He was one of 79 Tory MPs who voted with the opposition to force the EU referendum.
He then backed – vociferously – Remain,
Now he backs Brexiter Andrea Leadsom.
Hugo Swire has not yet declared. Might he also back a Brexiter?
Well, you have to be flexible in the Parliamentary jobs market.
” … politics has always been a dirty business, a world of treachery, narcissism and self-interest. And, yes, of course the bear-pit of Westminster has never been a place for shrinking violets.
Yet something has changed.
In the past few decades, too many MPs have stopped seeing themselves as representatives of their home areas, or even as representatives of larger social and political movements.
Instead, they see themselves merely as individuals, fighting for promotion and survival like characters in a box-set drama.
Parachuted into provincial constituencies, unmoored from the constituencies these men and women are meant to represent, they fancy themselves as real-life equivalents of Francis Urquhart, the Machiavellian operator in the BBC’s celebrated political thriller House Of Cards, which has now been remade in an even bloodier and more implausible American version.”
“An American company has struck a secret deal which allows it to walk away from the British pension scheme of engineering firm Halcrow – jeopardising the retirements of thousands of workers and setting a dangerous precedent for millions more.
Engineer CH2M has been given permission to dump 3,000 savers from the Halcrow scheme into the lifeboat Pension Protection Fund after arguing it has no legal responsibility for the promises made to the British workers before it took over the 148-year-old company in 2011.
Since then, the black hole on the Halcrow final salary scheme has climbed to £500million. And now, in a deal that is thought to be the first of its kind, CH2M has managed to argue that pensioners must accept lower retirement incomes than they were promised or have the scheme handed over to the PPF.
Colorado-based CH2M – which has a number of lucrative contracts including work on the High Speed 2 Railway – is solvent and made a £60million profit last year.
It is a move that experts believe poses a threat to thousands of other company schemes which have giant pension deficits, particularly those with foreign owners.
Labour MP John Mann, who sits on the Treasury Select Committee, said: ‘This could set a dangerous precedent for other foreign firms buying UK companies.
‘These employees have paid into the pension and this company shouldn’t be trying to wriggle out of its responsibilities.’ CH2M said that without being able to pare back generous annual cost of living increases the scheme’s members receive, it will have no choice but to put Halcrow into insolvency.
The deal has been thrashed out by CH2M, the Pensions Regulator and the trustees of the Halcrow Pension Scheme.
In a further twist, the Mail can reveal that the chairman of the trustees of the Halcrow scheme is Chris Martin, who is also chairman of the BHS pension scheme which is set to fall into the hands of the PPF.
The move tears apart an important principle of pensions law, which is that any benefits promised to savers cannot be reversed.
Savers must either accept being put into a new pension scheme set up by the company or being pushed into the Pension Protection Fund. In the former option anyone with a pension built up before 1997 will effectively see it frozen.
Pensions built after this date will receive cost of living increases in line with the consumer price index.
This is likely to be far lower than the up to five per cent annual increases they receive now. If members do not accept this deal they will have their nest eggs taken over by the pensions lifeboat.
With this arrangement those who have not yet retired will receive 90 per cent of their annual payout up to a limit of £34,470 a year, as well as reductions to cost of living increases.
A spokesman for the Pensions Regulator said: ‘These types of pension restructuring are permitted under law, but have stringent conditions attached so that they are not abused. We will only agree to them in rare circumstances.’
A CH2M spokesman said: ‘The interests of members have at all times been very well protected.’ ”
“The Conservative Party is “in danger of dying” unless it convinces people it stands for NHS nurses not BHS bosses, the party’s Deputy Chairman warned today.
Speaking to the HuffPost UK, Tory MP Robert Halfon spelt out his fears for the future of the Conservatives and warned that whoever takes over as leader will be inheriting a “collapsing” party.
Halfon, who served in the Treasury under George Osborne for 10 months before becoming Deputy Chairman last May, revealed some local associations were facing a “disaster” due to a lack of new members. He called on the party to stand up against “so-called crony capitalism” and pledge to redistribute money gained from tax cuts to poorer communities.
Halfon also said the public don’t trust the Tories on the NHS and any of David Cameron’s achievements are seen through the prism of austerity. Speaking in his parliamentary office, where a framed photo of Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson hangs on the wall next to a picture of Margaret Thatcher, Halfon explained the potentially dire situation his party is in.
He said: “The party is in danger of dying in my view – the infrastructure is collapsing around the country, the membership is ever aging. “Of course we have an incredible party and the members are unbelievable, and I would not be here if it wasn’t for volunteers, but everywhere you go, particularly in marginal seats, it’s a disaster in many cases.
