Correspondence from Chris Wakefield:

Aggregate Industries’ quarrying plans for Straitgate Farm (Ottery St Mary) will shortly stagger to a final reckoning at DCC on December 1st. As planning applications go, this one features such a wealth of shortcomings and unanswered questions that Councillors due to pronounce on it are spoilt for choice in how to condemn it. The most glaring contradiction lies between Devon’s declared climate emergency and AI’s incomprehensible plan to haul up to 1.5 million tonnes of Straitgate gravel (20% of which is useless waste anyway) 23 miles to Hillhead for processing – a plan about as sensitive to the climate emergency as the felling of rain forest. By any rational planning process this alone would render the application dead in the water, but institutional inertia in Devon County’s climate emergency response, its habitual resort to greenwash, and the inadequacy of a planning system built for a pre-climate crisis era could be enough, despite its obvious inadequacies, to violate the fundamental moral imperative to reject it.

I think I’m too old to contemplate sticking my face to the road in protest (doesn’t appeal much anyway), but this is in my manor, and I am disturbed that my local authority might not rise to the occasion, even to protect our shared living environment.

The writer Ben Okri says he must ‘write as if these are our last days’. I agree that a sense of extreme emergency is immensely important, because these could be our last days – unless we are all prepared to take appropriate action. If our elected representatives don’t feel that urgency – and the moral responsibilities that come with it – they’re in the wrong job.

The plan has been described as something from the 19th Century by local councillors.

The owners of South West Water, the Pennon Group, are the authors of a report aimed at levelling up the South West, recently praised by Boris Johnson. So is this a glimpse of the future, overdevelopment and inadequate infrastructure? – Owl

www.bbc.co.uk 

South West Water has apologised to the customers affected

A village flooded by sewage 11 times this year may be offered portable toilets as a short-term solution.

Some residents of Clyst St Mary, Devon, have been unable to use toilets for up to 60 hours at a time due to sewage overflows.

The plan has been described as something from the 19th Century by local councillors.

Matt Crabtree, engineering director at South West Water, said the company will “deliver the right permanent solution”.

Earlier this month, South West Water wrote to Bishops Clyst Parish Council to request a list of properties left without flushable toilets because of problems with the sewers and offered to provide portable “camping-like” toilets as a short-term solution.

Conservative Councillor Mike Howe, of East Devon District Council, said the suggestion was “hard to believe in a modern society”.

He added: “If it was the 1800s you’d sort of understand it. I struggle to understand it in this day and age.”

Mr Howe also wants all development in the West End of East Devon, to be halted until South West Water sorts out the sewage problems.

The firm has previously struggled to keep up with demand on its services, with 42,000 raw sewage discharges in 2020 alone, according to the Local Democratic Reporting Service.

Mr Howe and East Devon Conservative MP Simon Jupp recently met with South Water executives, who promised to provide monthly updates on sewage problems in the area.

“Extensive” repairs

In a letter to Bishops Clyst Parish Council, Mr Crabtree apologised to customers who had been impacted by the drainage issues.

He added: “We are continuing to investigate the cause of the issue and have been making a number of improvements to the sewer network and to the Clyst Honition pumping station, as well as adding and moving monitors to help trace the root causes.

“We are committed to delivering a permanent solution which will involve detailed works and upgrades to our network.

“These repairs will be extensive and will cause disruption to the area and because of this, we want to be absolutely sure that we have traced the cause to deliver the right permanent solution for the community.”

Letter to Guardian spells it out.

You report that “A&E staff have struggled to find beds for patients because the hospital has run out of space as a result of Covid-19, because of an inability to discharge patients who are medically fit to leave, or due to the record demand for care” (NHS patients dying in back of ambulances stuck outside A&E, report says, 14 November). Aren’t you missing the elephant in the room? The reason A&E staff are struggling to find beds is that the beds aren’t there any more. When the Conservatives came to power in 2010 there were 169,681 hospital beds in the UK. By 2020 the Tories had slashed that to 131,795. Hospitals aren’t coping because the Tories are destroying the NHS.

Denis Beaumont

Wombourne, Staffordshire

More promises heading to the bonfire. – Owl

www.independent.co.uk 

‘Red’ rating means programme faces ‘major issues’ which ‘do not appear to be manageable or resolvable’

The pledge of 40 new hospitals was a key part of the 2019 Conservative election campaign.

Boris Johnson’s pledge to build 40 new hospitals by 2030 has hit fresh trouble after being judged “unachievable” by a watchdog.

The project – already dogged by criticism that most schemes are refurbishments, rather than new buildings – has been given a “red” rating by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA).

It means there are “major issues with project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery, which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable”.

Sources told the Health Service Journal that the IPA carried out two reviews of the programme in the last six months, the latest review – completed this autumn – resulting in the “red” rating.

The IPA’s 2020-21 annual report gave it an “amber/red” ranking, which meant the successful delivery of the project was “in doubt”, but the forecast had now worsened.

The department of health and social care acknowledged the “red” rating and has been asked to respond to fears that the pledge – a key part of the 2019 Conservative election campaign – appears doomed.

Labour pointed to the revelation emerging one day after Mr Johnson “sneaked out social care changes” that will force poorer pensioners to pay higher care bills.

“We learn the government’s own Infrastructure and Projects Authority is warning the Tory promise to deliver 40 new hospitals is now ‘unachievable’,” said Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary.

“From failing to stamp out corruption, betraying the north over rail and now more broken promises over health and care, the Tories simply can’t be trusted to deliver any of their promises.”

