The Webb log

Questions answered on expenses

2011-07-21T17:27:00.003+01:00

Today (21st July) IPSA have published figures for the 'expenses' claims of all MPs for 2010/11. I very much welcome the new transparency and openness about the new system. I thought it might be useful if I reported back my own claims and how taxpayers' money enabled me to do my job.

My total figure for 2010/11 was £142,671. The main elements of this were:

- £105,508 for staffing; this is the cost of employing staff in the constituency office and at Westminster, including employer NI contributions and contributions to staff pensions; in 2010/11 one member of staff went on maternity leave and so I incurred additional costs in paying for maternity cover; for this reason my staffing figure is higher than average, though I have queried with IPSA whether these costs have been correctly recorded;

- £15,968 for staying in London overnight around 3 nights per week; I still have a one-bed flat in Westminster where I stay; when the flat is sold, any gain in value will go to the taxpayer;

- £9244 for 'office costs'; this is mainly the cost of lease and service charge for the office at Pooole Court;

- £7151 for general admin costs; this is things like phone bills, toner cartridges for printers, broadband bills, additional IT above the basic amount provided by parliament etc.;

- £4798 for travel; this is standard class rail journies (generally once a week) from Bristol Parkway to Westminster and parking at Bristol Parkway; where possible I buy advance rail tickets but as a minister it can be hard to predict my return rail journey home on a Thursday so I generally buy an open ticket which is more expensive.

In terms of things that I don't claim, I made no claims in 2010/11 for mileage/petrol and no claims for food.

I hope that this is helpful information for local residents.

Coming to a conclusion on fees

2010-12-09T16:34:00.002Z

I’m grateful to everyone who took the trouble to contact me about the difficult issue of fees.

I’ve thought long and hard about it, as you might imagine. I’ve had to consider two key things – the content of the policy and the things we said before the election.

I think the policy is far more positive and fair than the media reports would imply. At the moment, students repay their fees as soon as they start earning £15,000 per year, well below the typical graduate starting salary. Under the new scheme, repayments won’t start until £21,000. This means that every new graduate will pay less each month than under the present system. They will pay for longer, but after 30 years the balance of their account will be cancelled if they haven’t cleared it. So unlike a credit card debt, there is an end point, and those who don’t earn much won’t end up paying much of the fees back. In terms of fees, there is no risk in going to university - if your career takes off, you pay back fully, if it doesn't, your outstanding debt gets written off.

A second important positive feature of the change is that part-time students (who make up a surprisingly high proportion of undergraduates) will not have to find fees up front. Until now part-time students have been the poor relations and this will change.

Third, the basic cap on fees will be £6,000 (less than double the current cap). Those universities who want to go further than this will have to show they are working effectively to remove barriers to young people from diverse background getting on courses.

Given the need to make long-term changes in order to get the public finances on an even keel, I think that this is as fair a package as could have been achieved. In the words of the second half of the famous NUS pledge: “I will vote for a more progressive alternative”.

Which brings me on to the things that were said before the Election.

I stood on a manifesto that had literally hundreds of policies and pledges. If we had won the election I would have expected us to implement them, and would have been on the front row of the demonstrations if we hadn’t.

But we were faced with a situation where the electorate elected just 57 MPs, and that makes a huge difference to our ability to implement our policies. We could have sat in opposition and voted issue by issue. But then we would only have been able to implement our commitments if someone else agreed with us! I judged (and still believe) that it was better for us to form a Coalition both in the national interest and in order to deliver more of the pledges on which we were elected.

By the end of this Parliament I believe we will indeed have delivered far more of the things we promised before the Election than we have ever done before. I believe that this was the best way to keep faith to the electorate for the things that I said before the Election. Of course I wish that we could have made more progress in the negotiations over fees. But I ask myself how many other things that we stand for, and on which people voted for us, we would have sacrificed along the way. And if we hadn’t ended up giving ground on fees, would I now be having angry e-mails from people saying I had betrayed them on climate change or civil liberties?

In sum, I believe that the way I have kept faith with the people who voted for me is to seek to implement as much as possible of the manifesto on which I was elected, as part of a Coalition programme for government, and on fees, to seek to make the policy as fair as possible given the crippling financial situation in which we find ourselves as a nation. I believe that I have done both of those things and will be supporting the package in the vote which will shortly take place.

A real rollercoaster

2010-05-12T14:06:00.002+01:00

The events of the last few days have been a real rollercoaster, from the highs of the election campaign and the surge in Lib Dem support during the campaign, to the lows of polling night, through several days of tense negotiations to finally agreeing to a five-year coalition deal last night. I know that to many people the place where we have ended up will seem at the very least suprising, so I thought I would put down my thoughts.

My starting point is that we have to respond to the hand that the electorate deals us. No party got a majority of MPs, and even the most successful party didn't get much more than one third of the votes cast. In that situation, one party trying to run the country on its own was unlikely to be sustainable for the long term. I suspect a Conservative minority administration would have been followed a few months later by another General Election. In that election the Conservative demand for a clear mandate and 'strong government' would almost certainly have resulted in a five year majority Conservative government.

Against that backdrop, the only alternative was some form of co-operation between two parties - something that the Lib Dems have always argued is quite normal in most democracies.

Working with Labour would have raised a number of issues. With Gordon Brown kept in post, many people would have accused us of thwarting the will of the electorate. With Gordon Brown gone we would have ended up with a second successive Prime Minister who had not been elected through a General Election. Furthermore, even Lib + Lab votes would not have been a majority in the Commons and the instability of relying on Nationalist votes would not have given us a stable government.

In the end, it was clear that Labour MPs were not ready for joint working, as many said publicly. In particular, there was no appetite for a move on reform of the electoral system which in our view is the key to unlocking more progressive politics.

This left only one option - a coalition with the Conservatives. We had always said we would negotiate with the largest party first, and the Conservatives proved willing to adopt a large number of Lib Dem policies, including putting through legislation to give a referendum on a preferential voting system, as well as fairer taxes and a greener economy.

Clearly, the jointly agreed programme does not give us everything we want as Lib Dems. But it means that a lot more Liberal Democrat policy and principles will be put into practice in government than any of us could have dreamed just a few weeks ago. Let us hope that we can now demonstrate that different political parties can work together for the good of the country.

Thank you!

2010-05-07T01:26:00.002+01:00

I'm delighted to be the first Member of Parliament for 'Thornbury & Yate' - indeed at one stage this evening I was the first Lib Dem MP in the country!

The full result was:

Steve Webb (Lib Dem) 25032
Matthew Riddle (Con) 17916
Roxanne Egan (Lab) 3385
Jenny Knight (UKIP) 1709

It was a great honour to get more than fifty per cent of the vote for the third General Election in a row. I think an hour or two of sleep may be called for!

What do you have to do to vote?

2010-04-29T08:22:00.002+01:00

As this will be the first time many people have cast their vote, I thought it might be useful to explain what actually happens when you go and vote.

If you are on the list of the people who can vote (the 'electoral register') then you should by now have had a postcard (a 'polling card') with your name and address on it and telling you either that you have registered to vote by post (in which case you should already have been sent a ballot paper) or telling you where to go and vote.

If you are voting in person, election day is next Thursday, May 6th. The polling stations are all open from 7am to 10pm. When you go and vote it is helpful if you take your polling card with you, but it doesn't matter if you've lost it or can't find it.

You go in to the polling station and give your name and address to the clerks. They will check that you are on the list and haven't already voted and will then hand you a ballot paper. This is a list of the people who want to be your MP, together with a description (eg "Liberal Democrats") and a part logo (eg in our case the 'bird of liberty').

You take your ballot paper to one of the booths and you put a cross in the box next to the name of the candidate that you want to be your MP. You then fold your ballot paper and place it into the ballot box (usually a big black metal box with a slit in the top).

That's all there is to it! If you haven't received a polling card or are not sure where to go and vote, you can check with the Council on 01454 863030.

Interesting times...

2010-04-17T17:59:00.002+01:00

Astonishing things going on in the polls at the moment. An ICM poll taken *before* the debate had Lib Dems up 7 and two others polls have Lib Dems overtaking Labour and only a few points behind the Conservatives. Anyone's bet where we go from here.

Two reflections on the events of recent days:

- the biggest change seems to have been the not very extraordinary change of *giving the Lib Dems fair coverage* - for 48 weeks a year the BBC can largely ignore us but for four weeks they are obliged by law to give us a decent showing; and guess what? when people hear what we have to say, presented in an effective manner, lots of them like it!

- the polling people are really struggling to work out how many MPs each party would get if the voting figures stayed as they are now being reported; but what seems clear is that the current voting system could leave the party with the fewest votes with the most MPs!! If that were to happen, surely the case for changing our electoral system would become absolutely overwhelming

I must say I've been amazed at the number of people in the last 48 hours who have told me - unprompted - that they were impressed by Nick on the debate show. Especially encouraging has been that people who don't normally think of themselves as interested in politics watched the show and decided who to support on the back of it. Interesting times indeed....

And they're off!

2010-04-06T15:18:00.003+01:00

Probably the worst-kept secret in recent months is finally out of the bag - Gordon Brown has been to the Palace and there really will be a General Election on 6th May!

Like most people, I will be glad to get on with it. It has been more-or-less impossible to have any sensible discussion about anything in Parliament in recent months because everyone has had one eye on the Election. In my experience, the few months leading up to an election are always the worst time for any hope of parties working together in a mature way for the good of the country.

This election feels quite different to the previous ones that I have fought. There's clearly a mood for change, but not necessarily simply to swap from one of the old parties to the other. I suspect that the combined Labour and Tory vote share may be one of the lowest in living memory as people vote for parties, such as the Lib Dems, who want to do politics differently and break open the system.

We've already been knocking on doors and surveying for months now, so I already have a feel for the mood of the electorate, but I'm looking forward to campaigning in earnest and to seeking election to a new Parliament which will, I hope, be much more outward looking than the one which is finally coming to an end.

PS If you're interested in information about my campaign or want to help - the place to visit is www.WinWithWebb.co.uk - thanks!

An extraordinary meeting

2010-02-24T16:44:00.002Z

Just come back from an extraordinary meeting about compensation for Equitable Life policy holders who lost out due to 'maladministration' by the Financial Services Authority.

The meeting was organised by the all-party group Justice for Equitable Policyholders. We were moved at the last minute to a smaller meeting room, and by the time 40-50 MPs had crammed in it was very much standing room only.

The 'witnesses' were the Treasury minister Liam Byrne, and Sir John Chadwick, who has been asked by the Government to advise on appropriate compensation for policyholders.

One of the main complaints raised was how long it is taking to get compensation payments made to policyholders, not least given that thousands have already died without seeing justice.

We were told that Sir John would produce his final recommendations in May, and that the Treasury would respond within a fortnight. However, there could be many further stages before the first payments were made, and Liam Byrne would not commit himself to any timetable. He said that if the compensation was simply cash lump sums they could perhaps use the DWP to pay out the cash, but if the compensation was in the form of 'financial products' (eg a top-up pension?) then it would all be much more complex and they might even have to go out to tender.

On a positive note, Sir John said he did not want to have anything to do with a 'means-tested' scheme, and the minister said he was not inclined to go down that route, both for reasons of practicality and of justice. But this prompts the question as to how those who have been 'disproportionately affected' will then be defined?

Also on a positive note, both the Minister and Sir John said that they envisaged that the estates of deceased policyholders should in principle benefit from any compensation scheme.

When the Minister and Sir John left, the new Chief Executive of Equitable spoke up and expressed support for policyholders. He revealed he had repeatedly sought a meeting with the Treasury and had had no response. He implied that he thought the whole process was dragging on far too long, and pointed out that when his own industry had had to sort out pensions 'mis-selling' they had taken a lot less time to do so.

I can't remember the last time I saw an all-party meeting with dozens of MPs cramming into a room, nor such a united view that the injustice suffered by policyholders had gone unresolved for so long.

One final point. I asked about the scale of compensation. Sir John said he couldn't put a figure on it, but would come up with a formula into which the data would be put. Liam Byrne said that they would indicate publicy how much the full cost of Sir John's scheme would be. But he then said there was 'no blank cheque' and that the Treasury would cap compensation. So the sequence of events is that hundreds of thousands of policy holders lose out, some many years ago, the Government denies responsibility, the Ombudsman finds in their favour, the Government partially rejects the Ombudsman's report, the action group go to court and get the scope of the scheme widened, Sir John comes up with a scheme and then at the end of all that the Government may simply say we can't afford it, here's how much we can spare.

Doesn't feel like justice to me.

A Good Evening with Paddy

2010-02-06T18:30:00.003Z

They would have you believe that no-one is interested in politics any more and that public meetings are dead. Yet on Thursday evening more than 400 people flocked to Thornbury Leisure Centre to hear former Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown reflecting on the current political situation at home and abroad and to answer questions on a wide range of issues. Paddy is rightly respected across the political spectrum, and it was his answers on foreign affairs and defence issues that were particularly eagerly sought. Although Paddy spoke and answered questions for over an hour, we could easily have gone on for twice that long. I think there is a real appetite for people who speak their mind and who know what they are talking about. It was great to see so many people at the meeting and gives you a bit of hope amidst some of the gloom about public attitudes to the political process.

Had a dodgy tax code?

2010-01-27T09:34:00.003Z

The way that the income tax system works is a mystery to most people. At this time of year some people are desperately trying to get their tax affairs in order to meet the 31st January deadline for submitting their tax return.

But many more face confusion according to reports on the BBC which suggests that following the introduction of a new computer system (sounds familiar..) some people may be getting the wrong income tax codes in the post. If these errors are not corrected, they may end up paying too much money in the new tax year which starts in April.

The problem seems to affect those who have changed jobs or who have had more than one job. Each year you are allowed to earn £6475 without paying any tax. Where you have more than one job, that tax allowance is sometimes split between your jobs so that each employer gives you a tax free amount and then you pay tax on the rest. The problem seems to be that the Inland Revenue are in some cases splitting the tax code for 2010/11 between employers even if you no longer work for them! As a result you could end up paying too much tax.

If anyone who lives in the Northavon constituency receives a notice of coding that they don't understand or which looks wrong they are welcome to e-mail me or post me a copy and I will be happy to take up their concerns with HMRC.

Time to postpone the exams

2010-01-09T12:29:00.003Z

Large numbers of young people will be trying to take exams over the next few days on modules that will count towards their final mark, but the cold weather (and possible further snow) may mean that some may not be able to get to schools to take their exams. I think this would be very unfair on those who, through no fault of their own cannot get to schools/colleges, especially in more rural areas.

The exam boards say the exams can't be postponed, and nor can they be expected to set extra papers for (say) next month when hopefully the weather will have cleared. All they will say is that people who can't take their modules now can do so in June.

But this mean that some students get to do their exams now when the subject matter is fresh in their mind and they can concentrate on a small number of papers, whilst others will have to sit them in June alongside all their other papers. This is unlikely to be give a fair assessment of the relative strengths of the different candidates - which is presumably the point of the exams.

Whilst some students will have no trouble getting in next week, too many face disruption for the exam boards to refuse to act. In my view the fairest thing to all would be a short delay - perhaps a month - which would save the exam boards having to set extra exams but would avoid an exam pile-up in the Summer. We need to get the exam boards to show a bit of humanity.

Making sense of Kelly

2009-11-04T11:11:00.002Z

After a lot of leaks, the independent report into the rules for MP expenses by Sir Christopher Kelly has finally been published. The BBC write-up is here, together with a link to the full report.