Halfon, who campaigned for the UK to remain in the EU, went on: “Labour are getting thousands of new members, Ukip are getting thousands of new members and if anything, if I can praise Vote Leave, what did they do in one year with very little money – they created a grassroots organisation, in every constituency in the country with badges, stickers and signs, brilliantly organised from nothing.
“That is the way politics is nowadays. The Conservative Party has to create a grassroots movement like Vote Leave and campaign on issues one by one which are appealing to people. “You have to rally people around an issue but do it in modern ways – whether it’s through social media and also doing the ground war. “You can have the existing stuff going on but you need to create a new kind of grassroots movement.”
Halfon has represented the Essex seat of Harlow since 2010, winning it from Labour in that year’s General Election. He admits that since working in the town, which has below average earnings compared to both the region and the country, his political views have changed from being a “free market Thatcherite” to someone who recognises the need for a “social ambulance” alongside a meritocratic ladder.
Halfon said: “We are in danger of being deserted by the millions of working people who have deserted Labour because they don’t feel we are on their side. They feel they are the party of BHS and not the NHS – by BHS I mean the corporate, awful revolting people like that Phillip Green and the dodgy guy he sold it to.” Halfon claimed workers in his constituency’s branch of BHS were “thrown on the scrap heap because of the greed, the mismanagement of corporate capitalism.”
He went on: “The modern Conservative party needs to launch an assault on the so-called crony capitalism and protect workers and stand up for them.” Branching into policy ideas, Halfon called for the Conservatives to become the “party of redistribution”, arguing that extra money generated for the Treasury by tax cuts for the wealthy should be used to cut taxes for the poor or help impoverished communities. “That’s a Conservative idea of redistribution, rather than a socialist one which says you increase taxes on people and redistribute the wealth,” Halfon said.
He also called for a massive increase in house building, and argued that while schemes such as Help to Buy are a step in the right direction, it was not enough to solve the crisis. “If I think of my own constituents and I think of millions working people across the country they can barely afford a few thousand quid. “The idea of getting £5,000 is impossible. Even if the Government says ‘We’ll match it’ they can’t do it.
“We need to build millions of social housing. I prefer it to be done by housing associations but I’m not against council housing. “But social housing should be as much of a priority of as building millions of affordable houses or by-to-let schemes.”
There is one area where Halfon does not want to see fundamental reform, and that is the NHS. The Tory MP is very open about how the voters view his party when it comes to the health service. a“The public don’t trust us on the NHS. There is an umbilical chord between the public and NHS, they do not want us to privatise it. They do not want us to mess around with it. They just want a good service.”
Halfon has yet to decide who he will back in the Conservative leadership election, but the support of the man who so successfully battled for a freeze on fuel duty will be a bonus for any candidate’s “white van” credentials.
When asked by the HuffPost UK why he didn’t put himself forward, Halfon shook his head said he didn’t think it was a role to which he was suited. “Whoever is the leader, this is a huge chance,” he said, before reeling off the achievements of David Cameron’s Governments: equal marriage, the National Living Wage, the pupil premium, free school meals.
“Everything was seen in the frame of austerity by the public,” said Halfon.
“We will never get support again unless, in my view, we radically change our narrative, radically change our policies in terms of how we reach out to the public and radically change the way our political party operates.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/robert-halfon-conservative-dying_uk_5776b79be4b0c9460800c912
“In the light of the outcome of the referendum on EU membership, the Foreign Affairs Committee is launching a rolling inquiry into the Government’s handling of the process of departing the EU and the ongoing implications of the decision for the UK’s role in the world. This will build on the findings of the Committee’s report, published in April 2016, outlining both the short- and long-term implications of the vote for the UK’s global role.
Inquiry: Implications of leaving the EU for the UK’s role in the world
Foreign Affairs Committee
Terms of reference
The Committee welcomes written submissions which address in particular:
The type of relationship that the UK, its Crown Dependencies and its Overseas Territories should seek to pursue with the EU in future
The implications of the decision for the UK’s strategic orientation, global posture, alliances and international trade.
The Government’s management of negotiations to determine the terms of the UK’s exit from the EU, including their political direction and the structures and resources to be put in place to orchestrate the transition.
The work of the FCO in the transition process, both in negotiations with the EU and in managing the UK’s broader global role including trade agreements
Because of the rapidly changing situation and the rolling nature of this inquiry, no deadline is being set for written submissions. However, submissions received by 30 September will inform the Committee’s work in October.”
” … The tendency – reinforced no doubt by the 2009 parliamentary expenses scandal – has been to overlook the fact that MPs have long been, and should be now, the primary components of the unwritten British constitution.
