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  • PRESS RELEASE : Over £3.5m awarded to sustainable fishing projects as new funding round opens [December 2022]

    PRESS RELEASE : Over £3.5m awarded to sustainable fishing projects as new funding round opens [December 2022]

    The press release issued by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 12 December 2022.

    Projects awarded funding in the latest round of the Fisheries Industry Science Partnership (FISP) scheme.

    Five pioneering research projects have been awarded over £3.5 million to gather vital evidence to inform how we manage our fisheries and protect marine habitats across the UK.

    Successful projects include the University of Plymouth Enterprise Ltd who will collaborate with organisations including the Angling Trust and Professional Boatman’s Association to collect crucial data to help protect species vulnerable to overfishing such as sharks, skates, rays and black bream. Participating boats will tag and track 200 black bream and 100 rays and sharks to shed light on their complex life histories and help ensure the sustainability and survival of these important species.

    Meanwhile Bangor University, in partnership with the British Geological Survey, Orkney Fisheries Association and Welsh Fisherman’s Association, have been granted nearly £400,000 to investigate the impacts of climate change on the common whelk. The research will look at how temperature changes and location can impact on the growth, distribution and survivability of this commercially valuable species.

    All the projects are from the third round of the Fisheries Industry Science Partnership (FISP) scheme, part of the government’s landmark £100m UK Seafood Fund investment, which brings together the seafood industry with research organisations to improve knowledge and data and help manage and protect often rare and valuable species.

    Fisheries Minister Mark Spencer said:

    A proper understanding of important marine species is vital if we are to manage our fisheries sustainably and safeguard the fishing and seafood sector for future generations.

    By drawing on the expertise of the fishing community and combining this with our world class researchers, we can discover new ways to manage our stocks and protect vulnerable fisheries.

    Dr Emma Sheehan, Associate Professor of Marine Ecology at the University of Plymouth, said:

    The UK’s coastal waters are rich and diverse environments home to a huge range of important species. However, many of them are vulnerable to overfishing and exploitation which poses real challenges from both a conservation and an economic perspective. These projects will build on our previous work alongside fishing communities and authorities, and gather much needed data about critically important species such as pollack, black bream, sharks, skates and rays. By studying where they live, and why, we can develop more effective ways of managing their habitats sustainably now and in the future.

    In addition, the fourth and final round of the FISP scheme opened last week to eligible applicants and runs until midday on 19 January 2022. Projects which involve a partnership between research organisations and a member of the UK seafood industry are encouraged to bid for funding by visiting GOV UK.

    The £100m UK Seafood Fund was set up to support the long term future and sustainability of the UK fisheries and seafood sector and provides funding under four pillars: science and innovation, infrastructure, skills and training, and export support.

    Last month also saw the second round of the UK Seafood Fund Infrastructure scheme open to applicants. With £30 million of funding now available to help pay for upgrades to ports, processing and aquaculture facilities, these schemes are ensuring the sector is equipped to meet future demand. A further round of the infrastructure scheme is set to open in 2023 to support fleet modernisation in the wild catching sector, with another future round focusing on the recreational fishing sector.

  • An Essay on the political system of Europe and Connection with the Government of Great Britain by Thomas Hughes [Full Book – Published in 1855]

    An Essay on the political system of Europe and Connection with the Government of Great Britain by Thomas Hughes [Full Book – Published in 1855]

    The full text of the book “An Essay on the political system of Europe; its connection with the Government of Great Britain” by Thomas Stuart Hughes, published in 1855.

    Text of book (in .pdf format)

  • Quentin Davies – 2001 Speech to Conservative Party Conference

    Quentin Davies – 2001 Speech to Conservative Party Conference

    The speech made by Quentin Davies, the then Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, at the Conservative Party Conference held in Blackpool on 10 October 2001.

    The words courage, vision and leadership are often overused in politics. But not so in David Trimble’s case they are entirely justified.

    Nobody has done more to try and bring together a community scarred by thirty years of terrorism or, in David’s own words, to build a Northern Ireland at ease with itself.

    Once again this morning, David Trimble restated the central Unionist case with clarity and precision.

    It is a case that we Conservatives, as a Unionist Party, support.

    Our two parties have always shared a great deal in common.

    Above all we are united in our commitment to the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

    Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom is based on consent – the consent of the people who live there.

    We will always uphold the democratic wishes of the people of Northern Ireland.

    And we will never allow the future of Northern Ireland to be determined by violence.

    In Northern Ireland, just like anywhere else in the world, terrorism must never be allowed to succeed, and democracy must always triumph.

    Over the last four weeks the whole world has been forced to face up to the reality of terrorism. We have seen its hideous face in this country before. Our own Party bears the scars.

    We will never forget Brighton and those who died and were maimed there. We will never forget the murders of Airey Neave and Ian Gow, and the many bombings of our cities.

    But the people of Northern Ireland have lived with terrorism – never knowing whether a parked car might contain a bomb, or their own house might be the next one to be firebombed – day in day out for thirty years. 3,600 murdered and 40,000 wounded.

    It is an appalling story. Yet one in which the Royal Ulster Constabulary, supported by the Army in Northern Ireland, where our own leader served, have played an heroic role.

    In coming to this afresh, as Iain Duncan Smith has asked me to do, I desperately want this era in Northern Ireland to be at an end.

    The Belfast Agreement held out that hope. Many people had to swallow hard. I expressed at the time my personal revulsion at the premature release of serious criminals – including murderers and multiple murderers. It was the politicisation of justice. But it had a purpose, if the parties to the Agreement kept their word, in spirit, as well as deed.

    The Irish Republic did. They changed their constitution. The British Parliament did, it legislated for devolved government including both sections of the community sharing power. The Ulster Unionist Party did, it was prepared to share government with Sinn Fein, the political representatives of men and women who had pursued their political objectives by murder and terror.

    For that remarkable sacrifice the world has properly saluted David Trimble with the Nobel Peace Prize.

    But this was an Agreement with many parts. And while prisoners convicted of terrorist offences were to be released within two years, so was decommissioning of illegal weapons to be completed within two years.

    As we know, all the prisoners were released within the 2 years. And now more than 3½ years have passed and not a single weapon or ounce of explosive has been decommissioned by Sinn Fein-IRA. All we have had from Sinn Fein-IRA have been vague statements and empty promises sometimes cynically made before important meetings and then withdrawn thereafter. Sinn Fein-IRA has been playing a cat and mouse game with the Government, and there is very little doubt in anyone’s eyes in Northern Ireland, who is the cat and who is the mouse.

    It is hardly surprising that there is now a crisis in the institutions in Belfast when all the parties have fulfilled their obligations under the Agreement except Sinn Fein. And the Government has not taken any action to sanction them.

    Why did the Government decide to release all the prisoners without even a start being made on decommissioning? They had no need to do so under the Agreement. We tried to link the two in amendments we tabled in the House of Commons to the Northern Ireland Sentences Bill in 1998. The Government rejected these.