Before the report was published I said that I thought the report should be implemented in full and I stand by that position. After all that has gone on, I really don't think that MPs can now be seen to be quibbling about this report. One of the more positive suggestions is that there should be some central provision of rented accommodation. This makes a lot of sense, and to be honest if there had been somewhere available to rent as soon as I was elected in 1997 I would have immediately opted for that. I've already said that when my current one-bed flat is sold the full gain (after capital gains tax) will go back to the taxpayer, so (if re-elected!) I will sell up by the end of the next Parliament and switch to rented accommodation.

What happens next is that a new body - the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority - will be asked to receive this report and comments on it and propose final arrangements to come into force after the Election. I hope that this process is not too drawn out and that we can get on with concentrating on the real work we are paid to do.

Challenging your council tax banding

2009-10-16T13:46:00.002+01:00

Very useful conversation this morning with the Valuation Office Agency about what to do if you think your house is in the wrong Council Tax band. Until now I've been quite confused because I've been told that you can only appeal against your valuation within 6 months - but have then heard of other people who have managed to get re-banded. So, this is how it works:

* key point to remember is that Council Tax banding is based on the value of your property in April 1991; although the sale price since then is relevant evidence, the key question is not what it subsequently sold for, but what it would have been worth in April 1991;

* again, although you can get a very rough idea of a property's 1991 value by applying a general house price index (eg the Nationwide house price index for the South West) to a later sale price, these indices are very rough and ready; the VOA pointed out that you can get different housing market trends between different roads in the same town, so regional averages are likely to be very rough and ready indeed;

* whilst you can only appeal against your banding within six months of moving in, you can make an 'inquiry' if you think your banding is wrong; the VOA will look at your case and if you can convince them that a mistake has been made then they will re-band you; you don't have statutory "appeal rights" as such, but in some cases they can and do re-band people; if the banding was wrong right back to when the tax was introduced in 1993 then you should be able to get the change backdated;

* one thing which can affect banding is a 'material change of circumstances'; for example, if you were banded from April 1991 on the basis of an open country view and then a few years later a factory is built over the road, you may be able to argue that your value has now gone down;

There are two interesting websites to look at if you want to take things further. One is the VOA website where you can see the council tax banding of every house in your neighbourhood and another is (for example) here which gives information on the sale prices of houses in your area. The Martin Lewis 'MoneySavingExpert' website has some helpful advice, though again bear in mind the caveat that using *average* house price indices is a very rough-and-ready approach.

Given that the whole country's valuations were done in such a hurry in 1991, it would not be surprising if a significant minority were only relatively approximate. Whilst that may not matter too much if you are in any case around the middle of a council tax band, if you would have been on the cusp between two bands and ended up in the higher one it might be worth looking at.

Tory rise in state pension age - do the sums add up?

2009-10-06T07:16:00.005+01:00

A very strange story appeared last night on the BBC news and reported here on the BBC website. Apparently George Osborne will announce today that the pension age for men is to be raised from 65 to 66 in 2016 - about a decade earlier than planned - and he 'hasn't ruled out' doing the same for women. 'Conservative sources' said this would raise around £13 billion, which is a very very large cut.

Leaving aside for a moment the fact that what they would do with women's pension ages appears to be something of an afterthought, how could you get such a huge figure?

If you were to make a wild guess at the saving from raising male state pension age to 66, you might say the following:

- each year, roughly 400,000 men have a 65th birthday;
- the full basic state pension is currently £95.25 per week; for the sake of round numbers and including a bit of additional state pension etc., let's say it's £100 per week (probably a bit of an underestimate);
- multiply the two together and you get £40m saving per week, and multiply by 52 and you get not much more than £2 billion; furthermore, as the state pension is taxable, if you don't pay out that £2 billion in pension then you lose a few million in tax, but we'll ignore that for now.

So, if the BBC are reporting the Tories as saying the saving is £13 billion, and my maths says not much more than £2 billion, what could be the difference?

One possibility is that the Tories are costing in raising women's ages to 66 in 2016 which really would be a drastic step, as women's pension age will only be around 63 at that stage on current plans.

There could be a few other bits and pieces to add in - eg savings on pension credit (if the age rules on pension credit etc. went up to 66 as well), but nothing on the scale needed to turn £2bn into £13 bn.

The only other explanation is that this is a figure for a whole Parliament - ie an annual saving times 5. Presumably in the 2016 to 2020 Parliament you could save over £10 billion from this measure, and then you are not far off the Tory figure. But the impression they seem to want to give is that this is a huge and specific cut, when, in the context of a Government deficit this year forecast to be in excess of £175 billion, £2 billion saving on pensions starts to look a lot more modest. Surely they can't be trying to mislead us??

UPDATE (07:50) - the mystery deepens! David Cameron has just been on BBC Breakfast saying that the saving is £13 billion each year and that it relates to men's pensions only because they haven't decided what to do with women! Talk about not thinking through your policy....

Behind the scenes in an MP's office

2009-09-09T13:32:00.002+01:00

Over the Summer, several local young people have helped out in my constituency office and have had the opportunity to learn more about how politics works. Here, Emily Ashford, 18, from Thornbury, describes her experiences and reflections on her time in the constituency office - uncensored!:

“This week I have had the great opportunity to become part of Steve Webb’s fantastic and very lovely office team. I’ve been drafting letters, researching individual cases and just generally sticking my nose in; broadening my knowledge of government departments and organisations. I’m also aware that depending on when young people have done work experience here, they have been able to take part in a range of activities including going door to door, leafleting and talking to Yate and Thornbury residents about their views and problems. At least one of the ‘interns’ has also been to Westminster with Steve. The office itself is a relatively small room, upstairs at Poole Court, the home of Yate Town Council. There are 6 working desks, one is Steve’s and the other 5 are for each of his employees, who all work so hard in helping Steve to manage and deal with all of the inquiries he has in his inbox and postbox every day. I am hugely grateful to all of them and to Steve for letting me have this opportunity.

Tomorrow I return to sixth form with a new perspective on problem solving that can be applied to the responsibilities I have as a student in the community. I was especially led to think about this after hearing a lecture back at the offices last night, which was aimed to encourage everyone to get to grips with the politics going on in their area; to take an active role in talking to people at their level and to change the things you want to see changed.

This work experience has also helped me to form opinions about important issues and about the education decisions I have to make over the next few months and years. When I organised this work experience I was thinking about applying for a social policy degree, but as you might expect of a girl of my age, I’ve changed my mind; again. I am now planning to do a social work degree and though you may think that work experience with Steve Webb would now be redundant in its use, it has actually been hugely beneficial. Steve has been able to tell me about organisations that otherwise I would have been unaware of and has shown me individual cases he is dealing with that were of interest to me. It really is astonishing when you realise how so many jobs and organisations interlink with others to form a network that without, our communities would really struggle.

I’ve also rediscovered my love for tea and biscuits. :) ”

Does the PM read every petition personally?

2009-09-04T09:55:00.002+01:00

Was just looking at the Number 10 petition website and read the following rather startling message:

Notice: Submission of new petitions will be closed until 7th September while the Prime Minister is away from Number 10.

Does this mean that the PM personally approves every new petition before it goes on the website?? I think we should be told....

The politics of pendulums

2009-07-13T12:26:00.000+01:00

Newton's Third Law of Motion ('to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction') applies equally to politics. Looked at over the long-term, it is easy to find examples of how policy has a tendency to swing from one extreme to the other rather than alighting at a happy medium. For example:

- in local government it is first decided that 'small is beautiful' and local authorities are created which relate to relatively close-knit geographical areas; but over time it is decided that these bodies are too small to be 'strategic', and therefore what is needed is larger authorities or regional bodies; then these are seen to be remote and unaccountable and we rediscover localism again; this has happened both in local government (witness the current drive to create more strategic 'unitary' authorities to replace smaller district councils) and also in health (where in my time as an MP I have seen PCTs and health authorities change their geographical boundaries on almost an annual basis);

- with regard to privatisation/nationalisation: post-War major strategic industries were taken into public ownership; decades later it was decided that state control brought no 'added value' and they should be privately owned and free to compete; more recently still some have failed commercially (eg some national rail franchises) and their strategic importance is such that they are now back in public ownership;

Today brings news of what looks suspiciously like another pendulum swinging too far. In the 1980s, with rapidly rising unemployment, it was widely known that unemployed people with health problems were reclassified onto invalidity/incapacity benefit in order to get them out of the headline jobless figures; however, over time this led to a big build-up in costs and numbers on IB as people got 'stuck' on these benefits; as a result there have been a series of clampdowns on sickness-related benefits culminating in the introduction of the 'Employment and Support Allowance' to replace IB last Autumn; the problem now seems to be that huge numbers of people are being turned down - up to 90% in some areas. I find it hard to believe that a system that signposts people to claiming and being assessed for sickness related benefits and then turns down up to 9 in 10 in some areas makes any sense - especially when many of these people end up being paid jobseekers allowance instead.

On this latter issue it would be nice to think that there was a sensible equilibrium - fair assessment of people with health problems - rooting out those who work the system but responding promptly and effectively to people who are struggling with poor health. But just as pendulums don't stop in the middle, benefit reform has a tendency to over-react to the last set of problems. It would be good to get a grip on this one before it swings out of control.

Getting your hands on your own money

2009-07-08T17:21:00.002+01:00

Took part in a fascinating policy seminar this lunchtime organised by CentreForum around the issue of early access to Pension Fund cash. In particular, we were discussing the paper that I jointly wrote with Jo Holland about the part of your pension which you can currently take as a tax-free lump sum when you retire. Our basic proposal is that you should be able to access whatever you have built up as a potential tax free lump sum (ie typically one quarter of your fund) earlier if you wish. One use for the cash might be to tackle a mortgage arrears problem and thereby avoid repossession. After all, it's a bit daft if you have thousands of pounds in your name that you can't touch when you need it, especially if that cash would never have been taken as a pension in any case.

The discussants were Nikki Cleal of the Pension Policy Institute and Baroness Patricia Hollis, who first suggested the idea to me.

The PPI has done its own research on a variety of schemes for early access to pension funds and has highlighted the variety of similar schemes around the world. The effect on overall savings levels is ambiguous, though the lump sum option appears to have attractions compared with some schemes in other countries.

Patricia Hollis stresed the attractions of this sort of scheme for women. She said that many have poor pension rights and often do not save for a pension because it represents a risk to tie up your money when you may need cash to cover a career break or perhaps the costs of caring for a relative. She said that defined benefit pension schemes had clearly been 'devised for men by men', and that current pension arrangements were a very poor fit for the needs of many women, especially those in low-paid or part-time work. A more flexible product, where you can get at some of your cash when you need it, would be a better bet.

A lively discussion followed, including issues of how you would sell this idea, whether the Inland Revenue would be an obstacle, and whether you would create problems for schemes if large volumes of cash were withdrawn from pension funds at short notice.

I think this is an idea that clearly works not just in a Recession, but more generally as a vehicle to make pension saving more attractive, and I suspect it is something that we will hear more of from all parties in the coming months and years.

Downing St. u-turn on MP pensions - as it happened

2009-06-25T08:49:00.004+01:00

Earlier this year Gordon Brown announced a series of changes to MPs terms and conditions that he wanted to see implemented at once. One that attracted little attention at the time was his suggestion that MPs pay just over £60 per month extra into their pensions. I looked at the figure and realised that this was not enough to prevent the taxpayer from also being asked to pay more in 2009/10. I took the view that this was not acceptable and tabled a motion to this effect along with Frank Field and Vince Cable. As I write it has 23 signatures, including one independently-minded Conservative.

There was then a delay in debating this aspect of the package but a motion was put down by Harriet Harman for debate today (Thursday 25th). On Tuesday night I tabled an amendment with Frank and Vince to freeze the taxpayer contribution at its (already generous) 2008/09 level. Until yesterday afternoon the Government were taking no notice, saying it was simply following what the Government Actuary had said. But a reporter from Bloomberg raised the issue at the afternoon lobby briefing, the press and broadcast media caught on to the story, and suddenly things took on a life of their own. The Conservatives announced they would back my amendment, and by mid-evening Downing Street said that if my amendment was selected for debate they would accept it!

This is only a relatively modest change, and a review body is quite rightly looking at root-and-branch reform of the MPs' pension scheme. But hopefully it does send a signal that MPs are realising that we can no longer give the impression that too many of us live in a bubble sealed off from the real world.

Speaker #3

2009-06-22T19:04:00.001+01:00

So, it looks like its down to two: John Bercow 221 so far, and George Young 174; roughly 200 votes up for grabs; if they split 40:60 Bercow:Young (as happened in the last round of transfers) it would end up Bercow 301, Young 294 or thereabouts - incredibly close! In a way that would be a shame, as we could do with a Speaker who can clearly unite the House.

PS All the other remaining candidates have now dropped out

Speaker #2

2009-06-22T17:11:00.003+01:00

Results of round 1:

John Bercow 179
George Young 112
Margaret Beckett 74
Alan Haselhurst 66
Alan Beith 55
Ann Widdecombe 44

Eliminated are: Parmjit Dhanda (26), Richard Shepherd (15), Patrick Cormack (13) and Michael Lord (9)

We now have ten minutes to see if anyone drops out, otherwise a second round of voting.

[PS Do I get a bonus point for correctly predicting the first four to drop out??]

Electing a Speaker - 'live' update (well nearly...)

2009-06-22T15:55:00.003+01:00

Just come from the House of Commons where we've just heard from the ten candidates for Speaker. We have until about ten past four to vote then they reckon it will take about an hour to count the first round of votes. The bottom candidate plus anyone with less than five per cent of the poll has to drop out, plus anyone who realises they don't have much support. We could easily drop to four candidates in round two.

I should declare that I have nominated Alan Beith, so I'm not impartial! Alan is a decent man, not a member of the two larger parties (which I think is an advantage in a highly partisan parliament) and has a track record as a select committee chairman and over many years in Parliament of being widely respected around the House.

Anyway, having got that off my chest, the main things I thought about what we have just heard were:

- good performances from George Young (who I voted for last time and who I might well vote for again if Alan Beith drops out), John Bercow and Parmjit Dhanda. Ann Widdecombe was well received but the Labour faces didn't look sympathetic from where I was sitting;
- surprising cheer for Alan Haselhurst (current deputy speaker); hard to tell if it was just from the opposition benches or from the Government as well;
- Margaret Beckett started off (which was not easy) but was very disappointing;

Most interesting idea was from Alan Haselhurst who proposed sensible use of Fridays for private members bills debates with 'deferred votes' (ie you don't spend a whole day out of the constituency simply on the off chance of a single vote on a Bill);

At this stage, my best guess is that the following will be eliminated early on:

- Richard Shepherd, Michael Lord, Patrick Cormack and Parmjit Dhanda.

However, since every candidate needs 12-15 supporters to stand, and the minimum to stay in is five per cent (or around 30), few will be forced out first time round.

I'll post the result as soon as we have it.

Yet another own goal...

2009-06-19T09:10:00.004+01:00

The decision to publish MP expenses with large swathes of black ink is yet another own goal by the Parliamentary establishment. A day that could finally have lanced the boil of this issue by bringing everything into the open has instead created a new wave of resentment and cynicism. Even the most honest MPs look like they are trying to cover things up.

Looking at the expense claims that go in, there is virtually nothing that needs to be concealed - I would suggest credit card numbers / bank account details and signatures - not much else. All the rest should have been simply published. I couldn't believe my ears when I saw the TV news last night and one senior MP who had overseen the whole process of blacking out expense details suddenly telling Nick Robinson it was all a disgrace!