It’s not just that the best of them perform a stupendously unrecognised social and public service, as Jo Cox was doing at the very time she was killed. It’s that while they are inevitably – and rightly – influenced by the party members and activists in their own constituencies, they are uniquely answerable beyond them to the wider electorate in those constituencies.
This is the absolute cornerstone of Britain’s system of representative democracy, including when it comes to deciding the country’s future or who should lead a party. MPs have to stand for election; they have to argue their case in front of the unconvinced – rather than merely the already converted – and they make their mistakes in public. …”
Though some MPs regrettably do not think of their wider electorate and some barely think of their narrower electorate – preferring the trappings of higher office which render them mute in Parliament about their constituencies.
“Devon and Cornwall’s new police and crime commissioner is to go ahead with a £400,000 office move despite criticism.
Alison Hernandez says relocating her offices will save substantial sums of money within four years, which can be reinvested in front-line policing.
Devon and Cornwall Police’s Chief Constable, Shaun Sawyer has previously said the move “sends the wrong signal” financially.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-devon-36602052
Put this in your diaries for 2020!
“Brexit will be biggest ever task for Whitehall, even though staffing is at lowest level since 1940s after redundancies”
” … Huge swaths of policy and legislation will need to be reconsidered and decided upon by ministers, government and parliament. All of this is required whilst maintaining our public services and carrying out business as usual.
“Many of our members have serious concerns about how we will implement this at a time of political and economic uncertainty. Many of these questions cannot be answered right now.”
The civil service is now at its smallest size since the second world war, employing about 392,000 full-time staff, according to the latest figures. It represents an 18% drop since the coalition government came to power in 2010. The government’s spending review has meant that departments have drawn up further staff cuts.
Lord Kerslake, the former head of the civil service, has called on the government to begin a rethink of government cuts to staffing levels because of Brexit.
“If they’re going to get through this mammoth negotiation, they are going to have to increase resources for a period of time – and they ought logically to put a stop on haemorrhaging people,” Lord Kerslake told the publication Civil Service World.
Senior officials believe the untangling of 40 years of EU legislation as the biggest task the civil service has ever faced. This will include deciding on what to keep, amend and reject from EU-related laws and around 13,000 regulations.
At the same time, the British government will be negotiating any new deals with the EU and the rest of the world.
Oliver Letwin, the prime minister’s close associate, is expected to coordinate the unit’s work across Whitehall.
However, former head of the civil service Lord Turnbull told the Treasury select committee on Tuesday that Letwin was “completely unsuitable to do that job in the longer term” because “he has been a kind of consigliere to the prime minister”.
Hannah Williams, the programme director from the Institute for Government, said that the government has failed to explain how the work will be completed. “The announcement today gives no further detail of how this new unit will be run, the expertise it will draw from, or how it will coordinate Whitehall’s Brexit efforts,” she said.
Olly Robbins, the civil servant who is currently responsible for policy on immigration, has been given the job of heading the new Brexit unit.
Robbins, 40, was the UK’s deputy national security adviser to the cabinet office. He told the high court in 2013 that the Guardian’s Edward Snowden revelations could lead to “widespread loss of life”. The government has not yet released proof to back up his claims. Robbins, who is second permanent secretary at the Home Office, was also accused of giving “extremely unsatisfactory” answers on the funding of the Border Force when he appeared before the Home Affairs select committee in April.
Keith Vaz, committee chairman, had asked him repeatedly whether Charles Montgomery, Border Force director-general, had been told what his budget was to be for the year ahead.”
“… Last week’s referendum was a turning point for the devolution agenda. Just as Scotland’s near miss on independence sparked the current round of devolution deals, so the decision to Brexit could spark a new wave of demands for change: and this time, the calls for more local and regional autonomy are likely to be sharper and angrier.
Commentators are rushing to point out that an out-of-touch London elite has not listened to the cries of pain from suffering regional towns and cities. Any plan to address the underlying reasons for the Brexit vote must start by recognising that the British model of economic development is not working for most people. While the capital and wider south east have boomed, regional centres like Birmingham have fallen catastrophically behind. The idea that our economic model can be fixed by the national elite that broke it in the first place seems fanciful. Politically, it will be hard to ignore the need for economic reform.
The need to fix regional economies will be compounded by the deep social divisions that the referendum has painfully exposed. Look at the map of the Brexit vote and London sticks out like a sore thumb; an island of Remainers in a sea of Brexit. Some will say that the capital’s sense of anger and grievance is due payback for decades of ignoring the rest of the country. This attitude will hardly reduce the emotional shock that many Londoners currently feel, an experience that will be replicated in cities like Bristol, Cambridge, Liverpool and parts of Manchester. At the same time, the shires are clearly on manoeuvres to ensure that they translate their political power within the Conservative Party into a more generous approach to devolution to counties, ideally without the troublesome requirement for a mayor.
