29/07/2009 by Steve Barclay.

A chance to visit the Tydd St Giles Community Centre today where the award winning Golden Age Fair team set up stall.  As with the last such event at Friday Bridge it is good to see plenty of familiar faces, not least Sylvia Mansfield who is able to update me on the work of the Breathe Easy Fenland group which now has over 50 members (see previous blog).  Parish Chairman Rex Mallett and deputy Marcus Johnson made me feel at home straight away, and the event as ever was smoothly run by the Golden Age team of Cllrs Mack Cotterell, Bernard Keane, and Ken Mayor.

Listening to those attending a number of issues of concern came up.  Key amongst them is the changes to the bus timetable which is causing some disquiet.  At the moment people travelling from Tydd St Giles can catch the 9am bus into Wisbech and pop to the shops or for a prescription at the chemist, and catch the return at 10.45 which works well.  Instead the service home is due to change in August, which will mean being delayed until 12.30 causing extra time waiting.  The times are due to change again in September.  All in all it seems like unnecessary confusion when the current times are working well.

Other issues are the lack of police visibility in rural areas, although it is fair to see this is not a new issue and a tough one to solve.  Chatting with PC Julie Coales it is clear officers locally are working hard and juggling many different challenges.  It is frustrating however to keep seeing cars illegally on the fields by the community centre with the offenders getting away with it.

A good bit of news was that the County Council is responding to requests to act on pot holes, with reports that the pot holes on Hanneth Road are being sorted out.  Well done to Cllr Jill Tuck and her team.  There is also some need for playground equipment - also an issue in Leverington - which would make a valuable addition for young families.

Despite the poor weather the turnout is good, and feedback continues to show the valuable contribution being made to older people by the Golden Age team.

Posted in Golden Age Fair, Tydd St. Giles | No Comments »

28/07/2009 by Steve Barclay.

Useful discussion last night at Littleport Village Hall with good representation from the police, fire service, trading standards, district council and parish council, all very well chaired by East Cambs District Council Leader Fred Brown who kept proceedings moving to time.  One notable omission - for the second time a representative of the Ambulance Service failed to turn up despite promising to be there.  This was particularly disappointing to a number of people who wanted to discuss the proposed cut in paramedic cover from two cars to one (see previous blog) with one of the cars being moved to Cambridge.  It seems the Trust are intent on making this cut without any local consultation - more on this in due course as intend to follow this up.

Key issues highlighted at the Panel meeting were:

-       speeding in Millfield School (the proposed class expansion makes this potentially more significant)
-       parking and speeding in Victoria Street
-       drunken behaviour in Main Street, both in an evening and also at 8am some mornings
-       rubbish in the medical centre pond which fills up again quickly even when it is cleared
-       speeding on Wisbech road
-       a children‘s play area at Woodfen Road

Volunteers were sought to use the Speedwatch equipment which is now available, and there was also a request for Environment Champions (to find out more get in touch with Darren Hughes at ECDC).

Three snippets I found particularly interesting. 

On the positive side, one was that my earlier call for better youth facilities across the constituency, and in Littleport in particular where there needs to be a dedicated facility for 13 to 17year olds, seems to be hitting the right note.  Unprovoked there was a call from a number of speakers for more to be done for youths in this age group.  One for further discussion with Fred Brown and others.

A second point was on value for money, with several speakers questioning whether money was being wasted.  Did the recent residents survey by trading standards into under age drinking tell us anything we did not already know?  The top two issues from the survey were that under aged drinking caused anti social behaviour and litter - we could no doubt have predicted this response.  The justification for spending the money was that it came from a government grant.  I am sure it was not the intention, but it sounded almost like it is fine to waste money so long as it is Government money - surely we have still paid through our taxes!

The third point linked to the ‘value for money‘ issue and concerned another area where the Labour Government is throwing money around without thinking through the detail.  We have received a £400,000 grant to improve derelict houses locally.   The idea of tackling derelict houses is a good one, and there are 65 such houses in Littleport.  Whilst the numbers did not stack up - at an average of £6K a house it is not going to be enough for a builder to do up each derelict houses - it is a start.  Yet the Government plans to give this money to the same owners who let the houses go derelict in the first place.  There is no intention to use existing powers such as under the empty dwelling order to take action against these owners, nor is this grant means tested.  So instead of giving the money to local first time buyers for them to take on some of these houses and benefit from any improvements, Labour are paying £400K in Littleport (and similar sums in towns up and down the country) to reward the irresponsible owners who caused the problem. 