I can only hope that the Election of a new Speaker on Monday starts a completely fresh way of thinking about our role as MPs and that the old attitudes are got rid of as quickly as possible.

The next steps to a Digital Britain

2009-06-16T19:39:00.004+01:00

In the Commons this afternoon to hear new Secretary of State Ben Bradshaw launch the final report on 'Digital Britain'. Among many important matters, the report dealt with the issue of access to broadband - both at current speeds and at proposed 'next generation' speeds. The key points were:

- to reaffirm a 'universal service broadband commitment' that everyone would be able to achieve 2 Mbps by 2012; this would be based on existing technology such as DSL, 'fibre to the cabinet', new wireless coverage and possibly 'satellite infill'; some of the money for this would come from what looks like being the underspend on the money that the BBC has been given for facilitating the switchover to digital TV;

- recognising that new 'superfast' broadband (eg optical fibre cables) would only ever be commercially viable to deliver to about two thirds of the country; (I hadn't realised that around half the country is cabled and is therefore now on the brink of superfast broadband delivered by Virgin); a strategy was therefore needed for the 'final third'; this is to be funded by a 50p per month 'broadband tax' (though that's not what they call it); companies could then bid for this money (which would raise around £150m per year) in return for delivering superfast broadband to those areas that would be in the 'final third' that would not otherwise be delivered.

In response to the statement I queried whether 2 Mbps obligation by 2012 was really good enough. Whilst that speed would be heaven-sent for some people today who have very poor service, by 2012 I suspect that such speeds will seem wholly inadequate and will again leave people excluded, especially if the next town are getting 50 Mbps on cable. Ben Bradshaw said that the 2 Mbps was the speed needed to use BBC iPlayer and that seemed a reasonable goal.

All of this does mean that a lot of people will start to get much better broadband speeds over the coming years, but, as ever, I can't help thinking that the market towns and villages of South Gloucestershire will end up near the back of the queue unless we are organised and effective in our lobbying.

Could this be the Cabinet that never meets?

2009-06-06T16:25:00.003+01:00

At 10pm on Thursday the minister I shadow in Parliament, James Purnell, announced his resignation. For a few hours it looked as though the dam had broken, other frontline ministers would follow suit, and the Prime Minister would have to go. But, after a night's sleep, the major potential successors to Gordon Brown each decided that they didn't want to be the one to push him over the edge. By the end of that day Gordon Brown had just about managed to form a cabinet (though how you must feel as a Labour MP that he has repeatedly had to turn unelected people into Lords to get enough quality to fill a Cabinet?) and the consensus was that he had survived.

But tomorrow night we get the European election results and they are universally expected to be bad for Labour. I strongly suspect we may have no Labour MEP in our region - the South West - which is pretty extraordinary for the governing party. If the results are grim this will give fresh momentum to the Labour rebels to get together a list of names to produce on Monday. If that list is long enough, even the stubborn Prime Minister will surely realise he has to go. The Cabinet appointed yesterday might never get to meet. Let's hope they don't all pick up redundancy payments if the new leader doesn't reappoint them....

If there is a Labour leadership election it would be outrageous if there was not then an immediate General Election. Changing the Prime Minister once without consulting the British people is bad enough, but doing it twice would be an outrage.

The slogan: "Gordon Brown - five more years" is one I think most advertising agencies would struggle with. I reckon his time is up.

Broadband speeds

2009-05-29T19:39:00.003+01:00

Fascinating meeting this afternoon with representatives of BT Openreach. We were talking about why broadband speeds in one village in my constituency vary so much from house to house and at different times of day, and what we can do about it.

In general, once a line has been tested for faults, the biggest single determinant of broadband speed seems to be distance from the exchange. BUT - this is the length of the wire, not the distance as the crow flies, so a house that is physically nearer to the exchange can be further away in terms of length depending on the route the wire took.

The second important factor is which 'Communications Provider' you are using. At our local exchange there are three companies with their own 'kit' in the exchange - BT, TalkTalk and Orange. Each of these will differ in the quality of the equipment they have put into the exchange, how many subscribers each has and - interestingly - the capacity of the line out of the exchange to the national network (I think this may be called 'backhaul'?).

The third important factor is the setup within the house. The BT people said that all sorts of things within a house can affect the connection speed including the state of the electrical and phone wiring within the house and interference from things like thermostats switching on and off, microwaves being switched on etc. On this latter issue, they showed us something called an i-plate which you can insert into your phone socket and which filters out some of these sources of interference. Some people have reported big improvements in speed when they tried this.

Finally, we learned that part of our local network is actually aluminium wires rather than copper wires (from a time when copper was v expensive) which doesn't affect phone quality but does undermine broadband speed.

One of the frustrations is that it does seem to us from our local surveying that choice of service provider may make a big difference at our exchange. But as a consumer you don't know what actual speed you will get unless you switch provider! We're going to do some more work locally looking at who people are using to see if one provider is systematically better than the others. Though if this is the case and everyone switches then we'll all be fighting for bandwidth and the speed will drop...

Finally, we were reminded of two sources of improvement 'in the pipeline':

a) the Government is pledged to bring in a 'universal service obligation' of ensuring everyone can achieve 2 Mbps; this could be through a range of technologies based on location but this investment should improve things for everyone;

b) BT itself is investing in new high-speed optical fibre which will give super-fast broadband to 10m houses by 2012; unfortunately, towns and villages are unlikely to be very high on the list for upgrading....

Tax Credits and the missing billions

2009-05-18T18:31:00.003+01:00

Just done a quick TV interview for GM-TV tomorrow morning about the billions of pounds that go unclaimed each year in tax credits. We've unearthed new Treasury figures (which were not suprisingly released with no fanfare) which show that up to 1.5 million families with children are entitled to children's tax credit but don't get it, and up to 1.5 million working people are entitled to working tax credit but are missing out. In each case the average amount unclaimed is in excess of £2,000 per year.

You would assume that if it was 'free money' then people would claim it. But the system is so complicated that many people don't even know they are entitled. Others are put off by the daunting complexity of the forms, whilst others have claimed but had such a bad experience that they've given up. Particularly hard hit are those who are awarded money in good faith only to be told years later that the figures were wrong and they now owe thousands.

We want to see a much simpler system so that people know where they stand. In particular, if they provide all the information accurately and in good faith, they shouldn't be subject to HM Revenue and Customs changing their mind and demanding thousands of pounds back years later. The tax credits system needs to be on the side of hard-working families, not making their lives a misery.

Drip, drip, drip...

2009-05-09T15:19:00.004+01:00

The daily publication of excerpts from MPs expenses makes pretty depressing reading for anyone involved in politics. No mainstream party is going to escape from the general cynicism that these stories are generating, and I don't doubt for a minute that, come the European elections, the main winners will be the 'can't be bothered to vote' party and, more worryingly, the extremist parties who voters may be tempted to support to register a generalised protest.

The only glimmer of light in all of this is that the leaks in the newspaper may bring forward the ludicrously slow timetable for publication of every MPs' expenses, which still isn't due officially until July. I would like to see everything published within the next couple of weeks. We then need the Committee on Standards in Public Life to come up with independent recommendations for sorting all this out which Parliament should accept and move on.

One thing I hope the Committee will recommend is that if MPs do buy a home in London for the time they are away from home, they should not benefit from any capital gain when that property is sold. In my case I have seen the value of my London property increase and have said that when I cease being an MP and the property is sold I will not take a penny from the proceeds - I will hand it all back. The taxpayer contributed to the costs of buying the flat, and the taxpayer should get his/her money back (and more besides) when the property is sold.

This whole issue needs clearing up and quickly, not least so that we can then all focus all our attention on the business of holding this government to account.

Minister challenges First Bus

2009-05-05T14:29:00.003+01:00

Interesting development today in our campaign for better local bus services.

I led a 30 minute debate in Parliament this afternoon highlighting the way that First treat their customers, notably with the short-notice cut to the X27. I quoted from the reply that one local resident had received to their e-mail challenging First Bus to subsidise routes such as the X27 from the profits they make on their city centre routes. In reply, First had said that the law prevented them subsidising services in this way.

I raised this with the Transport Minister (Paul Clark) who said he wasn't aware of any legislation that would stop First doing this if they wanted to.

So someone's got it wrong....

I also asked about Councils getting more power to force companies to run routes and to cap fares. The Minister said that Councils should have these powers in place by the end of the year. The challenge then will be to get the local councils in our area to use those powers, as I think First Bus have us all over a barrel at the moment.

Victory!

2009-04-29T17:03:00.004+01:00

Within the last hour we have seen a landmark victory for justice in the House of Commons. On a Liberal Democrat motion the House of Commons voted by a majority of more than twenty to reject the Government's mean-minded response to the Gurkhas and instead to give - in the words of Nick Clegg - "the right for people who are willing to die for this country the right to live in this country". Given that the Government normally has a majority of more than sixty votes, this shows the strength of anger at the inadequate government response on this issue. Earlier in the day at Prime Minister's Questions, Gordon Brown argued that we couldn't afford justice for the Gurkhas. But when you think of some of the things that the Government spends our money on, this simply doesn't wash. It was great to be able to come out of the Houses of Parliament after the vote to celebrate with Gurkha campaigners who had gathered across the road. Now the Government needs to respond swiftly to the will of Parliament and make sure that these brave soldiers are given the dignity that they deserve.

Debt to make your eyes water

2009-04-22T13:59:00.004+01:00

Today's Budget contained the usual barrage of figures, but one number really stood out. The Chancellor admitted that this year the Government will spend £175 billion more than it raises in taxes. It's hard to grasp what numbers like this actually mean. But this is a colossally large sum of money.

What it means in practice is two things:

- taxes will be higher for years to come; we've had some early indications - a top rate of 50% on the highest earners, a first slice at pension tax relief and a general increase in National Insurance Contributions; it's hard not to think that there's more to come, though with a General Election in the offing I don't suppose the Government or the official opposition will want to come clean on that;

- public spending will face a severe squeeze; Government's don't talk about 'cuts' any more, they talk about 'efficiency savings' - but the effect is the same; compared with the growth in spending in recent years everything will suddenly feel a lot tighter; class sizes will start to rise, NHS waiting times will start to go up, access to social services for elderly people in the local area will start to take even longer and so on; the Chancellor today took many billions off the planned spending levels in these areas, and you just can't do that without hitting services.

Apart from this, the Budget had the usual ragbag of measures, many of them reannounced. It is very hard to believe that in years to come this Budget will be remembered other than for some extraordinarily large numbers.

A barrage of options

2009-04-17T07:24:00.003+01:00

After a year of discussions and evidence gathering, we have this week published the results of a joint inquiry by West of England and Welsh Lib Dem parliamentarians and councillors into tidal power from the Severn. You can find it here. At the start of the inquiry, our group had a wide range of views on the subject but we were all determined to come with an open mind. We wanted to harness the tidal power of the Severn but wanted to see where the evidence led us on which approach would get the best combination of maximising the renewable energy generated, minimising the environmental downside, getting best value for money and doing most for the local economy.

The more we looked at the 'big barrage' (which would run roughly from Cardiff to Weston), the less convinced we were. The Government now thinks it could be 2030 before this up and running, which is pretty hopeless when we need to cut CO2 emissions much more rapidly than that. The Government estimates that a big barrage would wipe out 80% of the 'inter-tidal habitat', and it's inconceivable that this could be replaced anywhere else. Partly as a result of this, any big barrage would be bound to be bogged down in court action for many years and perhaps further delayed as a result. A big Cardiff-Weston barrage would also blight the Port of Bristol which is not only bad news for the local economy but means freight coming to the UK going to ports which are much further from centres of population and therefore generating many more lorry miles. And a big barrage probably generates two huge power surges a day (generating on the ebb tide only) which can be hard to make full use of, especially if they are not at times of peak demand.

All in all, we felt that relying simply on a big barrage was not the answer. In the end we reckoned the best package would be likely to be:

- a smaller barrage, such as at the 'Shoots' (ie near the Second Severn Crossing) especially if this could be used as the route for a new high-speed rail link between South Wales, Bristol and London;

- to pilot 'lagoons' around the estuary, which would spread the period over which power was generated through the day;

- to fund proper research into 'tidal reef' technology which holds out real hope of getting a better balance between power generation and environmental impact, but is still in its early stages of development;

Any use of the Severn for power generation will involve trade-offs, but we believe that this combination offers the best chance of serious renewable energy in a realistic timescale, whilst producing much less environmental impact than a single huge barrage.

Sense on MP expenses

2009-03-30T10:27:00.002+01:00

The latest revelations about MP expenses reinforce the need for a complete shake-up of the whole system. Some good sense on the subject was written yesterday in the Mail on Sunday by Sir Alistair Graham who used to chair the Committee on Standards in Public Life. You can read his article here.

Later today the House of Commons will publish a summary of MPs expense claims for 2007-08 and no doubt there will be another set of adverse headlines. I thought it might be helpful therefore to explain a few things about what the figures mean.

My biggest 'expense' is the cost of employing staff. I employ one full-time member of staff at Westminster and five people in the constituency working different combinations of hours. The office team do an excellent job making sure that constituents get a quality response even when I'm tied up at Westminster or out on constituency visits, and in helping to brief me for my contributions to debates in Parliament. Their salaries are included in my total expenses figure.

The next biggest 'expense' is the cost of living in London around 100 nights a year. I have a one-bedroom flat near the House of Commons and claim for the costs of that flat. In my case there is no doubt that my family home is in the constituency, where my family live and where I spend the majority of nights.

My next expense is the cost of travel between constituency and Parliament (typically one train journey per week) and a limited amount of mileage around the constituency.

The final main expense is the cost of leasing and running a constituency office. I lease an office at Yate on which I pay rent, service charge and business rates. Further costs include things like phone bills, office equipment, stationery etc.

Adding all of these up comes to a significant figure, but I hope that this breakdown helps to explain a bit more of the story behind the figures. I have always voted for greater openness in these matters and for tougher independent audit, and will continue to do so.

Freeing up much-needed cash

2009-03-29T14:06:00.000+01:00

Just had a few minutes on the BBC's politics show at lunchtime to float an idea that could make a real difference to households threatened with repossession or in other financial need.

This coming year, it is expected that around 70,000 families could lose their home through repossession. Many of the same households will have one or more member who has a pension scheme which will eventually pay out a substantial tax-free lump sum on retirement. But under present rules, that money cannot be touched. On retirement it can be used for a world cruise, to pay off a mortgage, for home improvements or for anything else you fancy. But just when you need it - now - it can't be touched.

This seems crazy to me. We know that most people take up the opportunity to draw up to a quarter of their pension fund as a tax-free lump sum on retirement. This is money that, in general, doesn't get turned into a pension at all. So allowing people to access the money early would in general not undermine peoples' future pensions. What it could do is allow them to stave off repossession or - frankly - spend their money on something else that would boost the economy such as buying a car or putting down a deposit on a house. At a time when the Governor of the Bank of England is warning that the Government can't afford to borrow yet more money to stimulate the economy, this would be a way to put billions into the hands of households that need it.

There are lots of details that would need to be worked out (and which we will cover in a pamphlet on this theme to be published next month). For example, you would probably need a cap to make sure this didn't just turn into a big tax avoidance scheme. You would also need rules about how often this could be done, how the pension funds would be compensated for this increased complexity and hassle and so forth.

But the more I think about this idea, the more I think it could make a real difference to people, boost the economy now, and all without spending a penny of taxpayers' money - not a bad combination!

And now they want to know who your friends are...