There are two ways to make devolution happen. For the past few years we have been following what might be termed the Whitehall gift model. Local leaders negotiate with George Osborne and, if he likes what he hears, he passes them down a package of new powers. It is a model that is unlikely to work very effectively in a post-referendum world. Mr Osborne is arguably already a lame duck chancellor. Parliament and the civil service face years of Brexit-related legislative congestion. Why would devolution deals be high on their agenda?
If we stick with the gift model, then devolution will stall. Greater Manchester might have enough momentum to carry on, but places like Merseyside and the West Midlands may find themselves struggling to win more powers. The counties may find it even harder to make progress, especially if they remain mired in complex debates about local government reorganisation.
But Scotland did not win its devolved settlement by waiting for Westminster’s beneficence. Its political class mobilised the voters and civil society to forge a consensus for change, before steadily campaigning to make it happen. The SNP went even further, demanding the right to declare independence unilaterally though their referendum last year. The decision to leave has unleashed a sense of grievance across the country that will be hard to put back in the bottle. Local leaders have an opportunity to channel that feeling in the direction of greater local autonomy. The difficult truth is that leaving the EU will not in itself do much to address grievances rooted in two generations of de-industrialisation, especially if the process of leaving brings a recession with it. Parliament may be preoccupied with Brexit, but the country as a whole will be worried about jobs.
The time for gifts may be over, but the moment for building a genuine movement for constitutional change might just be arriving.”
http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/opinion/2016/06/brexit-turning-point-devolution
No chance for Sidford Fields then.
” … The Environment Agency no longer prosecutes even some of the most extreme pollution events. In 2013, a farmer in Somerset released what the agency called a “tsunami of slurry” into the Wellow Brook. One inspector said it was the worst pollution she had seen in 17 years. But the agency dithered for a year before striking a private agreement with the farmer, allowing him to avoid possible prosecution, criminal record, massive fine and court costs, by giving £5,000 to a local charity.
New rules imposed by the government means that such under-the-counter deals, which now have a name of their own – enforcement undertakings – are likely to become more common. They are a parody of justice: arbitrary, opaque and wide open to influence-peddling, special pleading and corruption.
I see the agency’s farcical investigation of the pollution incident I reported as strategic incompetence, designed to avoid conflict with powerful landowners. Were it to follow any other strategy, it would run into trouble with the government.
These problems are likely to become even more severe, when the new cuts the environment department has just agreed with the Treasury take effect. An analysis by the RSPB and the Wildlife Trusts reveals that, once the new reductions bite, the government’s spending on wildlife conservation, air quality and water pollution will have declined by nearly 80% in real terms since 2009-10.
It’s all up for grabs now: if you want to wreck the living world, the government is not going to stop you. Those who have power, agency, money or land can – metaphorically and literally – dump their crap on the rest of us.
Never mind that the government is now breaking European law left right and centre, spectacularly failing, for example, to ensure that all aquatic ecosystems are in good health by the end of this year, as it is supposed to do under the water framework directive. It no longer seems to care. It would rather use your tax money to pay fines to the European commission than enforce the law against polluters.
I’ve heard the same description of Liz Truss, the secretary of state for environment, who oversees the work of the Environment Agency, from several people over the past few months: “Worse than Owen Paterson”. At first, I refused to take it seriously. It’s the kind of statement that is usually employed as hyperbole, such as “somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan”, or “more deluded than Tony Blair”. But in this case, they aren’t joking. Preposterous as the notion of any environment secretary being worse than Paterson might seem, they mean it. …”
The Sid Vale Association is to take legal advice on the Environment Agency’s “incomprehensible” decision to support a planning application for a business park on a Sidford floodplain.
Here’s an extract from the Sidmouth Herald’s report :
” … The Environment Agency (EA) has defended its ‘incomprehensible’ support of plans for a 9.3-acre business park in Sidford – because using its new flood risk figures could cost the developer money.
A climate change report by the government body states that the region’s peak river flow is expected to increase by 85 per cent – four times more than anticipated – while surface water is likely to increase 40 per cent by around 2070, which is double the previous forecast.
In light of the increased risk to the flood-prone valley, representatives are calling for the agency to rethink its support of an outline planning application for the business park between Sidford and Sidbury, submitted by Fords of Sidmouth.
But the EA states it has not taken the new figures published earlier this year into account because the site is already allocated in the adopted East Devon Local Plan – a development blueprint to cover the next 15 years.
