palace of Varieties, its important to dig beneath the crude headline figures to work out what the actual sentiment is.

I spent much of the weekend phoning round colleagues to get a sense of what MPs wanted. I have a particular interest as I chair the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee and the so-called Irish backstop seemed to me to be the big sticking point. All the rest, including citizens rights, even the money appeared to be manageable, but not the backstop. So, on Monday I tabled an amendment that would have put a time limit on the backstop. Considerable momentum was building up behind it. Then Mr Speaker Bercow decided not to call it. 

I then voted for a lesser amendment he did call that might have delivered some of the same effect but which stood little chance. I went on to support, without enthusiasm but neverthess, the unamended motion in the so-called meaningful vote. 

Clearly I was on the losing side - a moderate, pragmatic Leave MP in a predominantly Remain parliament with a significant number of Leave MPs who are still convinced they can have the purist and most absolute of Brexits, even now. I respectfully suggest they will leave this process with nothing unless they change tack fast, things being what they are. I don’t want to be associated with anything that results in no Brexit at all. 

To be clear, the whole thing is now on a knife-edge. A version of Mrs May’s deal may squeak through with a single digit majority (the vote of no confidence yesterday was a triumph for her) but to do so she must deal with the backstop along the lines of my amendment. 

14 January 2019

THE BIG VOTE

Tuesday is crunch day. Finally, I will, without much enthusiasm but nevertheless, be voting for the Withdrawal Agreement. A tough decision. I voted to leave the EU but sincerely believe it’s the right thing to do given the circumstances that apply right now.

Here’s my big worry - after last week’s shenanigans the Speaker, hard-over Remainers and an Opposition sniffing political opportunity will succeed in reversing Brexit or achieve an outcome that would have the same effect. That would be an appalling indictment of the state of democracy in this country. I am clear that those forces would definitely make impossible departure on WTO terms. People who hanker after the creative destruction ‘no deal’ would bring need to understand that. 

I will tonight be tabling an amendment to the motion on which we have our meaningful vote that would sun-set the Irish backstop which, as drafted, could hold the U.K. in a relationship against its will indefinitely. That is the main objection MPs have to the Agreement and my amendment will seek to deal with it. The date on which the backstop expires is less important but our EU interlocutors need to understand where the sticking point is for most MPs and accept the principle of the backstop falling away. Incidentally, the so-called backstop is not needed to prevent a hard border as it’s become increasingly apparent that there are now or will be by the end of the Implementation Period in December 2020 technical and procedural mechanisms for allowing the NI border to look and feel very much as it does today.

10 January 2019

The Speaker’s antics on Wednesday showed just what those of us who want to honour the outcome of the referendum are up against. There are too many up here who piously assert they’re only wanting to carrry out the public’s instructions but without ‘crashing out’ as they put it. What they’re actually up to is using every trick in the book to overturn the referendum and stay in the EU.

That needs to be clearly understood.

What also needs to be understood is that Brexit may, as I write, not happen at all since its purists are intent on making the excellent the enemy of the good. We are in uncharted waters with a Speaker who has shown that he will be as helpful as he possibly can be in greasing the way for Remainers to achieve their outcome. If they succeed, goodness knows what will then happen. They need to be careful what they wish for.

I have added my name to the Swire amendment to the motion that will be voted on next week that seeks to unite the sensibles on either side of this debate. This basically would limit the Irish backstop. It isn’t perfect but would take us further in ensuring we are not bound into an arrangement that is contrary to our interests and over which we have no control. 

My big fear is that we will not leave the EU on 29 March through the various subterfuges that are being deployed by the Remain side and will continue to be unearthed, apparently with the help of Mr Speaker. Delaying Article 50 would add to the uncertainty businesses say they’re suffering from and just kick the can down the road. It is to be avoided.

I suspect the government will lose the vote next week. I hope not by too much because the PM will then be able to go back to the European Commission for their best and final offer, which intel suggests they have prepared already. 