This £400,000 gift to irresponsible owners of derelict houses contrasts with another Government announcement today.  The Ministry of Defence has gone to court to seek to reduce the compensation paid to injured war veterans.  One of the two cases concerns a Corporal shot in the leg in Iraq who initially received less than £10,000 for an injury that has required 11 operations so far.  His compensation was increased to £46K by the Courts, which the Government think is too much.  It now wants to take this money back off him.  As the Falklands war veteran Simon Weston said, it is car crash politics.  So as I sit in the Littleport Village Hall, I reflect on two events on the same day - Labour giving £400,000 to dodgy landlords whilst going to court to take almost £40,000 from a seriously injured war veteran who has endured 11 operations.

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18/07/2009 by Steve Barclay.

Up to Norwich early to help with the by-election following the decision by Labour MP Dr Ian Gibson to step down over his expenses. I was already planning on a trip up to help but lunch last week with the Party Chairman meant it was not an option to fail to pitch up. Good to see lots of posters for our excellent candidate Chloe Smith on the Yarmouth Road as I approach the sector office. I must have spent all of 90 seconds in the office as a pile of leaflets and individually addressed letters were ready for collection - ideal organisation.

Then in the afternoon I travel to Huntingdon for a meeting with Cambridgeshire Chief Fire Officer Graham Stagg and Fenland Road Safety Campaigner Graham Chappell. Two hours of constructive discussion with a clear desire from all sides to get action to improve safety on our rural roads. Cars are at risk of going into the Fen drains which run alongside the roads.  Really positive to hear about the new dry suits that the Fire Service intends to issue to Fenland crews together with the ice inflatable pathways, both of which will help with shallow water rescue.  Crews can be trained for wading rescue and deep water rescue - at the moment Fenland crews are not trained to go into water however shallow.  The sad reality is that if a car is fully submerged then it is unlikely any rescue crew could get there in time given how cold the water is.  However Graham and I are working to improve the rescue capacity if cars are partially submerged, and to help prevent accidents in the first place.

There was also good discussion on prevention, specifically on the budget front regarding the potential for action on barriers. These need to go at the highest risk sites to help prevent accidents, in conjuction with the work the council is doing to reduce speeding. See the campaigns section for more info. Torrential ran provided a noisy backdrop throughout the meeting and I was almost wading back to the car afterwards.

Posted in Huntingdon, Campaigning, Conservative Party | No Comments »

11/07/2009 by Steve Barclay.

Head over to Littleport for one of my regular coffee mornings this Saturday. This is part of a programme I have set up where local association members host coffee and a chat at their homes with 8 to 10 friends or neighbours who I have not met before. It does not matter which political party they support, or even whether they usually vote. There is no set agenda, it is just an open forum where people can raise any issue of concern whether local or national, or ask questions about the Conservatives or about me personally.

Today Christine and David Ambrose-Smith have kindly agreed to act as host and once again a wide range of issues quickly surface. One such issue is that the two paramedic cars currently covering East Cambridgeshire are being reduced to one car, on the basis that the PCT thinks this will improve the service by being 24/7. Residents are concerned at this cut and the lack of information about it.

As so often is the case, there seems to have been little or no consultation and so there is confusion as to exactly what changes are being proposed, what the timescales are, and why it is being done. I offer to follow this up, and after a chat with Malcolm Moss MP in the afternoon we agree to dispatch a letter to the PCT for an urgent ‘on the record’ update.

It is an upbeat and engaging discussion over the hour and a half we are chatting and I depart with a fuller notebook and a number of calls to follow up on. On leaving I discover it is Christine’s birthday - she gives so much to the community in Littleport that it is little surprise to see her working this morning looking after us all when she could be putting her feet up for a special day off.

If you live in the constituency and would like to attend one of our future coffee chats please do get in touch.

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10/07/2009 by Steve Barclay.

The revelations this week of money laundering in football by the UK Financial Action Task Force pose questions beyond the opaque sources of wealth of top football club owners.  It shines a light on payments to third parties used more widely in the corporate world.

The report highlighted money paid for non existent services and sums hidden within fees paid to third parties.  Such transactions are difficult for the authorities to spot.  With the Ministry of Justice estimating the cost of bribery and corruption globally at $1 trillion a year, the lack of corporate convictions tells its own story just as much as the silence which followed the Lord Steven’s enquiry.

Behaviours in the cut throat world of the football players transfer market may not be as far removed as some think from that of their sponsors in the corporate boxes.  Competition for the next Brazilian megastar is fierce.    Football managers either pay the bung and disguise it, or refuse and risk losing the player.  The same dilemma can be faced by business managers when competing for contracts with the Chinese in Africa, or with the French and Russians in the Middle East.

Football managers do not get long with a club, and their club is rarely the only one chasing a particularly player.  Experience may have taught them that winning requires sometimes cutting a few corners.  The ambitious executive fighting to beat their rivals for scarce business in a recession will want to keep their client happy.  Training and written safeguards do not stop bribes being disguised and paid at the sharp end.

