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October 09 posts
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jgale | 
19 October 2009 at 18:09 | 278 views
I am writing this article at 7am on Monday 12th October, as Parliament finally returns. It was dark as I walked in to Westminster this morning, along the Thames Embankment, but the early light of dawn is now evident in a clear sky.
Out of the windows of our offices, I can see an unusual sight – protestors perched on the roof of Parliament. I can count about 15 or 20 of them - many are clad in yellow jackets, and they look rather cold, after an Autumn night out under the stars.
Stunts of this kind are extremely dangerous, and in an age when the police have to face a serious threat from terrorists they are even more risky and foolish.
I do, however, understand the frustrations of the environmental movement. Tackling climate change is one of the biggest challenges that the world faces, but it is a challenge which seems to have dropped down the list of public and political priorities, at a time when fears of a world depression have dominated the news.
We cannot simply afford to wait until the current economic crisis is over before we concentrate on the environmental challenges – indeed, the two may be intimately joined together, as we can see from recent speculation about Britain’s future energy supplies. So, for example, getting on with serious renewable energy and energy conservation programmes should be a priority now, and not just in a few years time when the economy is (we hope) back on an even keel.
MPs come back to Westminster this week to face many other issues as well – including Afghanistan. Each week at Prime Minister’s Questions, Gordon Brown reads the roll-call of servicemen (and some women) who have died in Afghanistan. Many more, of course, are injured – some very seriously. Since Parliament last met, the list of dead and injured has leapt higher.
All of the parties at Westminster supported the action in Afghanistan, which came as a direct result of the butchery in Manhattan in September 2001, when over 3,000 people lost their lives.
But the tragedy of Afghanistan is that the initial successes were not followed up with sufficient forces and support on the ground. Instead, George Bush and Tony Blair took their armies off into Iraq, to fight a war based on dubious claims about weapons of mass destruction. A great opportunity was lost, as the Taliban began to rebuild its strength.
Even as more troops and equipment were sent to Afghanistan, this did not remotely match the scale of the challenge. Helmand Province is the size of a country like Wales, but we initially deployed only a few thousand troops there.
Because we have had too few troops and too little equipment, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that lives have been wasted. What is the point of sending in troops to clear villages of Taliban fighters, when these same areas have to be given up just a few days later? And how much is achieved by basing UK forces in mini-outposts where they can be attacked at will by the Taliban?
For the operations in Afghanistan to be a success, we have to be sure that lives lost in that parched and dangerous land are saving more lives in London, New York, Madrid and Washington, because of the impact on disrupting the real terrorists. With each new death, that equation becomes less clear cut.
If we are going to carry on this mission we need some fundamental changes – the troops have to have proper support, including more helicopters. The emphasis needs to shift rapidly to building up the Afghan Army and the police. And the real terrorist threat to the West – Al Quaeda – need to be more effectively targeted using special forces and unmanned aerial vehicles. In 2011, the UK will have had forces in Afghanistan for almost 10 years. Many will feel that this is long enough. But after all the lives that have been lost and all the sacrifices which have been made, what is now needed is not some ignominious retreat, but a new strategy which can deliver a more limited success against the real terrorists, and which will allow our forces to come back home at last.
David.
jgale | 08 October 2009 at 12:50 | 279 views
This is my last full week in our area for a while, because Parliament finally returns this Monday, 12th October – after its very long summer recess. If media reports are to be believed, the new Speaker – John Bercow MP – will order a dramatic reduction in the length of next year’s recess. I suspect that this will be welcomed by most MPs, but probably not by the Government, who get off lightly when there is no Parliament to hold them to account.
The next 5 weeks will be spent in concluding the debates and scrutiny of the Government’s existing legislation, which has to be approved by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The Government will find some legislation difficult to get approval for in its existing form, in the time available. This means that the opposition parties will attempt to extract concessions from the Government – for example, over its Education Bill.
When the Bills have been agreed by both the Lords and Commons, the Queen is asked to give her “Royal Assent”, and the Bills then become “Acts of Parliament” – the law.
The new parliamentary year then actually begins on 18th November, with the “State Opening of Parliament”, by the Queen. This is the occasion on which Her Majesty makes her “Gracious Speech” to Parliament, setting out the Government’s priorities for the year ahead. This year nobody will be expecting much from the “Gracious Speech”, as the current Parliament has to end by June of 2010. So there will, in practice, be very little time for any new legislation.
Instead, we can expect a “Pre-Budget Report” from the Chancellor of the Exchequer in late November or early December, which will update the Government’s economic forecasts and which will perhaps give an indication of how this Government intends to “balance the books” over the years ahead.
In early 2010 there may well be a Budget Statement in March, and this is expected to be followed fairly swiftly by Gordon Brown making the short journey to Buckingham Palace to ask the Queen to proclaim the dissolution of Parliament.
There is usually a short gap between the election date being announced and the ending of the Parliament – and during this time the parties usually cooperate to give final approval to any measures which need to be agreed.
Once Parliament is dissolved, there are no longer any MPs – as there is no longer a Parliament to be a member of. However, Government Ministers remain in their jobs until a new Parliament is elected, and until a new Government is chosen.
I intend to make good use of my last full week in the constituency, and I will be holding two Advice Centres, one in Chard and one in Yeovil, and five Roving Advice Centres – in Yeovil West, Yeovil Central, Yeovil South, Yeovil Without and in Ilchester.
On Monday, I travelled to Winsham, near Chard, to open the new “Outside Learning Area” at the Winsham School, and to meet the new Head Teacher, Sarah Barlow. Later in the week I hope to be able to visit St. Bartholomew’s School in Crewkerne, where David Flowers is presently the Acting Head.
I am also very excited about the prospect of visiting the new primary school which is being built on the Parcroft site in Yeovil, off Preston Road. This is a new £10 million, state of the art building, and it will provide the new home for the merger of Westfield Infants and Parcroft Junior Schools. It will, of course, be sad to see the end of these two schools, which have educated so many young people in Yeovil over the years. However, the new school and its excellent surroundings should help provide a first class education for thousands of young people in this part of Yeovil for many years into the future.
I am also looking forward this week to meeting Mark Hopwood, the new Managing Director of First Great Western trains. I shall be meeting Mark with members of the Yeovil Chamber of Commerce, and we will be asking him what is being done to improve rail services in our area – particularly on the line running through Yeovil Pen Mill.
Ever,
David.