In short, I believe we will have a deal by the end of March. If not, exit on WTO terms won’t be great but it won’t mean a plague of frogs and locusts either.

20 December 2018

I have never been so grateful to reach the end of term. 

Those who want a second referendum need to understand what that would mean. It would mean the better part of 2019 locked in bitter, rancorous dispute before a divisive further vote. That vote may give the second-goers what they want and overturn, just, the outcome of the 2016 ballot but equally it may not. Let’s just get on with Brexit, with all its risks and opportunities, and make the best of it. Who knows? Perhaps those now actively trying to overturn the referendum may, with gritted teeth, come to appreciate the better, more prosperous, independent  Britain the 57% of local voters had in mind when they voted to leave in June 2016, a vision shared by the many who tell me they voted to remain but would now vote to leave.

I look forward to the Withdrawal Agreement, modified or caveated to make it crystal clear the UK won’t be tied into the backstop, being agreed and to the UK entering the transition phase in March. I also look forward to MPs being able then to refocus on all the normal things we focus on - healthcare, schools, infrastructure, defence and so on. That would be really good. 

If I can end with a plea to nobody in particular. The ‘stupid woman’ debacle epitomises how nasty our political discourse has become. We can debate the causes, but very few engaged in public life at any level are actually stupid, venal or avaricious (there are exceptions to every rule). Perhaps those who purport to offer leadership in politics should cool it in 2019. Maybe then the public who understandably take their cue on what’s acceptable from rude, shouty, boorish political figures who cavort like pantomime dames through the media will too. 

Have a very happy Christmas and can I wish everyone, whether you’re a leaver or remainer or somewhere inbetween, a peaceful and prosperous New Year.

18 December 2018

Neverendum anyone?

One referendum is bad enough, a second would be a calamity. I am strongly opposed to a second-go referendum. We had the people’s vote on 23 June 2016 and the government, facing down an Opposition scenting blood and its big chance and a minority of very shouty people at the extremes of Mrs May’s own party, is doing the best it can, the parliamentary arithmetic being what it is.

So what happens if those still not reconciled to having lost that vote get their way and we have another? What’s certain is more months of increasing rancour and bitterness. Businesses will not achieve that ‘certainty’ they tell us they want for the best part of another year. And the result? Well, remainers need to be careful what they wish for. It seems to me, anecdotally, that the leave vote is firming up. Nobody likes sour grapes. But, in the end, I suspect the result would be much the same as in 2016. 

What if it’s narrowly the other way, that’s to say 52/48 Remain/Leave? Some starry eyed remainers no doubt think we’ll just all kiss and make up and that a benevolent EU will welcome us back like the Prodigal Son. I doubt it. The EU and our competitors in it will have us by the cojons. And they will, sooner of later, extract their price from a diminished, recalcitrant neighbour. At home, Leave will cry foul and demand best of three - a neverendum would ensue. The matter would never be settled.

Those seeking a second referendum in order to have a pop at reversing the first need to put aside the condescending curled upper lip and put themselves instead in the minds of those who wanted to leave. How would you feel? We have seen what happens when people believe they have been spurned, ignored and sidelined by elite metropolitan liberals in Paris recently. There has to be a compact between the administration and the administered. That relies on trust and not being led up the garden path. 

There are no honeyed words or clever phraseology that will be capable of dressing up a second-go referendum as anything other than the elite giving the plebs - poor unenlightened souls - a chance to reach the ‘right’ decision. It would be a gross betrayal of a solemn undertaking in the biggest exercise in direct democracy ever held in this country. For the first time it would make me ashamed to be in British politics.

13 December 2018

In my view Mrs May’s position has been strengthened by Wednesday’s vote. Those MPs who ‘put their letters in’ prompting it were unwise and their timing was appalling. She won convincingly because the Withdrawal Agreement is getting close to the best of the various outcomes - none of which will satisfy everyone - that are reasonably achievable. 