    Whatever it was that possessed them it was the most colossal mistake. The result is that as the crunch time comes for the Assembly and for the Executive, created by the Belfast Agreement, the Government have no instruments of leverage left – either with Sinn Fein IRA or with so-called Loyalist paramilitary groups.

    The Secretary of State the weekend before last threatened the UDA with being “specified”. Unfortunately being specified means absolutely nothing. It does not enable the authorities to do a single thing they could not do anyway. That is utterly unsatisfactory.

    We must be as clear and resolute in tackling terrorism at home as abroad.

    We simply cannot have two sets of rules – one for terrorism at home and one for terrorism abroad. And let me say that we reject with contempt the characteristic hypocrisy of Gerry Adams who said in Dublin 10 days ago that terrorism was ethically indefensible but that the IRA were freedom fighters. In a democracy that distinction does not exist. And Northern Ireland is a democracy.

    What then should we now do? Is it time to reconsider the Belfast Agreement?

    I believe the answer is “no”. The Agreement as signed remains the only framework for peace that is actually or likely to be available to us. We should try, even at this eleventh hour, to make it work.

    The Government have gratuitously given away their most valuable card. They cannot now get it back. But we should insist on three things. First, no more concessions whatever – least of all on policing or security – until there is real and verified decommissioning.

    The suggestion in the negotiations at Weston Park that there should be further concessions, including allowing those with terrorist convictions to sit on district police boards, must be utterly rejected.

    Second, the Government must use to the very full all the new powers they have promised to ask Parliament for and the European Union’s new anti-terrorist measures to counter international terrorism, to cut off funds, and otherwise sanction, any organisation promoting violence in this country.

    Third, we must prevail on our friends abroad, including in the US, to treat terrorist threats to us in exactly the same way as we are treating terrorist threats to them. And if terrorist organisations in Northern Ireland, and the political parties that support them, do not decommission, every travel facility, every opportunity to raise money, every chance to present themselves falsely as good citizens or as a peaceful democratic party must be closed off to them.

    And that must include NORAID.

    Ladies and gentlemen, we find ourselves once again, as our forbears and predecessors did several times in the twentieth century, in 1914 to 1918, in 1939 to 1945 or in the crises of the Cold War, facing the threat of organised evil, of a threat to our very civilisation, on an international scale.

    Once again, as then, the Conservative Party will show the way, in quiet but unbreakable resolution, in instinctive patriotism, in firm solidarity with our friends and allies in America, the rest of Europe and around the world. And once again, whatever the sacrifices and difficulties we may face along the way, that spirit will ultimately prevail.

  • David Trimble – 2001 Speech to Conservative Party Conference

    David Trimble – 2001 Speech to Conservative Party Conference

    The speech made by David Trimble, the then Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, to Conservative Party Conference on 10 October 2001.

    May I thank you for the invitation to speak here today. I have always wanted to see Ulster Unionism closer to the heart of British politics. Today will mark a further step in that direction. I am also glad to see this invitation has been noticed elsewhere. I happened to be in Downing Street last week and someone said to me, “I see you’re addressing the Tory Conference.” I said that it was nothing odd, after all he had a guest at his. Indeed I remarked that his guest Gerhard Schroeder said he had come to the Labour conference as part of his quest to unite Europe. My object today, however, is much more modest.

    Obviously we meet at a very special time. May I say how proud I am at the contribution Britain is making at the moment. The attack on the World Trade Center was the greatest terrorist attack on the British people since the defeat of Hitler. It affected people from all parts of the British Isles – at least three of the dead came from Northern Ireland. We all know there may be greater challenges ahead for our armed forces and indeed for society here in Britain and our thoughts and prayers are with our servicemen and all those who protect us at home or abroad.

    But the Government today is doing precisely what we would want and expect a British government to do and it will be supported.

    In a situation like this we know the need to act and act decisively even though, inescapably, one must act on imperfect information producing results that may fall short of the ideal.

    But if I can digress, Britain and America find it easier to act because they have governments capable of taking decisions. The hesitant and sometimes uncertain responses of our European partners are because in most cases they are governed by coalitions. Inevitably they are less capable of quick and resolute decision. And, of course, coalitions are the inevitable consequence of proportional representation. I have had experience of more than one form of proportional representation. But I must resist the temptation of telling you of the drawbacks of PR.

    But if the response to Bin laden and the Taleban is clear-cut, unfortunately at home in Northern Ireland, the position is not so clear. The problem is uncertainty and the Government’s reluctance to grasp the nettle.

    I still think John Major was right when he began the process. Whatever one might think of the character of those involved in terrorism, if they were saying that they were prepared to turn their back on terrorism and embrace peace and democracy, then, if only for the sake of the people who identified with them politically, it was right to explore the chance of peaceful evolution.

    The problem is that the terrorists have tried to have it both ways – the ballot box and the armalite. They have delayed a clear and unequivocal commitment to peace.

    We can all go back over the last few years and say we would have done this or that differently. But the point today is that I and my party are now bringing matters to a head in order to force Sinn Fein and the IRA to decide. We are not doing this cynically to exploit the mood after 11 September. We have been steadily, patiently, building the pressure since last October. On Monday we took the final steps, which will result, by about today week, in the resignation of the Unionist Ministers from the Northern Ireland Executive. This will be shortly followed by the removal therefrom of the Sinn Fein Ministers until they prove by decommissioning that they have left violence behind.

    We have waited a long time – three and a half years since the Agreement – seventeen months since the IRA itself promised to put their weapons beyond use. If they are ever going to do it, it must be now. If they do, fine. Then the new institutions will bed down. If they do not it will be clear that we must change the institutions so they can survive Sinn Fein’s failure. There may be reluctance to make those changes, but the need will be inescapable.

    Either way I look forward to greater certainty and stability in Northern Ireland. But Northern Ireland does not exist in isolation. It is part of the United Kingdom. There is a wider context, which we should consider.

    So it is natural to consider our relationship with national politics. Because I am here, some have speculated that I am going to talk about future links between Conservatives and Ulster Unionists. And of course there was for a long time a structural relationship between our parties and there is a strong continuing friendship. But this is too big an issue to be approached simply in a sectional way. I would prefer to reflect first more broadly.

    There is a communal aspect to party structures in Ulster. This has some unfortunate consequences. Some who do not want a united Ireland will vote nationalist out of a perceived need for communal solidarity. On the other hand some opt out of politics completely because they dislike the communal background of most parties. Most Ulster Unionists would think of themselves as small “c” conservatives. But some would identify more with labour and are Unionist for communal reasons.

    Once it was different. In the nineteenth century, both the Liberal and Conservative parties organized throughout Ireland. In the early twentieth Labour too organized there. But in response to Irish nationalism those involved in those parties coalesced to form Ulster Unionism. It was understandable and for decades it gave us stability. But it has this disadvantage – politics in Northern Ireland are based on a nationalist framework of reference. Parties are based on the fundamental issue of whether they are for or against a united Ireland.

