We must protect our bees.

I recently attended and spoke at an event in Parliament organised by Friends of the Earth after I pledged a couple of months ago to support their campaign on falling bee populations, and I was reminded again of this incredibly important issue. Bee numbers are falling dramatically. Managed honey bee colonies have halved since 1985, whilst wild honey bees are nearly extinct in many parts of the country. Bumblebees have also declined nearly 60% since 1970. Bees are vital to our agricultural economy, and to replace bee services with hand pollination would cost the government close to £2 billion a year, a huge amount of spending that needs to be avoided.

As someone who grew up on a fruit farm, I was always very conscious of the importance of bees to life. We used to keep colonies of honey bees to pollinate the apple orchards but there were also many different types of bumble bees that lived on the farm. I also used to look after commercially cultivated hives of bumble bees on a large heated glass house nursery that I used to run and it was brilliant to watch them work. I learnt that there needs to be a diversity of bee breeds to ensure the best quality crops as well as a consistent yield. Most fruit and vegetables are pollinated by bees, as well as wildflowers enjoyed by many such as bluebells and poppies.

There has been a great deal of publicity surrounding the European Commission’s recent decision to ban Neonicotinoids for the next two years following some scientific recommendation and in response to various campaigns against them. Whilst I appreciate the argument for caution with pesticide use, I also think there are plenty of other reasons for bee decline that need to be addressed and we shouldn’t get too bogged down in one particular area. One problem is the lack of bee keepers, who as a group have declined 80% in the last 60 years. More needs to be done to attract new blood to an enjoyable and important task.

More also needs to be done in creating a better farmland environment for bees, having lost much of their natural environment to intensive agriculture. The Government have made some impressive steps in the Stewardship schemes available to farmers, and new options are available which subsidise land beneficial to pollinators. The Government is also working with beekeepers to provide them with training and the ability to respond to disease threats. They have also taken the lead in researching bumble bee decline and these studies will be extremely useful as most previous research has been solely focused on honey bees. I think these are steps in the right direction, but I also look forward to further schemes to help these great creatures.

George Eustice can be contacted at george.eustice.mp@parliament.uk or 1 Trevenson Street, Camborne, Cornwall TR14 8JD or by telephone on 020 72197032.

Let's celebrate Redruth's international connections

Last week we received the excellent news that Redruth has secured Heritage Lottery Funding to support the first phase of the new Cornwall Archive Centre at the old brewery site. Competition from the rest of country was fierce with projects totalling around £150 million chasing a pot of money of just £50 million but Redruth came out ahead being one of the most competitive bids submitted. Congratulations to all involved.

I have been arguing for the last eighteen months that Redruth was the natural home for this archive project. Initially there had been some discussion about locating it in St Austell but it was always clear that the regeneration benefits of locating the project in Redruth were far greater. Redruth is the most international of Cornish towns. Of the 8 million strong world-wide Cornish Diaspora, around a quarter can trace their roots back to Redruth. We exported mining expertise around the globe from Australia and South Africa to California, South America and Mexico.

The new archive centre will help us rekindle these international links. Last week I met some guests from Mexico who organise a "pasty festival". They had visited Cornwall to discuss links with heritage organisations and the Cornish Pasty Festival in Redruth. Having met them at Heartlands, I invited them back to visit parliament on Wednesday where they managed to see the Queen's state opening of parliament.

Last month I met Horace Yao, the Honk Kong based owner of the brewery site in Redruth who was bringing Chinese investors to see the potential for the Camborne and Redruth area. Mr Yao bought the brewery site some twenty years ago and ran the Cornish Rebellion beer brand for several years. Since then there have been a couple of schemes to try to find a future for the site. It is fair to say that, ten years ago, there were some misunderstandings between the council and the owners of the site. I think that was a great shame so have spent a lot of time over the last year trying to get everyone to work together for a solution and great progress has been made.

The most prestigious and sought after street in Hong Kong is actually called Cornwall Street. This got me thinking and, with the help of the Cornish Migration Project, we were able to research the links between Redruth and Honk Kong. While the numbers leaving for Hong Kong were smaller than, say, Australia, there were definitely important links. There were Cornish people who lived their lives out in Hong Kong. Some had connections with the navy and there were also well known Methodist preachers. This archive project will be a good way to celebrate all of Cornwall’s international links as well as reviving the fortunes of Redruth so we should get behind it.

George Eustice can be contacted at george.eustice.mp@parliament.uk or 1 Trevenson Street, Camborne, Cornwall TR14 8JD or by telephone on 020 72197032.