Mrs May said before the vote that she was trying to get political and legal changes that would satisfy those of us who remain concerned about what the Irish backstop could potentially do. The attitude of Dublin is crucial. Her focus must now be on helping the Irish government deal with its own political demons so that a time limit on this unnecessary backstop can be achieved and we can move on. If she can, I think she will have cracked it.

11 December 2018

Mrs May did the right thing in pulling Tuesday’s ‘meaningful vote’ on the EU Withdrawal Agreement since she would clearly have lost it. As I write she’s gone back to Brussels to seek a form of words that would clarify how the U.K. can get out of the Irish backstop. 

I’ll wait and see what she comes back with but essentially I’ll support her deal if there’s a time limit to the backstop that the lawyers think will work. Without it Britain is potentially over a barrel as the Attorney General’s lawyerly opinion makes clear. The only way to get out of the backstop customs union would then be to persuade the EU it isnt in its interests for us to stay or by offering key members concessions - such as access to fish, as the French President has already made clear.

If no progress on this is made, we will need to see Plan B which I very much hope doesn’t involve delaying Brexit.

5 December 2018

BREXIT - ARE WE NEARLY THERE YET?

I’m grateful to people for writing to me about Brexit. Most messages have been fine but some haven’t, which is sad. I think the rancour this process has caused has taken many of us by surprise. I can’t remember the public being so shouty since Mr Blair’s activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, hugely divisive undertakings which continue to cast a long shadow. Mrs May is right to say that whatever now happens we are going to have to heal the wounds.

The Attorney General’s appearance in the Commons to explain the legal position of the proposed Withdrawal Agreement on Monday was well received. The bottom line is that under the agreement we will probably not be tied into the E.U. customs union  long term but he can’t rule it out. That’s what lawyers do, advise on the basis of risks of particular outcomes and it’s then for the client to make a decision. Here that means government and, ultimately, Parliament. Anyway today the AG’s full legal advice to government on the agreement must be published. I suspect like most smoking guns it will disappoint those clamouring for it. But publication also means from now on lawyer-client confidentiality will not be guaranteed in respect of government. That will have consequences as the now opposition may well discover to their cost in the fullness of time.

Yesterday Mrs May made a really good, highly thoughtful speech in which she asked MPs to back the deal. I have yet to decide finally on how to vote next Tuesday and will be weighing up the risk of no Brexit and leaving on barebones WTO terms both of which are undesirable, in my view. My chief reservation at this stage is the absence of a time limit on the so-called Irish backstop. The unfettered backstop will mean legal risk of being a rule taker for a very long time, as the AG made clear. I’d like to see a time limit, perhaps 5 years, after which the backstop would fall away if it hasn’t been made redundant by other means. If Mrs May’s plan fails in the Commons on Tuesday, as seems likely, I believe she will have to go back to the E.U. and say that the only way she can get the deal over the line is if they amend the agreement to include a backstop time limit. It will not have been lost on her that if there is no such time limit the Scottish Nationalist will demand a similar arrangement for Scotland. Belgium and Spain with their own separatist problems may like to give that some thought. 

27 November 2018

BREXIT DEAL UPDATE

Yesterday the PM did another two and a half hours at the dispatch box fielding quick fire questions from MPs - the third time in ten days.

The Guardian has listed MPs according to how they might vote when the Commons has its ‘meaningful vote’ on 11 December. I’m listed as ‘unconfirmed’ from which the Guardian has drawn the conclusion that I’ll support the government. Well, my instinct is to be supportive knowing how hard the PM has worked against the intransigence of Brussels. However, I still have an issue with the so-called Irish backstop. It’s actually not needed to avoid a hard land border. However, a combination of Irish domestic politics running up to election year and the desire, mainly by the French, to build in a lever in the deal to extract further trade concessions from the U.K. in the future - Macron’s jaw-dropping admission of this yesterday in connection to fisheries helped to shed light - means that potentially this country could become a client of the E.U., held into an adverse customs union against its will. I do t see how I could support that.