    Compare Scotland. Parties there are based on a British framework of reference. The major British parties are there providing to the Scottish people the full range of British politics and then, alongside them there is a Scottish nationalist party. To a British person who wants to see and take part in British politics, the Scottish model is preferable to that we have in Northern Ireland.

    To its credit the Conservative Party has recognized this. Moreover it is important that the decision in the late 80s to organize in Northern Ireland was taken in response to pressure from the grassroots of the party. They felt, rightly, that some of the party’s policies on Northern Ireland were wrong, and they wanted to send a message of sympathy to the British people of Ulster.

    But a move by Conservatives alone could not break the mold. If things are to change, if we are to move from a Irish nationalist to a British pluralist basis of politics, then we need two things.

    First all the national parties must move. I am sure that this party will do its bit. The problem is Labour. It too must be prepared to move. There is an element in Labour sympathetic to Irish nationalism who have resisted this. But they must realise that, with the acceptance by the Irish government and by all the Irish nationalist parties of the consent principle, their attitudes must change.

    If Tony Blair was right when, on his first visit to Ulster as Prime Minister in May 1997, he said to some primary school children, that there would not be a United Ireland in their lifetime, then Labour has a duty to provide political opportunities for those children throughout their lives. And Labour members with Irish nationalist sympathies should remember the considerable contribution to the positive development of community relations in Scotland that resulted from Wheatley’s decision to take the Irish nationalist organization in Scotland into the Labour party there.

    The second thing concerns the party politics in Northern Ireland. Clearly it will be radically affected. I know there will be many in all parties, my own included who will be cautious. And we will not want to give up our capacity to exercise our own judgment on local issues. Moreover it is not until there is a sense of stability, a sense that Ulster’s place within the Union is secure, that the Assembly and the new arrangements have bedded – not until all that is settled will folk focus fully on these wider issues.

    But I am sure that they will want to address these wider issues. I am sure that the basic concepts of the Agreement are sound – the consent principle to settle the constitutional issue – a regional assembly to give democratic accountability on local issues – an Irish dimension to acknowledge the identity of nationalists.

    But more is needed. The Assembly is limited. It has to operate within the context of the overall economic and social policy of the national government. If the Assembly is all there is the people will not fell that they are properly involved in politics. Taxation, expenditure, defence, foreign policy, are still determined in London. Unless there is a sense of involvement and accountability on those issues, the electorate in Northern Ireland will not be satisfied.

    This problem does not exist with regard to Scotland and Wales. There the people can vote for the national parties who decide these matters. I do not think we will have a healthy political system until the people of Northern Ireland have a similar opportunity to “turn the rascals out”. And it is in the interests of the people of Great Britain, and in the interests of the people of the Republic of Ireland to encourage the development of healthier politics in Northern Ireland.

    There is another aspect too. The present structures prevent a person in Northern Ireland participating in British national politics. The last two governments contained Ministers from Northern Ireland. But Sir Brian Mawhinney and Kate Hoey had to leave Northern Ireland in order to be able to participate.

    It reminds me of the comparison between Belfast and Bangkok. The question is what can you do in Bangkok that you cannot do in Belfast? The answer of course is join the Labour party. Northern Ireland is the only place on the globe where you cannot join Labour. It is a civil rights issue.

    This is not something that is going to change overnight. It is not on the agenda today. But it is something we should think about. It will probably be on tomorrow’s agenda. It is right that it should for in a sense it is just filling in the British dimension to the Agreement. When the time comes I believe this party will be ready. I hope mine will be. Together I think we can meet the need. The real challenge, however, is for New Labour and Tony Blair.

    Mr. Blair made a good beginning on Northern Ireland. That May 1997 speech was sound on the basic principles. Without him there would not have been an Agreement in April 1998.

    But then came the implementation. Understandably he left much of that to others. To an extent he took his eye off the ball. Expediency slithered into appeasement. Confidence in the Agreement ebbed as people felt that the concessions were all one way.

    But there is the chance now to recover – indeed to fulfill the original promise. The paramilitaries can be faced down – the Assembly stabilized.

    And by moving forward with this party he could offer a range of political alternatives to the people of Ulster.

    It is often said that we are the prisoners of history.

    But the key on outside.

    Mr. Blair it is time to turn it.

    Time to treat the people of Northern Ireland as fully part of the United Kingdom.

  • Theresa May – 2001 Speech on “Culture of Spin Within Government” [Jo Moore]

    Theresa May – 2001 Speech on “Culture of Spin Within Government” [Jo Moore]

    The speech made by Theresa May, the then Conservative Party chair, in the House of Commons on 23 October 2001.

    Thank you Mr Speaker and I would like to move the motion standing in my name and that of my Right Honourable and Honourable friends.

    Mr Speaker I am sure we will all remember the events of September 11th for the rest of our lives.

    Just as past generations have defined themselves by what they were doing when President Kennedy was assassinated so a whole generation of people will define themselves by what they were doing when they saw the events of September 11th.

    Up and down the country people watched their televisions in disbelief and wondered if what they saw could actually be happening.

    Let me refresh the memory of Honourable Members on those events.

    At 1:45 in the afternoon British time a plane travelling from Boston to Los Angeles, carrying 92 people, crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre.

    Fifteen minutes later, at 2:00 British time a second plane, carrying 64 people, hit the south tower.

    At 2:30 British time a third plane, carrying 65 people, crashed into the Pentagon in Washington – and workers at companies such as Cantor Fitzgerald based in the World Trade Centre phoned their loved ones and left messages telling them they were about to die.

    Between 2:30 and 3:00 British time, major Government buildings in Washington were evacuated in anticipation of a further strike.

    Eyewitnesses and those watching on television saw bodies falling from the upper floors of the World Trade Centre.

    Between 3 and 3.30pm British time both towers of the World Trade Centre collapsed.

    At 3.30p.m the Prime Minister abandoned his speech to the TUC in Brighton.

    I’m sure that Members on all sides of the House shared with me the sense of utter disbelief as we watched those horrifying scenes.

    The world stood transfixed, unable to comprehend the horror that was unfolding before our very eyes.

    And yet in the midst of all of this, at 2:55, Ms Jo Moore, special adviser to the Secretary of State, his appointee, sent an e-mail to her departmental colleagues saying, ‘It is now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury. Councillors expenses?’

    To think that someone’s immediate reaction was to see what was happening in New York and Washington, not as a human tragedy but as a political PR opportunity, which Ministers should make the most of, is almost beyond understanding.

    The events of that day marked a change in the way we viewed our own position in the world.

    But they also marked the day when the culture of this Government’s news management stepped beyond the acceptable and became the disreputable.

    This motion today is not one that we have moved lightly.