The promise of 40 hospitals came under fire almost immediately, when the bill was put at as high as £24bn – while the Tories refused to specify the cost or where the money would come from.

It then emerged that, of the 40 projects, the majority were not in fact new hospitals but were rebuilding projects on existing sites, or the addition of extra units.

Last summer, it was revealed that health bosses had been ordered to ensure that any such building scheme “must always be referred to as a new hospital”.

The instruction was contained within instructions sent to NHS trusts called the New Hospital Programme Communications Playbook, also leaked to HSJ.

Sajid Javid, the health secretary, was embarrassed when he said he was looking forward to opening a “new” hospital – when the cancer care centre had been planned before Mr Johnson’s 2019 pledge.

The HSJ also reported that the Cabinet Office has drafted in a former transport infrastructure chief in Australia to speed up the programme.

Developers are “gorging” on greenfield sites in rural areas to build despite a record amount of brownfield land being available for construction, a charity has said.

www.independent.co.uk 

A report by the CPRE, an organisation that aims to protect the countryside, said there is enough brownfield land in England to accommodate 1.3 million homes.

Despite this, CPRE said “wasteful and immoral” developers are choosing to concrete over greensites because it is cheaper. Emma Bridgewater, the charity’s president, is calling for councils and planners to take a “brownfield first policy”.

“We need to direct councils and developers to use these sites – often in town and city centres where housing need is most acute – before any greenfield land can be released,” she said.

“It is wasteful and immoral to abandon our former industrial heartlands where factories and outdated housing have fallen into disrepair. Developing brownfield is a win-win solution that holds back the tide of new buildings on pristine countryside and aids urban regeneration at a stroke.”

In The State of Brownfield, CPRE’s latest study, the charity says there are enough derelict sites in London alone to build 350,000 houses.

Meanwhile in the north west there is enough brownfield land available for developers to build around 170,000 units.

The report highlighted two cases in Manchester which it said were examples of how development in inner cities is slow . It said the former Boddingtons Brewery site in the city has been awaiting development for 15 years.

Despite the increasing availability of brownfield land, planning permission permits for building on green sites are soaring, CPRE said

The proportion of brownfield housing units with planning permission is the lowest since records began – down to 44 per cent  in 2021 from 53 per cent in 2020 – and the actual number, at 506,000, is the lowest for four years.

Ms Bridgewater said she welcomed the recent “warm words” from the government to protect green sites but wants to see more action on a brownfield first policy.

Andy Street, the Conservative mayor for the West Midlands, said the priority for housing “has to be providing homes that are much needed” while protecting the “greenbelt for future generations.”

“That’s exactly what we’re doing here in the West Midlands,” he added. “The simple fact is there is no excuse to destroy the countryside while so much brownfield land is available for housing, which is why in our region we use the cash we’ve won from government to pay to clean up derelict industrial land.

“This is vital in the context of protecting our natural environment so it can help in the fight against climate change while levelling up our towns and cities so that they are thriving, attractive places to live and work – with nature on the doorstep to be explored and enjoyed.”

Prime minister Boris Johnson has previously pledged to encourage more housing in the north and Midlands to alleviate stress in the overheating market in London in the southeast.

Earlier this year, Mr Johnson was forced into a U-turn by his own MPs following a backlash controversial planning reforms unveiled in the Queen’s speech, which critics said would turn swathes of the south into an urban sprawl.

Downing Street later in the Budget announced a £1.8 billion fund to regenerate brownfield land for 160,000 homes, with Michael Gove, the new “levelling up” secretary responsible for housing has emphasised the need to build on brown sites.

A Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities spokesperson said: “We welcome the CPRE’s commitment to focus on brownfield, which is an absolute priority for the government.”

So no promises of money for rail or road improvements in the South West. The carrot he is reported as dangling is to “support” “greening” the South West. The greening report, however, was  written by none other than one of the main polluters of our rivers and seas, the Pennon Group. See:

South West Water says now is the time to create a “green jobs” G7 legacy

“Pennon, the South West’s biggest employer and parent company of South West Water, has written a report on behalf of the Great South West calling for the region not to be overlooked in the Government’s plans to level up the country. The report demands a “green jobs boom” to stop the brain drain of talented young people leaving the region.”

Are we all about to pay for a “clean-up”? Why is a monopoly utility group leading on economic regeneration? – Owl

Boris hints at ‘powerhouse’ decision as South West kept waiting

Hannah Finch www.cornwalllive.com 

Boris Johnson has told the South West it must continue to wait for news about the region’s £45billion ambition to become the UK’s ‘natural powerhouse’.

The Prime Minister, in an exclusive letter to our sister print title the Western Morning News, which has been spearheading the #BackTheGreatSouthWest campaign, hinted at good news on the horizon.

The PM writes that the Levelling Up White Paper, due to be published by the end of this year, will provide ‘an important step towards securing the formal recognition and funding that the Great South West Campaign seeks’.

But he has made no firm commitments and a campaign leader today declared: “The region has already been waiting too long”.

Mr Johnson’s comments come in response to a letter to Number 10 sent by Bill Martin, the newspaper’s Marketplace Publisher, and Editor Philip Bowern in September. They urged him to act on his warm words about the Great South West campaign.

At the time, business leaders said they were ‘beyond frustrated’ at the lack of action on their business case which they say will transform the region, delivering £45 billion of economic benefit and establishing the region as the UK’s leader for the green and blue economy.

