George's Online Diary

Marine Energy Park

2012-01-26T05:51:00.001-08:00

I have been arguing for two years that if the country wants to generate electricity from the sea then they should build it where the waves are. This week, the government announced that Cornwall would be the location of the UK’s first Marine Energy Park. It’s an important achievement for Hayle because Wave Hub and the new industrial units currently under construction on the North Quay will be the crucial ingredient of this new industry.
About 25% of all the wave and tidal technology development in the world is happening in Britain and now Hayle is at the heart of it. Cornwall’s marine resource is second to none with a powerful Atlantic swell but not so powerful that the sea’s energy cannot be harnessed. It has been estimated that wave power could eventually meet 15% to 20% of Britain’s power needs producing enough electricity to power 11 million homes. There is also economic potential. If wave power succeeds, the industry could be worth £2 billion by 2050 creating more than 16,000 jobs. Some estimates suggest that the wave and tidal power industries together might provide as many as 10,000 jobs by as early as 2020.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This will not happen overnight because it is an embryonic industry. There is no shortage of things that can go wrong and many obstacles remain. We now need to focus on the hard work of making this industry a success. Firstly, we need to get pioneering electricity generators to choose Cornwall and plug their wave devices into Wave Hub. We must ensure that there is financial support to help them through the research and development phase. That is why Hayle should have first call on the new £10 million development fund created by the government to progress wave power technologies.
Secondly, it is hard enough getting new industries off the ground without having bureaucratic burdens on top of everything else. So we need to be willing to simplify the myriad of risk assessments and licensing processes that so often kill good ideas before they can even begin. Finally, we need to link up the ground breaking academic work going on at the University at Tremough with the pioneers who will be developing devices at Hayle.
I have been concerned that in the last ten years, Scotland has been doing more to encourage this industry than the British government but that is now changing. Last year, the government increased the subsidy it pays to developers in Cornwall – so that they now match what is paid in Scotland. This latest decision to designate Cornwall as the first Marine Energy Park means that we have now overtaken Scotland as the UK’s leading centre for wave energy, so let’s make it a success.

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.

Regional Policy

2012-01-25T02:39:00.000-08:00

It was Michael Heseltine who proved that government action could help create the conditions for economic revival in the regions with major successes in areas like Docklands in London and in Liverpool. There were even policies at the time to encourage major manufacturers like Pall in Redruth to invest in Cornwall.

A successful regional policy is incredibly important to the far South West because action is needed to create new industries and higher paid jobs. In the last decade, the UK has largely contracted out regional economic policy to the EU. There have undoubtedly been some successes, particularly in Cornwall. The new university at Tremough and high speed broadband to name just two examples.

However, some EU programmes have been restrictive and employers in some sectors complain that they are not considered fashionable enough to qualify for grants. We must also remember that there is no such thing as EU money. Since 2007, Britain has paid in £30 billion towards EU structural funds and received just £9 billion back. We simply get some of our own money back. Analysis by Open Europe concludes that if we repatriated regional policy to the UK government, Cornwall could receive an extra £207 million in funding over the next seven years.

Some say they prefer the devil they know and are frightened of change. But this is no time to bury our heads in the sand. The EU is a declining institution. The euro is no longer a viable currency and will face further tests this year. Some EU leaders have even said that the collapse of the euro would mean the end of the EU. I don’t think that will happen but the EU will face major cuts to its budget. Here in the South West, we need contingency plans to protect our economic interests.

One idea is to put all the extra funding that Britain would have if structural funds were repatriated into a second pillar of the Regional Growth Fund specifically targeted at areas like Cornwall but with less bureaucracy. It’s an interesting idea which could be right for the future.

ENDS

BBC

2012-01-19T02:09:00.001-08:00

In difficult times, every organisation needs to think carefully about how much money it is spending and where it might be able to make savings. It is why last year the government made clear to the BBC that it expected it to freeze the TV Licence Fee for the next few years. I think this is important because families have a lot of pressures on their incomes and, in the current environment, it would not be fair to expect people to pay an even higher TV Licence Fee.

I have always been a supporter of the BBC. I actually think it is an important British institution. Sure, there are times when I can disagree with its coverage of certain political issues but I do think that BBC journalists make a genuine attempt to be impartial and the BBC certainly devotes time and resources to giving coverage to political issues and informing public debate in a way that is the envy of the rest of the world and which we should cherish. Our broadcasters, including the BBC, have an important role to play alongside a robust and questioning newspaper industry. Without the mass media providing a platform for local and national debate, public engagement would decline and democracy itself would be severely weakened.

But it is important that any savings are made in the right areas and that the BBC does not just pick on soft targets and cut services in areas which have less clout within the organisation and so struggle to get their voices heard. Last summer, the BBC published some draft proposals for the savings it would make and has been consulting on them ever since. I have been very concerned that local radio was being unfairly singled out for more than its fair share of cuts and have made this case to several senior policy makers within the BBC. The further you get from London, the more important both local newspapers and local radio become and Radio Cornwall has one of the strongest and most loyal audiences of any local radio station in the country.

The BBC is the largest broadcaster in the world. It employs 23,000 people and has a budget of over £3.5 billion. Of that budget, around £2.5 billion is spent of TV and just £600m on radio. Of that £600 million on radio, little more than £150 million is actually spent on all the local radio stations in the whole country. Radio Cornwall costs a fraction of the amount spent on Radio Wales. I think the BBC needs to find a way of putting money back in to the budget of local radio and instead find additional savings from its vast national TV budget. They could possibly start with some of the huge salaries paid to celebrity TV presenters.

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.

Curbing senior salaries

2012-01-12T03:33:00.000-08:00

David Cameron started the political year with a tough approach to curbing senior pay packages and not before time. His proposals have been criticised by some, including the Daily Telegraph, as interfering in the market but I think that is rubbish and he is right to take on these vested interests.

Real leaders lead by example and are the first to make a sacrifice for the cause. So what has gone wrong in Britain's board rooms? At a time when people in both the private sector and the public sector are accepting pay freezes, all too often we see pay at the very top of organisations running out of control. Last year, the average salary of a Chief Executive in 87 of Britain's largest companies was up by a third to over £5 million while performance at many had stalled. The banks have failed on such a catastrophic scale that they have had to be bailed out by the rest of us but still they have the audacity to pay themselves huge bonuses and lecture small businesses about management.

The truth is that in both the private and the public sectors, there has been a lack of accountability and this has allowed a high-pay culture to develop. These high salaries are not driven by market forces but by a failure of market forces. In recent years, so called head-hunter agencies have had a field day, stoking up pay awards at the top and taking huge commissions themselves. Not enough power has been given to shareholders or elected councillors to veto pay packages.

The answer is to restore accountability so that this artificial, high-pay culture is punctured and market forces come back into play. Last year the government announced that, in future, local authorities would have to put pay awards of senior officers to a vote of full council so that every councillor takes direct responsibility for what is agreed. If council tax payers think that senior officers are being overpaid, they can hold their own councillor to account. It won't change existing contracts overnight but it will restore accountability and drive down senior pay in future.

But we also need to do the same in the private sector, giving shareholders the power to veto salaries. It is extraordinary that, despite owning the company, shareholders’ views are only considered “advisory” at present and things are decided by cosy remuneration committees instead. Many people own shares in companies indirectly through their pension fund and these institutional investors have been too soft on senior pay in the past. So we also need to improve transparency so that the people who actually put their own savings on the line can demand action to cut pay at the top and restore some common sense.

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.

Happy New Year

2012-01-03T02:37:00.001-08:00

The New Year has always been regarded as a time for hope and optimism. For some, it is a chance to turn over a new leaf, stop smoking or start exercising. The uncertainties in the world economy mean that we all go in to this particular New Year with a degree of apprehension. Governments are struggling to find their way through the mountain of debt accumulated in the past decade and the only thing we know for sure is that there are no easy answers. We don’t know whether the euro will survive or what impact its collapse would have.

But locally, there are many reasons to be optimistic. The Heartands project at Pool is almost complete and will open this spring, transforming the area. The government has now confirmed that it will fund the East West road link so work can start this year to redevelop derelict land around Tuckingmill, re-open the mine and create thousands of new jobs in the years ahead.

Just before Christmas, the government also agreed to make available some funds to help refurbish and redevelop the campus at Cornwall College. I am a former student of Cornwall College and have always championed their work, particularly with apprenticeships and foundation degrees. Part of the way to cut unemployment is to improve skills. The recent improvements to clad the Tamar Tower have had an extraordinary impact on the landscape at relatively low cost. Now they can do even more and also build new teaching facilities at Duchy College.

Early this year, with a bit of luck, we will finally get the green light to commence work to rejuvenate South Quay in Hayle. Work is already underway on North Quay and much progress has been made. The next phase will transform the Foundry end of Hayle with the harbour walls repaired, sluicing reinstated and new development including a supermarket, restaurants and other retail space.

Finally, momentum is gathering for a new Cornish Archive to be established on the old brewery site at Redruth and this will be my main focus in the months ahead. Most of the 8 million people making up the world wide Cornish Diaspora can trace their roots back to Redruth and it is the obvious location for a Cornish Archive.

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

Christmas

2011-12-21T09:06:00.001-08:00

There is nothing like Christmas to bring our communities together and demonstrate the strength and resilience of our society. In recent weeks I have seen many local examples of the Christmas spirit in action.

Firstly, this year I ran another competition for primary schools to design my Christmas card and they really rose to the challenge with eleven schools taking part and many excellent entries. This year's winner was Charlie Roberts from Bodriggy Academy with a very creative picture of a snow man.

The various Christmas lights ceremonies have also been well supported this year. The Children’s Procession at Redruth was one of the first where students from Redruth School led the pupils from local primary schools through the town. There were some amazingly well decorated umbrellas with fairy lights and all, but thankfully there was no rain this year and the town’s residents were out in force to support this annual event. Turnout was also higher than expected at Hayle and it was standing room only as people packed in to hear some great performances by the choir from Bodriggy Academy and Heyl Town band who even dragged me in to help with the bells on one of their Christmas numbers.

Then there are the many carol services. I attended one at St Elwyn’s church where there were performances from local schools including Penpol, St Piran’s and Bodriggy and another Christmas themed event at Camborne School run by the Holman’s Climax Choir. The fact that this choir continues many years after Holman Bros disappeared shows real resilience.

Meanwhile, last week, Murdoch House in Redruth organised their annual Merrit Carol Concert. It was a cold morning but St Day and Carharrack band and the local Cantabile Singers were undeterred and put in excellent performances. It is also the party season and last Friday I attended the Christmas celebration organised by Redruth Community Radio which has established a roster of 23 DJ’s and local presenters in just nine months.

But the most striking thing about the Christmas spirit is the generosity of local people. Last weekend, I visited the Food Bank project run by the irrepressible Don Gardner with the help of dozens of other volunteers from churches across Camborne. The idea is simple: people who are in desperate need of food are issued vouchers by agencies like social services and the Citizens Advice Bureau and referred to the food bank to see them through difficult times.

This year volunteers have already put together 163 Christmas hampers for families in acute need and the charity has received many generous donations of food from both residents and local businesses to meet the demand. The success of projects like this makes me optimistic about the future of our society because at times of difficulty, we can still pull together.

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.

Jobs for the future

2011-12-08T05:45:00.000-08:00

I have always said that the main challenge in this part of Cornwall is to attract new industries and create more and better paid jobs. In Camborne, Redruth and Hayle, decision time is looming on a number of big projects that could help create new jobs and these have been my main focus over the last year.

Firstly, we will know next week whether funds are available to build the new east to west road link at Tuckingmill. I have championed this road within government ever since I was elected. It would unlock the potential of derelict mining land and pave the way for the building of new industrial units and the creation of up to 5000 new jobs in the years ahead. It would also complete the excellent work done by the team at CPR Regeneration over the last few years but competition for funds is fierce, so fingers crossed.

Next up is the plan to regenerate Hayle Harbour. This is another project that has dominated much of my time since I was elected and work to regenerate North Quay is already underway following a government grant last year. I have always said that, if we are going to have another supermarket in Hayle, we should put it in the middle where it will bring new life into the town rather than drain life away and that we should use it as an opportunity to finally restore the harbour area to its former glory. The plans have the unanimous support of Hayle Town Council and were given approval by Cornwall Council in October but, due to objections by English Heritage, the proposals have now been referred to the government for a final decision. I hope that common sense will prevail and that Hayle can look forward to a bright future.

This week I also organised a meeting to progress plans for this part of Cornwall to be designated the first ever Marine Energy Park in the UK. Wave Hub in Hayle is the first facility of its kind in the world but we need to maintain momentum and start getting wave devices plugged in. The government has already agreed to our demands that Cornwall be given the same subsidy regime as Scotland which levelled the field. If we are successful in the New Year at being designated the first Marine Energy Park, Cornwall will overtake Scotland as the world leader in developing wave power technology.

Finally, plans to build a new Cornwall Records Office are being discussed and I strongly believe Redruth is the natural place to locate it. Redruth is at the heart of Cornwall’s heritage and is the town most associated with the world wide Cornish diaspora who emigrated in the 19th century. So let’s hope Cornwall Council gets this decision right and gives Redruth a boost at the same time.

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

Water bill relief

2011-12-01T05:46:00.000-08:00

Late last year I had a meeting with George Osborne to discuss the current issues affecting the South West. He asked me what single thing he could do in his budget that would help people in Cornwall and I said “sort out our water bills”. The problem is well known and has been rehearsed for many years: three percent of the population pays for the cost of maintaining 30 percent of the nation’s coast. It means that annual water bills in the South West are typically fifty percent higher than the level charged in other regions such as the South East and, in some cases, as much as double.

But, in politics, it is no good just talking about problems. In the end, you have to secure agreement for a solution and the confirmation this week that all households in Cornwall will receive a £50 discount off their water bills represents a really important breakthrough.