    But it is a sad commentary on the attitudes and approach of this Government and on the culture of spin nurtured by this Government that Ministers’ actions have brought us to this debate today.

    And I am not alone in feeling this way:

    – Speaking of the email sent by Jo Moore, the Chairman of the Public Administration Committee, the Hon Member for Cannock Chase said ‘The question is whether what happened is consistent with any notion of public service that I or anybody else has. I thought at the time it wasn’t and I haven’t changed my mind now’. Her actions were ‘incompatible with public service’.

    – The Hon Member for Hornchurch said ‘the behaviour she’s displayed, it flies in the face of any public service ethos that I have ever heard of and it flies in the face of everything the Labour Party ever stood for.’

    – The Prime Minister said in this House on 17 October Hansard column 1165 ‘I do not defend in any shape or form what Jo Moore said, which was horrible, wrong and stupid’.

    Given those comments and the sense of outrage that has been felt across this House and outside Parliament I find it incomprehensible that Ms Moore is still in her post.

    It reflects not only a lack of understanding on her part, but also a sorry lack of judgement on the part of the Secretary of State.

    But in relation to the Secretary of State’s position there are a number of questions that still need to be answered.

    My hon friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale wrote to the Secretary of State on 12 October asking him to state publicly whether Jo Moore still had his firm support, give an assurance that no-one acted on the advice in the e-mail, and say whether or not he had spoken to Ms Moore before she sent the e-mail.

    So far he has not replied.

    So I invite the Secretary of State not just for his own sake but to restore some faith in government to take this opportunity to respond to the following questions:

    – Where was the Secretary of State on the 11th September?

    – Did the Secretary of State speak to Jo Moore on the 11th September; and, if so, at what time?

    – Did the Secretary of State speak to any one else in his office about the e-mail from Jo Moore on 11th September?

    – How did the Secretary of State learn of the existence and the content of the e-mail and who told him?

    Now of course it has been pointed out that the member of staff in question was disciplined, but again on this there are a number of outstanding questions surrounding the procedure that was followed.

    The Secretary of State needs to answer these in order to allay concerns in this House and elsewhere.

    It would appear that having initially not taken any action, when the story of the email broke on 8 October, the Secretary of State disciplined Ms Moore personally.

    The normal procedure is for the Permanent Secretary to discipline civil servants and special advisers, yet in this case the rebuke by the Permanent Secretary seems only to have been made after some delay, and only then because journalists were claiming that the Secretary of State had broken the rules on disciplinary action.

    This is a case in which the Secretary of State said that she had done wrong. The PM said that her action was horrible. But one in which ministers were determined from the outset that she should not lose her job.

    Just what does it take for a spin doctor to lose their job in this Government?

    – Why did the Secretary of State take it upon himself to protect her job before the Permanent Secretary had any chance to investigate?

    – Doesn’t all this show that the Secretary of State has indulged in grubby politics even as he sought to respond to Jo Moore’s disgraceful email?

    – And is it not the case that he clings to Jo Moore because he knows that if she goes, he is next in line?

    Later still of course we had Ms Moore’s apology.

    It took a week, it contained no direct apology to the families of those involved in the horrific events of September 11th, rather she seemed most concerned to apologise to the Government and Ministers.

    And then there was the manner of her apology.

    Any interview with a special adviser should be authorized – we do not know who did that nor do we know why Sky News was chosen initially as the sole recipient of the apology.

    And for many of us the most telling aspect was not the apology but the look on her face when she turned away from the cameras.

    She spun her way in and she has tried to spin her way out.

    But of course the email sent by Jo Moore on 11 September is not the only example we have of this culture of spin in Government – this canker of this culture of spin that lies at the heart of government.

    There are other examples from the DTLR.

    Ms Moore herself was involved in trying to persuade a junior civil servant to leak information to journalists aimed at discrediting Bob Kiley the London Transport Commissioner while he and the Secretary of State were involved in a dispute over the future of London Underground.

    That she did so was confirmed yesterday in a written answer at Hansard, col 94. Surely this is contrary to the code of conduct for special advisers yet no action was taken against her.

    Action was taken but instead of reprimanding his special adviser, the Secretary of State’s involvement was aimed at the Department’s Director of Information Alun Evans who had protested on behalf of his member of staff.

    5 days later the Director of Information was moved to another post.

    The question is did he leave the Department voluntarily. Perhaps the Secretary of State would like to answer that today.

    I understand that the posts of Director of Information and Head of News in the Department are vacant and appointments are due to be made in the next few weeks.

    It would help to restore a degree of confidence among staff in the Department if the Secretary of State would today state categorically that Ms Moore will have no role whatsoever, will not be consulted or invited to comment, on those appointments.

    The Secretary of State must answer these questions if he is to clear up some of the confusion that surrounds these events.

    Because the Secretary of State has something of a record when it comes to press officers.

    While he was a minister at the then Department for Education and Employment, in 1997, Jonathan Haslam resigned, reportedly after a row with the Right Honourable gentleman who had asked him to issue a press release criticising the record of the previous government.

    The charge against the Secretary of State is that he has perpetuated the culture of spin at the heart of government by his connivance in the politicisation of press officers.

    He must also, however, answer the accusation that, whilst the Government outwardly professed to be as disgusted as the rest of us, they appear internally to have followed Ms Moore’s advice.

    Because in the immediate aftermath of the events of the 11th September a number of ‘bad news’ stories were indeed released.

    We all know that the, now infamous, councillor’s expenses story was indeed released the following day.

    According to press reports the Rt Hon Member for Greenwich and Woolwich insists that that the announcement in question was cleared for publication on September 10th.

    Yet, press reports also suggest that the release was, unusually, sent to the Local Government chronicle only an hour before their press deadline.

    Chris Mahony, News Editor of the Local Government chronicle puts it very well when he says “To be thinking of such things at such a time shows that these people’s minds are even weirder than we thought.”

    But September 12th also saw a release on pensions for councillors and the release of new planning guidance for the West Country, which will force the construction of 200,000 more buildings on green fields, irrespective of local wishes.

    On the 14th September the Government published exam results, which showed that standards in Maths amongst 11 year olds were actually getting worse.

    The 4th October saw the announcement of the cancellation of the proposed Picketts Lock athletics stadium, jeopardising the chances of our hosting the 2005 world athletics championships.

    And of course we have seen over the past few days yet more examples of the problem of spin.

    The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs had to come to the House yesterday to defend herself against allegations of spin after issuing a significant press release on errors made in tests on sheep brains for evidence of BSE had been released to the press late one night with no press conference.

    But perhaps even more significant was the personal apology given yesterday in another place by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald who had to apologise to the House.

    Not only for the fact that he had given an unclear answer to the House leading their lordships to believe that the number of special advisers had only gone up under Labour from 78 to 81 when in fact the number has increased from 38 under the last Conservative Government to 81, but he also had to apologise for the fact that his officials tried to persuade Hansard to change the written record.