Varying interpretations of what is an acceptable payment in different jurisdictions and cultures adds ambiguity. It is not just in the UK that the old school football culture turned a blind eye to side payments.  The recent prosecutions of top Italian football clubs shows attitudes have not changed elsewhere. Concern at similar types of third party payments in the business world was reflected in the Wolfburg Statement in 2007 which sought to try and restrict their use amongst financial organisations.

Successful deals tend to receive less scrutiny.  It is a brave junior club official who questions the football manager closely on their hot new signing as the excited fans cheers outside.  Likewise few in business want to put at risk the surge in share price which follows a major new order.  It can be tempting to take assurances at face value, and difficult to penetrate the true nature of personal relationships at arms length.

In football as in the corporate boardroom, both parties to the bung have an incentive to keep it hidden.  Those paying get their player or their bonus, and those asking receive tax free extra cash.  The authorities need to tackle this pact of silence. 

Without change, it will remain difficult to prove a payment was corrupt to the standard required in a court of law. Was it a legitimate service, valuable research, or just a bung?  It is not just in the UK that former Government ministers are hired by companies seeking work from their old departments. 

The Bribery Bill currently going through Parliament will do little to help detect corruption.  Yet the Proceeds of Crime Act provides an example of what could be done.  It allows an avenue through which firms can disclose potential money laundering without fear of prosecution.  A similar enabling provision should be included in the Bribery Bill, but going further to allow the payment of the bribe to go ahead subject to disclosure.

Such an indemnity would allow the manager to secure their player or deal, releasing them from their current dilemma.  It would also shatter the pack of silence, allowing the authorities to target those asking for bribes.  Investigators would receive real time information regarding exactly what money had been paid and where.  Assets could then be frozen.  Tax could be reclaimed.  There may even be scope to allow those making the disclosure to reclaim the bribe anonymously from funds seized after prosecution.

It is easy to think that football clubs play to different rules from their corporate sponsors.  Yet even the UK Government which helps make the rules was not immune from flexing them to win business.  When selling new warplanes to Saudi Arabia, the need to secure jobs at home trumped any reservations about payments to third parties to facilitate the deal.  To some a legitimate fee and accepted business practice in a different jurisdiction, to others a bribe (including the Serious Fraud Office before they were warned off).

Without change to break the pact of silence around bribery the authorities will continue to chase shadows.  There is little incentive for those involved to blow the whistle.  It is now time for not just football managers, but also their business counterparts, to break ranks.  Agents should be made to fear what they ask for. They may get it - followed by a knock at the door.  Switching the floodlights on to such payments will allow the authorities to finally penetrate these murky business deals.  It may even mean we see some top footballers starting to pay tax on all their earnings.

Posted in Articles, Football, Finance | No Comments »

08/07/2009 by Steve Barclay.

The Chancellor’s White Paper yesterday on reforming financial markets was correct to note that no single institutional model will insulate us against a crisis. But his remedies will not ensure banks atone for their past mistakes until they address the individual behaviour of executives at the heart of the banking collapse.

The slow pace of reform is illustrated on the key issue of senior executive remuneration. Some banks have already returned to using guaranteed bonuses to poach staff from rivals, and yesterday’s announcement did nothing to put a stop to this. The Chancellor noted that banks will need to follow an FSA Code of Practice on remuneration, yet the FSA has not even issued this code yet. So guaranteed bonuses and large remuneration deals are being now offered which risk driving high risk strategies as before. It will be embarrassing if the FSA Code of Practice subsequently decides that remuneration for the RBS chief Stephen Hester is unreasonable, given that the Chancellor’s own officials have already signed it off.

At senior executive level, the cosy consensus is unchanged. Non executives sit on each other’s boards and, it is not just the trade union leader Brendan Barber who sees the conflict of interest in voting for ever increasing remuneration. Sir David Walker who will shortly produce the latest in a long line of corporate governance reports is another insider - the former Chairman of Morgan Stanley and still retained as a senior adviser to the bank. It is telling that the Bank of England’s detailed report last month said that bank executive’s remuneration over recent decades had not reflected performance.

Instead of our banks focusing on customer value, even taxpayer owned banks continue to focus almost exclusively on shareholder value. Stephen Hester’s remuneration strategy is geared around increasing share price - creating an incentive not to lend to the small business customers the Government claims it wants to help. Such traits were also evident in the way Northern Rock ran down its mortgage book. Supporting value creation, and providing a service to customers through the tough times, is not high up the list of priorities when set against shareholder value.

During the selection in Parliament for a new Speaker, MPs were asked by one contender whether they really got it. The answer to this question from some corporate boardrooms appears to be that they don’t. Within the privilege of the City few executives have yet been subject to enforcement for actions which lost their customers millions. Their bonuses made during the good times have been kept. After a one year pause, banks are now returning to the feeding frenzy with multi million pound bonus schemes. The only change appears to be that these will be paid over a couple of extra years, and that undisclosed performance criteria will apply.