I have had many constituents approach me who are struggling to cope with their water bills. I remember, in particular, one pensioner on a low income who had a bill of £700 per year. In many cases, people find that they are far better off if they switch to a water meter and this is something that the water companies are keen to encourage. In other cases, people on low incomes are eligible for what is called the “Water Sure” tariff which offers a special discount to those on low incomes who are struggling.

These measures to deal with affordability are welcome, but what we really needed was a policy that would make our water bills fairer and this week we finally got it. The scheme is worth £40 million per year and it is a good example of where Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs working together have been able to really deliver for our county.

MPs from Devon and Cornwall have had many meetings with Ministers to maintain pressure since March and to ensure that the pledge remained intact. We have also managed to maintain a high profile for this issue within the Environment Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee which made some recommendations at the end of last year to spread the burden for those on lower incomes.

There had been quite a lobbying operation from other water companies elsewhere in the country who thought that they should have a share of the fund but this would have defeated the object of the scheme. To his credit, George Osborne has refused to budge on the announcement he made back in the spring. Water bills in the South West have been too high for too long and it is great news that we have finally managed to deliver a meaningful policy to restore some balance.

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.

Fuel Prices

2011-11-25T04:28:00.000-08:00

Rarely has an issue prompted such a large flurry of e-mails into my inbox as the parliamentary debate on fuel prices held last week. I received literally hundreds of messages from constituents concerned at the damaging effect that such high prices are having on businesses and families, and so I was pleased to be called to speak in the debate.

In his last budget, George Osborne announced several measures to address this issue, such as scrapping Labour’s planned rise in fuel duty and the so called "fuel price escalator" where fuel tax automatically rises above inflation year in, year out. The government also announced a pilot scheme for a rural rebate of five pence off every litre and a trial is planned on the Isles of Scilly very soon.

These measures may have stopped the problem getting worse, but it is now time for the Government to reassess fuel duty all together, in particular addressing the issue of what is essentially a tax on businesses located in peripheral regions.

When I was in business in Cornwall, I would often drive the lorry that took strawberries from Trevaskis Farm to Birmingham. The reality is that Cornwall is 300 miles away from London. A typical 16-tonne lorry doing a round trip would incur, in total, tax of around £220, just on that one trip. Let us compare that with a lorry driving from Birmingham to London and back: the tax would be only £80. A similar business operating in Cornwall has to pay three times more tax than one in Birmingham. That is unfair, and it is felt acutely by businesses in the primary sector, particularly in areas such as fishing and farming, in which Cornwall has competitive strengths. Our unique climate gives us an advantage in allowing us to produce early potatoes and cauliflowers during the winter. We should have a policy that reinforces those advantages, not that seeks to undermine them.

The irony is that places such as Cornwall have EU grants and regional growth funds to help develop businesses in areas where we have strengths, including food processing, farming, and green energy. But at the same time we are undermining those efforts by regressive taxation through high fuel duties. The impact of which is to compound the single most important disadvantage that a peninsula like Cornwall has which is its distance from the market.

In my speech to Parliament during the debate I made a suggestion on how we might go forward. Alongside the rural rebate that is currently being piloted (and that I hope is rolled out in Cornwall as soon as possible) I think we should introduce a rebate scheme that takes into account the comparatively long distances that businesses in peripheral areas have to travel to market. To be eligible, a business would have to be located in a county such as Cornwall. The rebate would be available only on fuel supplies delivered to an address in the area. Difficult problems often require creative solutions; it should not be beyond the wit of man to come up with such a scheme and it could be a powerful driver of growth and jobs here in Cornwall.

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

Remembrance Day

2011-11-14T04:27:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday I attended the service of remembrance in Hayle followed by a parade and outdoor service at Illogan in the afternoon. Two students from Hayle School read out all the names of those killed in both the first, and then second, world war. It was really powerful and punctuated the sheer scale of the sacrifices made in both those wars in just one town alone. Many of the names were from well known local Hayle families who are still living here today. Meanwhile at Illogan, my attention was particularly drawn to the recent addition of Captain Daniel Read to the memorial. Dan Read was from Cornwall and was sadly killed in Afghanistan at the beginning of last year.

I think that the immediacy of the current mission in Afghanistan has made people far more conscious of the sacrifices being made on their behalf and it is why attendances at Remembrance services seems to have risen sharply in recent years. It was also good to see the Cadets, Scouts and Brownies out in such force to show their support again this year.

A few years ago, when I worked as an adviser to David Cameron, I travelled to Afghanistan to see first-hand the work of our armed forces. You cannot help but be impressed by their professionalism and can-do attitude. On arrival at Kandahar airfield we were warned that the base was being subjected to daily attacks by improvised rockets. In typical character, personnel at the base had taken to placing sweep stakes to predict where the next rocket would land. I can remember too, the young soldiers who were no more than 18 or 19 making up the Rapid Reaction Force, on stand-by to scramble out of the base and in to the night in hot pursuit of those who had just launched the latest rocket attack. It was all designed to make sure it didn’t get at all easy for the insurgents.

We also visited Lashkar Gah, one of the main cities in Helmand province which had serious security issues at the time but where both the British Army and aid agencies were digging new wells to improve the lives of the local community. Today, the security situation in Lashkar Gah has improved considerably and it shows the importance of winning over the local population as well as winning on the battlefield.

The ongoing commitment of British troops in Afghanistan is the gravest responsibility facing any government or parliament. We can all agree that we should bring our troops home as quickly as possible. Afghanistan is not going to be a perfect democracy any time soon but creating a settled security situation in which stable government can develop is a realistic prospect. It is why the work to train the Afghan Army so they can take over responsibility for their own security is so important.

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

Stealth visit by the Olympic torch

2011-11-07T12:20:00.000-08:00

It was predictable enough that next year's Olympic Torch Relay would start at Land's End but few could have imagined that the route would bypass the largest conurbation in Cornwall.

The Games organisers claim that they aim to bring the torch to all the main population centres. If that is the case, then the chosen route through Cornwall represents something of a cock-up.

The Camborne-Redruth conurbation is the heart of Cornwall with a population of 60,000 compared to a mere 20,000 for the "City" of Truro, and just 10,000 for Helston both of which are included on the route.

Carn Brea is home to Cornwall's only eight lane synthetic athletics track and the largest athletics club in Cornwall. Camborne and Redruth are also the centre of Cornish Rugby and the heart of Cornwall's industrial heritage.

What on earth were the organisers thinking?

Cornwall Council

2011-11-04T03:31:00.001-07:00

Turning around failing organisations always takes time but I have watched the progress made at Cornwall Council over the past two years with interest. Much of the constituency case work that an MP receives relates directly to the work of the local authority. From highways and parking issues, to housing, anti- social behaviour, planning and school transport. There are many challenges that people face in their daily lives which need an effective response from Cornwall Council and, as an MP, you get to know where weaknesses exist and where improvements are taking place.

It is always easy to criticise and highlight those areas where improvements are still needed but I also think it very important to give credit where credit is due and to recognise the improvements that have been made. I think that Alec Robertson has grown into the job as Council Leader and that, bit by bit, the problems that have plagued Cornwall for years are being sorted out.

Three years ago, Cornwall Council was rated by the Audit Commission as one of the worst performing councils in the country, right down in the bottom 4 percent. But this year it was shortlisted for an award as the most improved Council of the year.

Three years ago, spending by Cornwall Council was out of control with debts rising and council tax going up. Now, the finances are back under control and council tax has been frozen this year and will be frozen again next year to help hard pressed households.

And who can forget how Cornwall was turned into a national laughing stock three years ago over the mismanagement which led to Newquay Airport being forced to close? But this year, Newquay Airport has been designated an Enterprise Zone with the potential to create hundreds of new, high paid jobs in the aerospace industry.

Finally, there has been solid progress improving services like adult social care and child protection. This year, the adult social care budget was protected and next year it will be increased. There have also been important personnel changes which mean that Cornwall’s social services are starting to raise their game.

The early action to sort out Cornwall Council's finances means that Alec Robertson has been able to bring forward other creative policy ideas including a new bursary fund to help Cornish students study for their degree and a new top up to the government's Learner Support Fund to help those in further education with costs like transport and text books.

I don’t pretend that everything is perfect. There is still a lot more to do, but Cornwall Council has made good progress over the last two years and we should give credit where credit is due.

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.

Breathing new life into our town centres

2011-10-20T03:47:00.001-07:00

Last year, I organised a conference to explore how we can revitalise and give a new sense of purpose to our towns and, this week, I attended a meeting in parliament of a group of like minded MPs who are all aiming to deliver the same results in their own areas.

There is a lot of exciting new work going on in this area. Hayle has had a long wait but might, at long last, be about to see a major restoration of the harbour area complete with new restaurants and a cinema. Camborne has been boosted by the arrival of Wetherspoons in the centre of town and a few weeks ago I met the Chinese owner of the Redruth Brewery site to see how we can kick start some activity there because it must be Redruth’s turn next. I would like to see the Cornish Records Office moved from Truro to Redruth where it belongs because it could be the catalyst for a new retail offering based on Cornwall’s heritage and culture.

The inexorable growth of out-of-town supermarkets has taken people away from our towns so, in future, let’s put them in the centre where they bring life in rather than outside where they drain life away. Secondly, high business rates have driven some small retailers out of business so let’s make it easier for new shops to open by giving them soft rates for the first year to get on their feet and let’s help struggling retailers by giving them discounts from their existing business rates.

Thirdly, we should not duck the fact that free car parking is a factor that can encourage people back into town. If you are going to Camborne to buy a pasty or get some photos developed, the high cost of car parking is enough to put you off. So I think we need to look at ways of funding free car parking for the first hour. It has worked well in other towns elsewhere in the country and where there is a will, there is a way. Finally, we need to do more to attract destination retailers to our towns which would raise the tide for all the other shops too. There is often a lack of suitable retail space but you only need one or two brand names to create some momentum.

The government has made a lot of these ideas possible because it is allowing Councils to keep all the rates on new commercial premises so the income retained from new industrial units at Pool and Treleigh could be ploughed back into schemes to kick start our town centres. But we need a plan to make it happen.

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 alcohol laws right

2011-10-13T04:45:00.001-07:00

Last weekend I did a stint working behind the bar at the Tyacks Hotel in Camborne. It was part of a project organised by the Beer and Pubs Association and it aimed to raise awareness of the issues affecting our pubs. I had a bit of a head start in that I used to occasionally do shifts behind the bar at Trevaskis Farm some years ago, although admittedly that was before the days of the sophisticated new tills that most establishments now use.

The local pub is an important part of many communities but many of them are facing difficult times with several thousand closing in recent years. We all have a role to play supporting them and there is truth in the adage that we should “use them or lose them” but we also need to get policy in this area right. There is no doubt that the smoking ban introduced by the last government did damage to many traditional pubs which sell drink rather than food. They have also been undermined by the advent of cheap alcohol sold by supermarkets.

Binge drinking and alcohol abuse is a problem but, if we are serious about tackling it then we have to start by picking the right target and it is wrong to target pubs. It is better by far to have people drinking socially and responsibly within a pub atmosphere than getting hammered on cider out on the streets. The evidence is also very clear that pubs are refusing to serve people who they believe to be underage or drunk in far greater numbers today than at any time before so they are taking their responsibilities seriously. And despite concerns about underage drinking, there is some evidence that more teenagers under 18 abstain from drinking now than was the case in the 1980’s. The problem is that some of those who do drink do so far more heavily than previous generations. It is a difficult balance to get right because introducing young people to a small glass of wine within the home over a meal on special occasions can help make them more responsible when they turn eighteen.

The truth is that serious alcohol abuse is often linked to other social problems such as social breakdown and chaotic lifestyles, so we need to start by dealing with those issues. A lot of problem drinking, including underage drinking, occurs outdoors on the streets and in the parks, so why don’t we take a tougher line on that? There have also been many studies which show that cheap alcohol sold in supermarkets has been a factor so perhaps it is time to increase duties on supermarket sales but reduce it for pubs so people can be encouraged to drink responsibly.

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 importance of education

2011-10-06T02:16:00.001-07:00

On Monday during our conference in Manchester, I took part in an event which discussed, among other things, education policy. I have always believed that one of the lasting legacies of the current government could be a transformation in our schools and I am a strong advocate of the policies being put forward by Michael Gove.

This part of Cornwall has had its share of hard knocks in recent decades and as a result there are thousands of local people who are trapped in welfare dependency and have lost the confidence to get a job. In some cases the culture of dependency and low aspiration spans generations with children leaving school when neither their father nor grandfather worked. Turning this culture around will take time but we have to start now and good schooling is the central ingredient to raising aspiration for the next generation.

Many schools in Cornwall have now become academies, becoming independent schools within the state sector. They have all the benefits of private schools but they are free to all. Last Friday I visited Bodriggy Academy in Hayle. This is a school that has come a long way in the last ten years and is now rated as outstanding by the schools regulator. One of the governors told me that at every meeting they ask themselves the question, “how can we make it even better next year?” So far they have used their new freedoms to create a new reception area and to employ a full time speech therapist to give intense support to children starting at school but who have difficulties with communication. I think that is absolutely crucial because unless children can communicate and use language, they will never learn other skills, will slip further and further behind the rest of their class and become resentful and disruptive by the time they are teenagers. Bodriggy had also bought new uniforms for all the children and it was touching to see the pride that they took in their newly formed Academy.

Many of our other schools are getting better and better each year. There is really healthy competition between the schools in Camborne, Pool and Redruth. Both Pool Academy and Redruth School have launched a new uniform this term following Camborne’s successful change a couple of years ago. The motto of Redruth, “Expect the best” sums up what we need our schools to do. They should all unashamedly champion excellence and achievement.

It is funny how things go full circle. During the 60’s and 70’s, the teaching profession went through a phase of thinking it was trendy and progressive to throw out old fashioned values and standards but the tide has turned and standards are on the way back.