The EA’s policy states: “The advice will come into immediate effect. However, where local plans or development proposals and associated flood risk assessments are well advanced, the application of the updated allowances could significantly slow down completion or add to costs.”
An EA spokesman said: “We considered the plan and application to be well advanced and therefore reasonable to base advice on the existing allowances.”
The Sid Vale Association (SVA) has threatened legal action if the agency does not review its ‘short-sighted and potentially dangerous’ position on the matter.
SVA conservation and planning committee chair Richard Thurlow said: “Our letter [to the EA] reflects the comments of many Sidmouth and Sidford residents. We find it absolutely incomprehensible that the Environment Agency is not using its own regulations which came into operation in February. … “
Increased flood risk: SVA calls for Environment Agency rethink on the Sidford planning application.
Oliver Letwin and John Redwood. (1988)
Britain’s Biggest Enterprise – ideas for radical reform of the NHS
“… four out of five main recommendations made in the 20-page pamphlet are already being put into place.
Britain’s Biggest Enterprise :
– calls the NHS “a bureaucratic monster that cannot be tamed”.
– says the NHS needs “radical reform” and “revolutionary ideas”.
– claims waiting lists were caused by the “system itself” rather than a lack of funds, and that spending more money would simply increase waiting lists.
It makes these five recommendations:
1) Establishment of the NHS as an independent trust.
2) Increased use of joint ventures between the NHS and private sector
3) Extending the principle of charging
Oliver Letwin (1988)
Privatising the World: A Study of International Privatisation in Theory and Practice
Amazon Books 1 star Review:
This is the well spring of what they are doing to our country. The owners of the snouts in the trough that cannot bear to think of any money, any transaction happening without a profit being made for a shareholder or a bank, or Letwin’s friends like Cameron, Osborne and Hunt. An appalling treatise on how greed is right and the public interest is wrong. How to dismantle the stuff that glues us together and sell it off to corporate cartels – the failure of the fuel market, the chaos of our “privatised” railways, the reluctance of bus companies to run unprofitable routes, zero hours contracts – all of these should be warnings of where this sort of poisoned, anti social thinking can lead. Read this book and be afraid.
“Brexit: It is now more important than ever that this country has MPs who will represent the people
Tuesday, 28 June 2016 1 Comment by Claire
Since Friday events have moved so fast I haven’t even written a blog as each time I think of an angle it gets superseded by another major news story!
The only clear thing among all the chaos and confusion, is that this country has probably never been more divided – politically and socially – and in my view, more in peril than at any other time in living memory.
The party system seems to have totally fractured. Not only has the Conservative parliamentary party become bitterly broken, the Labour party is also at war.
Last Friday morning I felt shellshocked and upset that we had left an institution I believed worked for the greater good, despite its many faults. Since then I have watched fascinated as the subsequent dramatic events unfolded.
The economic fallout came swiftly and is very worrying. The value of the pound has plummeted to a 31 year low, we are told that the UK’s credit rating has been downgraded from a triple A to a double A rating, we have dropped from being the fifth largest economy in the world to the fourth and the Bank of England is on standby to pump £250bn of public money into the markets to reduce the jitters currently reverberating across the globe from our EU exit.
More than £200bn has been wiped from the value of the UK stock market – equivalent to 24 years worth of EU contributions.
A general election is now looking possible in October, to tie in with the selection of a new prime minister.
Lies and exaggeration were undoubtedly the order of the day for both the Leave and Remain campaigns, but what is really galling to me is that the Leave movement won people over on false pretences. On the NHS and immigration in particular – two major planks of their operation, their claims have been found to be resoundingly untrue.
The Remain campaign focused too much on scaremongering and too little on how the EU helps us, which only riled people and forced them into entrenched positions , setting family member and friend against one another.
The conservative IN bandwagon, seemed to be blinkered on issues mainly linked to the economy and immigration, discounting all the positive things that the EU does for us, for example on employment, the environment and human rights for example. I believe that this was because these are the issues that are not valued by the right wing political elite that we currently have governing this country.
David Cameron’s supposedly one nation conservative cabinet, which campaigned WITH big business against a ban on bee killing pesticides, has already scrapped or weakened as many environmental protections as it can get away with. Planning regulations are now as relaxed and in favour of developers as they have been since the introduction of the Town and Country Planning Act in 1947.
With a future hardline right wing government on the cards, possibly led by the current favourite Boris Johnson, the likelihood of the current protections remaining for our seas, clean air, recycling, waste and for rare species, landscapes and plants – the Habitats Regulations – is remote.