In his letter, sent in September, Mr Martin explained how it has been five years since the #BackTheGreatSouthWest campaign was launched with the region’s biggest private sector employer Pennon Plc and the backing of MPs, business leaders and LEPS.

The Great South West Partnership set out how it has the potential to become the ‘UK’s Natural Powerhouse’ in its Securing the Future prospectus and presented it at 10 Downing Street in 2019.

The deal asked the Government for £2million over three years to progress its ambitions but nothing has yet come of it.

In his letter, Mr Johnson said that he is a supporter of the greater South West and recognised the work that had gone into the campaign.

He said: “The Government is a passionate supporter of a greater South West and I recognise the work that partners have put into the prospectus, maintaining the partnership and securing the support of MPs, local government and others.”

Mr Johnson added that the Levelling Up White Paper “is an important step towards securing the formal recognition and funding that the Great South West Campaign seeks, whilst providing the right framework for delivering these ambitions”.

But Mr Johnson’s response still falls short on the reassurances that the region is expecting, said Mr Martin.

“The Prime Minister appears to recognise that the Great South West is an opportunity, and his reply seems to indicate this will soon be recognised by Government. The trouble is that the region has already been waiting too long and that is preventing the region from realising its full potential,” he said.

“However we shall await the white paper and will continue to lobby on behalf of the region.”

Business leaders have expressed concern that the rural South West, including Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset that is represented by the Great South West, will be overlooked in favour of its nearest cousin – the Western Gateway – covering Bristol, Bath, Gloucester and parts of Wales, including Cardiff.

They fear that the Government will want to deal with one entity only when considering the needs of the South West.

But it is not as simple as that, said John Hart, Leader of Devon County Council.

He said: “The economic challenges faced by the Great South West are a world away from Bristol, Bath and Swindon, and demand special recognition by Government in terms of productivity, wages and life chances.

“Our communities have been the poor relations for far too long, but the potential for the Great South West to be England’s green powerhouse is huge.

“Levelling Up is the Government’s golden opportunity to unleash that potential.”

Gary Streeter, co-chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group for the Great South West, said further delay is holding the region back.

He said he had recently explained to the Minister for Levelling Up, Michael Gove, that the Western Gateway area does not wish to expand its territory to include the four counties within the Great South West.

“The Government is beginning to recognise the contribution the Great South West can make to Net Zero and the Plan for Growth but we continue to be concerned that Government is focused on our metropolitan areas and doesn’t recognise the huge levelling up challenges particularly to our coastal and rural places.

He said: “Although we can all understand the need for coherence. There is every hope that we will get the right result, but the delay is holding our region back in maximising its unique potential.”

A report published in September called Levelling Up the South West by thinktank Onward warned against a ‘one size fits all’ policy when considering the differing needs across the South West.

And in the Autumn Budget, big transport cash was reserved for areas with metro mayors, including £540m for the West of England Combined Authority (Weca) region – or £568 per head – for public transport in the Bristol and Bath region.

The South West did secure some vital funding in the Autumn Budget including investment through the British Business Bank for South West SME businesses, a major road improvement project in Plymouth and £48.4m for improved Isles of Scilly ferry transport links.

David Ralph, chief executive of the Heart of the South West LEP, said that it is time for the Great South West to get similar funding and recognition as its urban cousins.

He said: “The Western Gateway have clearly set out they have no appetite to extend the borders and that doing so would not be helpful to either area.

“We are collaborating effectively on areas of common interest on the Bristol Channel and aerospace but the Great South West needs to operate on a level playing field with similar funding and recognition. Then we can work directly with Government to accelerate our ambitions rather than continue to operate on the basis of good will and no funding or support.

“The proposition of the Great South West is genuinely as a powerhouse. Whilst other areas in the UK are looking to use power to try to transition to a low carbon economy, the Great South West has the raw materials to supply the rest of the UK with low carbon green power from its huge resource of untapped natural capital. It’s time to back the Great South West.”

Boris Johnson’s letter in full

“The Government is a passionate supporter of a greater South West and I recognise the work that partners have put into the prospectus, maintaining the partnership and securing the support of MPs, local government and others.

“The upcoming Levelling Up White Paper will set out bold new policy interventions that will improve opportunities and boost livelihoods across the country as we build back better from the Covid-19 pandemic. It will also look at how the Government can best work with local institutions. This is an important step towards securing the formal recognition and funding that the Great South West Campaign seeks, whilst providing the right framework for delivering these ambitions.

“I am pleased that the forthcoming White Paper will present an opportunity for councils and local government to be at the very heart of the Levelling Up agenda. Moreover, with the completion of the review of Local Enterprise Partnerships, we will have a greater understanding of how the Great South West can best work across local institutions.”

There were two similar motions on offer, one was much weaker than the other (non-binding, wishy washy wording only likely to impact 10 MPs, no time table). They voted against the stronger one and for the weaker one. To show cross-party support, they could have supported both or abstained on one

See Chris Bryant chair of the committee for standards in public life:

Plan to rein in MPs’ second jobs is ‘for the birds’, says Labour MP

Labour has asked the Conservatives what checks the party has made on donations received from Russian-linked individuals – and if it could be sure that no cash received came from the Kremlin or others hostile to the UK.

Dan Sabbagh www.theguardian.com

The questions follow revelations about a group of wealthy donors who have given money to the Conservatives and have business links to Russia or other wealthy Russians.

Labour’s Conor McGinn, the shadow security minister, said it was “deeply worrying to see revealed potential financial links between senior donors and Putin’s Russia” and asked about “the adequacy of the processes” by which donors are vetted.