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

The party train to party conference

2011-10-01T10:30:00.000-07:00

I am now on the 18.04 from Camborne to Paddington which will get me in to Paddington by midnight so that I can then drive to Manchester tomorrow morning for the start of our party conference.

The 6.04 is the very last train to London on a Saturday night and I am a frequent traveller on it. I call it the "party train" because through the course of the journey, you see a fascinating profile of a saturday night out. There are always pretty girls dressed for a night out waiting on the platform at Camborne, probably on their way to the L2 nightclub in Truro (it was called The Loft back in my day). At Par, all those who have had a day out in Newquay get in board, surf boards and all. By Liskeard, there are people heading for a night out in Plymouth. By the time you get to Bristol, people who have had a few too many drinks but are on their way home start to get aboard and it gets progressively more rowdy until people start falling asleep towards the end. I suspect that it is not the favourite shift for the wonderfully patient First Great Western staff but probably beats the sometimes overcrowded Sunday trains.

Tomorrow morning I will be driving up to Manchester for our Party conference. In my former role managing the press, conference was one of the most demanding and stressful weeks of the year but, as a backbench MP, you actually get the chance to enjoy the fringe events and various debates in a way that was never previously possible. I am speaking at two - one on education for Policy Exchange and another on the future of the EU for the Centre for European Reform.

And, lest I sound pious talking about people drinking too much on a Saturday night out, I suspect I will also have a drink or two in Manchester.

Guardian media debate

2011-09-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took part in packed Guardian debate to discuss how the press can restore public trust in the wake of the hacking scandal. On the panel with me were Carl Bernstein, the legendary investigative journalist who led the exposure of the Watergate scandal in the US, Sylvie Kauffman, from Le Monde and Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian.

It proved to be something of a role reversal for both myself and the audience of budding journalists and Guardian Media types. For the Guardian set, there was much hand wringing about the perceived unbridled power of Rupert Murdoch and those awful tabloids but a stubborn reluctance to countenance better regulation to deal with that power. Meanwhile, as a Conservative, I am ideologically opposed to excessive regulation but, after spending four years dealing with the fourth estate while head of media at the Conservative Party, reluctantly concluded that it was the only answer to restore some kind of accountability to our media.

People do not own national newspapers to make money – most papers make a loss. Newspapers are generally owned by people who made their money doing something else but own papers because, rightly or wrongly, they think it buys them status or, perhaps, influence. That can’t be healthy.

Carl Bernstein opposed any form of code which sought to require standards of accuracy or even truth in newspapers, saying that this would be tantamount to a “truth commission”. However, the only reason that newspapers are feared is that they have the unbridled power to print things that are untrue and to create, as the great propagandist Walter Lipman put it, a “pseudo-environment” of information which enables the opinion of the masses to be “regimented” in a particular way. Journalism should aspire to do better than that.

We can’t go on with a situation where the closest thing we have to accountability for the media is Private Eye’s 'Street of Shame' column. My argument is that journalists have nothing to fear from a properly enforced code of conduct backed up by sanctions because it would enhance the status of their profession. In my four years working at close quarters with the media, I saw frequent instances where “hatchet job” stories which were known to be untrue by their writers appeared in print, often for no better reason than the fact that an editor had thrown a tantrum because the party had just given a particular announcement to a rival paper and they felt they needed to extract revenge. What a betrayal of their readers.

In the early days of David Cameron’s leadership, we pursued a strategy that sought to deal with this. We believed that if politicians were less craven about courting the media but instead were a little more aloof, you could rebalance the culture and politely puncture media arrogance and re-calibrate their position within democratic society. So there were to be fewer exclusive briefings handed out like sweets, fairer treatment for papers who were not our natural allies, shrill leader columns were to be ignored as one would ignore a child’s tantrum and we would spend less time courting editors and proprietors over dinner but instead have a cup of tea with the journalists working at the coal face. We had some early successes but in the end if foundered when Gordon Brown arrived because, while technically weak, he was the most craven media tart of them all and the media lapped it up and gave him a honeymoon.

The phone hacking scandal means that people are, for the first time, willing to question the unbridled power of the media. The days of accountability applying to everyone except the newspapers themselves might finally be over and both journalism and democracy could be stronger as a result.

Time for Cornwall to take control of its own heritage

2011-09-29T02:31:00.000-07:00

I have always believed that this part of Cornwall could make more of its amazing industrial heritage and earlier this summer I organised a mini conference to discuss how we can maximise the benefits from Cornwall’s World Heritage Site status. Camborne, Redruth and Hayle together make up the heart of the county’s industrial heritage. There are also around 8 million people around the world who are part of the Cornish Diaspora, with ancestors who can be traced back to Cornwall.

Some good work is already underway. Last week I visited the Heartlands project at Pool which is almost complete and which could create a strong central attraction to pull more people into the area. As well as bringing the engine house at Robinson’s shaft back into action, the project is also developing what promises to be an amazing landscaping project. Around the engine house will be a reflection pool and a bridge and beyond the bridge a series of gardens with plants from New Zealand, Australia, South America and South Africa to symbolise the route that thousands of Cornish emigrants took.

As I wrote last week, there is also a lot of potential for Hayle which played a central role in Cornwall’s industrial past. There are plans to restore the harbour to its former glory and to return home the famous Goonvean engine which was manufactured at Hayle Foundry. There would even be working sluicing gates to reduce the need for dredging and the plans recently gained the unanimous backing of Hayle Town Council.

However, in a bizarre twist to the story, the campaign against restoring Hayle harbour is actually being led by none other than English Heritage, the organisation that is paid for by you and I and is supposed to promote and celebrate heritage in Britain. English Heritage is one of those quangos which was very nearly shut down by the government last year but, instead, it was decided to place it on a review list and to streamline its operations.

In recent years there has been a growing feeling that Cornwall should have its own heritage organisation which takes over from English Heritage. After all, how can a quango whose nearest office is in Bristol possibly understand issues in Hayle? If you look at their website, there is not one single reference to Camborne, Redruth or Hayle, even though our towns are at the heart of a World Heritage Site. Instead, what you get are pictures of pretty castles in the home counties. Cornwall’s industrial heritage should be an attraction to the whole world but it belongs to Cornwall and Cornwall alone. It is time we started to make our own decisions about how best to bring it to life.

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

Hayle

2011-09-22T01:28:00.000-07:00

The opportunity to put Hayle on the map and restore the harbour area to its former glory came a step closer last week as Hayle Town Council unanimously backed the latest proposal put forward by ING for the restoration of South Quay.

There has been a lot of interest in Hayle over the last year or so with no less than four separate applications coming forward wanting to build a new supermarket. At times, both planners and residents have been presented with a very complicated set of options and it has been difficult to work out what best to do but the people of Hayle have now swung overwhelmingly behind the ING proposals for South Quay.

I have always been clear that, if we are going to have a supermarket in Hayle, then we must make sure our community gets something in return and we should put it where it will bring life into the town rather than drain life away. I think there has been a problem in the past with supermarkets being built in out of town locations which have undermined our town centres and smaller retailers. There are excellent independent clothes shops in Hayle including Dune and The Wharf at Copperhouse. Meanwhile, Penpol Terrace has Mr B’s, the best ice cream parlour in Cornwall. I would like to see successful development that spurs even more new businesses forward and it starts with South Quay.

The competitive interest shown by supermarkets in Hayle has created a once in a generation opportunity to deliver that thing which has eluded the town for far too long: the chance to restore and regenerate the harbour area around South Quay. It has been talked about all my life time and now we have a chance to deliver it. Over the last six months, many people in the community and heritage groups have worked closely with ING to try to improve the design of the scheme and to come up with something interesting and striking that respects and celebrates Hayle’s extraordinary heritage. They have done well. The plans would also see the return of working sluicing gates which would dramatically reduce the need for dredging so it would also be a victory for the long standing campaign run by Save Our Sand.

It has always depressed me that tourists staying at Hayle all too often drive around to St Ives for an evening out. I want to see people leaving St Ives and coming to Hayle because, in future, it will be the place to be. We could even run a shuttle boat service to improve communication between the two towns and bring people into Hayle. There are still one or two more hurdles to overcome but Hayle is a town which could finally be going places. Let’s do it.

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

Kernow Credit Union

2011-09-01T03:32:00.000-07:00

The last few years has seen a growing problem with loan sharks: unscrupulous money lenders who prey on families on low incomes and sting them with extortionate interest charges which often equate to interest rates of several hundred percent per year. Once on the hook families find that they are unable to escape their debts because every bit of money they have gets scooped up in interest charges.

I have never had much time for banks. In my early career when we were in the middle of a dispute with our bank, I always remember one financial adviser shrugging his shoulders and telling me that banks are money lenders and if you look in the bible, they don’t come too high up. But the loan sharks who prey on those most in need are the worst type of money lenders and I would support clearer regulation to curtail their sharp practices.

In the meantime, we must do much more to highlight better ways of helping families manage their finances in difficult times. Last week I decided to join the Kernow Credit Union based at Redruth. I think that credit unions are a fantastic idea and we need membership of them to become the norm. The concept is what can best be described as ethical and safe banking. Those who demonstrate commitment and thrift by saving for at least three months are then able to borrow up to three times the amount that they have saved at low interest rates. They do not do “credit checks” on people. There are none of those “subject to status” caveats in the small print of promotional literature. Instead, people earn their status by being conscientious to the credit union and demonstrating that they are willing to put aside a set amount of money each week or month.

People save regularly and are allocated shares in the local credit union so that they become shareholders with an asset. The credit union pays an annual yield or interest on those shares which equates to about 2 percent, higher than most banks would offer at the moment. The rates on the loans tend to be comparable with good rates from high street banks but less than credit cards. There is also one additional bonus. A life insurance scheme is automatically included. On death, the credit union pays the next of kin double the value of the shares held in the credit union.

Credit Unions are very common in other countries. In Ireland, around 60 percent of families are members and they are also common in countries like Australia. At a time when commercial banks have lost their way, credit unions are a reminder of what old fashioned, community based lending should be and people who start saving today will be able to borrow for Christmas.

Kernow Credit Union is based on the ground floor of the Town Council office building, Penryn Street, Redruth, telephone 01209 314449. Their website is www.kfcreditunion.co.uk

Cornwall

2011-08-26T01:21:00.000-07:00

It was a year ago this week that Florence Endellion Cameron was born while the Prime Minister and his family were on holiday here in Cornwall. Last weekend they were in Cornwall again in their second attempt this year at getting an August break.

You have to go back a long way to find a Prime Minister who has been so passionate for Cornwall. Margaret Thatcher used to regularly visit Cornwall on holiday and Harold Wilson famously loved the Scilly Isles but over the last twenty years, Cornwall hasn’t seen much of its Prime Ministers and it is good to see that trend well and truly broken. By my calculation, David Cameron has holidayed in Cornwall for four of the last five years and has been undeterred by the fact that there have been some very wet summers in that time. I am not sure if there has ever been a Prime Minister in history who had a Cornish daughter, let alone one named after a Cornish village.

Also in Cornwall last week was George Osborne who was here to announce that Cornwall has been successful in being awarded an Enterprise Zone at Newquay Airport to create new jobs by offering incentives for new companies to invest in the county. There was very tough competition across the country with many bids chasing only a handful of Enterprise Zones and so it has been a major achievement to get one here in Cornwall. It was always going to be important for the new Local Enterprise Partnership in Cornwall to deliver some early successes to build credibility so this was an important step forward. It was also a reminder of the benefits to Cornwall of being politically plugged in to the government so that we can get our voice heard.

Last week while canvassing in Camborne I met a constituent who was working at Parker, the American engineering firm in Redruth which is currently planning to close. He had worked in engineering all his life. Although he was understandably concerned for the future, he was also determined to find new work, had a can-do attitude and was the sort of person who should have no difficulty. But for me, it was a reminder that getting new industries and better paid jobs in Cornwall must remain the number one priority. We need to make sure that the benefits of the Enterprise Zone lift employment prospects across Cornwall and the task now for the LEP is to plan how there can be spin off benefits to towns like Camborne and Redruth perhaps by creating incentives on Business Rates. There are some good news stories with development at Hayle and new manufacturers such as Calidus and Seasalt opening in Redruth but there is more to do.

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

A busy August

2011-08-22T01:43:00.000-07:00

August is usually a quiet month for politics, but this year has certainly turned out to be an exception. Not only have we seen the shocking spectacle to looting and criminality on the streets of our major cities, but the world economy has also been teetering on the brink and the financial markets have been spooked by problems in both the US and the Eurozone.

It was against this backdrop that parliament was recalled to debate the current troubles. The House of Commons was packed last Thursday and, as dozens of MPs rose to their feet to address incidences of violence and looting that had erupted in their constituencies, you got a sense of how many people had been affected.

Parliament also addressed the perilous state of the world economy. As Eurozone countries continue to limp from one crisis to another, the recent deadlock between the Senate and the Congress in the United States over how to deal with their own debt crisis sent the money markets into a tailspin.

The one thing that recent events do prove is that the early action taken by George Osborne to get Britain’s finances back in order was right. A year ago, some commentators were pointing to the laid back approach being taken by President Obama to America’s debt mountain and suggesting that we should do the same. But a year on, the credit rating of the world’s biggest economy has been downgraded in an unprecedented move and growth has stalled. The truth is that you can’t keep living on borrowed money forever. You can only borrow if people are willing to lend to you. In recent years, both the United States and Europe have borrowed and spent more and more money from countries like China who actually make things and so have a surplus. They will want to be paid back at some point and will stop lending if they think you are not serious about repaying them. That is what has been happening to both America and those countries trapped inside the euro in recent weeks.

As a result of Britain acting early to cut its deficit, the world financial markets are starting to see the UK as a safe haven and, as a result, the yields on UK Gilts (put simply the interest rate the government needs to pay to attract people to lend it money) has fallen to the lowest level for over 100 years. While growth is slowing around the world, it is still 1.5 percent in Britain compared to zero in France. These things are more than just statistics. Sound management of the economy means lower mortgage rates for families and a boost to economic confidence which means more jobs and new businesses starting up. That is why we must hold our nerve and continue to live within our means.

