Trains & Boats and Planes

It’s just turned 10 o'clock on Wednesday evening and I've just arrived at Doncaster bus station to be told the next bus that will get me to Scunthorpe before rejoining the train isn't for another hour.

I’m returning twenty-four hours earlier than usual so as to visit the Lincolnshire Show and in doing so show my support for our farming community and all of those who work in the rural economy that is still an important part of the business and social part of the community in my constituency.

But I can’t help reflecting on a certain irony; this afternoon I met with the Transport Secretary Patrick McLaughlin as part of my campaign to restore a direct train service between London and Grimsby/Cleethorpes and after our 7 o'clock vote and a quick dash to King’s Cross I find my planned 19.52 service is cancelled but I have three minutes to catch the 19.33 and be in Doncaster in time for the bus and train that will get me home soon after eleven. As we pull out the guard tells us that all trains are subject to delay because of an attempted suicide at Peterborough.

I and my fellow-passengers will never know what drove this man to attempt to take his own life but it puts things into perspective; what’s an hour’s delay in comparison?

My meeting with the minister went well – there are no promises of course and we must remember that there is always a Plan B. If the main East Coast franchise doesn’t include a service to Cleethorpes there is an Open-Access Operator currently discussing providing services on the route via Scunthorpe and Doncaster with a view to starting the services during 2016.

There can be no doubt that a direct train service to London will provide a considerable boost to our local economy.

Talking of the local economy and the link with train services it’s good to note that the Hatfield landslip is well on the way to being cleared and the line between Scunthorpe and Doncaster re-opened ensuring that our main route to South Yorkshire and beyond is back in action before the school holidays allowing visitors from what has always been the main Cleethorpes market for visitors to the resort ready access.

On Wednesday the Prime Minister reported back following the G8 summit and had some positive news in respect of ensuring that multi-national companies pay their fair share of tax but the subject that generated far more questions and showed what widespread concern exists in Parliament was the potentially extremely dangerous policy of arming the Syrian rebels. As the Government has made very clear they have made no decision to do so and their aim in suggesting it as a real possibility is to bring pressure to bear, and as such to do anything other than make clear it is a possibility would undermine the threat.

It’s a perfectly logical position to take though I have to say not one that I’m persuaded by. I am one of the 81 Tory members to have signed a letter to the Prime Minister urging that whatever decision the Government come to it must be put to the vote in the House of Commons. I will certainly need a lot of convincing that we should pour yet more arms into an already highly volatile country. Indeed I find it hard to believe I could be persuaded at all.

Next week will be dominated by the Spending Review for the year 2015-16. Clearly there will have to be a further cuts, and we now know that a future Labour government would stand by the spending plans of the Coalition government. This at least is a belated recognition of reality by Labour but much too late. The economy, as always, will be the determining factor at the General Election; there are beginning to be signs of the economy picking up as indicated by many of the underlying facts and figures. The Conservatives are way ahead of Labour in the polls on their ability to manage the economy so why would anyone vote for the two Eds to become the next occupiers of 10 and 11 Downing Street? Surely the real thing is always better.              

Conservative Home article:

Turning the clock back to October 2011 when I was one of the 81 rebels who voted for an In–Out EU referendum I referred during the debate to having attended a Civic Service the previous day and, even for me, as a confirmed Euro-sceptic who voted to leave in 1975, being surprised at what I described as ‘the real people of England’ when every person I spoke to was urging me to vote for the referendum; I never had any doubts that I would do so but their support and encouragement spurred me on.

The weekend after the recent county elections I read and listened to more reports and analysis on them than is good for anyone. Then later, in need of some light relief, I settled down to watch the ‘Antiques Road Show  and couldn't help thinking that here again were gathered the ‘real people of England’ – loyal, hard-working and, whatever their voting habits, conservative by nature; many of them would have voted for UKIP – for most of them that would be a first – the challenge for the Conservative Party is to make sure it’s the last but with the European elections coming next year that is going to be extremely difficult. Vote for the same party twice running and it can easily become habit-forming.

My constituency takes in part of North & North East Lincolnshire Unitary Councils who had no elections this year, though in April UKIP secured their second seat in a North East Lincolnshire by-election – both in seats that more often than not return a Tory so on 2nd May my centre of attention focussed on the neighbouring Lincolnshire County Council area where UKIP scored spectacular, but, in the main, predictable gains.

The area around Boston was where the most spectacular gains came. These were the predictable ones; with immigration at the levels they have experienced in recent years. Large cities can absorb immigrants in a way that small provincial towns can’t. Local public services struggle, resentment grows.

The public look and see a link between ‘Europe’ and immigration, ‘Europe’ and the inability to deport known terrorists and criminals, the link between ‘Europe’ and an obligation to pay benefits to those who have not contributed. Whether these links are real or perceived matters not; they are deeply ingrained in the public consciousness.