Over the past few years the Conservative government has lobbied to scrap the EU Habitats Regulations – tough laws which protect some of our most precious landscapes here in East Devon, such as Woodbury Common, Aylesbeare Common, the Exe Estuary, as well as large swathes of Dartmoor.
However, despite the Habitats Regulations protecting our most rare and precious species such as the dartford warbler and the nightjar, our government announced the laws were “gold plated,” and lobbied the EU hard to get them scrapped.
The EU has so far held firm to these regulations, which also mean strong planning rules in these areas , as well as the surrounding countryside.
But I now can see on the horizon an inevitable and horrible ‘bonfire of red tape’ as a new right wing conservative leadership sets about dismantling anything that it views as in the way of “growth.”
So what is the future of East Devon now most of the country has voted to leave?
In my own council ward of Ottery, there must now be question marks for a controversial quarry proposed at Straitgate Farm, which was quietly looking less likely, due in part to the strict Habitats Regulations Protecting Woodbury Common, where Blackhill Quarry is based and where stone and gravel processing currently takes place. It was due to cease as of the end of this year because of these laws.
What will Brexit mean for East Devon’s two biggest industries? Agriculture and tourism? And what will it mean for education? What does it mean for our cash strapped NHS and our local very much at risk
community hospitals?
What will it mean for the most vulnerable people in the constituency and those on low incomes?
Certainly, both agriculture and education are forced to rely on EU subsidies and grants.
Prolonged economic hardship will surely mean even deeper public spending cuts, yet deeper cuts to public services, which as always, will have the biggest effect on those people who have the least.
If a general election does take place in October, the future of our district – and the rest of the country – rests with those politicians examining thousands of pages of EU law and policy with a view to changing, scrapping or tightening it.
The future of our vulnerable residents also rests with MPs who have a duty to stand up for people who need help and support.
East Devon’s MP needs speak and vote in favour or against new laws and policies based on how they affect local people. That’s voting FOR the people of East Devon, not his party.
Each MP has a duty, in my view, to be a diligent scrutineer of this process.
What laws or policies do we want in East Devon that will benefit us, our communities, our wildlife and our businesses? Now is the time to consider this very carefully.
If democracy is working effectively people in East Devon should have the opportunity to influence such discussions through our MP.
And our MP has a responsibility to stand up for the people of East Devon and what they see as their priorities, especially at this very turbulent time.
The question has to be as ever. Is Mr Swire up to the job?”
LEP member SC Innovations Ltd (Supacat, M D Nick Amey) is making it clear exactly what it is expecting from its nuclear activities:
“… SC Innovation is Fit for Nuclear (F4N) accredited by The Nuclear Advance Manufacturing Research Centre (NAMRC) and is also the first South West England based engineering business to open an office in the Somerset Energy Innovation Centre (SEIC). The centre has been established to create collaborative opportunities for prospective Hinkley Point C contractors to engage with local and regional companies.
“SC Innovation can offer a flexible range of attractive opportunities to potential partners. We can offer workshop facilities and capabilities including subassembly, testing, verification and validation acceptance testing as well as documentation management. We can also project manage the local supply chain where they can benefit from our access to over 2000 suppliers in the south west region”, said Joe Wilcox, Head of SC Innovation. “One of our core competencies is delivering engineering projects in sectors which demand a high level of compliance with strict regulatory and technical standards, as evidenced by our F4N status”, said Joe Wilcox, Head of SC Innovation.” …
No conflict of interest there then!
OK next PM, let’s make it simple. You now have three choices:
1. Invoke Article 50 the day you become PM
2. Invoke Article 50 soon after you become PM
3. Find an excuse not to invoke Article 50
If you settle for (1) or (2) it is probably not a good idea for you to go for the Norwegian model – they pay to be in the EU but they don’t get any voting rights AND they have to accept free movement. Either (1) or (2) means LOTS of negotiating (by lots of extra civil servants you need to recruit NOW, by the way) as, if it takes more than 2 years, you walk away with nothing or whatever scraps the EU chooses to throw at you on the way out. And if it is (1) or (2) why wait? Just do it.
If you settle for (3) you pee off A LOT of the English and Welsh, but you make a lot of people in Northern Ireland and Scotland (and the EU) very happy. And you can blame LOTS of people for having had to take the decision, though your career might be rather short-lived. Good to have a Plan B with this one – maybe a job with an EU bank in Frankfurt.
So, if you still really haven’t decided what to do by this point, sit down with the people you trust, lock the door and don’t come out until you have made a decision. If you are still there after 24 continuous hours, it is an automatic (3).
Owl is glad to have helped.