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

Riots in London

2011-08-11T03:27:00.000-07:00

The riots in London this week have highlighted the problems caused by a gangland culture which seems to have become a feature of our major cities in recent years. Those involved were very young, in many cases still of school age. This was not a protest that got out of control or hijacked. The fact that wanton violence and looting spread so quickly and opportunistically to other parts of London proved that there was no single event that prompted these riots, it was simply the case that people with a criminal tendency jumped on a bandwagon.

There are many reasons why this dire gang culture has grown in recent years. It is partly because of the gradual breakdown of the traditional family unit. This means that fewer boys have a positive role model when they are growing up and, in too many cases, they end up seeking their inspiration and sense of belonging from urban gangs. It is partly driven by popular culture and the mainstreaming of a gang culture through things like rap music. Finally, the authority of teachers to maintain discipline in some schools, especially in our inner cities, has been undermined in recent years.

Putting these problems right will take time but it is important that we start now. There are some things we can’t change: popular culture moves in cycles but rap music will eventually lose its street credibility. Of the things we can change, first, we need to rekindle the family unit and, when doing that, we must also recognise the incredible role that millions of men play as step-fathers, supporting children for whom they are not the biological father.

Next, we need to improve discipline in schools and that is why the government is currently introducing new legislation that will tip the balance back in favour of the authority of teachers and strike down some of the obstacles that have prevented them doing basic things like confiscating mobile phones, expelling pupils or using reasonable force to restrain violent children.

Finally, I think we need to introduce a modern day form of national service so that young people from all sorts of different backgrounds come together and achieve something together. Some countries do this better than we do and they recognise that it can break down barriers in society. There are many good organisations already such as sports clubs, youth clubs, dance groups and the cadets movement but we need to make participation in such activity more universal. This summer the government has been piloting the idea of a National Citizens Service which aims to do just that. We will see how it develops but I would personally not rule out making such a scheme compulsory so that the hardest to reach also benefit.

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

Celebrating Cornwall's Industrial Heritage

2011-08-06T02:22:00.000-07:00

With parliament now in recess, August is a very good month to focus on meetings and work in Cornwall. I am holding a series of public meetings across the constituency this month starting with two this week at Ponsanooth and Mount Hawke and with others to follow every week. It is a great way to keep in touch with people’s concerns.

The parliamentary recess is also a good time to take forward other local initiatives. Last week I organised a mini conference to discuss how we can maximise the benefits from Cornwall’s World Heritage Site status. Almost sixty people packed into Murdoch House in Redruth to take part in the discussion.

Camborne, Redruth and Hayle together make up the heart of Cornwall’s industrial heritage with most of the key attractions and old engine houses based here. Although people are aware of Cornwall’s industrial landscape, very few realise that we are a World Heritage Site. This is partly because most World Heritage Sites are clearly defined single locations and having a large site covering the whole of Cornwall (and part of West Devon) creates challenges.

I think we should make more of our heritage. We might be able to build a stronger tourist offering to visitors, especially those returning from overseas to trace their ancestors. There are around 8 million people around the world who are part of the Cornish Diaspora, with ancestors who can be traced back to Cornwall. These Cornish emigrants took mining technology around the globe to places such as Australia, the United States, Mexico and South America. The growth of the internet has made it easier for people to trace their family history and there has been a surge of interest in such research.

Some good work is already underway in Cornwall. We had a detailed presentation from the World Heritage Site team at Cornwall Council who have helped develop the offering of a number of local mining attractions, created a new website and done a lot of research into public perceptions. The Heartlands project at Pool is almost complete and there is the hope that this will create a strong central attraction which will pull more people into the area and benefit the other attractions too. We also heard from the Trevithick Society of their imminent plans to display Trevithick’s Puffing Devil engine in the old Holmans showroom beside Camborne railway station which I think is a great idea.

But there is also more to do. We need to do more to improve and support our tourist attractions, we need better signage so that awareness is raised and we need to do more to market the extraordinary heritage we have. There was certainly no shortage of enthusiasm and passion at our meeting and I hope people will work together to create success.

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

Student Fees

2011-07-29T04:52:00.000-07:00

With schools breaking up for the summer, many young people will be making the most of a well earned break before they get their exam results in the middle of August. For those who have just taken their A levels, it is a particularly anxious time because the results they get can affect their hopes of going to the university of their choice.

The changes the government brought in regarding tuition fees raised the threshold before students have to repay any contribution to the cost of their fees, so graduates will only start to repay money if they earn over £21,000 per year. In that sense, graduates will have less pressure on their finances than their predecessors. However, it is also true that the overall student contribution to tuition fees, over their working career, has now increased. That is why it is so important that the next generation of students shop around and demand more from universities for less money.

I was disappointed to see so many universities decide to charge the maximum fee possible of £9000 per year. This highest fee was intended to ensure that the very top universities, such as Oxford or Cambridge, were able to maintain their position as international centres of excellence. Higher fees can be justified in such institutions because there is a genuine premium on the career prospects of a graduate leaving Oxford or Cambridge so they will be able to afford it. However, in a lot of other cases, the decision cannot be justified. It looks like some universities charged the highest amount because they regarded it as an issue of status: that, to be perceived as a “top university”, they had to charge as much as possible. This “spend as much as you can” mindset is exactly the sort of backward attitude that bankrupted the nation’s finances over the last decade and students should have no truck with it.

The solution is to increase competition. Earlier this summer, Cornwall College announced that it would be offering degree courses for £6000 per year. Some other universities are charging a full 50 percent more for identical degrees. In the old days, Colleges like Cornwall College could only offer degree courses through a franchise agreement with another university which then used to take a cut for themselves. The government has now decided to open the system up, cut out the middle man and let colleges offer degree courses directly which is good news for students.
Some academics have wailed that this is a “race to the bottom” but it is nothing of the sort. It is just healthy competition. We need students to realise that the universities and lecturers work for them now and students now decide what a course is worth. They should vote with their feet to get the best deal they can.

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.

Localism

2011-07-21T01:38:00.000-07:00

I have visited many of the parish and town councils in recent months and plan to meet the remainder in the months ahead. The government has put the principle of “localism” at the heart of its agenda and I want to make sure that it works in practice as well as in theory. This is especially important in Cornwall because we are a dispersed county with a single unitary authority so we need strong town and parish councils as a counterbalance.

Localism means a radical transfer of power downwards: from national government to Cornwall Council, from Cornwall Council to the parish councils and from parish councils to local groups who can get things done. If you give institutions power, then they will develop greater responsibility. If we want to attract talented local activists to stand for election on parish councils then we must give them the tools to do the job. Serious people have no interest in attending a talking shop that gets ignored.

Under the last government, there were a lot of disappointed hopes. Some parish councils say that the old Cornwall Council paid lip service to localism but refused to let go of the purse strings. It is crucial that we get it right this time. The problem with previous attempts is that the balance of power within the relationship was wrong. Local authorities regarded parish councils as mere “stakeholders” to be listened to and talked at. The only way to change this is to change the law so that there is a presumption in favour of parish councils that gives them a proper negotiating position.

Everything the government has done has been aimed at driving this culture change. In future, parish councils will be able to put forward their own plans and put them to a referendum of local residents. If supported, these parish plans will take precedence over the opinions of Cornwall Council planners. A developer who has strong local support will be able, in some circumstances, to by-pass the planning authority altogether through a local referendum.

The government is also going to allow communities to keep all of the council tax on new homes that are built and match that pound for pound with an additional bonus. This creates a powerful incentive for local communities to build housing for local need (but no more). But Cornwall Council will only be able to build the houses it plans, if it gets the agreement of parish councils. This, at long last, gives parishes the negotiating position they need. They should demand their share of the new council tax bonus in return for their agreement to accept some new housing and they can use that money for the things the community wants. This would boost the authority of parish councils, giving them more money and ensuring that they can never be dismissed again.

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.

Health and Safety

2011-07-07T03:00:00.001-07:00

One challenge facing the government is how to restore a culture where people are prepared to take more responsibility for themselves and their communities. Last week, Michael Gove made an excellent step forward by slashing health and safety guidance for schools from some 150 pages to just eight pages.

Adventure and learning by your mistakes is a crucial part of growing up but, in recent years, there has been an appalling growth of petty, back covering process and paperwork which has stifled personal initiative and undermined the values which make a civilised society.

Last week, I met a constituent who tried to organise a charity event by getting everyone in the village to open their gardens to people from the neighbourhood for a fee that went to charity. He was told by his insurance company that he wasn't covered for doing such a low risk good turn for society and so the event was put in jeopardy.

I have come across numerous events this summer where organisers have bemoaned the growth of ludicrous rules regarding road closures and the like which have hindered their communities. Camborne Chamber of Commerce is currently in a dispute with Cornwall Council over so called “bunting regulations” - petty rules which require a risk management assessment to be carried out before bunting can be put up for special occasions.

Last summer, the King’s Troop, were granted "freedom of the town" by Camborne Town Council during their visit to Cornwall and a ceremony was planned where the cavalry would parade through the town. In an ironic twist, safety concerns meant that freedom of the town was limited to a tiny stretch of Trelowarren Street at which point they had to turn around and go back.

A key driver of this risk averse culture has been the growth of sham litigation. Lawyers offering “no win, no fee” services have created a whole industry. Solicitors can even buy insurance so that if they lose a case, the defendant’s legal costs are covered. They can afford this because they take a big cut when they do win. The result is that people can sue at no risk to their own pocket and that is wrong. That is why the government also unveiled plans last week to crack down on this iniquitous compensation culture.

But another reason this risk averse culture has grown is that governments, local authorities and, to some extent, the public have failed to recognise the value of risk. Risk taking is an essential flip side to the pursuit of excellence. Successful business people take risks all the time. Life itself is a bit of a risk. I am not saying we should abolish health and safety regulation altogether – dangerous industries like farming and construction definitely need protection. But it needs to be proportionate. Surely we can take a chance on a bit of bunting?

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

Cornwall School Games

2011-07-01T03:40:00.001-07:00

Last weekend I attended the Cornwall School Games which was taking place at a number of venues around the county. 1600 Cornish school children took part in a whole range of events including athletics, rugby, hockey, netball and even sailing, cheerleading and gig racing.
Cornwall was one of just nine areas across the country to pilot the idea of a major county wide games event covering many different sports. The aim is to boost the amount of competitive sport taking place in schools and to inspire all children, whatever the ability, to achieve their own personal best performance in the sport of their choice.

With the Olympics coming to Britain next year, we need to do all we can to leave a lasting legacy and if one of those legacies is a new games event that lasts for years to come and helps children find the sport that is right for them, that would have been one good outcome.

I have always thought that sport has a crucial role to play in education. Despite the old stereotype of the brainy children at school being the less sporty, the truth is that there is actually a lot of evidence that physical activity and fitness can boost the performance of the brain. There has also been concern in recent years about the growing problem of childhood obesity. The growth of electronic games and home computers means that some children are less active now than they perhaps might have been in the past and it requires a special focus on sport to try to counterbalance that development.

Because of our coast, Cornwall is also blessed with a whole range of sporting activities that are not realistic prospects in other parts of the country from surfing to sailing and so everyone can find something that they enjoy or are good at. At Stithians reservoir, we also have the best site in the UK for windsurfing.

The other striking thing about sport is the strong network of support with all of the voluntary clubs and we should take our hat off to the hard work of volunteers who keep those clubs going. When I was growing up, my passion was running and I will never forget the volunteers at Cornwall Athletic Club who gave up their time to coach us, drive the mini bus to competitions at the weekend and act as officials at all the events. Quite often, these volunteers started because their own children were interested in the sport, but once involved, they were committed and would often stay involved for many years after their children had moved on.

I hope that last weekend, some of those 1600 children will have discovered a new passion for a sport they excelled at and will go on to pursue it through one of the many local clubs.

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

Education

2011-06-23T01:41:00.000-07:00

New figures released last week concluded that Pengegon is the most deprived neighbourhood in Cornwall. I think that politicians and officials need to be careful when they talk in broad terms about "deprived communities". It is very easy to sound patronising when the truth is that people who live at Pengegon know things about life that the officials who compile data and write these reports will never understand.

There is also some very good work being done at Pengegon led by Claire Arymar, the neighbourhood manager. Whether setting up youth groups, taking children for a day out at the beach, organising community events such as the summer barbecue or helping protect families against loan sharks. It has all started to have an impact and there is pride.

Longer term, education is the key. It is the single most important thing that can help raise aspiration and get families off benefits and in to work. Last Friday, Michael Gove visited six schools in Camborne, Redruth and Hayle. He was very impressed by what he saw, whether the focus on languages and enterprise at Hayle, science and international exchanges at Camborne, the focus on reading and literacy at Pool and the new school uniform being introduced at Redruth.

We also visited Trevithick Primary school which educates most of the children who live at Pengegon. Michael Gove was impressed. This school had been failing eight years ago but, today, is rated as outstanding by Ofsted and has just become an academy. Much of the change is down to good leadership and the commitment of the teaching staff and the children were clearly enthusiastic about learning and were happy. The officials who compiled the data on deprived neighbourhoods in Cornwall ought to meet them.

There is a strong emphasis on reading and literacy at Trevithick with one to one tuition outside the classroom where teachers develop the reading skills of individual pupils. I think this is so important because, in the past, things have sometimes gone wrong in the early years. Unless children learn to read and write at primary school and develop basic numeracy skills, then they will struggle to keep up at secondary school and before you know it, their morale suffers and they start to conclude that school is not for them. That is an appalling waste of human potential and we need to do all we can to ensure that standards are high and that the system does not fail children in those crucial early years.

Parents have a responsibility too. There is very clear evidence that the first three years of a child’s life are crucial to their later life chances and good parenting, with plenty of love, lots of communication and opportunities to play and explore their surroundings can make a huge difference to a child’s development. We must ensure that parents really understand this.