2009-03-25T07:59:00.003Z

In the lastest twist in the attempts by the government to monitor every aspect of our lives, we now learn that they want to force social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to reveal who peoples' friends are. As well as wanting access to all our e-mails and phone records, the Home Office has indicated it would find it useful to be able to get lists of peoples' contacts on the internet. However, we are 'assured' that the Government would not be interested in monitoring the content of any communications between people (yeah, right!).

Some people would say "if you've nothing to hide, then why not?". But on that basis, let's have a little camera in the corner of every room in our homes, just in case any illegal activity takes place. After all, if you've nothing to hide....

What this increasingly authoritarian government doesn't seem to understand is that there is such a thing as 'private space'. What sounds like a modest request to aid the fight against crime quickly turns into a dirty great loophole which allows all arms of the state to intrude into your private life. Every time the Government asks for new powers of intrusion in our lives they always assure us that its use will be proportionate and restricted. But after the circus moves on we suddenly find that these powers are being used for all sorts of reasons that we were not warned about at the time - witness the eviction of someone who heckled Jack Straw at a Labour conference by means of 'anti-terrorism' powers.

The present government - and its predecessors - are too cavalier with our personal freedoms. Each addition to the powers of the state can seem modest on its own and justified in isolation, but put them all together and you quickly end up with a snooping state and it's time that we said 'enough is enough'.

Disappointment on Fuel Poverty

2009-03-20T20:37:00.002Z

The strange rules of the House of Commons meant that an attempt by Lib Dem MP David Heath to take forward a Bill to end fuel poverty fell today at the first hurdle.

Many Lib Dem MPs, myself included, had returned to Westminster to be present to support this 'Private Member's Bill' which would have put in place measures to ensure that the Government kept to its stated aim of eliminating fuel poverty by 2015. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Government didn't want something that would put more pressure on them to act. But disappointingly, there were hardly any Tory MPs present for the debate or the vote, and we fell short by just 11 votes of the number needed to get the issue into committee for further consideration. Although the vote to move things forward was won by a margin of more than 80, because there weren't 100 MPs voting it had no effect!

We'll have to find other ways to keep up the pressure over this vitally important issue.

Another outrage from First Bus

2009-03-12T09:37:00.002Z

It doesn't seem many weeks ago that we had to launch a campaign to stop First Bus scrapping the 'express' bus services that it ran from South Gloucestershire down the M32 into the centre of Bristol.

Hot on the heels of that attempt to undermine local bus services, the company has now announced a new round of cuts with no consultation - simply presented as a fait accompli.

From 10th May the X27 will no longer operate. The X42 will only run at peak times and will be replaced by the (slower) 342 off peak. Incredibly, areas such as Winterbourne High Street, Iron Acton (or actually the by-pass, as the buses had already stopped going through the High Street), and North Yate will be without daytime bus services from First. In addition, the 482 Sunday service between Chipping Sodbury and Cribbs Causeway is to be cancelled.

The company claim that they can't possibly be expected to go on running these services given the economic downturn, despite the millions in profits that FirstGroup made last year.

You do sometimes wonder why First bother to run buses at all - it must be such an inconvenience to them.

Pensioners losing out

2009-03-09T10:38:00.003Z

As today's Times reveals, yet another Government computer bungle has meant that thousands of pensioners have been short-changed. Shortly before Christmas, Vince Cable revealed that thousands of public sector pensioners had been overpaid because part of their pension had been uprated twice - once by the company that administers their occupational pension and once as part of their state pension. But what was not revealed at the time was that thousands more had been underpaid because of other problems with getting information from one computer to another.

For the people who have been underpaid there has been no Commons statement, no announcement of plans to pay back the arrears - presumably with interest. I will be demanding an urgent response from the Government about when they knew about this and when they were planning to own up to this blunder.

One of the interesting side-issues that arises from all of this is that no-one receiving these pensions noticed either the over- or under-payments and they went on for decades. There could not be clearer evidence of the fact that the pension system is so fiendishly complicated even the people who are paid to administer it do not notice when things are going wrong. The sooner we have a radical simplification, with people getting a decent basic pension on which they can build their own pensions and savings, without the need for mass means-testing, the better.

Shocking news

2009-02-25T11:40:00.003Z

Dreadful news this morning that David Cameron's son Ivan has died. Quite properly, Prime Minister's Questions has been cancelled today and statements will simply be read out in the House of Commons. I'm sure everyone's heart will go out to David Cameron and his family. Not only will this be an awful time now, but the nature of his role is that he will continue to be in the public eye almost constantly over coming months and it will be very hard for him to find the space and time that he and his family will need to grieve. I hope that the media in particular will be sensitive to the family's need for privacy not only in the immediate aftermath of this dreadful event, but also in weeks and months to come.

The dog blog

2009-02-21T15:19:00.003Z

This afternoon we've had a new arrival in the Webb household - a one year-old black labrador called Sally. As someone who has never had a pet before (beyond a hamster) it's going to be quite a change in our domestic routine - needless to say, the family are all very excited. We found Sally through the local group DogsFriends who take in dogs that would otherwise have no home, find people to foster them in the short-term and then try to re-house them. If you could help foster a dog or would be able to re-house one, do visit the website.

We had to supply our details through the website and then DogsFriends came and checked out that our home was suitable. We identified a suitable dog from the website and talked to the family who have been fostering her and this afternoon went and fetched her - it's all been less than a week from start to finish. It's so sad to think that without DogsFriends a dog like Sally might not have had a home and might have ended up being put down.

I'm sure that the exercise will do us all good - look out for the new slimline Steve Webb!

A hidden gem

2009-02-20T07:49:00.000Z

A second visit this week to a local business turned up something unexpected. I visited DSTi Output in Bradley Stoke who employ around 200 people locally and are part of a multi-billion pound worldwide group. The company handle the billing for companies such as Orange and GE Money, so if (like me) you get an orange phone bill then the chances are it will have been generated, printed, folded, stuffed and posted out from Bradley Stoke. I toured round the factory and was highly impressed by the very hi-tech equipment that they have - for example, each person's Orange bill will have a different number of pages so there are sensors on the bar codes reading the right number of pages for that particular bill before the printed bill is cut off the huge reel and then stuffed and sealed into envelopes. The company prides itself on high reliability, as you can imagine that even if a tiny percentage of bills were wrong or never arrived it would cause real grief for a client.

What was also encouraging, apart from the commercial success of the company, was the commitment of the management both to their workforce (with incredibly high staff retention figures) and also to reducing the environmental impact of the business. We talked about electronic billing which the company also handles and the extent to which that could reduce the carbon footprint of the company's activities. But, of course, if we all get electronic bills which we print out on our home computers, or if we all have our computers on longer because we are downloading bills from a massive 'server farm' somewhere that has to be powered and cooled, then the carbon impact of the two different ways of billing may not be quite as different as you would have assumed.

At a difficult time economically, it is good to visit a locally-based firm that has successfully retained contracts with its major customers and which has ambitious plans for expansion over the coming years.

Good news on the green energy front

2009-02-17T12:58:00.002Z

One of the upsides of being out of Westminster this week is the chance to get out and about visiting local businesses. Yesterday I went to Bath to see a green energy company - blue-NG - who are on the brink of making a major contribution to Britain's renewable energy needs. The basic idea revolves around the fact that the 'mains' gas network around the UK (and in other similar countries) is run at high pressure but has to be stepped down to lower pressure to be useable. The network has large numbers of 'pressure reduction stations' and at each of these there is a huge amount of energy being wasted as a byproduct of this pressure reduction process. blue-NG - which is a partnership with the National Grid - are looking to apply their technology at many of these pressure reduction stations to generate heat, electricity and - interestingly - refrigeration. The heat can go into district heating schemes, the electricity can go into the grid and the refrigeration can be used for things like cooling down big 'server farms' full of computers.

What was exciting about the visit was that the company weren't looking for special taxpayer subsidy or lobbying for a particular change in the law. They were simply excited about what they were doing and wanted me to know about it. The technology is already set to go live in the UK over the next 12 months, and the company is looking at similar projects in Europe, the Middle East and the US. They also have some exciting ideas about how to make 'concentrated solar power' schemes more energy efficient.

Amidst all the doom and gloom about climate change it makes a pleasant change to meet a company that is making real progress on a commercial scale.

Facebook 'surgery'

2009-02-05T11:34:00.002Z

I thought I would try an experiment this morning by flagging up to be online for 'Facebook' chat for half an hour at a pre-arranged time. I reckoned a Thursday morning ought to be relatively quiet (probably only around five per cent of my 'facebook friends' were online at the time) to see how it went. I was encouraged by the response. At one stage messages were popping up so fast that it felt like one of those plate-spinning acts that you see on variety shows on the TV.

What was positive was that people felt able to do everything from chat about the weather in South Glos. (seriously snowy) to raising pretty fundamental issues like local housing, public transport, Gaza and ID cards as well as - perhaps inevitably - the lack of grit on the roads.

I will probably try this again at 'peak time', though I may need to put bandages on my typing fingers afterwards...

Yate train services - it could get worse before it gets better...

2009-02-02T17:14:00.002Z

A mixed meeting this afternoon with the new Managing Director of First Great Western. I highlighted the very poor service on the Yate-Bristol route, with too many overcrowded trains, carriages not turning up and lack of information when things go wrong.

In the medium term, there is a hope of improvement. A few new carriages have so far been allocated to the West of England, but a bidding process is currently going on involving First Great Western which should hopefully mean quite a few more carriages - but they probably wouldn't be in service for the best part of two years. Likewise, the idea of a 'turnback' at Yate, which could mean more frequent services is being considered, but isn't currently included in Network Rail's five year priorities document that has just been produced.

In the short term, the company was keen to stress that the newly opened Bristol maintenance depot had led to a big improvement in reliability, which is welcome. But some of the carriages currently being used on the route are on loan from Wales, and the Welsh Assembly Government can ask for them back with just 3 months' notice....

It looks like no short-term respite for Yate commuters, so the fight goes on.

Naked broadband

2009-01-27T09:33:00.002Z

One of the things that I enjoy about discussions about technology is that there is always a bit of jargon you have never heard before. Today I went to a breakfast meeting where I was introduced to the concept of "naked broadband". In essence it means being able to buy a broadband-only service from your provider without having to pay a monthly line rental to BT. Apparently such things are common elsewhere in Europe but rare in the UK.

Why might this be a good idea?

The argument runs that broadband penetration in the UK is starting to run out of steam. Overall coverage is now growing only very slowly, with almost complete coverage in urban areas among the middle classes, but lower penetration among elderly people and among people on lower incomes. However, the latter group are increasingly likely to depend very heavily on their mobile phone. Once they have paid for their mobile phone and their BT landline rental, many cannot afford broadband as well. But if they use their mobile phone a lot, they may not need a BT landline for voice calls - so why not let them pay instead for broadband?

Given the concerns over the 'digital divide' - which is likely to get worse as superfast broadband is rolled out in some parts of the country and not others - the idea of 'naked broadband' as an option seems on the face of it to be a good one. If it reduces the barriers to broadband access among those who (and whose children who) would otherwise miss out, it must be worth a try.

BBC gets it wrong over Gaza

2009-01-26T09:23:00.000Z

The BBC seems to have something of a knack at the moment for shooting itself in the foot. The decision not to broadcast the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal for Gaza seems to me to be simply indefensible. Although I am rather wary of politicians telling a publicly-funded broadcaster what they should do, on this occasion the arguments seem quite clear cut. The public are quite capable of telling the difference between a humanitarian appeal by bodies such as the British Red Cross and the editorial line of the BBC. It is actually the BBC who are 'editorialising' by picking and choosing which disaster appeals they will broadcast - if they simply had a policy of broadcasting DEC appeals with the other broadcasters then this issue would simply not have arisen - and if anyone had complained they could point out that it is the DEC that chooses the beneficiaries, not the BBC.

The one bright spot out of all of this is that the publicity given to the appeal is probably now far greater than it would have been if it had gone out in the usual way. I very much hope therefore that this will prove to be one of the most successful appeals in a long time.

Pensioners Fall Victim to 'Fantasy' interest rates

2009-01-21T09:02:00.003Z

We have a story today in the Daily Mail which shows how out of touch the benefit rules are when it comes to peoples' savings. At present, when a pensioner on a modest income applies for pension credit, the rules assume that for every £500 they have in the bank (beyond the first £6,000 which is ignored) they can get £1 per week in interest. Worked out over the year that is £52 a year on £500 capital or over 10%. Strangely enough, there aren't many places where you can get an interest rate of anything like that. For someone with (say) £16,000 in the bank, a National Savings investment account would currently pay just 1.35%, so this 'fantasy' interest rate is costing pensioners hundreds of pounds a year.

Surely it wouldn't be too much to ask that, if pensioners are going to be forced to go through a means-test to get a decent income, at least the Government should stop pretending that there is some amazing investment opportunity out there that they are all missing.

Keeping secrets

2009-01-20T20:47:00.002Z

The ability of the House of Commons to shoot itself in the foot seems to know no bounds. You would imagine that, after all the fuss about MP expenses, it would now be taken as read that there would now be total transparency about such matters - but apparently not. So on Thursday we are being asked to vote on the proposition that when it comes to expenses MPs should be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act - an Act that we ourselves passed!

I have cancelled my other plans so that I can be at Westminster on Thursday to vote against this ridiculous proposition, and I know that many other Lib Dem MPs are planning to do the same. The question is, whether we will have enough support from MPs of other parties to block this extraordinary proposal.

Two bad decisions in one day

2009-01-15T14:03:00.002Z

Hot on the heels of announcing plans to expand Heathrow, the Government made a second statement about compensation for Equitable Life policyholders. The story here is that people took out policies with Equitable Life expecting that their money would be safe but because the company had over-extended itself (ie made very generous promises to some other policyholders) it ran out of money. Investors might reasonably have supposed that the powers-that-be would be keeping an eye on things, but apparently not...

After various investigations and reports, the Parliamentary Ombudsman produced a detailed report last Summer calling for extensive compensation for those who had lost out.

Today, the Government has come up with something much more limited - 'ex gratia payments' (ie discretionary, not as of right) to those who have suffered 'disproportionately' (ie many people may get nothing).

Whilst there's a lot of detail to look at, this looks to me totally inadequate. If you are going to have an independent Ombudsman to judge when there has been Government maladministration then you can't have the Government deciding that it wasn't guilty after all. This one will run and run.

PS I wonder why they put out two bad news stories on the same day....

Why a Third runway at Heathrow would be a mistake

2009-01-15T07:29:00.000Z

It is widely expected that later today the Government will give the go-ahead to a third runway at Heathrow. It is expected that this will eventually lead to an extra 600 flights every day over London.

For obvious reasons there are considerable local objections to these plans, including the fact that a village of 2000 people is likely to have to be demolished to make way for the expanded airport. There will also be still more congestion and pollution in the local area.

But on a national and international scale, the objection is even greater. Probably the number one challenge facing us is the need to avert dangerous climate change by reversing the growth in greenhouse gas emissions. The UK has just passed what looks like a relatively strong climate change bill which sets ambitious targets for 80% cuts in emissions by 2050. But any national leadership we might have shown on climate change will be blown out of the water if we allow extensive airport expansion (with the Heathrow decision coming hot on the heels of plans to expand Stansted, announced only a few months ago).

The Government argues that the new runway will be used only by the most fuel efficient planes. But these would be coming in anyway and are still big contributors to global warming.

The other argument that the Government uses is that aeroplane emissions are part of an EU-wide 'emissions trading scheme' and therefore increases in emissions in one sector would have to be matched by cuts in another. But this assumes that cuts on the scale needed in other sectors are deliverable. The more we let air travel emissions expand, the more we have to contract emissions from cars, from homes, from businesses and from power generation. The goals in these sectors already look demanding and letting air travel get the lion's share will only make matters worse.