IF an addendum to the Withdrawal Agreement was inserted to remove the backstop or even put a time limit on it, even a long one, the Guardian could list me as likely to vote for the deal, without enthusiasm but nevertheless. 

17 November 2018

BREXIT (again)

I’m ploughing my way through the 585 page draft E.U. withdrawal agreement and associated papers. Its available online if you’ve got a spare few hours, or days.

Most of it is OK-ish. Good, for example, on rights for UK and EU citizens after Brexit. What I’m worried about is the mechanism for leaving the so-called Irish backstop which is meant to ensure there is no so-called hard Irish land border. In reality, the EU is using this as a means of ensuring we stay in the customs union, without a voice, after December 2019 if we haven’t negotiated a better arrangement. Of course with the so-called backstop as drafted  in place the EU would  have no incentive to agree a better (for us) deal. So, backstop it would be pretty much permanently. Great as far as Brussels is concerned but it would be vassalage for the UK with the inability to engage autonomously with the rest of the world. Under those circumstances the EU, that is to say a bloc of 27 competitor nations seeking all the time to take business off the UK, would have us precisely where they want us, economically and politically. It is bound to exploit its advantage.

However, the agreement talks of an Indpendent Arbitration Panel that would determine when the backstop isn’t needed anymore and whether the parties had been negotiating in good faith or not.

In my view, any independent arbitration process is bound to reflect the perfectly good customs procedures and technical arrangements that could be established to remove the need for a hard border. The Select Committee I chair has been hearing from customs experts about this. Thus, if the EU refused to free the UK from a demonstrably unnecessary backstop, let us say in two years, it would be deemed to be acting in bad faith. The mere existence of that threat would encourage the EU to engage in the future trading arrangements it says it wants.

What I will be looking for in the days ahead is legal clarification that my understanding is correct and for firming up of the wording in the agreement to that effect in the last stage of the negotiations.

If that is not possible, I maintain that we should pivot to so-called Norway For Now (NFN) whilst we negotiate a Canada +++ style deal of the sort offered by President Donald Tusk (ie Norway Then Canada or NTC). I have written a joint letter with Frank Field MP about this in the Daily Telegraph recently.

What then about Mrs May’s leadership? Firstly, I salute her doggedness, sense of patriotic duty and sheer perseverance which is an example to us all. Secondly, I do not think its wise to change the ship’s captain when you’re in the middle of a storm. I hope that under her leadership we will turn the draft into something the majority of MPs will be able to support when it comes to the meaningful vote next month. If not, I would want her to own the change to NFN/NTC. Either way, she has my support.

21 October 2018

STILL BANGING ON ABOUT EUROPE! 

I’m flying to Belfast to chair an evidence session of my select committee in the currently empty Stormont parliament building. So, a few minutes in flight safe mode to tap out some thoughts on the unfolding drama that is Brexit.

First off, can I express my despair at the MP ‘colleague’ who is attacking Prime Minister May in lurid terms, of course anonymously. Shameful, disreputable, dishonourable. Whatever you think of Brexit, Mrs May is so clearly doing her best and deserves better than that.

I do not think there is any appetite outside the M25 beltway for spinning out Brexit. Obviously the EU would like to because it would mean more money and the possibility the U.K. may run out of puff and recant. Unlike the Prodigan Son though I doubt there would be any dispensations for the wounded penitent. More like harsh terms, perhaps very harsh. Those wanting another referendum need to temper their enthusiasm with that and the white fury of the majority who believe the matter was settled in June 2016. If its U.K. influence they’re worried about, they might consider whether a humbled, brought to heel U.K. would be more effective than an assertive, independent partner that Brussels would like to persuade to be alongside most of the time. I think I know the answer.