    And now of course following the notorious email, the Government has had to appoint a city PR firm to do its spinning rather than Ms Moore – more taxpayers money being spent on the government’s image.

    […]

    But it is not only Opposition and Government MPs who have expressed their disgust at the attitude of Ms Moore and of Ministers in defending her – as any perusal of the letters pages of the newspapers since the event will confirm.

    … This issue goes beyond the actions of one government spin doctor.

    It is not just about what Ministers have referred to as a single mistake.

    It goes to the very heart of the approach this Government takes to the electorate and to Parliamentary democracy.

    It typifies a culture of spin that says whatever the issue spin matters more than substance.

    Little wonder that there is an attitude of cynicism to politics and politicians among the general public when they hear of actions such as this which tell them that the Government is more interested in losing a few announcements than it is in the feelings of people whose loved ones had died in the horrific tragedies of September 11th.

    And it strikes at the heart of a relationship that has underpinned and strengthened our governments over the centuries that essential relationship between the non-political civil servants, working hard with dedication whoever is in government and the politicians they serve.

    I wonder what decent hard-working civil servants think when they see Jo Moore keeping her job.

    This culture of spin brings government and politicians into disrepute. It tarnishes Parliament.

    These are indeed bad news stories.

    But in this whole sorry saga we have a bigger one.

    It is a bad news story that at a time when all thoughts should have been focused on support for our friends in the US, people will read in their newspapers that politicians were intent on pulling the wool over their eyes.

    It is a bad news story because, at a time when people needed clear leadership, straightforward talk and honesty from all in government – they had the sense that they were being deceived.

    It is a bad news story because at time that brought out the best in so many people, they heard that, in some of their politicians, it had brought out the worst.

    When our armed forces are risking their lives half way around the world, when we are seeking to rally public opinion during the difficult times that may lie ahead, the Government has a particular responsibility to place its conduct beyond reproach.

    In the matter of Jo Moore it has failed in that duty.

    Despite all of the available evidence, against the advice of senior members opposite and contrary to the better judgement of some members of its own Cabinet, the Government has decided to retain its confidence in her.

    In the process it has inflicted unnecessary damage on our national life.

    By her actions, Ms Moore has demeaned the whole notion of public service. By its failure to act against her, this Government has debased both politics and itself.

    I beg to move the motion.

  • Iain Duncan Smith – 2001 Speech on “No Place for Racism in the Conservative Party” at Asian of the Year Dinner

    Iain Duncan Smith – 2001 Speech on “No Place for Racism in the Conservative Party” at Asian of the Year Dinner

    The speech made by Iain Duncan Smith, the then Leader of the Opposition, at the Asian of the Year dinner, on 25 October 2001.

    “It is a great pleasure for me to be here tonight to present the Asian of the year award for 2001. I would like to add once again my congratulations to Mr Gujral on winning that award. You typify so many of the values that I associate with British Asians, of hard work, enterprise and through your extensive charitable work, a strong commitment to helping the wider community. They are values that we all hold in common. This award is a tremendous achievement and I know I speak for all of us here when I say it is richly deserved.

    At the outset I would like to thank Jasbir Sachar, Managing Director of the Asian Who’s Who International for organising this event, that is firmly established as one of the high points of the British Asian calendar. Your annual publication serves as an essential work of reference about the British Asian community and, just as important, charts your success. So I am delighted to have been able to contribute the foreword to this year’s publication, as I am to receive a copy tonight.

    It is also a great honour for me to follow His Excellency Nareshwar Dayal, the High Commissioner of India, not least because of my own family links with India. In fact my father was born there – in Madras. It is a constant reminder to me of the closeness of the ties that bind so many of us with the sub-continent – ties that continue to grow stronger. That is something that I very much welcome and, as leader of the Conservative Party, wish to encourage and develop further. Of course, tonight’s event takes place against the backdrop of the military conflict that is raging in Afghanistan, a conflict in which our country is a fully committed coalition partner with the United States. Some two and a half weeks after the first bombing raids began it is worth reminding ourselves of our purpose and why it is so important that having started, we see it through.

    In our own country, in Northern Ireland, we have experienced thirty years of sustained terrorist violence and acts of cowardly evil. Hopefully, with the encouraging events of this week, we might now be able to look forward at last to a permanent end to violence there and a future for Northern Ireland based exclusively on democracy and consent.

    Yet nothing that we have been through here in any way prepared us for the scale of the atrocities that were carried out on 11th September in New York and Washington.

    Those attacks left over 7,000 people dead from over sixty countries. They included people of all religions– including Christians, Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims – and of none. They were the worst terrorist attacks ever perpetrated against our own country with hundreds of our fellow British citizens murdered. It must also rank as one of the worst terrorist outrages against countries such as Pakistan and India.
    They were attacks on us all and on the civilised values – democracy, freedom and the rule of law – that underpin our society.

    They could not go unpunished.

    Bin Laden and his Al Qu’ida network that planned and carried them out must be brought to justice, along with the Taleban regime that has harboured and sustained them.

    Let us be clear about one thing. This is not a war against Islam or the people of Afghanistan. It is a war against international terrorism, nothing more, nothing less. We must never allow Bin Laden to succeed in driving a wedge between Muslim countries and the west.

    Bin Laden and his supporters know no limits. There is no compromising with such fanatics. They simply have to be defeated.

    Some people argue that, yes, we must respond, but that the bombing has gone on for long enough and there should now be a pause – if only to allow essential humanitarian aid to get through to the Afghan people. I understand that view, but I cannot agree with it.

    Ending the humanitarian crisis is directly linked with military success. The biggest obstacle to delivering aid is the continued control of large parts of Afghanistan by the Taleban, who have intercepted aid, taxed it and sent some of it to market. For an effective aid programme to work the Taleban must fall. In its place there needs to be a broadly based government that is representative of the Afghan people and which will co-operate with the aid agencies. The window for that to happen is narrow, with most of the key passes into the country closed by the early New Year. So we must see the present action through.

    It is vital that this conflict is not allowed to sour relations between different communities here in Britain. All of us in public life have a responsibility to ensure that this does not happen.

    At the Conservative Conference a fortnight ago I said that, as Party Leader, I will be intolerant of those who are intolerant of others. I’ve demonstrated that already by the actions I have taken.

    I have also appointed Shailesh Vara as one of the Vice-Chairmen of the Conservative Party, Mohammed Riaz as my personal adviser on various race related issues, and Nirj Diva as my adviser on Asian issues in the European Parliament. Shailesh and Riaz were Conservative candidates at the last Election and Nirj is a Conservative MEP. All of them are first rate.

    I believe in a United Kingdom which is genuinely open and inclusive of all its citizens and in which racism and bigotry – of whatever kind – can have no place.

    Britain today is a diverse society, made up of many different groups, communities and cultural traditions. I believe that this is as a source of strength, providing our country with a richness of which we should all be proud.