NHS

2011-06-16T01:27:00.000-07:00

Last week I met local NHS campaigners to discuss the concerns that they had with the current legislation going through parliament. I agreed with a lot of what they said and took their petition back to parliament. This week the government has made major changes to its proposals having listened to the views of thousands of medical professionals.

I used to work for David Cameron and I know that the NHS is very dear to his heart. He was the only party leader to guarantee an increase in NHS spending despite the pressures on public finances. He always argued that the NHS was special because of the commitment and sense of vocation among doctors and nurses. What motivates them is helping cure people who are ill, and that is more powerful than abstract ideas about markets.

That is why David Cameron was absolutely right to listen to the concerns expressed by doctors and nurses. Some political opponents will jump on his decision to amend the legislation and condemn it as a “u-turn”. But do we really want a government that refuses to listen? The brave thing to do is to have an open mind to your critics, take on board their views and reappraise your proposals. That is especially true with the NHS which is such a crucial British institution and which is literally a matter of life and death. So David Cameron has done the right thing and it comes as no surprise to those of us who know him.

The thrust of the government’s proposals on health is right. It cuts spending on managers and bureaucrats so that spending on the front line can be boosted. It gives more power to doctors and nurses so that they can decide what is best for their patients. It allows the private sector to offer a helping hand to our NHS so that waiting times can be cut. These are all things that people agree with.

However, when it comes to choice and competition in the NHS, I think we need to take a pragmatic view. The point about choice is that it should be an option for doctors, not a requirement. One of the problems with the way the legislation was originally drafted is that it suggested to some that competition was an end in itself rather than just a means to an end. The last thing we want to see is a bureaucratic process with unintended consequences.

In practice core services and major operations will remain within NHS hospitals and they need a critical mass of skills to remain viable. However, there are other areas where even the last government was open to making use of private providers such as occupational therapy, hearing services, physiotherapy and speech therapy. We would be foolish to close the door on such excellent services.

Economic Regeneration

2011-06-09T03:57:00.000-07:00

Economic regeneration and job creation has always been my number one priority and this week, with parliament not sitting, I have spent a lot of time visiting some of the good projects underway and identifying any barriers that remain to be removed. If you drive through our towns now, there is a lot happening.

I spent time with CPR discussing their plans to bring forward the redevelopment of the old brewery site at Redruth. I have backed their plan and will be pressing the Council to prioritise it and I also want to make the case for Redruth to be designated a new enterprise zone to attract new businesses.

Hayle is also a town that has had many false starts and talk of regeneration is met with a weary scepticism by some. However, last year I managed to persuade the government to come up with the £5 million needed to progress development on North Quay and I am delighted to see that work well underway. On South Quay, I have had dozens of meetings in the last six months trying to bring together all of the various parties and get them to work through their differences. I think we might just get a breakthrough this September.

Moving up the road to Camborne, I met Coastline to discuss the work at Trevu Road. There had been some initial local concern about this scheme given the historic significance of this former Holman's site but I think it is shaping up well. The new building on the corner opposite the library even has a similar character to the original Holman factory. I have always liked the idea of moving Trevithick's Puffing Devil into the show room building by the station. It would be a fantastic feature at the gateway of the town and I hope the Trevithick Society will take up the opportunity. There is also now hope for the old assembly rooms building.

Next, I visited another former Holmans site, Boslowen which is currently being built by Linden. This was also a controversial scheme but shaping up well. I was pleased to see that there were some 4 bedroom houses on the site because we have a severe shortage of such larger homes in this part of Cornwall.

Further along the road, the Heartlands project is now at a very advanced stage and it is clear that it really will transform Pool and create a special focus for Cornwall’s industrial heritage. Over the road, it is good to see that Cornwall College have managed to progress a scheme to refurbish their campus and the buildings really do look like new.

All in all, despite the doom and gloom of spending cuts, this part of Cornwall is definitely on the way up and we should all get behind those who are rolling up their sleeves and getting the work done.

The Euro - A lucky escape

2011-06-03T06:13:00.000-07:00

My first job in politics was campaigning against British membership of the euro. It is hard to believe now, but less than ten years ago, it was seen by many as inevitable that Britain would join the euro even though the vast majority of people thought it was a stupid idea. The debate raged for several years before Tony Blair finally concluded he would not be able to win a referendum and so he kicked the issue into the long grass.

Britain had a lucky escape. For those poor countries who abolished their currencies and locked into the single currency, the experiment has been a complete disaster and has caused havoc with their economies. The central flaw of the euro was always that a single economic policy could not possibly work for every nation in Europe. Each country is unique and faces different challenges at different times and each needs to be free to set its own interest rate and allow its currency to fluctuate in value.

A currency is a bit like a pressure valve. When a country is experiencing economic problems, the value of its currency relative to others goes down. That makes imports more expensive and gives a boost to domestic manufacturers so they can create new jobs and hasten the emergence from recession. That is what Britain has been able to do in the last few years.

But this has not been an option for countries like Ireland, Portugal, Greece and Spain and so their economies have nosedived. As a result, they are all now having to come to Britain to be bailed out.

It is an odd situation to be in and has caused a lot of disquiet in parliament. The issue was debated last week At a time when we are having to take really tough decisions to get our own finances in order, can we really afford to bail out the rest of Europe? And is it right that we should be expected to bail out countries which were stupid enough to join the euro?

The clear message sent to the government was that it should tread with caution when bailing out other EU countries. None of us benefits from economic meltdown among our nearest trading partners so it would be wrong to rule out any help whatsoever. But at the very least, we should insist that any bail outs are done on a bilateral basis, country to country and should not be done through the EU which has proved itself to be an incompetent institution.

Longer term, the backward looking political class in Europe will have to face some hard facts: the euro was an idiotic idea which has no long term future and the quicker they work out how to scrap it, with minimum disruption, the better.

Freedom of the Press

2011-05-27T03:38:00.000-07:00

The furore over the privacy of a famous footballer has thrown into the spotlight the thorny issue of press freedom and the right to privacy.

I have always opposed international bureaucracies deciding policies which ought to be set by national parliaments. We have a long tradition in this country of the clear separation of powers between parliament, which makes laws and the courts, which independently implement those laws. When the courts start to interpret laws in a way that neither parliament nor the public intended, then parliament must give greater clarity to judges.

On the face of it, that is what is happening in these cases relating to so called “super-injunctions” lodged by the rich and famous to protect their privacy. In the absence of clear political guidance, the courts have made what are termed “public policy decisions” and decided for themselves how to interpret the very vague principles that are set down by the European Court. That is usually a recipe for a bit of a mix up, so the orders that the courts have set down have been difficult to enforce because they didn’t stem from clearly thought through laws.

That said, this is a problem that has been brewing for a long time. The reason the courts have been pulled in to this area in the first place is that parliament has consistently ducked the challenge of trying to create a stronger framework of expectations around our media. There is an accepted principle that one person’s right to privacy must be balanced against the right to freedom of speech. The agreed test is that if it is in the “public interest” that a piece of information be published, then freedom of speech trumps the right to privacy.

The trouble is that, over the years, some of our national newspapers who want to boost their circulation have confused things that are “in the public interest” (ie for the common good) with things that are simply “an interesting read for the public” and sex sells certain newspapers. The boundaries have been gradually pushed further and further as newspapers fight off falling circulations. Meanwhile, politicians have never felt it a good time to address the issue and face up to the brewing problem because no government or party in opposition wants to face an angry backlash from newspaper editors who guard the status quo with zeal. So things have been allowed to drift along.

The current clash between the media, the courts and parliament will probably force greater clarity. The answer probably lies in toughening up the current voluntary code that newspapers work to so that it is clearer, more independent and with tougher sanctions for breaches but where there is a clearer test of what is in the public interest and an unambiguous defence of freedom of speech.

Fish Discards

2011-05-21T01:44:00.000-07:00

Last week I spoke in the parliamentary debate on fish discards. I feel strongly that the way we kill fish unnecessarily and throw them back, dead into the sea on such an industrial scale is an absolute scandal and it has continued for far too long.

The environmental consequences of the Common Fisheries Policy have been recognised for more than twenty years. Around 22 percent of the fish discarded are fish which are caught but for which there is no quota and the remaining 24 percent are fish which are undersize. It’s time the practice stopped and if we need to break up the CFP to achieve that, then so be it.

The truth is that most successful policy innovation in recent years has taken place where national governments have been free to experiment with new ideas and new approaches. Norway has found a way of dealing with the problem of discards caused by fish that are caught over quota by allowing fishermen to land them but paying them only a fraction of the market price. Scotland has had success with “real time closures” where areas are closed to fishing when there is a problem with excessive by-catch. This creates an incentive for the industry to use netting gear which reduces the number of fish caught for which there is no market. Devon fishermen have been involved in another successful project which brought scientists and fishermen together to find ways of improving fishing practices in a way which has reduced fish discards by over 50 percent.

How do we expand ideas which have worked? The structure of the European Union does not really lend itself to such an evidence based approach. Policy making is frequently reduced to a mere negotiation. We need to make the CFP more flexible and that is why I am attracted to the idea of breaking up the current structure and putting in place a regionalised management system. You could retain a common objective: to protect the eco-system and have sustainable fishing. But the way you would deliver that common objective would respond to the local realities and there would be room to try new approaches.

It is not all the fault of the EU. Over half of the fish that are discarded are fish for which there is currently no market. One of the most important outcomes from Channel 4’s recent Fish Fight series was to create demand for other fish species. I recently visited Falfish, a fish processor in Redruth, who reported a significant increase in demand for Pouting which, while far smaller, has a similar texture to cod. Creating a market for currently unfashionable fish is an area where we all have a role to play. Consumers should be more adventurous and the industry should do more to promote the values of these lesser known fish species.

Back to the issues that matter

2011-05-12T02:16:00.000-07:00

Now that the contentious issue of whether to change our voting system has been settled once and for all, it’s time for the government to knuckle down to the real priorities of people in Cornwall such as water charges, the NHS, welfare reform and job creation.

Last week I attended a meeting with the DEFRA Minister to discuss how we take forward the government’s commitment to make available £40 million per year to finally resolve the historic unfairness of high water bills in the South West. It’s a major step forward and a good example where Conservative and Lib Dem MPs in Cornwall have achieved something together. The proposals could deliver savings of over £50 per household but we have to get the details right.

Earlier this week, the proposed changes to the NHS were also debated in parliament. The government aims to give more power to doctors and spend less money on managers. But the proposals are controversial and have caused concern from some quarters. While I support the principle of putting doctors and nurses in charge, the NHS is a big organisation and major reorganisations always carry the risk of unintended consequences so I am pleased that the government has decided to take a pause, listen to all of the concerns people have and, yes, make changes to their proposals to ensure we get it absolutely right.

This month also sees the start of a new approach to help those trapped on benefits back to work and important reforms to the process for assessing people on Incapacity Benefit. In the past, the assessments have been far too much of a tick box routine and I frequently have people attending my surgery who feel that the assessment didn’t identify the problems they have. The new system will take far greater account of medical evidence from doctors from the start and will give people the right to have a second opinion if they don’t agree with their assessor. Finally, there will be intensive help to support people back in to some sort of work. Pilots elsewhere in the country have shown that, of those currently on Incapacity Benefit, almost two thirds are able to do some work and desperately want the help to get there.

Finally, more than anything else, Cornwall needs new jobs. Last Monday I met a group of students from Hayle Community School who were on a visit to parliament. We discussed at length the potential for job creation in Hayle. The school places enterprise at its heart. Every student learns a foreign language (some two) and there is a real focus on encouraging students to set up their own business. It is exactly the sort of approach that we need more of and there was no shortage of good ideas from the Hayle pupils I met.

The Royal Wedding

2011-05-05T01:51:00.000-07:00

The Royal Wedding has made it a week when we can all be proud to be British and it has shown the value to our country of having a non-political Head of State. There are times when you need consistency and resilience and an institution that can unite the whole country. The Queen has seen twelve Prime Ministers come and eleven go. Our monarchy has proved itself capable of adapting over the generations and the thousands of street parties around the country showed that it is still held in affection

Those of us in Cornwall had a second reason to be proud last weekend because it was also Trevithick Day in Camborne. Star of the show, as always, was the replica of the Puffing Devil, invented by Richard Trevithick. It is a wonderful contraption and can travel at an incredibly fast pace. I made my maiden speech in parliament about inventors like Richard Trevithick and William Murdoch and the lessons we can learn from them.

As is so often the case, Richard Trevithick didn’t make his fortune from his endeavours, in fact quite the reverse. He ended his life with no money at all. And as he pioneered new ideas and tried new approaches deemed unthinkable at the time, he was lampooned by critics who attacked his new technology as dangerous.

While Trevithick was Cornish through and through he was open to the rest of the world and craved what could be learnt from the experiments of others. He spent many years of his life working alongside other engineers in London and mining in South America. It was a time when Cornwall was at the forefront of the industrial revolution and they didn’t allow distance to get in their way.

What can we learn from him? First, this part of Cornwall left an incredible legacy to the world and we should celebrate it but also have the confidence to be pioneers again. Second, we are at our best when we face out towards the rest of the country and the rest of the world and should never allow inward looking isolationism to hinder our potential.

In my research into Trevithick, I came across this quote from the great man: "I have been branded with folly and madness for attempting what the world calls impossibilities. This so far has been my reward from the public; but should this be all, I shall be satisfied by the great secret pleasure and laudable pride that I feel in my own breast from having been the instrument of bringing forward and maturing new principles and new arrangements of boundless value to my country. However much I may be straitened in pecunary circumstances, the great honour of being a useful subject can never be taken from me, which to me far exceeds riches".

That says it all.

Encouraging Responsibility

2011-05-04T07:20:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday I spoke at a meeting of the Lent Group at St Andrew’s Church in Redruth. The subject for discussion was the Big Society, what it means and how we can encourage more of it. We had a lively debate.