The fact that the Government is giving the go-ahead for major airport expansion shows that their rhetoric on climate change simply cannot be taken seriously.

Money you might be missing out on

2009-01-13T12:05:00.002Z

One of the problems with the Government inventing lots of complicated tax credits and benefits is that people very often don't get what they are entitled to. One example is something called the "children's tax credit" (not to be confused with the 'child tax credit' which is what you can get now). This ran for just two years 2001/02 and 2002/03 and the deadline for claiming for 2002/03 is the end of January 2009. The 'children's tax credit' was introduced in 2001 to make sure that people with children did not lose out when the married couple's tax allowance was abolished in that year. It is too late to claim for 2001/02 but you can still claim for 2002/03.

It was worth about £520 (or double if you had a child born during the year) and was payable once per family. You could qualify if you paid tax during 2002/03 and were responsible for a child under 16. People who paid higher rate tax got less help, and those on the highest incomes got nothing.

If you think you didn't get the money at the time and might be entitled, you need to act quickly. You can download the claim form from here and it needs to go back to your local tax office by 31st January.

Good luck!

A new role

2009-01-08T10:25:00.000Z

I am delighted to have been asked by Nick Clegg to take on a key economic role in the newly re-shaped Lib Dem front bench team announced today. Nick is setting up a group of economic advisers that will meet regularly to determine the best response to the current economic problems and in my new role shadowing Work and Pensions issues I will play a key role in that group. I will also be able to spend more time campaigning on issues that were the focus of my time at the Institute for Fiscal Studies and at Bath University, including pensions and social policy issues. I will naturally miss taking forward the climate change and energy agenda, but it was enormously satisfying to be able to play a key part in getting the Climate Change Bill strengthened during 2008. I wish my successor, Simon Hughes, every success in his new role, and I know that he has a longstanding track record in campaigning on the environment, long before the other parties even took the issue seriously. There will be plenty for us both to do when Parliament resumes next week.

Tackling student debt

2009-01-07T18:16:00.002Z

With all the focus at present on the problems of massive personal debt, it is time that one part of the system that creates huge debts had some attention from Government - the system of student finance. It is not uncommon for graduates today to leave college with debts (un)comfortably in five figures. They are expected to pay off this debt, save for a deposit for a house and start putting money into a pension - something somewhere has to give. What is worse is that the Government is reportedly considering scrapping the current cap on tuition fees, which would add further to student debt.

For all of these reasons I am delighted that last night at the Liberal Democrats' Federal Policy committee we decided to retain our policy of abolishing tuition fees. I think my journey up to Westminster was worthwhile!

Missing out on help with fuel bills

2008-12-27T09:54:00.003Z

A survey that I have undertaken of the 'big 6' fuel companies (reported on in the Times today) shows that the vast majority of people living in 'fuel poverty' are missing out on the special deals that the companies offer to their most vulnerable customers. The latest semi-official estimate of fuel poverty (from the chairman of the Government's 'Fuel Poverty Advisory Group') puts the number having to pay more than ten per cent of their income to heat their home properly at between 5 million and 5.5 million households. But my survey finds that not much more than two thirds of a million households are getting the preferential rates that power companies offer to their 'vulnerable' customers. And even people who get discounted prices through so-called 'tariffs' can still end up paying more for their bills than if they switched supplier.

The story gets worse - next year the Government will make available to the companies a list of which of their customers is getting 'pension credit' - which ought to be a prime category of people who could do with some extra help this Winter. But the companies are telling me that they shouldn't be expected to make available their social tariffs to all of their customers on pension credit!

The other thing that I have found it just how complicated the rules are, depending on which company you are with. For some firms, access to their social tariff depends on anything from how many bedrooms you have, to how hold you are, what benefits you are on, how you pay your bill and how long you have been with the company for. It's hardly suprising that needy people are missing out.

Given the epidemic scale of fuel poverty this winter, the whole system of supporting people who are struggling to pay their heating bills needs a total overhaul.

Ripping off the poor?

2008-12-21T20:19:00.003Z

A story that emerged today had me incensed. The Government is apparently considering replacing current interest-free social fund loans with interest rates of up to 2% per month - which is about the rate you'd pay on a dodgy store card. The alleged reason for this is that some people are taking advantage of the system by taking out loans that they don't need. As a result they are going to charge penal interest rates to people who do need loans!

One aspect of this story that is not well understood is that these loans have to be paid back over a fixed period out of what are often meagre benefit levels - especially for people of working age without children. Whilst the loan is being paid back, people are living below basic benefit levels - sometimes for years at a time. To add interest to this would be outrageous.

With rising unemployment, the number of people needing crisis loans and budgeting loans is going to increase dramatically, and already I wonder if the system can cope. One pensioner who contacted me this week had been told she could only get a £45 loan by going from South Gloucestershire to Weston-Super-Mare in person to pick it up. When I rang the DWP to pursue this I was initially told that all the people who know how the system works were 'manning the phones', especially in the run-up to Christmas.

I very much doubt that the Social Fund will cope with the big surge in demand that it is going to face in the coming months, but adding interest to injury doesn't seem to me to be a humane way forward.

PS Mind you, to hear the Tories shedding crocodile tears is a bit rich. In the early 1980s, people in poverty used to be able to get grants for essential items like cookers and fridges. It was the Tories who abolished these 'single payments' and replaced them with repayable loans. And the Tories set up a system which meant that in some circumstances you could be deemed 'too poor' to be allowed a loan! Something tells me that the Conservative party is unlikely to be the best placed to stand up for the marginalised and the dispossessed....

Kingsnorth protest - not quite what it seemed

2008-12-16T12:36:00.003Z

Kingsnorth in Kent is the site of one of the most controversial decisions that the Government will have to make in this Parliament. Eon want to replace an existing coal-fired power station with a new one. Eventually the CO2 emissions from that station might be 'captured', but the company want to be able to run the station 'unabated' in the meantime. This could be catastrophic for Britain's leadership on the climate change issue.

At the time of the 'climate camp' protest earlier in the year there was some dispute about the way the protesters were handled, but the Government said that 70 Police officers had been injured, which is clearly unacceptable. However, in response to Liberal Democrat digging, the Home Office have now had to apologise for giving the impression that 70 officers were injured by protesters. As the Guardian reports, it turns out precisely NO police officers were injured by protesters. The 'injuries' were a mixture of sunstroke, diarrhoea and 'possible bee stings'.

My view has always been that non-violent protest of this sort is an important part of our democracy - especially over such vital issues as climate change - and that the Policing of these events needs to respect peoples' democratic rights in this respect. Trying to mislead the public about the actions of the protesters is totally unacceptable, and credit to my colleague David Howarth MP for flushing this out.

Equitable Life - what should we expect?

2008-12-10T09:55:00.002Z

Last week at Prime Minister's Questions the PM was asked when the Government would respond to the Ombudsman's highly critical report on the losses suffered by Equitable Life policy holders, and he said it would be 'before Christmas'. So what is he likely to say?

There is one reason to be optimistic and two reasons to be pessimistic.

The reason to be hopeful is - bizarrely - Peter Mandelson. Since Lord Mandelson returned to these shores, the Government seem to have stopped shooting themselves in the foot quite so often. The clearest example of this was the U-turn on scrapping the post office card account which would otherwise have been a hugely unpopular decision. Upsetting a million Equitable Life policy holders just before Christmas might not be the best springboard for a Spring 2009 Election.

The first reason to be pessimistic is that as soon as the Ombudsman's report was published the Treasury put a note round to MPs saying that they needed time to think but reminding us how contentious the issues were and that the Ombudsman's view was not the only one! That felt at the time like preparing us for a disagreement.

The second reason to be pessimistic is the timing of the announcement. In general, bad news is buried around the last day of a Parliamentary session when MPs are not around to cause trouble. What price a disappointing announcement next Thursday, the last sitting day before Christmas?

My view is clear - the Government simply cannot set itself up as judge and jury over the Parliamentary Ombudsman. It's like the guilty man saying to the judge - "sorry, I disagree with your verdict, I'm off". The Government needs to recognise the complete failure of the regulatory regime for which it is responsible and should ensure that policy holders are compensated.

Hundred million pound boost for pensioners

2008-11-30T18:21:00.003Z

I received confirmation this week that a long-running campaign to get women the pension that they are entitled to is likely to yield over £100 million in enhanced pensions, as the Telegraph report here. The back story is that I was contacted by the Times newspaper about 18 months ago about cases of women who had spent time at home with children which should have been reflected in their pension rights but for which they had received no credit. I did some very rough estimates at the time which suggested we could be talking anything up to half a million women missing out. The pensions minister at the time (now Secretary of State James Purnell) went on the radio saying I was talking nonsense and that there was nothing more than the odd case.

I persisted, and worked with the subsequent pensions minister Mike O'Brien to convince the Department that this was more than a few isolated cases. HM Revenue and Customs in due course agreed to trawl their records to see what they could find, and a written answer to me this week said that they reckon between 100,000 and 150,000 women may be missing out. In my experience the amount they miss out on is well in excess of an average of £1,000 of backdated pension (often much more). Doing the maths suggests that this exercise could easily produce backdated payments of £100 - £150 million for the women concerned.

If only I'd remembered to ask for one per cent commission.....

Getting it wrong

2008-11-24T17:40:00.003Z

It takes a special sort of genius to mess up both the politics and the economics of a Budget statement, but I reckon the Chancellor managed both today in his 'pre-Budget report'.

First, the politics. You would think that announcing a £12 billion tax cut (VAT down to 15%) would be the sort of thing most Chancellors would dream about. Yet this was leaked over the weekend, so when he announced it in the middle of a long and dull statement (lasting nearly an hour) Alistair Darling barely raised a cheer. Likewise the 45p income tax rate on the highest earners would have been red meat to many on the Labour benches, but they had heard about it on the news the night before. The only new stuff was fiddly things like bringing forward the April child benefit rise to January, a one off increase in the £10 Xmas Bonus, and then unexpected bad news like National Insurance increases. By the end, the Labour benches looked pretty demoralised.

Second, the economics. This was a one-off chance to do something bold to stimulate the economy. But if people know tax rises are coming, then will they spend? And are people going to spend, spend, spend because shop prices have been cut by about 2%? Marks & Spencer know a thing or two about sales, and they reckoned a 20% discount would attract custom last week. The VAT cut - though costing a fortune - just looks like small beer.

What should have been done was a massive programme of investment in the things we need for the present and the future. The Chancellor says he will insulate an extra 60,000 homes, but there are over 3 million in fuel poverty. A huge programme of home energy efficiency would create jobs, save fuel bills for hard-pressed pensioners and other householders, and benefit the planet. Likewise we could have insulated our schools and hospitals to decent standards, creating jobs, freeing up money for education and health and benefiting the planet. We could also have done more to upgrade the National Grid - onshore and offshore - to be fit for the low-carbon economy that we need to move towards.

Today was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to do something for the long term. Instead all we got was a temporary tax cut that probably won't deliver.

The mysterious case of the Post Office Card Account

2008-11-15T10:52:00.002Z

It's not often that you are genuinely suprised in Parliament these days, but I think most people were astonished when the Government announced on Thursday that it was going to keep the Post Office Card Account (POCA) with the post office - or at least when they read it in that morning's Guardian. Rumours were rife that the account was going to go to commercial rival Paypoint, with the possible loss of thousands more sub post offices.

So what changed?

The minister said in his statement that the legal advice in 2006 was that they had to put the contract out to tender. But on Thursday he didn't announce that the Post Office had won the tender, he announced that he was scrapping the competition altogether! When I asked if this mean the original legal advice was wrong or that the law had changed, he simply said that when 'the facts' changed, he changed his mind - and implied that this was about the current financial crisis. My best guess is that the fact that the Irish Government survived a court challenge over not putting a similar process out to tender made the British Government think they could get away with it too. Though I bet Paypoint were given generous compensation for their wasted time and effort - and perhaps a sweetener to encourage them not to sue?

You might assume that as an MP I could find out this information - but every time we ask questions, including how much the whole abortive tender process cost the taxpayer, we are told it is a secret - 'commercially confidential'. Quite how the amount a Government department spends of public money on something that isn't going to happen can be a secret I don't quite know.

Some people see the shadow of Peter Mandelson in all of this. But as Malcolm Bruce said on Thursday, that assumes he has a shadow....

The world's most powerful man - for now?

2008-11-05T10:07:00.002Z

Could Barack Obama be the last person to be elected American President who was also the 'most powerful person in the world'? At the moment it's hard to see anyone more powerful, but in 4 or 8 years' time, the US is unlikely to be the world's largest economy, may not control the world's most precious resources, and will be even more at the mercy of global forces than it is at present.

The good news, I believe, is that we now have a US president who is able to engage with the wider world and who seems to have some understanding of it. I often reflect that, of the world's biggest challenges - think of climate change, economic downturn, international migration, terrorism, global poverty - these are all issues that need the countries of the world to work together to tackle them. Not only can one nation on its own not crack these problems, but unless we work together we end up with beggar-my-neighbour policies which actually make matters worse.

Instinctively I think we all like to feel that we control our own destiny, and no-one likes to share control with anyone else. But in the inter-connected world that we now live in, effective governments and parliamentarians have to work together and realise that the solutions to problems lie only partially within their own national boundaries. Against that backdrop I am hopeful this morning that Barack Obama's election makes the world a better place.

Pension change - welcome but not what it seems!

2008-10-24T08:13:00.004+01:00

Today's announcement in the Daily Mail that women will be able to improve their state pensions is welcome - but is not quite what it seems.

The issue is that many women retire with incomplete records of National Insurance Contributions - often because of periods in low-paid part-time work or time caring for family. Under plans announced today, women will be able to 'buy back' an extra 6 years of missing NI contributions. However, there are several important restrictions on this:

- it will only apply to women who reach state pension age between 6th April this year and 5th April 2015;
- it will only apply to women who in any case have made 20 years of NI contributions;
- (I'm guessing here...) I very much doubt it will apply to years where women paid the 'married woman's stamp';

From the media coverage this morning you might have imagined that lots of retired women could now boost their pensions, but sadly this is not the case. The changes are estimated to benefit around half a million women who are close to state pension age (or who retired this year) but are of no help at all to the millions of retired women who draw poor pensions. My view is that the BBC have a duty to be a bit more careful in how they report these stories because a lot of people will be bitterly disappointed when they find out that this Government concession does not apply to them.

Doing justice by the Gurkhas

2008-10-14T21:11:00.002+01:00

This week I took part in a lobby of Parliament by campaigners calling for justice for Gurkhas who served our country with distinction but who are refused the right to settle here. The campaign has been led publicly by Joanna Lumley, whose father was closely connected with the Gurkhas, and has achieved a recent success in the High Court, where the Government's refusal to allow Gurkhas who retired pre 1997 to settle in the UK was deemed unlawful. The Government is now re-thinking its policy, but we need to keep up the pressure. My view is that it is a disgrace that these very brave men - two of whom were awarded a Victoria Cross for their courage - who served our country are now being sent away on the basis that they do not have strong enough links with this country! This adds insult to injury because one of the reasons why they do not have such strong links is that they and their families have been refused permission to settle. The numbers of people involved is small, but the debt of honour is great, and it something that the UK Government should sort out as a matter of urgency.

Shuffling

2008-10-03T11:08:00.002+01:00

Fascinating developments this morning as Gordon Brown re-shapes his Government.