The future of the EU

The strong showing for UKIP in the local elections last week has reignited the debate about the future of the EU. I first got involved in politics to campaign for Jimmy Goldsmith’s Referendum Party in 1997. My first job in politics was at the anti-euro campaign and, in 1999, I was even a candidate for UKIP myself.

I left UKIP shortly afterwards partly because I was concerned that they had a tendency to undermine the very cause they claim to believe in. At the time, UKIP had started to argue that it was impossible to keep the pound and stay in the EU which is what the majority of the public wanted. UKIP deliberately undermined the case being put forward by leading businesses who wanted to keep the pound but stay in the EU because they thought it would help their own narrow party interests to do so. I thought that was wrong and we now know that their argument was false because, for the last ten years we, and several other EU countries, have been in the EU but outside the euro.

I think we should fundamentally renegotiate our relationship with the EU with the return of powers in some areas and with the role of the European Court of Justice restricted in future. At the end of that renegotiation, we should have a referendum where the British people can decide whether they want to stay in the EU under the revised terms or whether they simply want to leave altogether. This would clear the air and settle the debate. David Cameron’s speech on Europe at the beginning of this year committed a future Conservative government to do just that and was the most important any Prime Minister has given on the issue since the war. It means that if there is a Conservative government after the next election, there will be a referendum where the public will have their say.

Neither Labour nor the Liberal Democrats believe in a referendum so people will only get their say if there is a Conservative government. That is why I think those of us who want change must pull together and work towards getting a majority Conservative government. Ironically, just as in the euro debate a decade ago, UKIP is actually a counter-productive force which undermines the very cause they claim to believe in.

Since David Cameron’s speech in January, there has been a change in sentiment in other countries too. Germany now has a new and growing political movement which is calling for withdrawal from the euro and major changes to the way the EU is structured. The crisis in the eurozone means that change is on the cards like never before and David Cameron has put himself at the head of an agenda to shake up the way the EU works.

George Eustice can be contacted at george.eustice.mp@parliament.uk or 1 Trevenson Street, Camborne, Cornwall TR14 8JD or by telephone on 020 72197032.

How to reinvigorate local democracy

When he was appointed, the acting Chief Executive of Cornwall Council said that he believed we should "take the politics out" of local government and Cornwall Council. In some areas he seems to have got what he wished for because many town and parish councils don't even have enough candidates nominated to fill the vacancies they have and, in the majority of cases, those who put themselves up for their parish council will just be appointed without any contest whatsoever.

I don't think that is a good thing. However unpopular politics might often be, without it there is no democracy. Those who say they want to take politics out of local government are actually saying they want to take the democracy out of local government. Cornwall now has a large unitary council which would function more smoothly if there were a single political party with an overall majority so that it could deliver a clear agenda backed by a mandate from local people.

In his defence, I am sure what the Chief Executive of Cornwall Council was actually complaining about was political point scoring between rivals which is an understandable sentiment coming for an officer in the Council but is also a bit like farmers complaining about the weather.

Many people forget that political parties are voluntary organisations. The leaflets that are pushed through letter boxes are paid for by voluntary donations from local members. They are delivered by unpaid volunteers who go out in all weathers to try to help the candidates they believe in. I have been out with volunteers all week. The candidates who come knocking on doors are also unpaid. In each ward, all but one of them will fail to achieve their aim of being elected and many will feel that their efforts were in vain. I take my hat off to the unpaid volunteers in all our political parties (but especially my own) without whom democracy would not work.

After these elections, we need to have a serious look at what can be done to reinvigorate our town and parish councils. Firstly, in future we should have parish council elections separate from Cornwall Council elections. Let's hold them at the same time as the next Police Commissioner election in three years time to end the confusion voters feel about who is standing for what and to allow over stretched political parties to commit far more time than they currently do to finding and promoting good candidates for parish and town councils. If we want parish councils to develop a stronger sense of purpose then we need proper contests and, yes, political parties.

Secondly, we should give parish and town councils a stronger say on how elements of Cornwall Council's budget is spent in their area so that they have more power and are therefore likely to persuade more people to want to get involved.

George Eustice MP
Member of Parliament for Camborne, Redruth and Hayle House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA 020 72197032 www.georgeeustice.co.uk

Getting the economy back on its feet

Last Friday I met a group of local business leaders to discuss some of the opportunities in our area. Work is about to begin on some major projects. Hayle harbour is going to be transformed, work is about to commence on the new road at Tuckingmill, and plans to build a new Cornwall Archive Centre at the brewery site in Redruth are set to go to the planning committee for approval. However, once the construction work is done, we need new businesses to start up, employ people and make the profits to generate new wealth in our towns and that is the next priority.