Donors who have made money from Russia or Russians have given £1.93m to either the Conservative party or individual constituency associations since Boris Johnson took power in July 2019, according to calculations made by Labour based on disclosures to the Electoral Commission.

Their ranks include the financier Lubov Chernukhin, the industrialist Alexander Temerko and an energy company he part-owns, Aquind, plus the businessman Mohamed Amersi.

They have donated £700,000, £357,000 and £258,000 respectively, either directly or through linked companies, since Johnson became prime minister, a total of £1.3m. Other donors with business interests in Russia take the total to £1.93m.

Both the Pandora papers, based on leaked documents from offshore financial institutions, published by the Guardian and others last month, and other reporting over the past 12 months have revealed greater Russian links than previously known.

“What checks have been completed on the financial origins of the donations themselves and were any links to hostile state actors discovered?” McGinn asked in a letter addressed to his opposite number, the security minister, Damian Hinds.

The Labour MP also asked whether MI5 had raised any concerns. “Have officials in the Home Office at any point issued internal concerns about the potential implications for the UK’s national security?”

Chernukhin, a Briton since 2011, has donated £700,000 to the Conservative party and is married to Vladimir Chernukhin, a former deputy finance minister under Putin. Documents published in the Pandora papers in October suggest he was allowed to leave Russia in 2004 with assets worth about $500m (£366m) and retain Russian business connections.

The Chernukhins’ lawyers said it was not accepted that any of Lubov Chernukhin’s political donations had been funded by improper means or affected by the influence of anyone else. Vladimir had not accumulated any of his wealth in a corrupt manner, they added.

Amersi advised on a lucrative telecom deal in Russia in 2005 with a company that a Swiss tribunal subsequently found to be controlled by an associate of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Amersi told the Financial Times in July he had made $7m in the country, but only prior to 2008. “Not a penny that I earned in Russia …  has even remotely come close to being invested in the UK political system,” he said.

Temerko is a minority shareholder and co-owner of Aquind, a company that wants to build an electricity interconnector to France. Its majority investor, the Russian-born oil tycoon Viktor Fedotov, secretly co-owned a company once accused of participating in a massive corruption scheme relating to a Russian pipeline.

Lawyers for Fedotov have denied the accusations, while Aquind’s lawyers said the allegations against the Russian company co-owned by Fedotov came from a wholly unreliable report and were completely false.

Aquind has also stressed that Fedotov did not personally donate to the Conservative party, was not involved in the management of the company and had “no influence” over the company’s donations. No accusations were made against Temerko.

In the run-up to the last general election, Downing Street refused to release the Russia report compiled by parliament’s intelligence and security committee (ISC), taking advantage of a procedural loophole to prevent it being released.

When it was finally published, seven months after Johnson’s landslide win, it concluded that Britain’s intelligence agencies had taken their “eye off the ball” when it came to Russia and had made no serious attempt to examine whether the Kremlin had sought to interfere with the Brexit referendum result.

“Fifteen months after the ISC’s report was published, the government’s continued complacency and inaction on the need to face down hostile state threats is simply staggering,” McGinn wrote.

The Conservative party said: “If a British citizen is able to vote in an election for a political party, they also have the democratic right to donate to a political party.

“All donations are properly and transparently declared to the Electoral Commission, published by them, and comply fully with the law. It would be wrong to suggest malign motive on behalf of individuals simply because of the country of their birth.”

Teenagers in the 16 to 19 bracket are driving an increase in covid cases in North Devon and Torridge, according to Devon’s Director of Public Health.

Alex Davis www.devonlive.com

Steve Brown released a statement today to explain the high rates in the North of the county.

Case rates of coronavirus in Northern Devon are among the highest in the country, with levels in Torridge in particular now reaching 713 cases per 100,000 people, compared to the national average, 364 cases per 100,000.

The figures are from the latest available data, released on the government’s Coronavirus dashboard.

While infection rates are almost twice the national average, Mr Brown said that this has not translated into coronavirus-related hospitalisations or deaths.

Mr Brown said: “Case rates across Devon generally are higher than the national average at the moment, and in all age groups, although the 0 to 19 and 20 to 39 age groups are the highest.

“And although we’re seeing positive cases across a range of settings, it is the high case levels particularly in the 16 to 19, secondary school and college-age people, that are driving the increase to some extent.

“There are a few reasons why North Devon and Torridge may be seeing such high rates.

“Both district areas have, until recently, maintained steady and comparatively low case levels, and with that, therefore relatively lower levels of infection-induced immunity within communities.

“Secondly, testing for coronavirus here in Devon is a lot higher that the national average, so it may be that we are seeing higher levels than elsewhere because we’re identifying them.

“We know that the dominant strain across the UK, and in Devon, is the highly transmissible Delta variant, and that too is driving case levels.

“The good news is that the high case levels are not translating into a significant increase in coronavirus-related hospitalisations, nor deaths. People developing the virus may tend to feel unwell, but are not requiring the medical attention that was once required, and they’re getting better.

“The vaccination programme is undoubtedly helping to keep people from becoming seriously unwell, and I urge everyone to take up the vaccine when they’re eligible to do so, including the third doses and booster doses.

“Testing is still important, as too is self-isolating if you test positive with a PCR test. And following the common sense precautions, remembering that this is an airborne virus, of meeting outside where possible, and ensuring good ventilation if gathering with others indoors; wearing face coverings for other people’s protection when in crowded spaces; and washing your hands regularly.”