    I want the United Kingdom to provide everybody with the same rights, the same obligations and the same levels of opportunity – a country where people are judged solely on their merits, whoever they are and wherever they come from.

    That is my view. It is also the clear and unequivocal position of the Conservative Party.

    It is a United Kingdom that respects differences, which enables us to hold on to the things that makes us distinctive but always allows us to come together as British. It is possible to be proud of your Asian roots, at the same time as being proud of your British heritage too. That is because whether we are Hindu or Sikh, Muslim or Christian, black, white or brown we are all as British as each other. It underpins our sense of being One Nation and the fact that the United Kingdom belongs to us all.

    And let us never forget that during the two world wars some five million soldiers from the sub-continent and the Afro-Caribbean countries fought side by side with British soldiers in the struggle for freedom. Many of them died. No – let us never forget.

    Tonight we are doing more than launching the latest edition of the Asian Who’s Who International. We are celebrating the fact that the story of British Asians is also one of the great British success stories of recent years. That is all the more impressive given the fact that so many British Asians came here with next to nothing. Many of those who were thrown out of Uganda in the 1972 – and I know some those present here tonight are in that category – had to leave literally with only the clothes they were wearing.

    Yet despite the handicaps and the obstacles businesses owned by the Asian community have prospered and employ many thousands of people.

    There is no doubt that you make an outstanding contribution to the strength, prosperity and success of the United Kingdom. And in so many aspects of our national life – business, the arts, the media and the professions – you play an increasingly prominent role.

    But I want your contribution to go much further. The blunt truth is we still have far too few British Asians, members of other ethnic communities, and for that matter, women actively involved in politics in our country. I want to encourage more of them into the mainstream of British political life.

    I appreciate the difficulties that there have been in the past. Political parties of all persuasions, not just the Conservative Party, have not always appeared attractive to the different ethnic groups in our society. That has begun to change. We have British Asians – Nirj Deva and Bashir Khanbhai as Conservative Members of the European Parliament. People like Narinda Saroop have done outstanding work for the Party over many years.

    We have come a long way. But I readily accept that we still have a long way to go. My aim is clear. It is to broaden the appeal of the Conservative Party for British Asians, and for members of all the different ethnic groups in Britain.

    There is no place, and never has been, in the Conservative Party for those who extol the virtues of a creed that demeans people on the basis of their ethnicity. There is no place for racism in the Conservative Party.

    I want the Conservative Party to reflect and represent the diversity of our national life. I want us to be a Party for all the people.

    That means attracting more Asians into the Conservative Party at all levels. I want British Asians to contribute to the major policy review that I launched earlier this week, to become involved in the constituencies, to get elected to Parliament, to serve in Conservative Governments and Cabinets and, yes, to lead our Party in the future.

    The Conservative Party has much to learn from the values that have underpinned your success – a belief in freedom, enterprise, tradition, education, individual responsibility, fulfilling our obligations to others and in public service. They are your values. They are Conservative values too.

    And let me make it abundantly clear. Under my leadership the Conservative Party will be open to everyone who shares our values.

  • Iain Duncan Smith – 2001 Speech to the CBI

    Iain Duncan Smith – 2001 Speech to the CBI

    The speech made by Iain Duncan Smith, the then Leader of the Opposition, to the CBI on 6 November 2001.

    It is a great pleasure for me to be with you this morning at the 25th CBI National Conference, and I am grateful for you kind words of introduction.

    I am particularly pleased, at the beginning of my new role, as the leader of my party, to have this opportunity to speak to you. I hope that today is the beginning of a new dialogue between the Conservative Party and British business.

    Your Conference this year takes place against an increasingly difficult background for British business and the United Kingdom economy as a whole. The feeling of unease and uncertainty has, of course, been exacerbated by the events of 11 September.

    The Conservative Party is fully behind the Government in its total backing for the United States in the war against terrorism. It is their war and it is our war. We must see it through to the end.

    All of us has a role to play. Politicians in presenting a united front. And you, in business, by not allowing the terrorists to succeed in deflecting you from your normal, daily activities.

    Yet it is clear, as most commentators agree, that the global economy was weakening from well before the terrible atrocities committed on that day.

    As the most recent Economic Review by Deloitte and Touche states: ‘there is no doubt that a severe slowdown is in train’.

    As the report makes clear, to blame this on 11 September would be, in their words, ‘mistaken’.

    Without in any way being alarmist about our prospects this picture gives us all concern. It means that for many businesses there are going to be immense challenges ahead.

    In this context of growing economic difficulty, it is more important than ever that the Government’s policies support business and foster competitiveness.

    Throughout its first term, the current Government inherited an economy in which the fundamentals were strong. There was a favourable global economic environment. The world economy generally performed well.

    As a result the Government was able to increase taxes while their immediate effect for many people was blunted by rising incomes.

    The task of any responsible Government, however, is not to pursue an economic policy just for the times when things are going well and then assume that those circumstances will last forever. They need to ensure that the economy is also in a position to withstand unexpected shocks. Instead, Ministers seem to have believed their own rhetoric about boom and bust being abolished forever.

    At a time when many of our competitors have been cutting taxes, Gordon Brown has spent the last four years raising them. The tax burden has increased by a massive £28 billion, or 10p on the basic rate of income tax. The CBI itself puts the increased burden of business taxes at £5 billion a year.

    It is little surprise, therefore, that a recent Pricewaterhousecoopers study showed that Britain has now lost two-thirds of the tax advantages we enjoyed against our European neighbours in the mid 1990s.

    To make matters worse, instead of easing the burden of regulations on British business, the Government has spent the past four years increasing them. The Institute of Directors has put the added cost to business of regulations at a further £5 billion. According to research carried out by the independent House of Commons Library in the year 2000 alone, 3,864 new regulations were introduced– the highest figure on record.

    And in place of a truly responsible and prudent approach to spending, we have seen spending allowed to run ahead of growth. If that continues it can only mean one thing.

    As the IFS said in March: ‘If spending is to grow by more than GDP growth beyond 2003-4 then further increases in tax will be required’.

    Or as a senior Downing Street policy adviser was quoted as saying yesterday: “We have to get over, and the public have to understand, that all these changes that are being talked about come at a price. The only way that they can be paid for is tax increases”.

    All of this has contributed to a worrying picture for our competitiveness.

    Now there is the risk of adding further uncertainty to the economy. The Government have set a course to join the euro that would lock us forever into a one size fits all interest rate irrespective of whether it suited our economic circumstances of not.

    Of course on Sunday, the Chancellor sought to sound a more cautious note than the Prime Minister in Brighton last month. Yet this is just another episode in Labour’s now all too familiar good cop, bad cop routine whose purpose is to make a decision to bounce Britain into the euro look objective.

    It is all part of a game. Whenever they want to appear warm about the euro, we see the Prime Minister, or Peter Mandelson or Peter Hain. When they want to appear sceptical we see Gordon Brown or Jack Straw. They urge those of you who are pro-euro to run ahead of them in advocating membership. At the same time they try to assure those of you who are against, that membership is a far off prospect when the truth is that they are committed to join.