The government is right to be preparing for departure on WTO terms. It also needs to be explaining to the public what it would mean, which means addressing head on the wilder prognostications of the  Remain rearguard. I want to see the Chancellor announce in the budget next week draft plans for turbo charging the economy on the day we leave the EU in the event of so-called ‘no deal’. This will mean for starters immediately suspending payments to the EU which, in the event of no deal, will have acted in bad faith and in an unneighbourly fashion contrary to Article 8 of the Lisbon Treaty. It will mean cutting VAT and corporation tax. The latter will act as a magnet to companies and announce that the U.K. is open for business. Import tariffs, except on food we produce here, will be removed. He should take the opportunity to affirm that the Northern Ireland land border on the U.K. side will have no more infrastructure on it than exists today and we will challenge the EU and Ireland to behave similarly, managing the tariff consequences. If we are driven to this by the obduracy of the EU and the passive-aggressive stance being taken by France in particular, 2019 will be tough but ultimately we will prevail. 

I do feel for the people of the Irish Republic and it’s businesses who are, to be honest, hardly being helped by the attitude to achieving a smooth and amicable Brexit chosen by the current political leadership. Now Ireland didn’t ask for Brexit and, other than some potential benefit from a thriving neighbouring economy, will get all the downside with none of the uptick. It’s transformative low corporation taxes are likely to be canned by an EU lacking U.K. pro-business counsel (it’s already planning this) but, even if they’re not, a no deal outcome is likely to see a freed up U.K. cut its own business taxes in order to tempt companies from Ireland and the continent to offset the effects of Brussels’ punishment beating. 

It’s a tough old world, I’m afraid, and when the going gets tough you remember your friends  - and those who have not been as helpful as they could have been.

12 October 2018

MORE EUROPE

On Wednesday the PM kindly gave me a one to one meeting to discuss Brexit. It is good to know that she’s willing to listen to an obscure backbencher with views on the issue of the day that may not necessarily overlap completely with her own. I admire her strength and fortitude in trying to navigate a way through Brexit. She deserves huge credit and has my full support in delivering the aims and aspirations laid out clearly in her well received Lancaster House speech.

My chief worry at the moment from my vantage as Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee is that the land border in Ireland is being used, rather cynically, by the European Commission and it’s unreconciled Remain followers here to subvert one of the most viable Brexit options. It’s the one that Donald Tusk, no less, has been pushing all along and it involves a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement, so-called Canada+++. The problem is Tusk offered it for GB, not U.K., meaning NI would remain in the EU customs closed shop, single market and European Court of Justice jurisdiction. It would, in other words, be separated from its biggest market by far, GB, and effectively annexed to the EU.

Surprise, surprise, up with that the DUP won’t put, and neither will Mrs May. Like me a committed unionist, she will be mindful not only of the consequences for NI’s status within the U.K. but the boost any sort of new border down the middle of the Irish Sea would give the SNP in its crusade to build a frontier separating Scotland from the rest of the country.

But it turns out the NI land border isn’t quite the problem that many, including me as it happens, initially feared. Indeed, customs experts - that is to say people who really understand borders and live them as opposed to politicians and hacks who pontificate about them - are increasingly calling out the Barnier orthodoxy around the creation of a hard border with attendant apocalyptical security consequentials. They’re doing us a great service a bit like Hans Christian Anderson’s character who pointed out the Emperor has no clothes. The supreme irony is that one of these experts was commissioned by the European Parliament to opine on frictionless, near-invisible, high tech borders. How disobliging of him to deliver a report that makes it abundantly clear that the NI border could continue looking and feeling very much as it does today in the event of a Tusk style EU-UK  free trade deal. No border guards, no flags, no watchtowers, no humourless officials stamping passports, no barriers or revenue men. Rather dull, in fact, just like now, exactly as we like it. 

For those looking for a relatively simple blueprint, can I recommend Lord David Owen’s account published in his blog with which I largely agree. By the next election I want to be able to look my voters in the eye and say that we have done what we were told to do - decorously remove the U.K. (all of it) from the EU and its constituent parts - the customs union, single market and ECJ. If we can’t get a Tusk-style deep and comprehensive free trade deal by then we would deserve to be kicked out.