Liberal Democrat Alistair Carmichael said: “I wonder if the search by these ministers extends to the shredding room.”

www.independent.co.uk 

No minutes of a key telephone call about a Covid contract awarded to Randox after it employed Owen Paterson as a consultant can be found, a minister says.

MPs were told the failure to “locate” them meant details of the conference call could not be published – just one hour after Boris Johnson bowed to pressure to release details of the contracts.

Labour’s Angela Eagle attacked the “astonishing revelation”, saying: “There have been meetings with no minutes that are official and involve government ministers.”

The Commons Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, also laid bare his alarm – at the start of a Commons debate on sleaze, in which Labour is attempting to force the release of all records.

Sir Lindsay said accurate record keeping was even more important during the Covid pandemic, telling the minister, Gillian Keegan: “I’m very, very concerned.”

Mr Paterson’s work for Randox is in the spotlight after documents appeared to show the firm was awarded a £133m testing contract despite government officials knowing it did not have enough equipment.

The army had to be drafted in to secure the equipment for the Northern Ireland company that eventually won almost £600m in Covid testing deals

Attention has been focused on a conference call on 9 April last year between Mr Paterson and the conservative peer Lord Bethell, the minister responsible for testing contracts, a week and a half after the first contract.

The Sunday Times reported that the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) was refusing to release minutes of the call.

In the Commons, health minister Ms Keegan was asked to commit to releasing details of the phone call – claiming, at first, that only Randox and Mr Paterson would know what was said.

Under pressure, she then switched tack, admitting to “a courtesy call from the minister to Randox”, but told MPs: “We have been unable to locate a formal note of that meeting.”

Ms Keegan said of “other notes that are available”: “In terms of the minutes, I think we’ve said we will publish things here in the library.”

Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, seized on the comments as an admission “that the government is routinely breaking the ministerial code”.

“When a minister meets an organisation or company an official must be present to keep a record of that meeting,” she tweeted.

Ms Keegan said later the government would sit on its hands in the vote on the release of the Randox contract details, which will allow it to pass with Labour votes.

The government, meanwhile, argued it had not lost the minutes of the Randox meeting, but was unable to find them at present.

But the Liberal Democrat Alistair Carmichael said: “I wonder if the search by these ministers extends to the shredding room.”

Weak regulation has a dreadful impact on our environment

Paul Millar www.exmouthjournal.co.uk

Dear readers, sleaze and sewage have not just been the talk of the Westminster bubble but the streets of Exmouth too.

We have sea waters which only weeks ago, along with Budleigh and 13 other Devon beaches, were judged to be too dirty to swim in. 

We have an MP whose response days later was to vote against a legislative amendment to ensure water companies took ‘all reasonable steps’ to reduce raw sewage discharge into our rivers and oceans. Instead, Simon Jupp last week backed a government amendment which gives water companies carte blanche to do diddly squat. 

Water companies have handed a total of £57 billion to their shareholders in the 30 years since privatisation. Across Europe, only the Czech Republic joins England and Wales in having a fully privatised water industry. 

Our weak regulatory framework allows for dreadful environmental outcomes, as the residents in Clyst St Mary have experienced, with a total of 11 instances of sewage flooding this year, and toilets being out of action for 60 hours at a time. England’s only colony of wild beavers at the River Otter is being affected by raw sewage being discharged from an overflow site further up the river. The Devon Wildlife Trust, which lobbied Mr Jupp to vote for the amendment in question, is monitoring the beaver population but is concerned that species of wildlife have suffered much greater harm. Many local people cannot understand Mr Jupp’s position. What was he thinking? 

The cosy relationship between big players in the water industry and the Conservative Party should be a concern to us all. It might well explain the lack of will and action to tackle the companies’ performance. It is a fact that membership of the European Union forced us to improve environmental standards. It is deeply concerning that we seem to be moving backwards, at a time when protecting our environment has never been more important.

Collapsed Exeter-based airline Flybe is returning to the skies, but its comeback will see its new head office relocated to Birmingham Airport.

Anita Merritt www.devonlive.com

In March 2020, the airline – which had its base at Exeter Airport and also operated flights from Cornwall Airport Newquay – went into administration with all flights grounded as a result.

Disruption to the aviation and travel industry brought on by the coronavirus pandemic were partly blamed for the firm’s collapse.

Its brand, intellectual property, stock and equipment was bought last year for a nominal fee from administrators by global private equity firm Cyrus Capital which was a shareholder in the old business.

Last November, Devon County Council bought the former Flybe Training Academy at Exeter Airport for £4m to transform it into the Future Skills Centre which is being leased by Exeter College.

The 2021 version of Flybe has now announced it is to have a head office and operations centre at Diamond House next to the airport in Solihull.

It is one of the first new UK airlines to be certified by the Civil Aviation Authority since Brexit and said it planned to serve key regions across the UK and EU, with services launching in early 2022.

It expects to create 200 new jobs to be based at Birmingham Airport with a further 400 elsewhere in the country over the next three years.

The new carrier recently installed airline turnaround specialist David Pflieger as its new chief executive who brings experience from senior roles with airlines such as Fiji Airways and Delta.

Mr Pflieger said: “We are thrilled to be partnering with Birmingham Airport, the city of Birmingham and the Mayor of West Midlands to make Birmingham Airport the location of our new headquarters and first crew base.

“It was an ideal choice for us due to its great people and highly skilled workforce, its central UK location and the fact that airport is a global travel hub where local and connecting customers have access to over 150 worldwide destinations.