I sometimes come across people who say there is nothing new about the Big Society. There are many voluntary groups that have practiced it for years and the Church is perhaps the longest and most enduring example of such community spirit and activism. I couldn’t agree more. The idea is not new. I see it all around this constituency from youth groups like Searchlight in Redruth to social enterprises such as CN4C and the Redruth North Partnership. Last December I attended the 10th anniversary of the refurbishment of the All Saint’s Centre in Camborne which has been a great success and now hosts a whole range of community activities from home help services for the elderly to day care and many other community groups.

But the Prime Minister has never pretended that the idea of the Big Society is something new. In fact what he is saying is quite the reverse: that our society needs to rediscover some of those older values to create a stronger society and the question for government is what policies would foster a renaissance in such community groups and to make them stronger.

During the last 50 years or so, people have increasingly withdrawn from their responsibilities to society and retreated into their shell. They are now less likely to support their local church, less likely to be involved in local politics and less likely to know all their neighbours than they once would have been. In the past, if there were teenagers misbehaving in the street, they would have been challenged. Adults feel less inclined to do so today. We have ended up treating children like adults and adults like children.

One of the reasons for this is that a culture developed where people started to think that sorting out society’s problems was someone else’s responsibility. If things went wrong, then it was someone else’s fault. As government increasingly seemed to come forward with new laws, individuals started to think they couldn’t make much difference on their own any more. The pressures of the mass media compounded the situation by demanding new crackdowns and initiatives from government in response to isolated events. This in turn created a mass of bureaucracy. The pervasive growth of “risk assessments”, CRB checks and the like has stifled the natural human desire to do a good turn and created a culture where people think they need permission to be active citizens.

They shouldn’t and to reverse the trend, we need to encourage responsibility, scrap pointless bureaucracy, be more grown up about risk. Most of all, people need to realise that they can make a difference.

Defend one person, one vote and say no to AV

2011-04-28T02:25:00.000-07:00

THE PRINCIPLE of one person, one vote has been the hallmark of our democracy since the days of the suffragettes and now is not the time to abandon it. It is fair because every man and woman has an equal vote. It is simple and clear because you put a cross in the box and the candidate with the most votes wins. It generally gives us strong and decisive government. Our current system is the most widely used in the world and it puts voters in charge – people know how to throw out tired governments.

The Alternative Vote system is used by just three countries – Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Australia. Polls show that most Australians don't like it and want to return to the British system. When they introduced AV in Australia, turnout went down and two elections later compulsory voting had to be introduced.

So why on earth are we even considering switching to such an unpopular and discredited system? The answer is that it was the bottom line demand by Nick Clegg as the price for forming a coalition. This referendum has not been demanded by the public, it has been forced on the public by Lib Dem politicians who think it will advance their own narrow political interests. The cost of switching to AV has also been estimated at £250 million. At a time like this, we can all think of better things to spend that money on.

If we switch to AV, such political stitch-ups will become far more common. It will create a culture where political parties promise the earth, knowing that they can abandon their manifestos in the horse trading that will follow. That is bad for democracy.

Under AV, some people get more of their votes counted than others. You only get a second or third vote if you voted for the most unpopular candidates. So, someone who votes for the BNP will be given a second bite of the cherry whereas someone who votes for a mainstream party will be restricted to one of their votes being counted. That's not fair.

It also means that one person's first choice for the candidate they are really passionate about is valued no higher than another person's fifth choice, for a candidate they care little for. During the count, you end up with all sorts of different numbers muddled together on the same pile which is clearly ridiculous.
We should not blame the voting system for the problems of Parliament. There is nothing wrong with the principle of one person, one vote. But what I want to see is more conviction in politics, where candidates plant a flag in the ground and take a stand for what they believe in. We can change Parliament to make that possible, but AV would send things in reverse and create politicians who pretend to be all things to all men. That would undermine democracy. So, to defend one person, one vote, say "no" on May 5.

Green energy suppliers must learn to earn support

2011-04-21T02:09:00.000-07:00

I recently attended a stormy meeting at Constantine over plans to build a field scale solar power farm. I generally support green energy and have championed the potential for wave power in Cornwall but what has happened over solar farms gives green energy developers a bad name and undermines people’s faith in local democracy.

The last government set up a policy to encourage solar panels on roofs and so called "micro-generation”. Those installing solar panels are paid a "feed in tariff", a guaranteed payment per unit of electricity put in to the national grid, which is above the prevailing market rate. The cost is ultimately absorbed by electricity consumers through slightly higher electricity bills.

The new government fully supports micro-generation. Recently Camborne Church told me that they were investigating the possibility of putting solar panels on their roof which would generate an income to support some of their good work in the community. That is positive: individual communities taking small steps to expand green energy while simultaneously strengthening our society.

However, things went wrong. The last government made a mistake in the way it drafted the legislation and so failed to adequately cap the size of eligible projects. There was a stampede from large commercial developers who wanted to set up field scale solar farms and rake in huge profits at the expense of the long suffering electricity bill payer.

So the current government moved quickly to review the rates and slashed the so called Feed-in-Tariff by about 70 percent for such field scale farms from this August. This aimed to ensure that this unsustainable gold rush was cooled down and that the money available was used wisely to develop community schemes rather than creamed of by commercial operators. In most parts of the country, it worked. However, some projects in Cornwall are now racing faster than ever to try to get their foot in the door before August which gives them the inflated profits of the old system locked in for 25 years. In some cases, planners have been bounced into agreeing plans even where there is no local support.

Every time planners ride rough shod over local opinion they damage local democracy. The idea of field scale solar farms is new and planners should be proceeding with caution. It is the job of commercial developers to work hard and earn public support for their schemes. In some parts of the country, progress has been made with community ownership schemes where local communities who are asked to accept, say, a wind farm or an energy-from-waste plant on their doorstep, are given free shares in the company or maybe guaranteed free electricity for the life of the project. That is one way of taking the conflict out of such schemes but it has yet to happen in Cornwall.

Banking

2011-04-14T03:31:00.000-07:00

This week saw the publication of the report on the future of banking by Sir John Vickers. I have always argued that the banking industry needs to be sorted out and that new regulation might be required to achieve that.

The central recommendation by John Vickers is that banks should clearly separate their retail banking operations, that is dealing with people like us in High Street branches, from so called “casino banking”, where the banks speculate on world markets. It was the mixing of these two that got the industry in a mess last time round. The banks were like gambling addicts who had lost the plot and they were raiding our wallets to keep their habit going. Worst of all, the banks lost the ability to distinguish between an asset and a liability. Some banks treated toxic debt as an asset against which they borrowed yet more money. It couldn’t go on, and so we all paid the price.

Sir John Vickers has also identified another problem with the banks: the lack of competition. I frequently have people come to see me who have been treated appallingly by their banks and ripped off with loads of invented, cooked up charges which the banks just add on people’s account without a hint of shame. I have also seen small businesses bullied by banks because they currently hold most of the cards in their relationship with their customers.

We need to rebalance the law in favour of enterprise and against the vested interests of the banks. That is why I have introduced a Private Members Bill which will protect small businesses against aggressive sharp practice by lenders.

It annoys me that some people in the banking industry think it is acceptable to carry on regardless and still claim whopping bonuses just because they used to. I don’t agree that you need to pay that sort of money to get good people. There are far more intelligent and able people at the top of medicine, education or the military in this country. Such people are paid well but don’t expect a seven figure bonus at Christmas. The truth is that the banks have enjoyed a totally unsustainable high pay culture which bears no resemblance to the true value of the work they do and, in their own jargon, a “correction in the market” is required.

Of course, any suggestion that we should introduce some sort of accountability on these people immediately causes them to threaten us. They tell us that they might stop lending to small businesses, that they will take us to court to protect their contracts and bonuses or that they will leave the country. But they have cried wolf enough. Let them go if they want to. Otherwise, they should get over it and get on with their work.

Past and future brilliance

2011-04-07T01:36:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I went along to a second evening of nostalgia at Camborne School led by the Holman-Climax Choir with a slide show of old photographs. The evening was a celebration of Camborne’s extraordinary industrial past and draws a big audience. Last year, the event was oversubscribed and, this year, there is such demand that David Oates has had to organise a second showing set for this Friday.

The fabulous architecture in Camborne stands out in the old photographs but, sadly, many of the buildings have since been lost. The efforts of Jean Charman and others to preserve the last remaining Holman building at Trevu Road has come a step closer which is welcome news. I have always believed that the best way to preserve beautiful architecture is to find a modern use for it. Camborne, Redruth and Hayle have amazing architecture from their industrial past which is frequently underappreciated. We should use it or lose it.

Last Friday’s event left me with two strong impressions. First, the pride and self confidence which surrounded Holmans was striking. You can see it in the old photographs and archive footage. This was a world beating team with high standards.

The second thing that struck me was the resilience of the community that had grown up around Holmans. There last Friday was Agnes James who has played the piano for the choir for the last forty years. That’s tenacity and commitment for you, and the packed audience proved to me that the will to succeed in this part of Cornwall is as strong as ever. We can’t bring Holmans back, but we can rekindle the pride, confidence and can-do attitude that it was built on in the first place.

Rekindling pride and confidence starts with the next generation and there have been some really important steps forward in our local schools. Last week, both Pool and Camborne Schools were granted Academy status along with numerous local primary schools. These will now become fully independent and free to drive up standards in the way they see fit.

I also visited Redruth School where the new Head Teacher, Craig Martin, has made a brilliant start. As well as a new emphasis on reading and homework, the students at the school are currently selecting the design of a new school uniform with traditional blazer and tie. Just as was the case at Camborne School last year, this is a move not just supported by the pupils, but led by them. It might seem a small thing but I think it is an incredibly positive sign because it shows a commitment to raising standards and an aspiration to be the best which is the very culture that created places like Holmans in the first place. It bodes well for the future.

The Budget

2011-03-31T02:34:00.000-07:00

The big political event last week was the Budget and parliament will continue to debate George Osborne’s proposals for most of this week. It is a difficult time to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. Times are hard but there is a huge black hole in the country’s finances and last year, the previous government made a loss of £150 billion. Turning those losses around while also doing the best he possibly can to ease the burden on hard pressed families was the balancing act the George Osborne faced.

The decision to reduce fuel tax and to fund a significant cut in South West Water bills were the two big announcements as far as Cornwall is concerned and were a good example of the extra clout that Cornwall now has within the new coalition government.

I have always disagreed with rises in fuel duty because I think it is a regressive tax which hits rural areas and peninsulas like Cornwall hardest of all. Our businesses have to transport their goods hundreds of miles up the road and there is no escaping higher fuel costs as a result. Fuel Duty was first introduced in the 1950’s as a temporary tax to fund the Suez War but they never took it back off and, today, it represents around 80 percent of the cost of the fuel we put in our cars. The decision to reverse the trend and start cutting taxes was welcome and the commitment to develop a policy to give a fuel tax rebate to rural areas like Cornwall was a very positive step forward.

The second important development was the commitment to end the injustice of unacceptably high water bills in Cornwall. Many household bills in Cornwall are currently double the national average as a result of the cost of maintaining our coastline. Politicians have talked about the problem for years but I have always felt we needed to move on from talking about the problem and start talking about a solution. Earlier this year I managed to persuade the DEFRA Select Committee to support my proposal of a Fair Discount Scheme which would mean targeted support to those with the greatest affordability problem but with the size of the discount heavily loaded towards those areas like Cornwall with the highest bills in absolute terms.

Although the government is still working on the details of how such a scheme would work, the biggest hurdle has been cleared and the significance of George Osborne including a commitment in his budget should not be underestimated. In all my discussions with ministers in recent months, concerns from the Treasury at how such a plan would work in practice always seemed the main stumbling block but they seem to have been persuaded to overcome those obstacles and take action to deal with this long running unfairness.

Who killed Truro Cathedral School?

2011-03-28T12:52:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I was invited to speak at the annual dinner of the Old Truronians Association, for former pupils of Truro Cathedral School, which had existed since the 1600’s and survived many wars but closed in 1982. It was a well supported event and I met Mary Presley, my very first teacher at the school, who I had literally not seen for 30 years.

My first conversation was with someone who asked me when I had Ieft the school, “1982”, I said. “So it was your fault” he joked. Politicians get the blame for a lot of things that are not really their fault and you get used to it. But the really big question about what contributed to the final downfall of this excellent school in 1982 remains unanswered.

My three years at Truro Cathedral School are what I associate most with my boyhood. It was an old fashioned prep school education. My memories are of conkers and marbles, “Blakeys” in our shoes to strike sparks on the playground and, occasionally (if we could get away with it) the Cathedral. Then there were outdoor camps made of grass during summer and, most of all, rough and tumble games of British Bulldog, before the days of health and safety kill-joys.

The reason the school closed remains a mystery. Undoubtedly, it was struggling to attract pupils in the depths of the 80’s recession. The school seemed anachronistic to some. In an age when education was supposedly being “modernised”, what place was there for an old fashioned boys Prep school? Parents with money to spend were starting to value “facilities”, swimming pools and the like, over the quality of teachers and a school ethos. Simultaneously, there was a failure of leadership within the Church of England. Changes in personnel meant that there was no one arguing the case for the school and, suspicions remain to this day, that it suited the church to sell off the school property to raise the capital needed to repair the roof of the cathedral in Truro. All this took place against the backdrop of an era when the nation was throwing away far too many of its past values in the name of modernity and people can see that today.

The thing that surprised me was there were nearly 60 people at the annual dinner. That shows the resilience of those left behind who, like me, will have fond memories of this amazing, yet fallen, school until the end. The real task is to project some of those values into the schools of the future.