    The result of this game is to produce the worst of all worlds. It is destabilising to industry that wants to plan ahead with a degree of certainty. And it clearly exposes the so-called five economic tests as totally bogus. We all know that they have nothing to do with economics and everything to do with politics.

    A strong, dynamic economy relies on fundamental economic stability and the flexibility to respond to different circumstances. That is why in the referendum Conservatives will campaign to keep the pound.

    I know that some of you will agree with this, while others won’t. Yet our position has the virtue of being offering stability – you at least have a clear sense of where you are with the Conservatives. And it is sustainable because, as the fourth largest economy in the world we can make a success of our own currency, if that is what we choose.

    It stands in stark contrast to the now you see it, now you don’t peekaboo politics being played by the Government on the euro.

    Building a strong, dynamic and competitive economy is vital. It underpins so many of our aspirations. Without it, the improvements that all of us seek in our public services simply are not deliverable. And building world-class public services has to be our overriding priority as a nation.

    Britain is the fourth largest economy in the world. Yet ask anyone who uses the public services, and they will tell you that in so many areas they would disgrace the third world.

    Of course I don’t pretend that the problems with our public services began 1 May 1997. Yet it is undoubtedly the case that since then things either haven’t improved, or they have simply got worse.

    Our hospitals have been operating throughout the summer at winter levels of crisis so that a Health Minister is now forced to admit the winter crisis now lasts for the whole year. Our schools are such that up to forty per cent of all teachers with three years experience are leaving the profession. Our police are so demoralised that, according to the Chairman of the Police Federation, morale is at an all time low with resignations having increased by over 80 per cent in the past four years.

    We live in the age of the communications revolution, where vast amounts of information are transmitted across the globe every second. Yet we have patients lying on trolleys in crowded hospital wards for hours before they are seen by a consultant.

    We live in the age of the global economy where more money is traded in the City of London’s foreign exchange markets in two hours than the British Government spends in a year. Yet too many of our children leave school ill-equipped to take advantage of the opportunities that are on offer.

    And we live in an age of where we can buy goods and services through the internet in minutes. Yet the state of our transport system means that travelling a few miles can take hours.

    What angers people more, is that this comes at a time when we are constantly told that record amounts of investment are going into these services. We are urged to be patient. All that is needed is time. The Government’s view seems to be that all it will take is one more heave.

    Yet we have had four and a half years already. For all the boasts of new investment, of record amounts of money and new initiatives, things the experience of real people is that things are not just failing to get any better, they are going from bad to worse.

    Take the Health Service. Only yesterday figures showed that despite an extra £8.4 billion in the past two years alone, there has been almost no rise in the numbers of patients treated. At the present rate there is no way that Labour will meet their Election pledge to cut the maximum waiting time for in patients to six months by 2005. No wonder Ministers are reportedly concerned that the cash “has disappeared into a black hole”.

    All of this is of enormous importance to all of you in business. Put simply, failing and unreformed public services cost you money. They cost you money in the extra taxes the Government imposes on you to pay for them. And they add to your costs when you have to pick up the bills for their failure. It is happening now.

    Your own annual absence survey for 2001 states that 192,000,000 working days were lost due to sickness. It estimates that this costs British business £10.7 billion a year. Coronary heart disease in men accounts for the loss of 47,000 working years every year. In France and Germany waiting times are virtually negligible. Here, it can take a year for a heart by-pass. A constituent of mine waiting for a by-pass started by working five days a week, gradually it went down until after a year he was working a half day, one day a week. Yet as he put it to me: “my employers still have to bear the cost of not having me around”.

    According to one survey transport problems are costing British business at least £5 billion a year in lost working time. Include productivity losses, the cost soars to £10 billion a year. As one who has used the Tube endlessly to get to work, my abiding memory of last summer is not just the endless delays that make people late, but the cramped and sweaty carriages that mean when you eventually arrive, it takes half an hour before you are in a fit state to think of work.

    Last year Tesco was so alarmed by poor literacy and numeracy standards that it was forced to spend £1 million to send hundreds of recruits on courses to bring them up to scratch on the 3Rs. As one Tesco manager said: ‘The people we are employing are not thick or stupid. They have just not been given the right education in the first place’.

    The conclusion is clear. Failing public services don’t just create human tragedies; they result in business tragedies too.

    For too long in this country we have been locked into a sterile debate. We have been told that there were only two choices. Either we have higher taxes and better public services, or we have lower taxes and worse public services. Yet what we have had for the past four years is higher taxes and worse services.

    It is a false choice, based on an argument that simply wouldn’t run anywhere else in those European countries that tax no more heavily than we do, yet spend more on their public services.

    The real choice before us is not, as the Prime Minister tells us, between short term tax cuts or increased investment. We can continue down the same road of taxing ever more heavily in order to plough ever more money to pay for unreformed services. Or we can combine a low tax, wealth-creating economy with genuine public service reform.

    The other danger with the current course is that not only will it not work, it will ultimately be self-defeating. As taxes continue to rise we will risk undoing those things on which business success – and the money to pay for public services – actually depends. We will never pay for public services pursuing a policy that taxes and regulates businesses out of existence.

    We will have a situation in which sclerosis in the unreformed public services will ultimately lead to sclerosis in the economy as a whole.

    Nor will the Government’s approach to public/private partnerships solve their tax and spend dilemma. Conservatives strongly believe in bringing the private sector in to help provide public services. But Labour’s approach won’t work because it is a one-sided partnership.

    Four things are needed when private capital is brought into public projects: clear information, on which customers and suppliers can make a choice; freedom for customers to choose; freedom for providers to manage their businesses; and sanctity of contracts.

    Labour is providing none of these. In the health service, for example, the information about cost and performance is not available. Customers are not free to choose their health provider. Private providers are not free to manage their businesses, but have to abide by NHS practices. The Government is insisting on total control.

    What they are offering is not a public private partnership, but off-balance sheet finance. It is public services on the never-never.

    What they fail to understand is the trade-off between risk and reward that the private sector makes. If private capital providers can’t rely on the Government to keep to the terms of the deal, if the Government don’t hold to the sanctity of contracts, then there will be a huge risk premium on providing capital for public projects. And who is going to trust the Government to keep to the deal after they have ripped off 250,000 shareholders of Railtrack? What is the risk premium on dealing with the Government now?

    After the Railtrack debacle how many of you would want to deal with a Government that expects you to take all the risks, but is prepared to dump on you the minute anything goes wrong? So I make no apology for saying that we need a fundamental re-assessment of our approach. Not just to the financing of our key services, but also to the way in which those services are run. Because, the truth is that however much money we pour into the system, so long as the system remains the same things will not change. And Britain will be condemned to public services that shame our country.