“Today’s announcement marks the culmination of over 12 months of dedicated hard work by all involved and it would not have been possible without the support of the CAA and the UK Government.

“We plan to provide more information in the coming weeks and months about ticket prices, new routes and destinations and other important news. This is an incredibly exciting time for us and we look forward to sharing more updates in the future.”

Prior to its collapse, Flybe was Europe’s largest regional carrier and flew around eight million passengers a year and employed 2,500 staff.

It was owned by Cyrus Capital alongside Virgin Atlantic and Stobart Group.

Birmingham Airport’s chief executive Nick Barton added: “This is fantastic news for our region’s connectivity needs and it will bring with it some great new employment opportunities.

“Dave’s vast experience in managing start-up airlines and turnaround situations, coupled with the recovery of the Midlands’ economy post-covid, means that Flybe’s return to the skies from Birmingham is a shot in the arm for our airport as well as West Midlands businesses and communities.

“We look forward to working with Dave and his team in preparation for next spring and to launch such a well-known brand here in Birmingham.”

Boris Johnson faces a confrontation with his backbenchers today as he pushes for MPs to be banned from taking on second jobs as consultants.

Steven Swinford,Henry Zeffman, www.thetimes.co.uk

The prime minister gave in yesterday to pressure over sleaze by proposing that MPs be barred from acting as paid political consultants. He also called for a limit on the amount of time MPs can spend on outside interests.

He will push his plans to a vote in the Commons today in an attempt to outflank Labour. The move represents a significant shift in Johnson’s position a fortnight after his botched attempt to block the suspension of Owen Paterson, a former cabinet minister.

There was a backlash yesterday from Tory MPs with outside interests, who accused him of “capitulation”. One said: “It’s pouring petrol on to the flames. He’s caved to the left. Now if you have a consultancy it will be assumed you’re evil.”

Another MP said that Johnson announced the plans because he was concerned about being embarrassed during an appearance before the liaison committee of MPs this afternoon. “There’s a lot of unease. It’s the lurching, the U-turning, the lack of consultation.”

However, the proposals do not bar MPs from taking paid directorships or acting as consultants in non-political roles. Many of the 29 Tory MPs who act as consultants believe that they will be able to continue working because their second jobs are unrelated to parliament.

There was more concern on the back benches about plans to place “reasonable limits” on outside work by MPs to ensure they are focused on their constituents. “It looks very odd,” one senior Tory MP said. “How do you determine how much time people should be spending on something? How do you arbitrate on that? How do you define parliamentary consultancy?”

In a letter to Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, Johnson identified two recommendations from a 2018 report by the committee on standards in public life for inclusion in an updated code of conduct for MPs. One of the new provisions would be that “any outside activity undertaken by an MP, whether remunerated or unremunerated, should be within reasonable limits and should not prevent them from fully carrying out their range of duties”.

The move follows criticism of Sir Geoffrey Cox, a former attorney-general, who voted in parliament from the Caribbean while advising the government of the British Virgin Islands in a case brought by the British government.

The other would state that “MPs should not accept any paid work to provide services as a parliamentary strategist, adviser or consultant, for example, advising on parliamentary affairs or on how to influence parliament and its members”.

Johnson published his letter moments before Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, began a speech about his proposals to ban most outside earnings for MPs.

The government’s amendment calls for “cross-party work” to “bring forward recommendations” on changes in line with Johnson’s ideas by the end of January. Unlike Labour’s motion, it does not specify that that work must be completed by the standards committee.

Labour accused the government of “dirty tricks” last night because its amendment does not guarantee parliamentary time for a vote on changing the standards rules next year.

There are 25 politicians who spend the equivalent of at least one working day a week on outside work for which they are paid. Almost one in four Tory MPs spend at least 100 hours a year on their second job.

Chris Bryant, a Labour MP and chairman of the standards committee, which is already looking into the code of conduct, accused Downing Street of “flapping about like a demented chicken”.

Johnson held a Downing Street reception last night for Tory MPs from the 2019 intake during which he apologised for “driving the golf ball into the sandpit” over his handling of the Paterson vote and sleaze allegations.

Cllr. Stuart Hughes acting as high handed as ever – Owl

Joe Ives, Local Democracy Reporter sidmouth.nub.news

Roadworks at a notorious accident blackspot near Sidmouth are expected to be completed in the next day or two, but a Devon County Council highways chief has been criticised for the “undemocratic” way he’s handled the concerns raised about the road.

Councillor Stuart Hughes (Conservative, Sidmouth), cabinet member for highway management at Devon County Council (DCC), says the roadworks on the A3052 Four Elms Hill near Sidmouth which started on Monday should be completed by Wednesday. The works involve new double-white lines indicating ‘no overtaking’, signs urging motorists to slow down and a skid-resistant surface on parts of the road.

The news will come as a relief to some residents who have been urging the council to improve safety on the stretch of the A3052 by reducing speeding and dangerous overtaking. Councillor Jess Bailey (Independent, Otter Valley) said she will be happy when “the long-overdue works” are done but has criticised the way Cllr Hughes handled the issue at DCC.

Following a request by Cllr Bailey, an update on the works at Four Elms was provided recently by county council officers to members of its East Devon Highways and Traffic Orders Committee (HATOC). Cllr Hughes, who chaired the meeting, did not allow committee members to comment on the update despite a request made by Cllr Bailey.

Cllr Hughes did not allow Councillor Bailey to speak on the issue because she had called for the update and, as it had been given by an officer, “therefore there was nothing to discuss.”