Owl eagerly awaits the pronouncements of:
Paul Diviani – EDDC
John Hart – Devon County Council
and
Chris Garcia – Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership
on how leaving the EU will affect our locality, their plans and their budgets.
You did all have a Plan B for this eventuality didn’t you?
This was published by the Daily Telegraph a few days ago, and now Brexit is a reality it should be read with new eyes:
“Perhaps the most powerfully held aspiration for Brexiteers is to restore UK parliamentary sovereignty: in the words of Michael Gove, to “take back control” and, of John Redwood, for Britain to “be a democracy again .
But what would this “taking back control” mean in practice? Brexiteers imply that while EU legislation is “imposed”, Westminster parliamentarians control non-EU law-making through active debates and votes.
Except they don’t, because for voters what impacts on their lives most is not primary legislation – Bills – on which parliamentarians can vote, but the meaningful detail of the Bills, which Whitehall civil servants and ministers increasingly choose to hide in secondary legislation (sometimes called delegated legislation of Statutory Instruments – SIs).
The scale of this was estimated for the Lords by former minister Baroness Andrews:
“80 per cent of the laws as they impact on individuals are transported through statutory instruments, whether that is welfare benefits, food safety, planning requirements or competition across the NHS…”
Essentially Whitehall civil servants and ministers are defining important laws as “secondary legislation” in order to subvert the ability of parliament to choose whether to pass or not to pass laws.
Brexit is no guarantee of British control of its own destiny or of parliamentary sovereignty because our parliament is not in control.
SIs are rarely debated, and historic Westminster procedure means they cannot be amended. The idea that parliament meaningfully votes to “pass” them is no more real than the idea that the Queen gets to decide the content of the Queens Speech.
The problem is not new. An official Parliamentary report published in 2011 found that the last time the House of Commons rejected a SI was in 1979; it appears from the Hansard record that the rejection of this SI may have been a mistake.
The House of Lords, despite a 1994 resolution affirming its ‘unfettered freedom to vote on any subordinate legislation’, has voted down secondary legislation on only three occasions in the last half-century.
That one reason why the Lords’ hard line on the tax credits SIs in October 2015 caused such consternation in government and David Cameron to appoint Lord Strathclyde to review Lords powers and recommend further action.
The erosion of parliamentary sovereignty by the growing use of secondary legislation and “Henry VIII clauses” (which give ministers powers to change primary legislation through Statutory Instruments and thereby bypass the need for parliamentary votes) to reduce the parliamentary accountability of ministers and Whitehall civil servants was dubbed “The New Despotism” in a book by Lord Hewart of Bury, Lord Chief Justice of England and former Attorney General, published as long ago as 1929.
This would not change outside the EU. The problem was just as real before Britain joined the European Community.
Labour MP Willie Hamilton told parliament in the 1971 European Community accession debate:
“A great deal goes on even now under our own eyes that we do not know about… some 2,000 Statutory Instruments, which have legislative effect, go through this House every year and only a handful of them are debated. This is already government by default. In that sense this House, voluntarily and negligently, has surrendered a large part of its sovereignty to the Executive…. Much play has been made of the decision-making by the bureaucrats in Brussels. Things are not as simple as that. What about our own faceless bureaucrats in Whitehall? What part does this House play now in making policy decisions and in framing legislation? We have none at all. Everybody is consulted except us. Therefore, let us not pretend there will be any serious derogation there when we get into Europe.”
Some Brexiteers, notably Douglas Carswell, have a track-record of championing democratic accountability in Britain’s Westminster parliament. But they are the exceptions. Most are happy to indulge a Westminster parliamentary processes and rules more akin to Mornington Crescent than to cricket. Westminster “parliamentary sovereignty” would be no more certain of “returning control” to British voters, than a sovereign British space programme would be of sending a union-jack adorned rocket to Mars and getting it back in one piece.
That is nothing to do with the EU – if voters do back Brexit to “take back control” they could find themselves holding a political pudding whose democratic promise has been significantly over-egged.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/19/brexit-wont-return-power-to-mps-in-parliament-because-parliament/
“The devolution genie is out of the bottle. As we debate our future sovereignty there needs to be a strong role for local governance.
So now we know. Or do we? The UK faces months of uncertainty as the consequences of the Brexit vote, followed by David Cameron’s own exit, play out.
As all eyes turn to messy wrangling at Westminster, where does this leave local government? At this moment, the sector needs its voice heard, and clearly.