Libya

2011-03-24T07:44:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, the Prime Minister faced some criticism for taking a lead and calling on the world to the start planning the implementation of a no fly zone over Libya. I always thought that criticism was unfair. Even then, Gaddafi was talking about ‘fighting to the last bullet’ and was openly threatening to use military violence against his own people and civilian protesters. No Prime Minister of this country could sit on their hands and allow such a turn of events and I thought David Cameron was right to send a very strong signal that Britain would not tolerate it.

Foreign policy is always a difficult balancing act. It is unpredictable and there are usually unintended consequences. Every crisis if different and politicians often learn the wrong lessons from their most recent conflicts. In 1956, Britain was forced to withdraw from the Suez Canal after coming under pressure from the US government. That event led the British foreign policy establishment to become rather insecure for years to come. Even critics of David Cameron a few weeks ago seemed more worried that Britain had spoken before the Americans than with the substance of what he said.

During the 1990s, the rest of the world failed to take action to stop the genocide in Rwanda and was far too slow intervening in the Balkans to try to prevent ethnic cleansing. Britain learnt the right lessons from these two failures so took decisive action to send troops into the African state of Sierra Leone in 2000 to end the violence there and to reassert the authority of the elected government. The operation was a success.
However, that caused some to learn the wrong lessons and to think that intervention would always work. The difficult war in Iraq was arguably a bridge too far and was a painful reminder of the limitations of western intervention to remove bad regimes.

The free world does not have the appetite for another long war and the PM is right to rule out an occupying ground force in Libya. But we must always maintain perspective and take care not repeat the mistake we made of being too slow to help in the Balkans and Rwanda. Limited military operations, carried out from the air, with the clear objective of protecting civilians against a desperate dictator seems the right balance to strike in this instance. What’s more, it is being done with the backing of both the UN and the other Arab nations. The PM has shown good judgement.

A few years ago I visited our troops in Afghanistan with David Cameron. You couldn’t help but be enormously impressed by their professionalism and can-do attitude and now we are calling on their bravery again. It is important that we have a very clear objective in doing so.

Parish power

2011-03-18T22:15:00.000-07:00

I had some late meetings in London last night principally to meet a group of business people who were backing my new proposal to curtail sharp practices by the banks by rebalancing the law in favour of enterprise and requiring banks to get a possession order before being able to enforce their security. I was worried I might miss the sleeper train but got there just in time.

It’s a busy programme today. I kick off at Camborne Town Council offices where the Mayor, John Beare and the Clerk, Amanda McClure talk me through some of the issues affecting Camborne at the moment and, in particular, the problem with some stupid laws introduced under the last government which create a new level of bureaucracy around basic things like temporary road closures for civic parades and events like Trevithick Day. Such laws are the sort of rubbish that people expect us to scrap and so I was keen to find out more.

I am running late, but set off for Lanner Parish Council who are in the process of putting together their own Parish Plan which is at an advanced stage. In Cornwall, now that we have a unitary authority, it is essential that we strengthen parish and town councils. Localism means stripping power away from national government and giving it to local authorities but it also means stripping power away from Cornwall Council and giving it to parish councils and community groups.

I have a few spare minutes to do an interview with Tamsin Melville from Radio Cornwall in the foyer of Lanner Village Hall. She is doing a news piece on the AV referendum. I am a very firm opponent of this crazy system which would mean some people get more votes than others and so I explained why we should stick with the principle of one person one vote.

Next up is Carharrack Parish Council at Mills Hall. They hold fortnightly lunches for older people in the village and the surrounding areas and so the volunteers are hard at work cooking today’s lunch. Carharrack has had to put up with the United Downs landfill longer than anyone expected but one side effect is that there is a very vibrant community spirit and lots of active people who care about the village and are willing to campaign for it.

I am now back on time, so much so that I manage to grab a sausage roll from the Portreath Bakery at Lanner on the way back to Pool School. Barnardos have teamed up with the Eden Project to launch a great initiative called the Aspiration Bus which is at the school today. It is a sort of careers advice service but with the emphasis on getting young people to realise that if they are tenacious and determined and have a passion, they can achieve things that they might not yet think possible.

Today is also red nose day and the staff at Pool School, led by Mrs Hill, are also laying on a cabaret performance for the children. It’s also a non uniform day so everyone is letting their hair down a bit. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to go along and watch but just about managed to resist attempts by my old friend Dave Buzza and a teacher at the school to co-opt me on the Village People act they were doing!

Next it’s down the road to Duchy College to speak to their agriculture students about CAP reform, TB, supermarkets, the state of the dairy industry and animal welfare standards. I have known Phil Pengelly, the lecturer who organised the event, for 25 years since the days when we were in Young Farmers together. Also there were some of the agricultural engineers.

I have managed to make up quite a bit of time and so am able to clear some phone calls before heading down to Hayle to discuss the contentious issue of the Hayle Harbour regeneration plans and the ambition of making a reality of the Pioneerium community cinema project championed by Bob Amos and others.

Next, it’s back up to Redruth to the Penventon Hotel. Earlier today I did an interview with Radio Cornwall about AV. I am helping the campaign nationally because we need to defend our democracy and defend the principle of one person one vote. But to succeed we need to get everyone who cares to play their part and get the message out there. So this evening, along with Sarah Newton, I am addressing Cornish members and supporters to explain the importance of this debate and get the local campaign going.

I am starting to flag now and also running a few minutes behind schedule...but that was probably no surprise to the Praze Young Farmers Club holding their weekly meeting at Leedstown Village Hall because, when I was a member, timing was never my strong point. We had a very good discussion lasting well over an hour about a whole range of issues from parliament, the work of an MP to the DEFRA Select Committee, CAP reform, fuel prices and many more issues. I am a huge fan of the Young Farmers movement. It is where I learnt to do public speaking.

It was gone 9.30 when I went back to the restaurant at Trevaskis. Although they had basically finished and were trying to clean everything up, as always, they were very good and agreed to do just one last meal!

Tomorrow’s diary looks interesting. As well as having a dozen surgery appointments, we are also holding our first campaign day against AV in Camborne and the Hayle branch have a coffee morning.

Students debate No2AV at Tremough

2011-03-17T03:03:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I attended a meeting organised by students at Tremough to discuss the proposal for a new voting system called AV. As I entered the lecture theatre there was a very animated argument going on between students with different views before we had even begun.
It was encouraging to see some passion in the debate and I wish the rest of the country would focus on it more. In just fifty days time, we will all be asked to go to the polls to vote on whether we want to scrap our current one person, one vote system, where you put a cross in the box and bring in a new multiple voting system where you write numbers beside all the candidates. It would be a major decision for our country but the debate has been slow to take off.

I think one of the reasons for that is that it is the referendum that no one really wants. The Conservatives want to keep one person, one vote, Labour voted against the Bill and most Labour MPs will campaign for a ‘no’ vote. The Lib Dems will be running the Yes campaign for AV but they don’t really want it either and would prefer to have a proportional system. Last weekend Lord Owen, the founder of the Liberal Alliance, said that he would be voting ‘no’ because AV would be the worst of all worlds – it would do nothing for smaller parties, would be less proportional than our current system and would prevent real reform to a system like PR.

As for voters themselves, most people are dismayed that we are considering spending hundreds of millions of pounds on changing our voting system at a time like this with everything else going on in the world.

One of the main arguments against AV is that it takes power away from the voters and gives it to politicians. Rather than voters deciding who the government should be and what its priorities are, under AV politicians tend to decide who the government is behind closed doors. That means more political stitch-ups and more broken promises.

I for one will be campaigning for a ‘no’ vote. The idea that every man and woman in our country has an equal vote has been the hallmark of our democracy since the days of the suffragettes. We should stick with it. Under AV, some people get more votes than others. Someone who votes for the BNP is given a second bite of the cherry. That’s not fair. Our current system is used by over 70 countries but AV is used by just three and of those, Fiji is trying to get rid of it and most Australians want to return to the British system. But I am sure the debate will run and run over the next six weeks.

Creating new businesses

2011-03-10T03:56:00.001-08:00

Last weekend, David Cameron set out his ideas to promote growth and enterprise in the economy. It’s important because I feel strongly that we need to lend a hand to those who find themselves out of work as a result of the action required to tackle the huge black hole in the public finances.

I don’t agree with those people who take the over-simplified view that the private sector is efficient and the public sector is not. It is not as simple as that. You only have to look at the incompetence and profligacy in the banking industry to see that the private sector doesn’t always get it right. Equally, you will often find among those who work in the public sector a strong sense of vocation and commitment. This makes them very employable and, despite the current uncertainty, many will find that, as one door closes, another opens.

A few weeks ago I met one of the recruitment agencies helping support former public sector employees back in to work. They told me there are a lot of opportunities for people coming from the public sector. In many cases, their most important task was to help people realise that and get their confidence back. When the news is dominated by talk of cuts and job losses, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that new businesses are starting up all the time – 30,000 in January alone and with these come new jobs.

Many people who have worked in the public sector have what it takes to become successful entrepreneurs. They often have good organisational skills, understand how to plan and deliver projects and are used to dealing with the public. The lesson from past recessions is that getting such people to ‘have a go’ and set up on their own in their thousands is one of the key ways to improving prosperity and creating the jobs of the future.

The government has created a new Enterprise Allowance to give unemployed people grants to help them set up their own business. They are also looking at measures to slash red tape and ease the burdens which hold back smaller businesses already up and running.
But it’s not all down to government. Successful economies are shaped by individuals with bright ideas which make money. The solution lies in creating an enterprise culture and that very often emerges from difficult times.

Last year I visited Real Base Training in Redruth which takes young people at risk of exclusion from school and inspires them with the idea that they could be their own boss. Last week I received a letter from a project called “Tenner Tycoon” which aims to promote enterprise in all schools by giving young people £10 to develop their business idea. These are small steps but the sort of thing we should encourage.

NHS

2011-03-03T06:46:00.000-08:00

Last week I visited the Camborne Redruth Hospital at Barncoose to visit staff and patients and discuss some of the changes that are currently being put forward to the way the NHS operates. There was a good atmosphere on the wards and some recent refurbishment means there was more space for each bed. They even had a small kitchen which was available for use by the patients on the stroke ward so that they could start to get used to independent living again.

The core value of our NHS is that it is free at the point of need and that will never change. The NHS is the one area of government spending that will see real term increases in its budget. I think that’s right. As medical science advances and new drugs come on the market, there will always be growing pressure on resources. However, while spending on the NHS will continue to grow, so too will the demands on it. So we need to make sure that money goes further and that we spend more on the front line and less on the back office.

The NHS is a very large organisation and trying to micro-manage it from Whitehall has never been successful. The culture of targets and tick box routines which became the predominant feature under the last government undermined morale among medical professionals who often found that they were prevented from doing what they knew was best because some central diktat got in the way. I don’t doubt that the last government had good intentions by setting targets but they had too many unintended consequences, with stories of people being held outside A&E departments so that, on paper, they could hit their targets for the time taken to get treated. Targets also took power away from doctors and nurses and led to a huge rise in the number of managers. In recent years, the number of NHS managers grew five times faster than the number of nurses. We all know that can’t be right.

The changes that the government is proposing will cut the number of managers and release a further £20 billion to the front line of the NHS. They will also put doctors and medical professionals back in charge so that they can commission the services they know their patients need. Finally, it will make it easier for third party health providers to lend a helping hand to the NHS and provide some extra capacity to speed up operations and clear waiting lists faster.

Our NHS is made by the people who work in it and they are motivated first and foremost by a desire to do their best for the patients in their care. It is this human value which we should harness and that is why I think it is right to give those health professionals more control.

A day in the life...

2011-02-25T14:05:00.000-08:00

Someone told me other day that since I had taken to describing this site as an online diary rather than a blog, I should sometimes give a run down of my engagements as you would expect from a diary. So here goes...

I had to drive down from London late last night. It took two cans of Red Bull to keep me alert which had the unintended consequence of meaning I had even less sleep than I anticipated.

We started today at Carn Brea Leisure Centre where I had a tour and meeting to discuss this success story. I have many fond childhood memories at Carn Brea and was a regular user of the athletics track. Ten years ago this vital community asset temporarily closed but the local people were having none of it and formed a Social Enterprise to take over the building. Today it is the model that others want to follow and has been awarded the Social Enterprise Mark.

Next, we moved on to a round table meeting with a group of farmers and NFU members from West Cornwall. Our 90 minute discussion covered a wide range of issues from TB to the supermarket ombudsman, nitrogen vulnerable zones, the agricultural wages board, solar power and red diesel.

Next we head over to Redruth to meet the Citizens Advice Bureau. I have a lot of time for the great work they do in the area and today our session focussed on the problems of debt and, in particular, how to tackle the problems caused by door step lenders who cause so much misery.

Back to Camborne for 2pm for a meeting with Alan Milliner from White Gold, a very successful project which helps to tackle youth re-offending. It is one project that delivers results and has been recognised for its good work but they need some help making sure they can access new government schemes to support former offenders back into work. It is an area that has been prioritised by the coalition.

It's then back to Redruth for a visit and meeting with staff at Camborne and Redruth Hospital. There are quite a few structural changes taking place in the NHS at the moment which will transfer more power downwards to patients and the doctors who treat them. Some of the ideas are controversial so I wanted to see the largest community hospital in Cornwall and get a sense of how things will affect them. Clive, Debbie and Wayne give me a tour of the hospital. There is a good atmosphere on the wards and enthusiasm from staff which is always encouraging. There has been some recent refurbishment on one of the wards which has made a real difference.

Next its back to Camborne for a meeting with Joff Bullen, arguably Cornwall's leading authority on Cornish mining heritage. I was keen to explore with him how we can improve the performance of groups like English Heritage, Icomos and UNESCO so that we deliver some value to our economy from World Heritage Site Status. He gives me some good ideas for a conference I am planning on the subject.

We have 20 minutes to grab a bite to eat before heading down to Gweek at 6.45 for the latest in the series of "meet your MP" events which we are running throughout local villages. Issues in Gweek range from street lighting to the free schools policy, Gweek Boatyard, bus services, speed limits and planning appeals. With quite a few national issues chucked in too!