17 September 2018

TAKING A SPIN TO NUMBER TEN

I arrived at Downing Street on Wednesday with some broadly Eurosceptic MP colleagues for a meeting over supper with Number Ten staffers. Outside the police checks was a gauntlet of TV cameras wanting to capture this moment of apparent crisis that they wanted to spin as evidence of a move against the PM. 

If, like me, you’re a Harry Potter fan you’ll be familiar with the hack Rita Skeeter from the Daily Prophet. She spins faster than a whirling dervish. Westminster doesn’t just look like Hogwarts, it often feels like it too. Too many of those who record and interpret the utterances of politicians seem to be using the appalling Rita as their role model. Anyway, we didn’t discuss coups or leadership bids for one reason - there aren’t any. At the risk of being disappointingly dull, I reckon it would be a culpable act of collective insanity to attempt to topple Theresa May at such a crucial time. She’s got my full support. Good luck Rita in spinning that.

I take a long term view of our departure from the EU. If something very close to the Chequers plan gets us over the line and removes us from the political union of the EU on 29 March in accordance with any reasonable interpretation of the referendum, unfettering the larger part of our economy, I’ll be content. If we do depart on those terms, I want sufficient flex to be able to update the agreement in due course, mandated by commitments contained in future election manifestos.

The Kremlin continues to pump out child-like, ever changing, bare faced lies regarding its Novichok attack in Salisbury and Amesbury. That’s it’s stock in trade. In fact it’s quite effective as, however fanciful, it does spread seeds of doubt. Of course, there will always be the credulous, but Russian state propaganda like this more insidiously assists a spectrum of anarchists, persons who have made their life’s work the pulling down of Britain and what they imagine to be the ‘establishment’ and an overlapping assortment of political extremists, ‘useful idiots’ if you will. 

So, this week the Kremlin asks us to believe that the two GRU hoods being fingered for murder and attempted murder in Wiltshire are just a couple of nice guys, tourists with a passion for ecclesiastical architecture. That’s cleared that one up then. 

Oil industry boss turned high priest Justin Welby has turned again, this time to politics. Not a good or sensible move, in my humble opinion.

Recent exposure has me wondering what the CofE is these days or, to be brutally honest, what it’s for, but it is certainly no longer the Tory party at prayer, if it ever was. Actually, there’s no way I would wish it to be, but if the Chief Exec of the established church together with those who owe him canonical obedience continue to blather on about earthly matters in such a thoughtless way, their path to irrelevance will end up being even shorter than this month’s revelations about CofE adherence suggest.

It’s true I’m no bleeding heart liberal and I don’t do virtue signalling but I hope I work as conscientiously to better the condition of those I was elected to serve as any in the House, regardless of party. Otherwise, what’s the point of being in politics? Whilst the clergy must remind us all of our individual responsibility to care for others, a duty that is by no means entirely discharged by provisions we make collectively though the welfare state, I worry about the appropriateness of the Primate aligning himself with a particular political tradition and by implication castigating from a metaphorical pulpit those whose roadmap for remediating suffering differs from his own.

Little wonder that so many, including those of us whose faith remains undiminished, no longer feel at home, or even particularly welcome, in the Anglican churches we grew up with. What a pity that for so many England’s parish churches have become no more than charming venues for weddings and a convenient place to solemnise our eventual departure to the gates of St Peter.

September 2018

SUMMERTIME BLUES 

Normally in August politicians and journalists pipe down. Not this year. Rancour over Brexit and rows over anti-Semitism in the Labour Party have given the gloriously sunny summer of 2018 an unfamiliar, harsh, unwelcome edge.

Disappointingly, it is looking increasingly unlikely that Brussels is minded to accept the Chequers deal. I say disappointing because I thought, as it stood, it was a fair proposition - not my ideal, but pragmatic and potentially beneficial to both sides. I wrote to the PM to assure her of my support.