The good news is from what we can tell there is to be a new Department dealing with Energy and Climate Change. At long last! The Lib Dems got there first (yours truly!) by merging the energy portfolio with the DEFRA job, as it's pretty hard to talk about energy policy sensibly without thinking about the implications for climate change. It will be interesting to see if the new department takes over the remaining stages of the Climate Change Bill and accepts our amendment to toughen it up. Perhaps at long last energy efficiency will be taken seriously instead of being a cinderella.

All we need to do now is include transport, building standards, green taxation.... in the Department's remit and we might be getting somewhere!

The most important part of Gordon Brown's speech

2008-09-23T16:29:00.002+01:00

Most of the commentary on Gordon Brown's speech will no doubt be about what it means for his future, what the plotters will make of it etc. But when history looks back at his speech there will be one section which I believe will be of lasting significance.

In his speech, Gordon Brown said he would be asking the Climate Change Committee to report 'by October' on whether the CO2 cut target in the climate change bill by 2050 should be increased from 60% to 80%. The significance of this is that MPs are due to debate the bill in mid October and until now there was a risk that we would not by that stage have known what Adair Turner and his colleagues were going to recommend. This was the fig-leaf behind which the Tory decision to keen abstaining on this issue was hiding. But if the Government can now ensure that we have seen what the independent Committee have to say before MPs vote then the Tories will have to make their minds up. And if the Tories back my amendment on 80% and the Labour rebels who have signed similar amendments in the past do the same, then we will win!

An improved target for 2050 is not the be-all and end-all, but it does mean that the five-yearly carbon budgets which are to be produced will be aiming at a more adventurous goal from day one. If today's speech makes that more likely then it is to be welcomed. All we need now is the rest of Government policy - eg airport expansion, new coal power plants etc. - to come into line....

Lib Dem conference - the first 24 hours

2008-09-14T23:55:00.003+01:00

One of the things that no-one warns you about when you are first appoint to speak for the Liberal Democrats on an issue is the party conference. Watching the conference on TV you could be forgiven for thinking that all we do is sit in a large conference hall listening to speeches and voting on motions. The reality is that most of the action takes place around the fringe, with meetings literally morning, noon and night. When I looked at my diary for this week I reckoned I had 18 separate speaking engagements on everything from the melting of the polar ice caps to the need to capture carbon emissions from power stations. One or two of these are in the main conference hall but most are in fringe meetings attended by keen delegates, many of whom are experts in the field. At previous conferences I did the round of fringe meetings on pensions and benefits, then on health and now on environment and energy. There is a huge amount of material to get your head round and there's always someone in the room who knows more about the subject than you do. The good thing is that you learn from the other people on the panel and from the questions and so the next time the topic comes up you feel a bit more prepared. But the first year of fringe meetings on any topic, as it is for me this year with the environment, is always pretty daunting.

This afternoon I took a break from fringe meetings to hear Nick do a Q&A session in the main auditorium. As leader you really do have to be ready to deal with everything that people throw at you. Nick was at his most passionate denouncing the Tories' lack of substance and expressing the view that the British public are not willing to hand over the keys to Number 10 to someone who is not prepared to tell them what he will do with that power - and when the Tories do start to come clean, many people will realise that the Cameron transformation is only skin deep. Nick stressed his commitment to internationalism as a solution to many of the pressing issues that we face, including climate change and international terror, and contrasted our policy of constructive engagement in Europe with the Tory plan to leave the European Peoples' Party and band together with what he called "a bunch of nutters". The final question linked the fact that Nick and his wife Miriam are expecting their third child in the New Year with the difficulties of combining family life and politics. Nick confirmed he would be taking paternity leave and said that he generally preferred spending time of an evening at home reading books to his children than hanging out with MPs in Westminster bars. Doesn't sound like much of a contest to me!

A 'bleak mid winter' faces millions

2008-09-11T16:46:00.002+01:00

Today's announcement by Gordon Brown of the Government's response to soaring fuel bills is wholly inadequate. Whilst it's quite right to get more action on energy efficiency (and interesting to see a bit of a u-turn on 'Warm Front' funding having challenged the PM about it months ago), many pensioners and families still face a 'bleak mid winter'. The average combined gas and electricity bill used to be around £1,000 a year. Following the latest round of increases it is likely to rise to over £1,250. Against the backdrop, the increases in winter fuel payments for pensioners (announced earlier in the year) of £50 / £100 will still leave many people heavily out of pocket. And don't forget that this year's bills are already steeply up on last year's and have been causing real harship already.

It's clear the Government tried to get a deal from the energy companies on cash help for consumers and the energy companies told the Government where to go. This is the heart of the problem. Even a sober organisation like OFGEM says that the energy companies got a windfall of £9 billion from free pollution permits under an EU scheme. Why not force the companies to spend a good slug of this money on a mixture of energy efficiency, better prices for needy customers and upgrading the meters we all use so that we all have more information about our consumption?

Just as the Department of Transport seems to be a wholly-owned subsidiary of the British Airports Authority, the Department for Business seems to be just a bit too pally with the energy companies. It's time we had a government that sided with the public for once.

Tackling flooding

2008-09-04T21:45:00.004+01:00

Thanks to the wonders of technology I'm writing this on a late train back to Bristol from the East Riding of Yorkshire and from Hull, where I have spent much of the day hearing first hand experiences of last summer's flooding. One of the most alarming conclusions I have come away with is that many of the factors which caused problems last summer have still not been addressed.

The flooding in the villages of the East Riding was not primarily to do with the rivers or with coastal flooding - it was surface water flooding caused by too much rainfall in too short a time with nowhere to go. The land had become saturated and the drainage systems (where surface water drains into the sewerage system) simply could not cope. Thousands of households were flooded at a cost of hundreds of millions of pounds to put right, and some people are still out of their homes. For a long time people in whole streets were living in caravans in their front gardens.

I asked many people what they would do if they controlled the levers of power in terms of national policy. One interesting response was that we should abolish the system of what is called 'riparian ownership', where individual householders are responsible for the few yards of culvert or river bank adjacent to their property. Many people don't know about their obligations, some aren't in a position to fulfil them and others simply fail to do so. The result is that drainage systems get neglected. One person likened it to giving each household separate responsibility for a few metres of tarmac in the road outside their house.

There are plans for a flooding bill in the Queen's Speech, and rightly so, but progress is slow and too many people are still very vulnerable. And whilst the Government has promised action to ensure that people can still get insurance, I heard today of people being offered policies with an excess of £10,000 or more. Worse still, councils are still finding that when they turn down planning applications because of flooding fears they are still being over-ruled by Government inspectors!

I think we might need many more 'questions in the House' over this whole issue.

Another outrage from the Business Secretary

2008-08-28T12:30:00.003+01:00

If ever you needed convincing that the battle against climate change is being undermined by 'departmentalitis', you need look no further than today's interview in the Telegraph by energy secretary John Hutton. In a nutshell, he says that his job is to guarantee energy security and if that means that climate change has to take second place then so be it! For example, he says:

"Of course we've got to tackle climate change, it's a real and present danger for used, but we've also got to be absolutely clear that our energy policy has got to be figured first and foremost with a view to supplying Britain with affordable and secure energy it needs for the future.

That is why we cannot turn our back on any proven form of technology. We cannot afford to say no to new coal, new gas or new nuclear."

So new coal-fired power stations with huge emissions are fine, as long as they contribute to energy security?

The biggest problem in the battle against climate change is that the Environment department doesn't make the big decisions that affect our CO2 emissions - whether its energy, transport, housebuilding standards or green taxation - they are all someone else'e job. Whether Labour or the Tories were in power, DEFRA would always be a marginal department - an afterthought. It's vital that responsibility for tackling climate change was central to what every department does and is headed up from the top - by the Prime Minister.

The trouble is, Brown doesn't do Green.

Gas price hikes

2008-07-30T16:19:00.002+01:00

Centrica have just announced a thumping great 35% gas price rise - with more 'in the pipeline'. The rising cost of fuel for households on modest or fixed incomes is becoming a national scandal. With pensions and other benefits tied to the RPI which is currently under 5%, rises of this sort in the cost of key commodities will guarantee falling living standards for some of the most vulnerable people in society.

And what is the Government's response? The winter fuel payment will rise for most pensioners by £50 this winter - but average fuel bills are set to rise by £200. The Government has also done a deal with the fuel companies to spend more on 'social tariffs' - but in many cases the poorest customers are paying the highest prices, especially those on pre-payment meters. The Government's answer is that people should shop around for the best price, but you try doing that if you are on a pre-payment meter, are in payment arrears and don't have access to the internet.

Once upon a time the Government was going to 'abolish' fuel poverty. Now it looks like about a quarter of UK households could be living in fuel poverty within a year or two. This is totally unacceptable, especially when you think how much the fuel companies have made in 'windfall' profits in recent years, notably through being issued with free 'permits to pollute' through the European emissions trading scheme.

The priorities have got to be getting bills down for the most vulnerable households and also making serious inroads on energy efficienc - otherwise people are paying a fortune for hot air that literally goes out through poorly insultated doors, walls, windows and lofts.

Instead of navel-gazing about the direction of the Labour party it is time the Government got serious about one of the most pressing domestic issues of the day.

Plumbing new depths

2008-07-12T12:00:00.002+01:00

The Labour Government is not famous for its belief in democractic accountability. But in its plans for regional select committees it has plumbed new depths of cynicism.

The back story is that at the moment each region has a 'regional assembly' - a body comprising mainly councillors from the region (and others with a 'stake') - which has had an important role in things like coming up with a 'spatial strategy' for the region - including small issues like how many houses should be built in each area. The Government has decided that regional assemblies will be abolished. Their role in supporting regional business etc. will transfer to a quango - the regional development agencies - and other regional decisions will be taken in Whitehall. Democratic scrutiny would then pass to MPs from the region, by means of regional select committees.

Leaving aside the fact that the Government thinks having one minister for each region (bet you can't name the 'Minister for the South West'??) is more democratic than a regional body made up of elected councillors, the extraordinary thing is the proposed make-up of the regional select committees. You would assume that the membership of the committees would be MPs from the region, pro rata to the political make-up of the region. But no.

The South West committee will have 10 MPs, of which 6 will be Labour, 3 Tory and 1 Lib Dem. Given that Labour are the third party in the South West in terms of number of MPs, that is pretty extraordinary. Worse still, because quite a number of the SW Labour MPs are already ministers (eg Dawn Primarolo, Ben Bradshaw) or PPSs, they may even have to get Labour MPs in from outside the region to make up the numbers!

Given that every MP from Cornwall is a Lib Dem, and that there are plenty of Lib Dems through the rest of the West, having one Lib Dem to represent the whole area against 6 Labour MPs - who will inevitably have an urban bias - is a scandal.

The only compensation is that by the time these bodies have been set up, it won't be long until an election, after which we can hopefully put in place a more rational and decentalised approach to regional decision-making.

10p all over again

2008-07-10T16:02:00.002+01:00

One of the bizarre features of the row over the abolition of the 10p tax rate was Gordon Brown's initial refusal to admit that anyone at all would be worse off! It was certainly true that there were other budget measures (eg changes to tax credits and winter fuel payments) which meant that the effects of the 10p rate change were mitigated for some people, but it was never remotely true that no-one would be worse off.

Amazingly, we seem to be having a repeat of the same phenomenon over the changes to Vehicle Excise Duty due to come in in 2009. Initially the Treasury seemed to be making out that the losers were modest in number, but now in an unintentionally informative written answer they have admitted that 45% of the drivers on our roads are going to be out of pocket, and not just those who drive 'gas-guzzlers'.

There is a perfectly valid debate to be had about tax reform, and sometimes generally desirable changes do create losers, but the Prime Minister does not foster rational debate when he introduces changes which can leave millions out of pocket but pretends that no-one is going to be any worse off!

Life Insurance Troubles – Are you affected?

2008-06-26T11:35:00.002+01:00

This week I joined Vince Cable and other MPs at a briefing held by Which? in Westminster. I heard from customers of Norwich Union and Prudential who hold ‘With Profits’ policies like endowment mortgages, savings plans and pensions – there are 6 million of them altogether – are you one of them? Local resident Andrew Edgington has been taking a leading role in the campaign on this issue, and he writes:

"The big insurers hold billions of pounds in ‘inherited estates’ within their With Profits funds. They want to transfer these funds away from ordinary policyholders and pass them to shareholders, under something called ‘reattribution’. It’s a complicated process and the Financial Services Authority has the job of regulating it to protect customers. But last week the FSA came under some very heavy criticism from the Treasury Select Committee who have said they have been seriously deficient and that their arrangements are ‘barmy’. In particular they have failed to stop the companies using policyholders’ money for unacceptable things like meeting the costs of their own mis-selling.

All Northavon residents who hold with-profits policies with Norwich Union or the Pru should find out more about this. I believe their plans are unfair and people could lose out badly if they are allowed to get away with it"

Policyholders should go to the following link; or contact Which? to find out more. I have been watching developments and will continue to take a keen interest in what happens, so please write to me about it if I can help.

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/norwich-union-policyholder-reattribution?hl=en

http://www.which.co.uk/reports_and_campaigns/money/campaigns/pensions/With-profits/Orphan_assets_camp_559_105940.jsp

When the left hand doesn't know...

2008-06-26T08:13:00.003+01:00

This time last year the news programmes were full of stories of terrible flooding problems across England. A Government-sponsored report out this week said that the scale of the flooding was such that they 2007 Summer floods were "the most expensive floods in the world" that year. Several people lost their lives, tens of thousands lost their homes and - a year on - nearly 5,000 householders are still not back home.

This week the Government published the 'Pitt Review' into the floods which contained 92 recommendations. One of them was a strong presumption against building in flood risk areas. Sir Michael Pitt said this should be "absolutely exceptional" and only in housing shortgage areas.

Yet the same Government has handed down a central target to build 3 million new houses by 2026 which for many local authorities can mean only one thing - you've guessed it - sites in flood risk areas. In our area the Council is consulting on putting thousands of houses in the North Yate and Chipping Sodbury area, which are both areas identified as being at significant flood risk according to the Environment Agency. When I challenged the Secretary of State about this in the House of Commons yesterday he simply said that it was up to the Councils and that they had the power to say no to applications. But what they don't have is the power to say no to another Government minister who is forcing them to find sites for thousands more houses.

You would almost think they didn't talk to each other.

At the cutting edge?

2008-06-19T09:21:00.003+01:00

I'm going to be part of an experiment!

Next week we start the standing committee discussion on the Climate Change Bill. This is the bit where about 20 MPs spend a few weeks doing detailed line-by-line scrutiny of the legislation, tabling detailed amendments etc., all in an upstairs committee room out of the glare of publicity.

What is going to be different is that on a 'pilot' basis we are going to be allowed to have laptops in front of us! There will be temporary power supplies put in, and instead of having sheafs of notes we can simply refer to our screens. The Hansard reporters will be part of the process, so instead of passing them copies of our speaking notes after we have spoken (which is the usual practice) we will be able to e-mail them across the room!

There was some discussion of internet access, and we'll all be checking out whether we can access the nearest Starbucks WiFi hotspot, or perhaps use our phones as bluetooth modems.

Although the traditionalists will be turning in their graves - and we've already been warned not to use our laptops for 'other purposes' during the committee - there is a chance that this could improve the scrutiny. Just imagine that the Minister makes a statement and you can quickly surf the net and find a statistic that disproves his argument - mind you, if it works, the Government will probably find a reason to ban it...