She said she was “gobsmacked” she was denied the right to speak, adding: “I was left, literally, speechless. Cllr Hughes also prevented Cllr Hayward, who is a member of the committee and clerk for Newton Poppleford Parish Councillor, from speaking, too.

“In not allowing me to speak, Cllr Hughes, from the position of chair of the meeting, blocked me from doing my job on behalf of residents.

“It is very disappointing to be treated in such a dismissive way by Cllr Hughes who, as the portfolio holder for highways, sets the tone for his entire department.

Cllr Bailey added: “I think it’s very undemocratic to silence your ward member. If they’ve got a question they should be able to ask it.”

“The Lords is as central as the Commons to the latest outbreak of “sleaze” headlines, something also highlighted by a prime ministerial spokesperson’s initial refusal to rule out smoothing the exit from the Commons of the disgraced MP Owen Paterson by making him a peer. The Lords element of the story, moreover, has an even clearer underlying plotline: the survival of a part of the British state that has long been absurd and corrupt – and the sense that, as our established institutions are constantly disrupted and disgraced, the public might at last be persuaded to support the idea of doing something about it.”

Fifteen of the last 16 Tory treasurers have been appointed to the Lords, all of whom have donated at least £3m to their party.

Read more here:

The Lords is a scandal in plain sight. If we won’t abolish it now, then when?

John Harris www.theguardian.com 

A Conservative party donor who supported Michael Gove’s Tory leadership bid won £164m in Covid contracts after the minister referred his firm to a “VIP lane” that awarded almost £5bn to companies with political connections, new analysis reveals.

David Conn www.theguardian.com 

The disclosure draws Gove into a furore over alleged cronyism that has led critics to accuse the government of running a “chumocracy” where MPs’ friends, contacts or acquaintances have won huge contracts without proper process or transparency.

Meller Designs, based in Bedford, was awarded six personal protective equipment (PPE) supply contracts worth £164m from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) during the coronavirus pandemic.

Until January this year it was co-owned by David Meller, who has donated nearly £60,000 to the Tory party since 2009. This included £3,250 to support Gove’s party leadership bid in 2016, a campaign on which Meller worked as chair of finance.

When the contracts were awarded, Gove was a minister at the Cabinet Office, which is responsible for government procurement, and in charge of the office of the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, which referred Meller Designs for PPE supply.

The company was among 47 awarded contracts for PPE totalling £4.7bn after referrals from politicians and officials, according to a Guardian analysis. Several were linked to MPs, all of them Conservative. Due to the health emergency, many contracts were awarded without competitive tender.

The list of 47 companies awarded contracts via the VIP lane was published by Politico on Tuesday before its official planned release by the DHSC after a freedom of information request by the Good Law Project, which is challenging the propriety of some contracts.

The VIP or “high-priority” route was a fast-track process set up by DHSC procurement teams for offers to supply PPE from companies referred by ministers, MPs, NHS officials or other people with political connections. A report by the National Audit Office last year found that firms referred to the VIP lane had a 10 times greater success rate for securing contracts than companies whose bids were processed via normal channels.

Labour has repeatedly accused the government of favouring people with Tory party connections in the awards of multimillion-pound contracts during the pandemic.

The list of companies includes 18 whose contracts were processed through the fast track after being referred by a Conservative MP, minister or peer. When questions were first asked about the process last year, the government responded that referrals were a way of filtering credible offers that came to MPs and ministers. However, only companies referred by Conservative politicians are on the list of those awarded contracts.

The then health secretary, Matt Hancock, referred four firms subsequently awarded contracts; Andrew Feldman, a health department adviser at the time, referred three of the companies; Theodore Agnew, a Cabinet Office minister, referred three; and the Tory backbenchers Julian Lewis, Andrew Percy, Steve Brine and Esther McVey referred one each.

Another Tory peer, the lingerie businesswoman Michelle Mone, is stated to have referred one company, PPE Medpro, which was awarded two contracts worth £200m via the VIP lane. Corporate services including accounting and directorships were provided to the company by Knox House Trust (KHT), an Isle of Man firm run by Mone’s husband, Douglas Barrowman.

Mone, who made her career and fortune with her Ultimo lingerie company, last year denied to the Guardian via her lawyers that she had “any role or function in PPE Medpro, nor in the process by which contracts were awarded to PPE Medpro”. Mone’s lawyers told the Guardian she maintains her denial of involvement.

Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader and the shadow chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, said in relation to Gove: “It shows just how engulfed in corruption this government is that the minister in charge of procurement and ensuring that contracts are awarded to the best bidder and represent value for money for the taxpayer was helping his own donor to get VIP fast-track access to contracts.

“It is time this … government published the full details of every PPE and testing contract awarded to companies with links to the Conservative party, Conservative ministers and Conservative MPs.”

A spokesperson for Gove denied that the referral involved any impropriety, saying he passed on offers to supply PPE. “The former minister for the Cabinet Office played no role in the decision to award any PPE contract, and all ministerial interests were properly declared to officials,” they said.

A spokesperson for David Meller said he had nothing to add to a previous statement provided by Meller Designs, which said it had approached the government offering to supply equipment and was “extremely proud” of the role it played in supplying “more than 100m items of PPE”.

The Cabinet Office has refused Freedom of Information Act requests from the Guardian to release correspondence between Meller and Gove during the pandemic.

A lawyer for Mone and Barrowman said: “Baroness Mone is neither an investor, director or shareholder in any way associated with PPE Medpro. She has never had any role or function in PPE Medpro, nor in the process by which contracts were awarded to PPE Medpro.” They added that she did not accept that PPE Medpro was “referred in as alleged” or “that our clients misled anyone”.