The Prime Minister has set out a perfectly logical, sensible way forward, and with an in/out referendum guaranteed by a future majority Conservative government it should be a good package to sell to the electorate. The problem is that the public are ahead of the game and won’t wait for four years. They've been let down once too often.

Leaders of all parties have got to appreciate that millions of the British people regard our membership of the EU as being under sufferance with even many of those old enough to have voted in 1975 feeling resentful that they were deceived into believing it was a trading arrangement rather than a political project.

The project has developed and moved on without the people giving their consent; after every new treaty there should have been a referendum. I rather suspect that we would still be where we are now but without the widespread resentment that exists.

At the moment the political momentum is with those who identify with the public, share their frustrations and identify with so much of what they perceive to be wrong rather than those seeking to manage the realities of a complex world. In the battle between charisma and competence charisma is in the lead.

If we are to return David Cameron to Downing Street in 2015 we need to deliver a referendum or at the very least set the arrangements into statute. Elvis would say ‘It’s Now or Never’ perhaps we can’t deliver that but it certainly needs to be sooner rather than later.

Renewable Energy

With much attention focused on the potential for development of the renewable energy sector on our area it is understandable that there has been much comment locally about last week’s debate and vote in the House of Commons on the Energy Bill and MPs In-boxes have been filling up with ‘round-robin’ emails prepared by various campaign groups asking us to support a formal de-carbonisation target.

Though there were some longer versions most of these messages just asked that the Government set this target and all would be well. No thought seems to have been given to the impact on existing jobs or the inevitable increase in already high household and business energy bills. Like most issues this one is complex; not one that can be summed up in a couple of sentences.

Adopting the Target would have increased costs to every consumer in the country including the intensive energy users which is of particular importance here in northern Lincolnshire where, for example, Tata steel and the oil and petro-chemicals plants based along the Humber Bank employ thousands of people as well as hundreds working in power stations and the associated transport sector. Governments across the developed world are wrestling with the joint challenges of delivering energy security in a low carbon and affordable way. To deliver on those aims, we have to rebuild our energy infrastructure, making up for a dismal failure over past years to secure the necessary levels of investment. The Energy Bill that was approved last week is a vital instrument in securing that investment. Opposing a formal de-carbonisation target and supporting a low-carbon economy are not mutually exclusive. The case for the target is less about new low-carbon electricity generating plant - as there are other specific contractual measures in the Bill to deliver this - and more about the vital need to secure industrial jobs in the UK to build that infrastructure.

It is good for Ministers to challenge people to raise their aspirations and ambitions, and targets are part of that process, but they can only be relevant if we know how to meet them. The challenge with a de-carbonisation target for 2030 or any other date is that we cannot yet know how it can be met - or indeed, if it can be met. Nuclear may not happen on the scale hoped for - and it is hard to see how we can meet a de-carbonisation target without new nuclear. Many supporters of the target also oppose nuclear; the reality is that without nuclear the target, even if it could be achieved would be unimaginably expensive. Some of the emerging renewable technologies, such as offshore wind and tidal, may remain too expensive, and we don't yet know if their costs will come down to make them affordable for consumers. Carbon Capture and Storage, which could give a low-carbon future for coal and gas, has yet to be proven commercially. Unabated gas is relatively plentiful and is certainly lower in its carbon intensity than coal, but on its own would not enable us to reach the low level of emissions which the 2030 target would be likely to require. My difficulty with the target, therefore, is that we would be requiring it to be set without knowing that it can be met, and that cannot be a responsible decision for government to make, when the costs of getting it wrong would have to be picked up by consumers for decades to come. On the other hand, a target could clearly help secure the industrial renaissance a low-carbon economy could deliver. We all want to see jobs in the construction and the supply chain come to the UK, but companies are unlikely to invest unless they can see an order-book going well beyond 2020 and out to 2030.

Yet the de-carbonisation target does not deliver that certainty. Certainly, it says there needs to be new plant built, but no one can know which technology would deliver it. Investors will still require a clearer understanding of the likely market in the 2020s if they are to proceed, and so a clear agenda is more important than a general amorphous target. Moving on, I note that North East Lincolnshire Council is to reduce the number of council meetings and cost saving is given as one of the reasons. Sounds reasonable doesn't it? Or does it? Governments and councils don’t like scrutiny it shows up inefficiencies, is inconvenient, time-consuming and, if it exposes mistakes can be embarrassing.

When I was first elected a councillor in 1980, with the exception of some planning decisions almost every decision taken by a committee had to be approved or, equally important, rejected by the Full Council which met every month and meant that all councillors were involved in decision-making. During my time on the Council I always objected to more powers being delegated to committees or officers. When we elect our local councillor we hope and expect that he or she have some input into decision-making and preferably a vote on matters. Sadly accountability and democracy are being further eroded in North East Lincolnshire and that should worry us all