Guaranteed bonuses re-enforce the concern that executives are being given a one way bet. When the going is good they keep the profit, and when big loses occur the public picks up the tab - either directly following bank rescues or indirectly as shareholders through their pension funds. Where big bonuses have been stopped, too often salaries have been quietly raised to offset this.

The gulf now between the City and the rest of the country is dangerously wide. The sense of fury in the pubs and clubs in the rural constituency of North East Cambridgeshire where I live is heartfelt. What is perhaps most worrying is that whilst for some in the City there is a lack of awareness at the level of hostility out there, for others they are aware but simply treat it with disdain.

If City executives continue with their narrow focus on shareholders at the expense of their customers, and a level of remuneration which their customers see as being on another planet, there is a serious risk of a backlash of thoughtless regulation. The EU has already demonstrated its desire to step in. Political pressure in the UK will only grow.

Against this backdrop, the next Government needs to try and restore a savings culture amongst hard up taxpayers. The announcement yesterday by the Chancellor of a money guidance scheme is a start, but it is a second order issue. It is the expansion of means testing that has caused so much damage to our savings culture, exacerbated by the tax on pensions, the shoddy behaviour of some financial institutions, and more recently low interest rates. As the Government is now printing money, inflation in the future risks wiping out what few savings people have left, which is hardly an incentive for new savers.

What rubs further salt in the wounds of many savers is the continued focus of firms on winning new customers at the expense of those they already have. Existing customers often still receive worse rates than new customers. Banks squeezed after the loss of PPI and bank charges, and faced with enhanced capital requirements, are searching for new revenue streams. Short term pressures have not gone away.

Nor is it just in the guaranteed bonuses in the wholesale markets where bad habits remain. Customers with credit card debt appear on a bank balance sheet as an asset. It is attractive to banks therefore to encourage the minimum monthly payment of such debt - which is then rolled over at a high interest rate out of all proportion to what is now offered to savers. How many executives would encourage their children to keep debt on these credit cards? Yet this is the message being given to many of the poorest in our community - the same factory workers, cleaners, and farm labourers who face extra tax to pay for the rescue of the banks and to keep funding the multi million pound pensions in the public sector.

The City of London needs to win back public trust. Its leadership is tasked with showing that they do get it. Like those who go on a crash diet before returning to eating junk food, the danger remains that some executives have not changed their habits and are looking to binge again. Either they change, or they risk undermining the industry they lead.

Steve Barclay is the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for North East Cambridgeshire

Posted in Articles, Finance | No Comments »

06/07/2009 by Steve Barclay.

It is the time of year for local festivals and Fenland excels.  First though on Saturday morning go to the association office for a meeting with a leading local podiatric professional.  We discuss how we can improve services to take care of older people‘s feet.  Not perhaps a high profile campaign topic but a priority issue for me (see campaigns).  Keeping older people mobile and on their feet will make a huge difference to their quality of life, whether getting out to a local over 60s club, to chat with friends or to collect their pension.  Mobility helps address the challenge of isolation which can be particularly bad in rural communities, and improves physical and mental well being.  I also think it saves money in the long run by avoiding the need for social services if people keep their mobility.  Podiatric services locally need to be improved and I want to learn more about it and help ensure it gets the attention it deserves.

After a very useful meeting, head over to join Fenland Council Leader Geoff and Judith Harper at the Doddington Carnival.  Realise as the first bucket comes round that I have brought no small change - bit of a gaff but Judith saves the day and spares my blushes.  Doddington puts on a fantastic carnival and the lorries look superb. The sunny weather could not be more different than last year‘s rain.  An appeal for help with next year‘s carnival organisation comes from the committee chairman and hopefully their will be extra volunteers.  Interesting discussion with the local scouts - they face a ludicrous ‘rain tax‘ with their water rates being threatened with a massive increase based on the size of the roof on the scout hut.  Scout groups, churches and community groups across the country are aghast at this change.  The Labour Government must really be losing its grip if it wants to alienate the scouts.

Then head off to Wisbech for the famous Rose Fair in perfect weather with a big crowd.  Flowers arranging is something I know absolutely nothing about but cannot fail to be impressed by the displays inside and outside St Peter and St Paul‘s Church.  It is no wonder that people travel from far away to attend.  A chance also for a catch up chat with Sonya and Malcolm Moss MP who have been in the procession and judging the winning floats.

Rose Fair Parade

Then on Sunday morning it is back to Wisbech and church for the Mayor‘s Civic Service.  An excellent sermon and, amidst all the running about, a chance to pause and take stock.  Then head over Sunday afternoon to Elgood‘s brewery to speak at an association lunch.  Returning home to March on Sunday evening, it does not seem long before the 5.30am Monday drive to work in London will kick in.

The winning float

Posted in Doddington, Wisbech | No Comments »