As a priority, local government needs a seat at the table as the financial and legal implications of Brexit are considered. The sector needs clarity over the replacement of nearly £6bn of European Structural Investment Funds invested in regional infrastructure, skills and youth unemployment schemes across the country. These funds play an important but largely hidden role in community infrastructure, with little public understanding of them. A Leave-led government will need to commit to continuing these or face huge local disruption. Beyond that, the practical implications for local government in legal and regulatory terms over huge swathes of activity – procurement, waste collection and disposal, energy efficiency – will need to be understood by those navigating the consequences of working outside EU directives.
Secondly, the future of devolution is by no means certain. George Osborne’s political future remains as bound to Cameron’s as it has ever been and so is now in serious doubt. Since devolution to date has been driven by a chancellor who invested his personal political capital in the agenda, local government now needs to make the policy resistant to personnel change at the Treasury. Whatever happens at Westminster and Whitehall, the impending invocation of Article 50 and ensuing trade negotiations will consume the energy of SW1 – so new and deeper devo deals will be much harder for the foreseeable future.
Thirdly, the repatriation of powers from Brussels to the UK will strengthen the supremacy of Parliament. It is likely that Scotland and Northern Ireland’s Remain majorities raise questions about their future within the UK. Local government in England needs to make sure any constitutional discussion does not stop at the national level and addresses how we are governed more fully. The Referendum vote lay bare the geographical divides within England and the alienation of swathes of the country from the Westminster establishment.
It is clear that representative democracy as we know it is in crisis – to ensure legitimate government in the future we need a serious discussion about where power lies and how our communities can have more influence in their own future. For those of us who are localists this is a given – but the terms of the national debate are not yet set in this way and they need to be. Local government needs to be heard.
Over the coming months there will be more opportunity for this. Continued dysfunction at Westminster, with both main parties divided from the Referendum fallout, gives an opportunity for local leadership to stand out on the national stage as never before. By the end of this year, candidates for new directly elected mayors will be in place and many of our city and county regions will have the opportunity to decide the future of their places. Will this help to shift the centre of political and constitutional gravity away from Westminster? Can we breathe new life into our struggling national democratic culture? Time will tell, but it is likely that the politics and kinetic energy generated by the referendum will continue and may influence these elections in ways we cannot yet foresee.
As we continue a national discussion over what sovereignty looks like, we need to make sure there is a strong local dimension which gives life to the rich diversity of our nation of cities and shires. The devolution genie is already out of the bottle and even as the Westminster bubble bursts, stronger local governance has the opportunity to take on a new life of its own. The future legitimacy of our democracy may well depend on it.”
http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/opinion/2016/06/brexit-raises-questions-about-osbornes-devo-push
“The Local Government Association has called for councils to be given “a seat around the table” when decisions are taken over how to replace EU laws as part of the UK’s exit negotiations.
In a statement issued in the aftermath of the vote for the UK to leave the EU, the LGA said: “It is vital that local government is part of the team. EU laws and regulations impact on many council services, such as waste, employment, health and safety, consumer protection and trading and environmental standards.
“There cannot be an assumption that power over these services is simply transferred from Brussels to Westminster. If services are delivered locally, then the power over how to run them should rest locally too. Decades of centralised control over funding and services has distanced our residents from the decisions that affect their everyday lives. With greater control in our areas we can improve services and save money.”
The LGA also called on the Government to protect the “vital” £5.3bn of EU regeneration funding allocated up to 2020. This was necessary, it said, “to avoid essential growth-boosting projects stalling and local economies across England being stifled”. …
“EDF’s nuclear plant at Hinkley Point could face further delays after its workers launched legal action against the company in French courts and asked for the project to be put off.
The Works Council at EDF claims the energy firm has refused to grant access to key documents and that staff have been left unable to form a clear view on Hinkley.
The plant was due to be running by 2017 but the company is now aiming for completion by 2025, and has yet to make its final decision on how to raise the £18billion needed.
The decision was due in May, but delayed to consult the unions. Some representatives of EDF workers have asked for Hinkley to be put off for another three years – something the French energy company does not wish to do.
Their concerns echo those of senior managers at EDF, who last week wrote to the Energy and Climate Change Committee calling for Hinkley to be postponed.
In May, EDF’s UK boss Vincent De Rivaz faced questions from MPs over its failure to reach a funding decision last month, as had been promised.
If EDF fails to make its decision by September, it will be called back before the select committee again in October.
Jean-Luc Magnaval, secretary of the EDF workers’ committee, has said that even if judges force EDF to hand over the documents in question, the unions will struggle to come to a decision by their set deadline of July 4.
EDF said it had supplied comprehensive information on the project to the unions and participated in meetings to enable representatives to reach a decision in time.
A spokesman for EDF said: ‘EDF is confident in the quality of the information it has provided to the [union] in support of the Hinkley Point C project.’”
East Devon Watch 