Stop the Drop

2008-06-17T19:10:00.003+01:00

Attended a worthwhile reception at Parliament this evening in support of the CPRE 'stop the drop' campaign against litter and flytipping. As the Lib Dem environment spokesperson I spend a lot of my time debating the big global environmental issues like climate change and energy policy, yet when we undertake surveys locally probably the biggest environmental issue that gets raised is litter. Locally the perception is that the Council seems to have cut back on litter picking and this has not gone un-noticed.

The campaign is calling for tougher enforcement action when people are caught fly-tipping or littering, as well as incentive schemes to reduce littering such as bottle deposit schemes. More than 20 countries and a dozen US states have such schemes. Bill Bryson, CPRE president, who spoke at the Reception, said that in Iowa the introduction of such a scheme had more than halved bottle waste. He warned that we were in danger of ending up with a countryside that was '..beautiful from the ankle up'. In reply the Minister was reluctant to commit to a deposit scheme, even though a DEFRA report from a few years back said it would work and many other countries use them successfully. I can feel a campaign coming on....

Ten Green Bloggers...

2008-06-02T21:26:00.004+01:00

This evening at Westminster I hosted a meeting of 'ten green bloggers' which may start a movement which may change the future of our country.

The idea of the meeting was to bring together people who care about the environment - supporters of all political parties or of none - to think how we can use the power of the internet to mobilise people to get effective action on climate change.

Our particular focus was on getting the Government's climate change bill amended so that the target for cuts in CO2 emissions by 2050 was not the current rather modest 60% but a bolder 80% - the least that most people think is needed to avoid catastrophic climate change.

We spent the evening brainstorming and have come up with lots of ideas which we will now whittle down into some practical campaigning actions. One idea is to launch a 'canvass your MP' site where people can get their own back on politicians who knock on their door - we plan to get people to go and meet their own MP at their surgery and press for effective action on climate change. We will record on the site the responses that people are getting and identify which MPs are on board, which are sympathetic and which are hostile. We will put real power back in the hands of the people, and seek to ensure that MPs know how passionately people care about the environment.

Watch this space!

UPDATE - you can read what some of the bloggers had to say here and here;

Glimmer of hope on the buses?

2008-05-27T12:07:00.002+01:00

This morning I had a meeting with the Managing Director of First Bus in Bristol, Justin Davies. I have had dozens of angry e-mails about the company's plans to cut bus services from South Gloucestershire, especially the 'express' services that go down the M32. (The consultation document mysteriously failed to mention the extra half an hour that this would add to peoples' journeys). To add insult to injury, the Transport minister has just announced millions of pounds for 'showcase bus corridors' into Bristol, including one down the M32!

I had a constructive conversation with Mr. Davies this morning, and I get the impression that they are actually going to change their plans as a result of the negative feedback (what? - a consultation process that actually changes things - whatever next??).

For the longer term, I hope that the bus company will work more closely with local councils in future before announcing plans of this sort. Personally, I think public transport should be run as a public service rather than for private profit, but given the world we are living in I think at the very least it should be a partnership between the company and the councils.

Darling to the rescue - but will it work??

2008-05-13T15:57:00.003+01:00

A few minutes ago the Chancellor made a statement to the House of Commons setting out how the Government would dig itself out of the mess created by the Prime Minister when he abolished the 10p tax rate.

The doubling of the 10p rate created around 5.3 million losers, and their average loss was around £120 per year. To compensate for the 'average' loss, the Chancellor has therefore announced that the personal tax allowance for 2008/09 will rise by £600. Since the basic rate is now 20%, this will save most people 20% of £600 or £120. Gains won't only go to people who lost through the 10p rate, but also to basic rate taxpayers. To avoid higher rate taxpayers gaining, he is cutting the starting point for higher rate tax by £600. Because it will take a while to legislate and then issue new tax tables, people will get a £60 boost to their pay in September and then an extra £10 per month for the rest of the year.

Key points are:

- the cost of this is £2.7 billion, which the Government is simply going to have to borrow;
- although there will be 'average' compensation, 1.1 million families will still end up out of pocket, though not by as much as they would have done;
- there are no promises for next year - it is one thing to find the money for a one-off bail-out, but that is a very different matter to finding £2.7 billion year after year; the Treasury will be very busy between now and the Autumn identifying low-profile 'stealth taxes' they can use next year to make up the shortfall so that the allowance changes can be made permanent.

In terms of straight arithmetic, the announcement takes most of the sting out of the issue, and Frank Field has even apologised in the House this afternoon for being 'personal' in his campaigning. But I have my doubts that the electorate will want to praise the Government for coming up with a rescue package to largely undue the damage that they caused in the first place and which they pretended for a long period did not exist at all...

Why you shouldn't believe what you read in the papers.....

2008-05-03T13:45:00.004+01:00

This weekend the Department of Work and Pensions have announced that they are going to spend the next year trawling through the National Insurance computer to find women who might be missing out on part of their state pension entitlement - the part that relates to time at home with children.

I have some interest in this topic as I have been badgering the department about the issue for over a year. At first they were resistant, but they have been willing to look at case studies for me, and have now accepted that there is an issue here and they are going to do something about it.

On the face of it, you would assume that this was a good news story.

Now read how the Daily Telegraph wrote the story here.

Apparently this is scandalous news management and burying bad news.

In fact, I know that the DWP wanted to put out the story earlier than this but were prevented from doing so by rules which block announcements during the election period. Furthermore, what they are doing is likely to result in women pensioners getting tens of millions of pounds that they should have been getting all along. Given that this problem largely arises from dodgy record keeping in the 1980s, it's a bit rough to blame the current government - who are actually the ones trying to sort out the mess.

So, what appears in the Telegraph as a shame-faced Government hiding bad news, is actually a Government putting right a historic wrong when many previous governments failed to do so.

I'm not slow to criticise the Government when I think they have got something wrong, but on this one they are doing the decent thing and it must be pretty galling to be slagged off for it!

UPDATE: To see the story written straight - this is how Moneybox have reported it;

10p tax rate - fixed??

2008-04-28T19:10:00.002+01:00

Tonight we will vote on the Government's plans to scrap the 10p starting rate of income tax. But the parliamentary excitement seems to have drained away now that the 'Labour rebels' have been persuaded to behave themselves after being promised concessions by the Government.

The truth is however that the proposed 'compensation' package is full of holes, as will become apparent when we get to see the details in the Autumn.

The first problem is that the Government really doesn't want to spend a lot of money compensating losers. As a result, there has been talk of giving 'average' compensation, which means if you are one of the ones worst hit then you will still be out of pocket.

Second is the question of where the money comes from to pay for the compensation? Suppose, for example, that the Winter Fuel Payment goes up to help the 60-64 year-olds who lose out and who don't get the 'pensioner' (Ie over 65) tax allowance. The Government probably can't just pay this to the losers in this group, so it will have to pay it to everyone. This is hundreds of millions of pounds over and above the cost of simply compensating the losers. Assuming the Government didn't just have the cash 'lying around' presumably ultimately some other tax will eventually have to go up to find this money - thereby creating more losers!

Third is the issue of 'take-up'. Whilst take-up of the Winter Fuel Payment is pretty good (though less so among men aged 60-64) take-up of some of the tax credits is pretty poor. So putting extra cash via a complex system of tax credits may not get to many of the poorest losers.

Four is the idea of using the minimum wage. To provide full compensation for all losers would involve employers having to increase wage rates for significant numbers of workers - and to make up their loss will they put up prices (creating losers among their customers) or perhaps hold down other wage increases (creating losers among other workers).

In short, this is a bad policy creating a wide diversity of losers. Trying to compensate over 5 million people in a wide diversity of circumstances is likely to be very expensive, very complex, and involve spending money on people who didn't lose in the first place. Far better simply to scrap the ill-judged policy.

But for now the rebels are happy - they don't have to vote against their Government three days before key local elections. Whether they will be happy when they see how this problem is going to be 'solved' is another matter....

Testing, testing

2008-04-24T17:25:00.004+01:00

With my environment hat on I've been given a Honda Civic Hybrid to test drive, which has been an interesting experience so far. It's the first time I've ever driven a brand new car, and it's also the first time I've ever driven an automatic, so it's a bit hard not to be distracted by all of that.

But as regards the 'hybrid' bit, the idea is that it has both a petrol engine and a battery, so that when it is more economical (eg in stop-start urban settings) to do so it automatically switches over to the battery. I had (perhaps rather naively) imagined that you had to plug it in at night, but it turn out that the battery charges up as you go along, so you don't really notice it. It also does clever things like automatically cutting out the engine if you are idling, again without you really noticing.

I've heard some people say that if you look at the whole lifecycle of the product, including manufacture, likely limited operating life, and disposal, then it may not be quite as green as it seems, but it certainly scores well on the 'gee whizz' front!

Queuing up to hear me???

2008-04-23T11:41:00.003+01:00

Last night I took part in a Friends of the Earth / Stop Climate Chaos rally at the Friends' Meeting House at Euston, along with Secretary of State Hilary Benn, Tory spokesman Peter Ainsworth and FoE boss Tony Juniper. I was slightly startled on arriving at the venue last night to find the queue snaking down the Euston Road! I can't recall ever speaking at an event where people were queuing up to hear me before - though I suspect that the presence of the Secretary of State may have had something to do with it!

The event itself was very worthwhile. Tony Juniper set out the key concerns of FoE about the Climate Change Bill. Hilary Benn said the Bill was itself a triumph for 'people power' and was the first of its kind anywhere in the world. Peter Ainsworth ran through the changes that the Tories and Lib Dems had managed to achieve together on the Bill in the House of Lords. I then set out the Lib Dem position, where we want to beef up the Bill considerably, including trying again to get the CO2 cut target up to 80%.

I've spoken at a few of these events now, and unless you listen very carefully you could be forgiven for thinking that we all basically agree. But the reality is that whilst the environment spokespeople of the parties can say 'green things' to 'green groups', none of it has any credibility unless their party takes these things to its heart. I pointed out that whilst the Tory environment spokesman is, I am sure, sincere, the rest of his party is much more flaky on things like nuclear power and anything to do with economic development (eg airport expansion). Likewise, DEFRA may do its best, but it is a tiny department whose green agenda gets trampled on by the Ministry of Transport (cf Heathrow expansion), BERR (cf new coal-fired power stations), DCLG (eg housing insulation standards) and most of all the Treasury (cf the lack of a truly 'green' tax agenda). Only if environmentalism runs through the heart of a party - as it does with the Lib Dems - can you be confident that what the environment spokesman tells environmentalists is actually what the party would do in Government.

Being ripped off

2008-04-17T16:35:00.003+01:00

A very worthwhile report by the Office of Fair Trading has found that the public sector has been repeatedly ripped off by construction companies competing for (or rather 'failing to compete' for) big contracts for new schools and hospitals. It turns out - surprise surprise - that the companies have been getting together and agreeing that some would put in 'cover bids' - ie implausibly large bids - to make others look more attractive and also to allow others to inflate their bids and still get the contract. After the event the people who put in the cover bids got cash payouts. Sounds like good old fashioned corruption to me.

One of the companies named by the OFT is Carillion who are one of the two shortlisted bidders for the new North Bristol 'super-hospital' at Southmead. So can we now be confident that they got on the shortlist through a fair competitive process? I'll be asking the OFT to have a look at this one. I don't agree with PFI financing of hospitals in any case, but if we are going to get ripped off then it compounds the problem.

It also occurs to me that this is actually not a huge surprise. Adam Smith famously wrote over 200 years ago:

""People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices".

Not often Steve Webb quotes Adam Smith, but on this occasion he was spot on - shame no-one appears to have learned the lesson.

UPDATE: Carillion HQ have been in touch (!) to say that the company that the OFT criticised was Carillion JM (formerly known as Mowlem) who they bought in 2006; they say that there has been no suggestion of misdemeanours since the company was under Carillion control; I'm happy to acknowledge this; however, I remain of the view that the whole process is so secretive and there are so few people who can bid for a contract like this, it is asking for collusion, so I will still ask the OFT if there are any grounds for concern.

Result!

2008-04-04T12:34:00.004+01:00

Some of my time is spent dealing with the great issues of the day - human rights, climate change, global terrorism - but occasionally you get a 'result' on something a bit closer to home!

In my local area there are three main league football teams who are followed by local residents - Bristol City, Bristol Rovers and Yeovil Town. In the past the custom of BBC Radio Bristol has been to cover the away matches of each of these teams for fans who could not travel to the matches. Where two of the teams were away together the station was able to split between its Bristol and Somerset frequencies and cover both matches.

However, in early February Radio Bristol created a storm by covering only a Yeovil away game and not the Bristol Rovers away game which happened at the same time, presumably as a cost-saving measure. I subsequently received several angry e-mails and letters from fans and took the issue up with the Director-General of the BBC.

I am pleased to say that he has now responded by saying that "...BBC Radio Bristol has now confirmed that it will provide live coverage of the away games of all three teams in the region, until the end of the current football season". I am sure that this result will be well received by fans of all three clubs in the area!

What constitutional reform?

2008-03-25T17:00:00.002Z

The Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, today made a statement to MPs about constitutional reform. Normally a relatively dry topic, the statement had been spiced up a bit by rumours of changes to the voting system, of possibly making it compulsory to vote (something I oppose) and finally getting round to reform of the House of Lords.

But what did we get instead?

A draft Bill which had nothing to say about any of those issues, but found time to cover the appointment of Bishops and the rules about which flags can be flown where and when!

This risks being a huge missed opportunity.

People sometimes say that constitutional reform is dry technical stuff of no interest to anyone except anoraks. But actually, I believe that a lot of the cynicism about politics has its roots in the fact that so many voters in so many parts of the country are effectively disenfranchised by the first-past-the-post voting system. Many MPs can get away with paying little or not attention to their constituents because they have a 'job for life' through a 'safe seat' - something you don't get in the same way in 'fair voting systems'.

To give one example.

Today in Parliament we are debating whether there should be an inquiry into the war on Iraq. When the issue was voted on, every Lib Dem MP voted against the war. But back then there were only 53 Lib Dem MPs, because the first-past-the-post system converted a vote share of just under 20% into less than 10% of the MPs. Suppose we had had a proportional voting system with twice as many Lib Dem MPs, and fewer MPs of the parties who supported the war? The Government's majority could have been almost wiped out and we might not have gone to war. That's how important getting this issue right could be.

For as long as one party can get a working majority in Parliament with not much more than a third of the votes cast (which is the current situation) we will never have representative democracy in this country. Until that issue is addressed, the contents of today's draft Bill will seem like trivia. Even the section that proposes Parliamentary approval before going to war will be of no consequence unless and until Parliament itself is elected in a way that is truly representative of the British people.

Final Thoughts on the Budget

2008-03-18T21:29:00.002Z

As I write it is around 9.30pm and the four days of Budget debate are drawing to a close. I took part yesterday when the theme was the Environment. Although the Budget was labelled as 'green', it turns out that the total increase in 'green taxes' by 2010 was less than £2 billion - or 'rounding error' in the Treasury's scale of things. My colleague Vince Cable contrasted the 'apocalyptic' language of the Budget speech regarding climate change with the 'timidity and deferral' that characterised most of the measures.

One of the less thrilling features of the way we deal with the Budget is that at 10pm we vote on a series of 'Budget resolutions'. There are dozens and dozens of these but in practice we will end up voting on perhaps 5 or 6 - the rest will go through 'on the nod'. But with each vote or 'division' lasting 15 minutes, it means we will not be through until around 11.30pm. The first few votes are reasonably sociable, with chance to catch up with colleagues and those of other parties (when you are in the same lobby), but after an hour or so of waiting around, the novelty does tend to wear off.