The DHSC has stressed that ministers were not involved in decisions to award contracts, and that all company offers referred were subjected to a due diligence process. A government spokesperson said: “At the height of the pandemic there was a desperate need for PPE to protect health and social care staff and the government rightly took swift and decisive action to secure it. Ministers were not involved in awarding contracts.”

Lord Feldman said the companies were referred to him by third parties and he passed them on to officials. He was “neither responsible for nor played any part in the decision to award these contracts … never had any commercial relationship with them or their owners” and “did not request, or indeed know, that these offers has been assigned to the high-priority lane”.

The Cabinet Office said Lord Agnew had been referring on companies that had approached his office. Uniserve said the DHSC had approached it directly and that it had no connections with Agnew.

McVey and Lewis said the companies they referred were local to their constituencies. All other MPs and peers have been contacted for comment.

Without a division we will never know whether Neil changed his mind, he may not have even been in the chamber for the U-Turn debate. So he may have escaped cleaning out the stables.

Yesterday Neil Parish was at the Commons environment committee where George Eustice, the environment secretary, was giving evidence.

“ The hearing opened with some highly critical questions from Neil Parish, a Conservative, who complained that the visa systems offered by the government were not doing enough to address the serious problems facing farmers. He went on:

All we are doing at the moment is staggering on, as far as I can see. The pig sector is not profitable. Pig prices are on the floor …

A lot of pig farmers will stop keeping pigs, bluntly. Poultry is being reduced. All of these visas are very time limited, and half the time people don’t want to come for a short period.

What gets me so cross is we put in place a system that’s not working. And when the industry doesn’t take it up, you’ll say the industry didn’t take it up, so it’s all the industry’s fault. No, it’s not the industry’s fault.

We’ve got a very good industry which, as far as I can see, we are not actually destroying, but we are actually making it very difficult.

Eustice said he thought the visa scheme should be working for the pig and poultry sector. He also said that pig production had increased by about 7% or 8% this year, and that was part of the reason for the problem of over-supply.”

Is he sincere? Too little, too late! – Owl

Aubrey Allegretti www.theguardian.com 

Boris Johnson has bowed to pressure from Labour to take tougher action against MPs with second jobs, as he sought to avoid haemorrhaging further public support in the wake of sleaze scandals that have engulfed the Conservative party in recent weeks.

The prime minister said MPs who prioritise outside financial interests over their job representing constituents should be investigated and “appropriately punished”, and all MPs should be banned from acting as paid political lobbyists.

The move came at the end of a humiliating episode for Johnson, when, after two weeks, the government finally U-turned on its plan to save the Tory ex-cabinet minister Owen Paterson from suspension by approving a report that found he committed an “egregious” breach of lobbying rules, which it had initially blocked.

MPs’ second jobs have also been in the spotlight recently after it was revealed that the former attorney general Geoffrey Cox had earned hundreds of thousands of pounds for legal work, appeared to use his parliamentary office to attend a hearing remotely, and voted by proxy from the Caribbean.

Johnson wrote to the Commons Speaker on Tuesday, just as the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, was due to give a speech challenging ministers to support a tougher approach to MPs’ outside financial interests.

The prime minister said the MPs’ code of conduct should be updated so their work “continues to command the confidence of the public”, and added that any elected legislator’s “primary role” should be “to serve their constituents”.

Johnson said he supported two recommendations made in a 2018 report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life. The first said MPs should not undertake any extra employment that would “prevent them from carrying out their range of duties”.

The second said MPs should not receive “any paid work to provide services as a parliamentary strategist, adviser or consultant”, for example by advising on “how to influence parliament and its members”.

Johnson said adopting these suggestions would “form the basis of viable approach which could command the confidence of parliamentarians and the public”.

He added it was “a matter of regret” the suggestions made a year before he won the keys to Downing Street had not been implemented already, and voiced his support for them being “adopted as a matter of urgency”.

The move represents an about-turn for Johnson, who has resisted backing calls over the past few weeks for tougher action against MPs’ second jobs.

It is also likely to rile some of the more traditional members of his party, whom Johnson has previously defended and said that their expertise in fields outside politics was actually a positive.

The announcement came as Starmer was preparing to announce an opposition day motion to be put forward in the Commons on Wednesday that called for all of the recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life to be implemented.

When he was told of Johnson’s intervention at a press conference on Tuesday, Starmer said: “So we’ve won the vote tomorrow already.”

In the end there was no division but Boris Johnson still  refuses to apologise.

Since you seem to be having difficulty in setting your moral compass, not that Owl would normally recommend following this lot.

According to this latest report from the Guardian:

“Rees-Mogg will have to present the motion on Paterson on Tuesday, with an hour of debate due to follow about the former North Shropshire MP’s conduct. Unlike the motion the previous night that only needed one opponent to defeat it, a simple majority will be enough for it to pass.

It will be a free vote, meaning Tory MPs will not be whipped one way or the other, but they have been told that the chief whip, Mark Spencer, will be voting to endorse the Paterson report, which will put pressure on them to follow suit.

Rees-Mogg was one of the three senior figures – including Spencer and the prime minister – to originally push for Paterson to avoid suspension by overhauling the standards system, partly to introduce the power to appeal for MPs found guilty of wrongdoing.” 

Link:

Rees-Mogg says trying to spare Tory MP from suspension a ‘serious mistake’