Despite some recent rhetorical softening, the European Commission is taking an absolutist line on Chequers. It appears to be scared stiff that any flexibility will erode its constituent parts, advantage the U.K. and make other nation states more likely to demand ‘me too.’ That would, they fret, bring the whole grand project tumbling down. A project, let us remember, that has yielded by far the greatest benefit to its biggest economy, Germany.

National leaders - with the exception of President Macron who seems to be ploughing his own furrow - are taking a more nuanced view since their attachment to Brussels is less existential, less ideological. That’s where hope of a sensible Brexit outcome lies. We know that Brussels is completely impervious to public pressure. That’s the whole point. That’s the problem. National governments aren’t. So as we close with 29 March 2019, the point of departure, businesses across Europe are going to be pointing out to their elected representatives the people consequences of no deal beyond WTO rules.

The government is right to say publically that defence and security are sacrosanct. I hope a very different conversation is being had privately. Especially since the EU is now claiming the U.K. can’t be partners in the Galileo satellite project because we’d some how become a security risk. Well, laugh out loud at that! But if it is serious about the Brits being a security risk, that would extend surely to the rest of our military, security and intelligence assets. The same ones that provide cover Europe enjoys but refuses to pay for.

Help me out here Mr Barnier because I don’t see a way of persuading my constituents they should continue to prop up the security of EU states whilst Brussels is intent on being unhelpful on precisely the economic matters that make such largesse possible. To say that defence, security and economic prosperity are somehow separable is obviously bonkers.

Lots of talk about a second referendum but it’s just hot air. The fact is we’ve had our referendum and the disappointed can’t have a second go. Article 50’s been triggered. We’ve run out of time. Europe won’t stop the clock and even if we recanted and asked to return to the fold it would be as penitents. There would be no prodigal’s welcome. Harsh terms could be expected.

When Cortez landed on the beach in the New World the first thing he did was burn his boats to the waterline thus encouraging his men to look forward, not back. That’s where we are right now with the EU, looking to maximise opportunities whilst mindful of the risks.

Am I alone, by the way, in being mildly irritated by the term ‘Peoples Referendum’ to suggest a right-on, radical edge to the campaign for a re-run? The ‘people’ in this case are not the poor, dispossessed and downtrodden conjured by the the term but, disproportionately, the liberal metropolitan elite and big business interests who are doing quite nicely from the way things are.

On the other big political news story of the summer, anti Semitism in the Labour Party, I genuinely admit to being bewildered. The Labour MPs I know and respect are so much bigger than this. I really hope the party of Opposition sorts this out, quickly, as it is the most appalling stain on politics generally.

August 2018

BORIS AND THE BURKA 

Messages continue to arrive from constituents about Boris, mostly supportive. I would say that nobody should be holding forth on this matter unless they’ve actually read the article in full. It was, as I would expect from the liberal, metropolitan Boris I know, arguing against banning the burka whilst saying, in terms that I would not have used, that he disliked it.

Not just because of opinion in my very female household, I too find myself disliking the idea that women in Britain today should feel obliged to cover themselves up save for a narrow eye slit under a set of rules and norms dictated by men without even, it seems, any real theological underpinning. I very much regret the wearers’ consequent isolation from wider society. Indeed, any politician should be worried by it, and question it. However, unlike a string of Western European governments, I would not ban the burka. That’s because fear of trespassing on personal freedom outweighs, in this case and on balance, concerns about subjugation of women and wider societal ills that may be caused by the garment. So the burka stays.

Of course, Theresa May’s detractors have tried to turn this into a story about a conspiracy to halt any leadership ambitions Boris might be harbouring. I’d be very surprised if any such witch hunt was underway. The truth is, as usual, likely to be much more prosaic - the party’s complaints procedure has be triggered and the Party Chairman under the rules has to act. 

That said, I and many of my colleague would react badly to anything in the treatment metered out to Boris that looked disproportionate or heavy handed. I am confident that it will not be.