First thoughts on the Budget

2008-03-12T14:06:00.002Z

We've just had Alistair Darling's first Budget which was notable mainly for the lack of anything new. The main 'announcements' - bigger winter fuel payments, a slightly tougher line with the energy companies, slightly higher tax on new 'gas guzzlers' - had all been trailed in the press. When Gordon Brown used to spring rabbits from a hat at the end of his budget speeches they were generally a surprise - not that this was a good way to make government policy! - but today's speech was largely a repeat of stuff we had heard before and a few things we'd read in the papers.

In terms of my environment brief, although there was a lot of 'green talk', the actual changes didn't amount to a great deal. For example, the Chancellor announced £25m for a 'green homes' initiative. But as someone pointed out, that works out at around £1 per household in the land, which isn't going to get us very far.

My biggest worry is that the attempt to use 'green' language to dress up a Budget that was mainly about filling the holes in the Government's finances risks undermining the case for 'green taxation' altogether. Only if green taxes are revenue neutral overall - ie higher green taxes are offset by lower income and other taxes - will the public really buy in to the whole idea.

What we do all day...

2008-03-04T13:05:00.002Z

One of the questions that MPs are frequently asked is what they do all day (!), given that we are patently not all sitting in the House of Commons all day long. My activities today give some clue to that.

The day started with a breakfast meeting to discuss 'smart meters'. These are the devices that will eventually be fitted to all our homes that will give us as consumers much more information about the electricity and gas that we consume, and which also have the potential to facilitate the selling of power that we generate in the home back to the National Grid. In principle these look like a very good thing, but replacing approaching 50 million meters will cost around £5 billion, so there are big issues about who pays and how the technology is 'rolled out'. The meeting was a very useful event with MPs and peers from all parties and industry experts and consumer bodies.

After this I returned to my office to check on the overnight e-mails before attending a meeting of the Lib Dem 'Shadow Cabinet' where we discuss our strategy in Parliament. I had to leave that meeting earlier to go on to the morning sitting of the 'Standing Committee' on the Energy Bill. This is the process which involves line-by-line scrutiny of new legislation, together with consideration of amendments that we and the other opposition parties table. Simply being in committee will occupy about five and a half hours today, to say nothing of the hours spent getting briefed on what are often very technical issues and drafting potential amendments to the legislation. In addition to this morning's session, the three hour afternoon session will take place whilst debate is going on in the House of Commons on other issues - which is part of the answer to the question - 'where are you and what do you do all day'.

At the end of most days I am in my office signing and amending letters that have been drafted for me to constituents and others, and likewise dealing with a huge volume of e-mails. At the moment we routinely finish after 10pm, and I walk back to my flat, catch up on the football results and head for bed!

Public meeting re 5000 houses for Yate

2008-03-03T09:04:00.002Z

I was going to blog about our public meeting on Friday night (29th Feb) about new houses at Yate, but I see I've been beaten to it by the Gazette and by Cllr Paul Hulbert.

Says it all really!

Late night Nationalisation

2008-02-19T23:01:00.002Z

It's just turned 11pm and we're still going strong, busy nationalising Northern Rock.

It's pretty scandalous really that the House of Commons has just one day (albeit finishing at midnight) to consider a complete Act of Parliament, dealing with tens of billions of pounds of liabilities, and then the House of Lords has one day, and then that's more or less it. Whilst we agree in principle that Nationalisation is probably the 'least worst' option - and indeed had the Government listened to Vince Cable we could have saved months of uncertainty - that still doesn't mean every dot and comma of the legislation is right. Laws made in haste are sometimes the worst of all, and I can't say that much in the way of effective scrutiny has gone on - especially the nearer we get to midnight.

PMQs could be interesting tomorrow - you might imagine that David Cameron will go on Northern Rock and/or reinforce his call to sack the Chancellor? But actually Gordon Brown has some quite strong counter-arguments about the total lack of a coherent Conservative response to the whole Northern Rock fiasco. I predict therefore a series of each man asking the other questions - so pretty much business as usual, but the rest of us being probably slightly more tetchy than usual having not got to bed until the early hours!

Composting

2008-02-13T09:29:00.002Z

Last night I attended a very impressive public meeting in Pucklechurch on plans for a new 'in-vessel' (ie enclosed) composter between Westerleigh and Pucklechurch. The plan is to process 30,000 tonnes a year of 'green waste' from South Gloucestershire. The problem is that the proposed site is in the middle of a particularly important stretch of Green Belt.

For anyone who wants to know more about in-vesssel composters (and I never thought I would find myself writing that sentence) my Lib Dem colleague councillor Claire Young has recently started her own blog and you read more here.

We saw a particularly impressive presentation by parish councillor Martin Smith who had produced some artist's impressions of what the actual scheme would look like. A building described in the application as being like a 'Dutch Barn', turned out to be a great big metal construction, and the size and scale of the thing was comparable to an Airbus A380. Only goes to show you shouldn't believe everything you read in planning applications.

New climate change campaign launched

2008-02-08T13:50:00.000Z

Working with Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, we have just launched a new campaign to get the Government to toughen up its climate change targets. At the moment, the Climate Change Bill proposes a statutory target of 60% cut in CO2 emissions by 2050. But most people - environment campaigners, scientists and even the Prime Minister - now seem to accept that 80% is probably the minimum needed to avoid some pretty catastrophic climate change. The Lib Dems are going to try to amend the Climate Change Bill to have an 80% target, but we will only succeed if we can get other parties to vote with us. At the moment Labour and the Tories are saying we should leave it alone and wait until a committee of the great and the good (the Climate Change Commission) come back and tell us what the figure should be.

We say we can't afford to waste time and we need tough targets now.

If you agree, please join our Facebook group which allows you to register your own support and also to report back on whether your own MP is willing to back 80%.

A bizarre debate!

2008-01-22T12:57:00.000Z

I took part in a very strange debate this morning about the key issue of how many houses are going to be built in the South West in the next 20 years and where they should be built. The figures and plans are in a document called the 'draft regional spatial stratgegy for the South West', on which an 'independent' panel has now produced a report to the Secretary of State. For South Gloucestershire the plan means an extra 30,000 plus houses (or roughly 'four Bradley Stokes'), an increase of about a third on the already large increase proposed by the Regional Assembly. Out of the blue, an extra 5,000 houses was announced for North Yate.

A lot of MPs turned up to speak and I spoke about the implications of the Yate plans for the local roads, health services and environment. I pointed out that Yate town council was refused permission to speak to the Panel and that this 5,000 number appeared to have been plucked from nowhere.

The Housing Minister, Yvette Cooper, replied that she wasn't really allowed to say anything and that initially her ministerial brief for the debate was entirely blank on the subject! Apparently the reason is that the Secretary of State is acting in a "quasi-judicial" capacity - ie it is a bit like an MP trying to tell a judge to find someone guilty or innocent! She did however promise a 13 week consultation period - but only after the Minister has made up her mind!

Incredibly, the only elected people who have had any regional say in this whole process - the Regional Assembly - are being abolished. We do have a "regional minister for the South West" (prize if you can name him...) but he didn't turn up. We have been promised "regional select committees" which could do some of this scrutiny work, but they haven't been created yet.

It is astonishing that key strategic decisions (as well as very local ones, apparently) are being made in this way with virtually no democratic scrutiny. This one will run and run.

Prime Minister's Questions - Live (almost!)

2008-01-16T12:35:00.000Z

I've just been sitting in the House of Commons for the weekly Prime Minister's Questions, and have come 'hot foot' to the HoC library to report back on what happened.

The way PMQs work is that the first question is always asked by a backbencher who has come first out of the hat. Today it was a loyal Labour backbencher who had clearly been 'lent on' by the whips. He asked a toadying question which enabled Gordon Brown to list the Government's achievements on the economy. MPs on all sides groan when we go through this charade.

Then we have David Cameron who has up to 6 goes. He went on Northern Rock. There's lots to criticise but the Tories have no answer, so we had a stand-off where DC kept asking questions and GB kept saying - do you support us or not? Neither would answer the other.

One interesting bit of Parliamentary protocol was breached incidentally. The custom is you address the Speaker, not the other person. So when you say "you" you mean the Speaker. But this looks a bit daft on the TV. Any ordinary MP would not be allowed to get away with this, but DC repeatedly said: "you have dithered.. " etc. so that the TV clip would be more effective than "The Rt. Hon. Gentleman has dithered..." I would guess a note from the Speaker's office may go out reminding DC not to do it again.

After a couple of backbenchers, Nick Clegg came in with another serious question, this time about home repossessions. Gordon Brown has no real answer on this as many thousands of people are clearly going to lose their homes this year. His feeble second response was to quote from the 'calamity Clegg' document prepared during the leadership election (surprised he didn't use that last week) which demonstrated he had nothing of substance to say. Whilst it got a good laugh inside the House (as Chris Huhne was sitting next to Nick), I suspect that 'real people' who are concerned about losing their homes will be more impressed with Nick raising the question that with GB's response.

We then had a run of backbench questions covering everything from Peter Hain, inflation, the murderer let out on bail, Devon naval base etc. A rather 'well built' Labour MP said that "whilst he didn't anticipate much demand for his kidneys and liver", he hoped the Government would get on with presumed consent re organ donation etc. Susan Kramer was called on spec. (as she wasn't on the list - shows the merits of 'bobbing up and down') and asked about Heathrow expansion, but got a patronising response from the PM.

After half an hour I'm not sure we know much more than we knew before. The Tories will clearly be probed hard about Northern Rock, especially if they have to vote on legislation to Nationalise it. Nick did well again and seems to be getting through his ordeal by fire, and I think the PM will have to come up with better responses on these serious isssues.

Farewell to the village post office?

2008-01-15T08:45:00.000Z

In the next few weeks we are expecting to be given a list of the post offices in 'Bristol & Somerset' (which in Post Office terms is apparently where I live) which are to face closure. Apparently the sub postmasters and postmistresses who are on the list have already been told, but - in the typically Stalinist way that the post office is run from on high - have been sworn to secrecy on pain of losing redundancy payoffs!

The battle to save our post offices is going to be an uphill one - Central Government has decided it doesn't want to keep subsidising post offices on the present scale, and the national target is for thousands to go; it's hard to see in this context that the 'consultation' on the closures is going to be very open; it may be possible to make a particularly strong case for an individual office, but even then there is nothing stopping the PO from coming back with a replacement closure proposal.

The Govt. say that post offices are losing money (which some are, but some are profitable) but neglect to point out how their own mismanagement of the network has been a large part of the problem. The whole fiasco over forcing pensioners and others to have their money into a bank account cost sub post offices a fortune, and other government departments have steadily been undermining the post office too. If we want a comperehensive post office network, as I do, then Government needs to start being part of the solution and not always part of the problem.

Getting to grips with a new brief...

2008-01-08T21:39:00.000Z

I don't recommend you trying, but if you wanted to write to me formally, I am technically now the Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Energy, Food and Rural Affairs - the office team are now demanding bigger business cards!

One of the challenges is getting my head round such a huge brief, and one of the best ways is to chip in on 'bite-size' topics. Today I had to respond for the party to a 90 minute debate on the issue of fuel poverty - very topical given the huge hikes in fuel prices by NPower recently.

A lot of good points were made in the debate, and I highlighted the vital importance of energy efficiency and energy conservation. In short, it makes no sense to pay people more and more benefit so they can afford to pay high fuel bills when a lot of the hot air goes straight up through the loft or out through draughty windows or doors! If we can improve insulation then we can cut carbon emissions and also save people some money - a real 'win win'.

One issue that came up was the position of people who use pre-payment meters. My instinct was that people who use these meters are being ripped off and that cutting the charges on these meters would be a good answer to fuel poverty. But it turns out that things are not quite that simple.

First of all, some companies actually charge the same tariff on prepayment meters as on other customers (despite the higher costs), and many consumers actually prefer a prepayment meter as it helps them to budget. Second, many of the "fuel poor" are not on prepayment meters and many of the people on prepayment meters aren't "fuel poor" So, perhaps surprisngly, if you forced companies to cut costs for everyone on a meter, and to find the money by raising the cost for other customers, you would probably hurt more people living in fuel poverty than you would help!

It just goes to show that when you tackle a new subject you have to be a bit careful about jumping to conclusions.

When is a consultation not a consultation?

2008-01-04T15:51:00.000Z

I've come to the conclusion that the word 'consultation' is probably the most misused word in public life.

As a Liberal Democrat I'm very much of the view that people should have control over the public services which affect their daily lives. But the reality is all too often that because those who run those services are convinced that they 'know best', any consultation that takes place only happens when the powers that be have already made up their mind.

This reflection is brought to mind by (at least) three examples:

a) new nuclear power stations - the Government has allegedly been listening to the public about whether or not to have new nuclear power plants; it got taken to court after the first consultation was so obviously flawed, but the second one has been completed and - guess what - they've come to the same answer!

b) resident scheme managers (aka "wardens") in South Gloucestershire sheltered housing schemes - residents have been 'consulted' about changes to the services they get, and in some schemes the wardens are highly valued and do excellent work; but guess what - the results of the 'consultation' is that all the resident scheme managers are going to have to go; so what was the point of the consultation?

c) Frenchay Hospital - no blog posting from me is complete without me banging on about Frenchay, but this was a classic; the public were polled by an independent polling organisation about where they wanted their new hospital; the public of South Gloucestershire and Bristol said Frenchay - so the health planners went for Southmead anyway!

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that we should decide everything by a simple show of hands. But if you say you are going to consult people you should do it early in the process - ie before you have made your mind up - and should only do so if you really are willing to change your mind as a result of what people say. Otherwise the cynicism that is already very pervasive about our public life will only get worse.

Women's Pensions - the saga continues

2007-12-29T14:02:00.000Z

Last Summer the Government was defeated in the House of Lords on the Pensions Bill in an amendment tabled by Patricia Hollis - one of their own former pensions ministers. She was arguing that women who retire before 2010 (when more generous pension rules come in) should have more flexibility to fill gaps in their pension record. The Government didn't like her amendment but persuaded her to withdraw it with a promise that they would come up with something better. After six months of thinking about it, they've now announced in the House of Lords that they can't think of a way to do it. Patricia Hollis is understandably furious and is threatening further defeats.

Jackie Ashley wrote a Guardian article about this on Christmas Eve, which I very much agred with. In response I wrote a letter to the Guardian which they published on 27th December. I pointed out that even now there are many women who could fill gaps in their records on very favourable terms, and the Government knows precisely who they are, but is refusing to tell them! I think this is outrageous, and in my spare time (!) from being the Lib Dems' new environment spokesperson I will keep gnawing away at the Government over this in the New Year.

Back from Never-Never Land

2007-12-18T19:32:00.000Z

What an exciting 36 hours. First I was declared a non-person by Facebook who decided I was impersonating an MP (no jokes please). Then a group was started to convince the world that I was real and within a few hours had over 200 members. One of our local team even wrote a song to the tune of 'once in Royal David's City':

Once upon a time in England

Stood a very good MP

His election was a landslide

It's North Avon History

But now his very existence

Has encountered resistance

He has helped us all and gladly

Now we come to rescue Steve

Facebook friends, unite and stand up

To make everyone believe

Steve is real, so tell your president

Give him back to North Avon Residents

And one day, in the near future

All this will feel like a dream

Steve will have his Facebook friends back

And Lib Dem's will reign supreme

Until then, we'll do our best

To keep up our Facebook protest!

Against such overwhelming odds, Facebook had to capitulate and I'm back!