    Just as the incoming Conservative Government in 1979 came to power with a radical reform agenda to transform an ailing economy, Britain now needs a Government with the an equally radical reform agenda to transform the public services.

    We need to reject the dogma that insists on services always being delivered by a monopoly state provider. We need to run our services in the interests of those who use them instead of providing favours for the vested interests that pay the political bills. And we need, where appropriate, to include the best of British enterprise and innovation that is found in the private and voluntary sectors.

    That is what other countries do. Only an ideological attachment to existing structures prevents Britain from doing the same. Yet that is what we get with Labour. They are ideologically wedded to the system, which is why, whatever the rhetoric, they simply cannot deliver.

    So we will be listening to the people who work in our public services as well as those who use them. We will be working with the charities, the churches, the public and the private sector to help us shape the policies that will deliver the results that people demand. And we will be seeing what can be learned from other countries too. That is why I have asked members of my Shadow Cabinet to travel to other European countries and beyond to see why their public services are so much better than ours.

    There are those who say that we can only have European levels of healthcare, education standards or transport if we have European levels of tax. They are missing the point. It is European countries such as France and Germany that are reducing taxes, while Britain has been putting them up.

    Our European neighbours have been prepared to learn from Britain about the need for low taxes, flexible markets and privatisation. It is time, when it comes to running public services, Britain has the self-confidence to learn from Europe.

    So the choice for Britain over the coming years is a clear one. It is to continue taxing and regulating ourselves into yesterday, while at the same time presiding over the steady and certain decay of our essential public services. Or we can choose a different way – one that sets business free, that promotes enterprise and on the public services whose only dogma is delivery.

    It is the latter course that, under my leadership, Conservatives will be following over the next four years.

    I know from working in industry that the most important resource a business has is its people. Yet the failing public services has become a hidden tax on that resource.

    People are devalued, while business is left to pick up the cost.

    Instead of investing in people we spend more and more money investing in failure.

    And the failure to reform our public services is a failure to invest in people.

  • PRESS RELEASE : Secretary of State fanning flames of devolution crisis with abortion decision [December 2022]

    PRESS RELEASE : Secretary of State fanning flames of devolution crisis with abortion decision [December 2022]

    The press release issued by the DUP on 2 December 2022.

    Upper Bann MP Carla Lockhart has said the Secretary of State’s decision to press ahead with the commissioning of abortion services is fanning the flames of the crisis facing devolution in Northern Ireland.

    Her comments come following a letter sent by the Secretary of State to DUP Leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, confirming the move.

    Carla Lockhart said,

    ‘‘Amid the rising cost of living and the Government’s failure to deliver energy support payments to households in Northern Ireland, it is a matter of deep regret that the Secretary of State can find the money to promote the taking of life.

    Pressing ahead with this divisive policy is a further attack on the principles of devolution. Abortion is a devolved matter and future decisions should be taken by local ministers.

    The former Secretary of State failed to respect these principles when an Executive was sitting so it perhaps not surprising that his successor has chosen to pursue this agenda when the institutions are paralysed because of the Protocol.

    There are many financial pressures facing public services in Northern Ireland, including our NHS. It is notable that amongst all those competing issues the government is providing financial certainty for the provision of abortion when it is absent for so many other issues.

    The point has been made forcibly and repeatedly to the Secretary of State and his predecessor that action in this area undermines the devolution settlement. That is only underscored further by the Government’s deliberate inaction across many other areas.”

  • PRESS RELEASE : Diane Forsythe – NI childcare costs on a par with central London [December 2022]

    PRESS RELEASE : Diane Forsythe – NI childcare costs on a par with central London [December 2022]

    The press release issued by the DUP on 2 December 2022.

    DUP South Down MLA Diane Forsythe & Sammy Wilson MP have written to the Chancellor and outlined the need for Treasury to adjust the allowance for Tax Free Childcare across the UK after a report finds that childcare costs in Northern Ireland are on a par with London and are holding back working families.

    Commenting on the issue Ms Forsythe said,

    “This report looks at options for childcare in England but one of the most significant points from their survey is that childcare costs in central London are £36 per day. (graphic below) In Northern Ireland our childcare costs are significantly above the UK average and on a par with central London and in many cases higher as identified in a recent Employers for Childcare report.

    Whilst this report finds in England mortgage, household energy and household food costs are higher than childcare, that is not the situation in Northern Ireland. Families here regularly report that childcare is their biggest monthly cost and significantly more than their mortgage payment.

    Our Treasury spokesman in Westminster Sammy Wilson and I have written jointly to the Chancellor and urged him to look at increasing the Tax Free Childcare allowance for working families. This would help get more people into the workforce and particularly in our public services such as schools and hospitals where it is simply not affordable for a parent to work.

    The DUP Education Minister before leaving office had set the wheels in motion to ensure all children aged 3-4 have access to a minimum of 22.5 hours of funded pre-school education per week and that is a work in progress. One of the best ways however, to make returning to work affording in those years after maternity leave would be for the Tax Free Childcare allowance to increase beyond the 20% contribution. Treasury has previously told us that this scheme consistently underspends, therefore there is headroom for expansion.”

     

  • PRESS RELEASE : Government priorities don’t include more than £10m of Sinn Fein allowances – Gregory Campbell [December 2022]

    PRESS RELEASE : Government priorities don’t include more than £10m of Sinn Fein allowances – Gregory Campbell [December 2022]

    The press release issued by the DUP on 2 December 2022.

    East Londonderry MP Gregory Campbell has said that swift action on MLA pay is correct but stands in stark contrast to inaction on more than £10million of other allowances claimed by Sinn Fein MPs in the last 10 years alone. He said the figures demonstrate the government’s priorities.

    The DUP MP said, “The Government have taken action in relation to MLA pay, citing the fact that currently they are not carrying out their full duties. Whilst the Assembly is not sitting due to the Protocol introduced by this same government, it is evidence of their ability to act when they want to.

    This swift action stands in contrast to other areas, including allowances paid to Sinn Fein MPs. Mary Lou McDonald has proclaimed that Sinn Fein has “no business” in Westminster, but with more than £10million accrued in ten years, Sinn Fein MPs certainly aren’t operating a charitable enterprise.

    When I raised this £10million figure with the Northern Ireland Office Minister during the week he claimed that he didn’t “recognise” this figure. Perhaps that was because figures provided to be by the House of Commons Library show the total is actually greater than the £10million I cited. The representation allowance Sinn Fein receive was not only specially designed for the party but comes with less transparency and accountability than allowances paid to any other MP or Party.

    Whilst energy support payments are being withheld by Ministers in London, there is no such holdback on Sinn Fein allowances. The determination shown on MLA pay isn’t replicated by any such desire to place a real focus on abstentionist MPs who don’t turn up for work, and show no desire ever to do so but are content to sown plenty of taxpayers money in doing so.

    Many people will see it as a demonstration of this Government’s priorities thus far”