Holman Brothers might have gone some thirty years ago, but their legacy continues to this day. What I find striking as I go around our industrial estates is how much world beating manufacturing still goes on in this part of Cornwall. There are some specialist manufacturers in the oil and gas industry which emerged from our heritage in rock drilling expertise. Fugro Seacore near Falmouth are world leaders in offshore oil platforms, while Calidus at Redruth manufactures high tech electronic devices for use in deep underground oil exploration. A new local firm, Large Diameter Drilling which is also a leading player in oil exploration, is planning to open a new plant at Tolvaddon which will create over a hundred jobs.

There are other businesses that developed a specialism in precision engineering. DP Engineering at Redruth produces high quality, precision components for use in the aerospace industry. Pall is a world leader when it comes to air filtration systems for helicopters. Meanwhile Rigibore in Hayle makes specialist components for the manufacturers of hydraulic systems and Teagle is a specialist in farm machinery.

That’s just a handful of the success stories in engineering. We then have national leaders in other sectors like Frame UK which makes timber frame homes, OMC which develops fibre optics and LED lighting, Contico which is a leading plastics moulding business and then leading food processors like Falfish in Redruth, Roddas Cream at Scorrier and Tulip and Furniss at Pool.

Together all these manufacturing businesses already employ thousands of local people so we have the foundations to build on. Their diversity proves that we shouldn’t be prescriptive about which business sectors we support. Economic planners in the Council should not devise strategies that are biased in favour of fashionable sectors. Instead, they ought to back talented people with a winning idea, whatever their line of business. At a time when the Council needs to find back office savings in order to protect front line services they should also be reducing duplication and it’s time to review the approach to economic development. We have a Local Enterprise Partnership, a Cornwall Development Company and an Economic Development Department. There could be greater clarity of purpose if roles were simplified.

George Eustice can be contacted at george.eustice.mp@parliament.uk or 1 Trevenson Street, Camborne, Cornwall TR14 8JD or by telephone on 020 72197032.

Getting planning right

One of the things that communities find most frustrating is the sense that they are unable to change the decisions that affect them and, a few years ago, these concerns reached their peak after the last government introduced “Regional Spatial Strategies” which sought to second guess the views of local authorities when it came to planning policy. Here in the Camborne and Redruth area, it had been proposed to build some 11,000 new homes by 2030 when there are only about 18,000 homes now. It represented a huge increase in housing stock and would have required extensive building on green field sites.

The first thing that the coalition government did on coming to power was to abolish these Regional Spatial Strategies and shut down the regional quangos that were devising them. In 2010, power was immediately returned to local councils. The result has been that the number of new homes proposed for our area has been almost cut in half by Cornwall Council to a much more sustainable level which is more in line with the historic trend and what the old Kerrier Council had mooted in the first place.

However, while some important changes have been made there is still more to do and the current local elections provide a good opportunity to have a debate about planning policy in Cornwall. Firstly, we need to strengthen the planning guidance when it comes to wind turbines and field scale solar farms. The sudden proliferation of random, single turbines is starting to blight the Cornish countryside. There is no uniformity. Some turbines are tall, some short. Some have two blades, some three. Some are black, some are white. And they are everywhere. I raised this issue last summer and, to be fair to Cornwall Council, they did introduce some planning guidance last July and have used this guidance as a basis to refuse permission on a number of applications. However, there are still too many getting through and we need to toughen that guidance so that the cumulative impact of these things on the landscape is considered. The same goes for solar farms which are popping up like industrial developments.

When it comes to Cornwall Council’s planning guidance on house building, while I welcome the cut in numbers, I would also like to see a policy that favoured brown field development over green field development. We have some important schemes for house building proposed at places like Tuckingmill in Camborne, Heartlands in Pool and the old brewery site in Redruth and we should bring these schemes forward first. We should not be making it easy for developers to build on the outskirts of town while leaving the more difficult parts of our urban landscape derelict.

George Eustice can be contacted at george.eustice.mp@parliament.uk or 1 Trevenson Street, Camborne, Cornwall TR14 8JD or by telephone on 020 72197032.

Margaret Thatcher's legacy

My first memory of politics is the 1979 election and Jim Callaghan's resignation speech. Margaret Thatcher took the reins at a desperate time for Britain and, while some of her policies were contentious, few can deny that she was a strong leader who had the conviction to drive through essential changes. For me, the most important thing she achieved was to challenge the post war assumption that Britain was in a spiral of inevitable decline that couldn’t be stopped.