I have been running surgeries every Saturday morning since being elected. They are a great way of keeping in touch with local concerns and spotting emerging trends and problems. Demand for them is growing and so tomorrow we have a dozen appointments lasting seven hours. So I had better try to get more sleep tonight!

The funding for technology in wave power

2011-02-24T04:08:00.000-08:00

Last week I managed to secure a debate on parliament on the future of the wave power industry. In Cornwall, we have a resource of wave power that is second to none. The Atlantic swell is powerful but the conditions are not too extreme. Wave Hub in Hayle is the first test facility of its type anywhere in the world. It will allow us to develop arrays of commercial scale wave power devices at deep water locations and gives us the opportunity to be world beaters.

It has been estimated that wave power could eventually meet between 15 and 20% of Britain’s power needs and produce enough electricity to power 11 million homes. With all of this comes economic potential. The industry could be worth £2 billion by 2050 creating more than 16,000 jobs. Some analysts have gone as far as to suggest that wave and tidal power industries together might employ 10,000 people by as early as 2020. This would be good news for Hayle but we have a lot of hurdles to clear first and the industry is probably still another 5-10 years away from being perfected.

The Camborne and Redruth constituency is also home to PRIMaRE which is an academic centre in marine energy based at the university at Tremough and there are some very good courses in renewable energy being run at Cornwall College. I visited Tremough last summer. They were doing research into the moorings needed to anchor these devices 10-12 miles out at sea. Our coastline is famously choppy and, at times, can be severe enough to wreck boats so developing the right moorings is an important task.

In the short term, we need to focus on getting devices in the water at Hayle. Currently one operator, Ocean Power Technologies, has signed an agreement to take one of the four plugs available on Wave Hub. We need to get three other technology developers in place as soon as possible to maintain momentum.
The point I was making in the debate was that support was needed for technology innovation to get the industry to the next level. The last government launched what it called the Marine Renewable Deployment Fund but there were so many conditions attached that no one ever managed to access it successfully. I am generally sceptical about giving out government subsidies. However, where they do have a role is when you have projects with huge potential but high short term risks. Government investment in research and development in such situations can kick start new industries and draw in many times more private investment.

The new government recognises that and is introducing Technology Innovation Centres to drive the development of new industries. We might just have one of the first of these new research and development hubs here in the south west to develop wave power.

From now on, I will refer to everyone as "Tremough"

2011-02-22T06:32:00.000-08:00

In the summer of 2009, I organised a national conference on marine energy which we held at the Tremough campus. The building in which we were holding it had a plaque on the wall which said, "Camborne School of Mines" and so that was what we put on the invites. It soon became clear that we had committed some faux pas and this had offended people at Tremough because apparently the wave power work was being done partly by Exeter University. On several times since I have inadvertently managed to forget to mention some partner or other in the labyrinth that is the Combined Universities for Cornwall.

Last week in my speech to parliament, I decided to hedge my bets and mention both Camborne School of Mines and Exeter University. It turns out that I should have mentioned Plymouth University who also have a leading role in the venture.

The CuC project has been a great success and it is great to have it all in the Camborne and Redruth constituency. But I think from now on I will do my bit for clarity by describing all of them simply as, "the university at Tremough." Hopefully that will not cause offence!

Village Hall meetings

2011-02-22T05:23:00.000-08:00

With parliament now in recess it has been a good opportunity to press ahead with the latest series of village hall meetings I have organised where we have a public question and answer session open to all.

We did one in Mawnan Smith before Christmas and another in Stithians a couple of weeks ago. This Friday I am in Gweek and last Friday I was in Constantine.

The big issue in Constantine at the moment is the proposal for a large solar power farm at Brill on the outskirts of the village. The last government set up a policy to encourage solar panels on roofs and so called "micro-generation". Those installing solar panels are guaranteed a "feed in tariff"- a guaranteed payment per KWh of electrcity put in to the national grid which is above the prevailing market rate. The cost is ultimately absorbed by electricity consumers through slightly higher electrcity bills.

The new government fully supports the idea of encouraging micro-generation. Recently Camborne Church told me that they were investigating the possibility of putting solar panels on their roof which would generate an income to support some of their good work in the community. However, there has been something of a stampede from commercial developers who want to set up field scale solar farms and pick up the subsidy and that is not what was intended by the current policy. Because the current Feed in Tariff is guaranteed for 25 years, the new government has decided to review the rates paid and publish new levels in June which will probably involve paying a lower feed in tariff for field scale projects but leave the incentives for projects like that being considered by Camborne Church the same. It makes sense and will mean that everyone knows where they stand by this June rather than next March as the previous government had intended.

The idea of field scale solar farms is new to this country and is causing planners a headache too. I think that it is crucial in such situations to deliver a real benefit to the community if such schemes are to be considered. In some parts of the country, progress has been made with community ownership schemes where local communities who are asked to accept, say, a wind farm or solar farm on their doorstep are given free shares in the company or maybe guaranteed free electricity for the life of the project. We have to stop our planning system being a zero sum game where if the developer wins, the community loses. Such benefits need to be hard financial benefits with immediate impact. At the moment, the guidance from Cornwall planners is that developers should consider offering other "green" commitments like eco buses and the like. I doubt that will cut the mustard. Free electricity might.

Voting rights for prisoners

2011-02-17T05:48:00.000-08:00

Should prisoners be allowed to vote? Some judge or other at the European Court of Human Rights thinks they should and the result has been a serious clash between our elected parliament and the Strasbourg court.

Last week parliament debated the issue and, along with most Conservatives, I voted to reject the ECHR judgement and reinforce the current position that prisoners should not be entitled to vote. I can't believe that having the ability to vote is very high up the agenda for most prisoners but I think there is an important principle that if someone loses their liberty as a result of committing a crime, then that should include losing their right to vote.

But the debacle has raised a much bigger issue that needs to be addressed and that is the unacceptable intrusion in the governance of our nation by international bureaucracies in recent years. From the European Union to the ECHR, organisations that might mean well have accumulated far too much power and need to have their wings clipped.

The European Convention on Human Rights was established after the last war with the aim of getting internationally agreed principles on human rights legislation that would prevent the emergence of another Hitler like figure in any European country. It is a list of perfectly laudable but broad aims which most people would support.

However, over the years, clever barristers have made ever more creative arguments in front of judges citing "human rights" and so what was once a good idea has become abused by the lawyers and has been turned in to a by-word for injustice. That can’t go on and we need to take action to sort out the ECHR.

We have a long tradition in this country of the separation of powers between the government and the courts. An elected parliament makes the laws and the courts job is to implement those laws independently. However, when judges stray from their role and start setting public policy through their judgements in a way which neither the elected parliament nor the public intended, you need to take swift action to give the judges clearer guidance.

The problem with the ECHR is that the laudable aims are very vague. Worse still, Tony Blair made the mistake of introducing the Human Rights Act which hard wired the legislation into our own legal system and it has been causing havoc ever since.

The only solution is to abolish the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights which explains to the courts what the European Convention means within our own shores. We should also put the ECHR itself on probation to give it time to raise its game but on the understanding that it, too, might need sorting out. That was the real issue at stake in last week’s debate.

Camborne Redruth Motor Club

2011-02-12T12:50:00.000-08:00

Last night I attended the annual awards ceremony of the Camborne Redruth Motor Club at Redruth Rugby Club.

As a boy I would occasionally spend time at Martin Richard's farm at Hayle where we would ride on his mini motor bike. We all had hours of fun. Martin Richards went on to achieve a great deal in competitive trial biking competitions.

The club also helps support a charity which aims to engage teenage boys in motorbike competitions and inspire them to become engineers by teaching them mechanics and maintenance skills on the bikes.

It is a good project and the club is currently on a recruitment drive to expand the number of youth members it has. One of the most interesting things I saw was a video of an electric trials bike which costs a bit less and also makes less noise! I am sure there are hundreds of boys in Camborne, Redruth and Hayle who would love the chance to ride a motorbike and clubs like this might just make it possible.

Youth Parliament

2011-02-10T08:53:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday I attended the final of the Youth Parliament elections for Cornwall. It is a great initiative which gives young people a taste of democracy and politics but, most important of all, can help develop their confidence through public speaking.

For me it brought back memories of the first time I spoke in public. I had just turned 16 and had been bounced into representing Praze Young Farmers in a speaking competition at Lostwithiel. I can remember wondering what I had let myself in for but I had some excellent coaching from Beatrice Dyer of Camborne School and never looked back.

For many people, politics is a dirty word. At the last election, the thing I found depressing was meeting people who said they couldn’t be bothered to vote. Complacency, apathy and antipathy all weaken our democracy and we should resist them. The truth is that our democratic political system is far better than the alternatives. I remember ten years ago going to Eastern Europe and seeing the enthusiasm and vibrancy of those new democracies with high turnouts and new parties starting from scratch. They had experienced the alternative so valued their newly established democratic politics.

By its nature, politics is about the art of the possible seeking to balance conflicting and competing interests. The government sets an agenda it thinks is right but it has to carry the support of its MPs. MPs will do what they think is right but are very mindful of the views of their constituents and frequently apply private pressure on their government. It is not easy to change things overnight but that is for a good reason: any new policy introduced will have unintended consequences which need to be considered in advance. But where change is required, it can always be delivered and when voters get tired of any government, they know how to fire them. The ability to fire a government that has run its course is one of the main reasons we should keep our current voting system and say ‘no’ to AV in May’s referendum.

There are things we could do to strengthen our democracy. I think there should be more free votes in parliament where party whips step back and encourage MPs make up their own mind more often. The reason the current party system developed is that, in its absence, no one could agree or get anything done. But a loosening of party dividing lines in some circumstances would be beneficial, especially when it comes to scrutinising laws.

Everyone has a role in making a democracy successful from those who join parties to those who write to their MP. So congratulations to all those who participated in this year’s Youth Parliament competition including Jamie Long who represented Camborne and especially Amy Greygoose and Kyle McGill who were elected to represent West Cornwall.

the annual dinner

2011-02-03T09:52:00.000-08:00

I would normally catch the sleeper train down overnight on Thursday ready for a day of meetings and engagements at home on Friday and the weekend. But this evening we have our annual Conservative dinner at the Penventon Hotel in Redruth so I have left parliament early to get there in time.

Baroness Warsi, the Party Chairman, is our guest speaker tonight. I have known Sayeeda for about six years since the days when Michael Howard made her a Deputy Chairman of the Party. I also remember going with her to a fantastic project in Dewsbury which she had set up to help children from minority ethnic backgrounds where English was not the first language in the home. Volunteers would go to the homes of such families and read to the children in English to help them develop their understanding of the English language and ensure they were well placed to benefit from lessons at school.

Sayeeda was one of the early pioneers of social action in politics which David Cameron was so impressed by that he made it a central plank of his agenda. The train gets us in just in time (hopefully) for the start and it will be good to have the chance to catch up with those friends and supporters who worked so hard in last year's election.

I have also managed to persuade the Prime Minister to sign a bottle of whisky for the auction which will hopefully raise a bit of money for the cause!

Mining returns to Cornwall

2011-02-03T08:17:00.000-08:00

Redruth has long been recognised as the international home of the tin and copper mining industries. During the 19th Century, the town became a booming centre of commerce on the back of this world beating industry.

I recently visited South Crofty to meet some modern day miners who want to re-open the mine and have already invested a considerable sum of money prospecting. Because we associate tin mining with our industrial past, it is common for people to dismiss the idea that Cornish mining might once again be a successful, profitable industry. Throughout the 20th century, there were periods where tin prices peaked and the industry was temporarily profitable again, only to be followed by the inevitable bust.

Can they buck that trend now? The first thing to say is that these plans are for a modern, state of the art mine that would be unlike anything that has gone before. It would be the most modern mine in the UK today. The technology for separating out various metals has developed in leaps and bounds in recent years. So this time round, they would not just be mining for tin, but also Zinc, Copper and other trace elements simultaneously.

The most important and sought after of these trace elements is Indium. I hadn’t heard of it before, but it is there on the Periodic Table. It turns out that Indium is a crucial ingredient in the production of modern touch screen technology. The rapid emergence of an entire new industry in I-pads and I-phones has driven demands for Indium through the roof and there has been a ten-fold increase in the price in the last decade. At the moment, most of the world’s supply of Indium is controlled by China. That would change if South Crofty re-opened.

Tin has also experienced a revival and its price has been driven higher by new high-tech industries. Most of the tin produced today is used to produce solder for the electronics industry. A few years ago, new legislation came out which banned the use of lead in soldering metal and so most solder today uses tin and tin alone. So every mobile phone, computer, X-Box or other electronic gadget needs tin to make them tick. When you weigh all this up, it stops looking like an old industry.

This is an exciting time for Camborne and Redruth. I have always made clear that delivering economic regeneration is my number one priority. Last autumn, work began on the new Heartlands project at Pool which is really taking shape. But within the next few years, if we get things right, we could have a new mine employing 400 people, a new link road joining Camborne and Redruth, new housing in Tuckingmill and a whole range of new industries offering skilled, highly paid jobs for local people.

Back in the blogging saddle

2011-01-30T05:45:00.000-08:00

Over Christmas, the blog column of the Cornishman criticised my blog as having less spontaneity than it once did and that most of what appeared was simply my weekly Cornishman column.

It's a fair cop. To be honest, this blog has had less attention over the last six months because there have been far bigger competing priorities like getting getting stuck in on hundreds of problems on behalf of local people and dealing with wave after wave of correspondence.

The time that I have had for writing has tended to all go on my weekly article for the West Briton and Cornishman which, let's face facts, has a few more readers than this blog. But we are starting to get on top of the workload and so I am going to try to make more regular blog postings too. Since I am currently stuck on a small train to Plymouth and my lap top battery has died, I am unable to draft any further surgery letters until I get back on a train at Totnes, so have a chance to make a start now from my BlackBerry.

I decided to have a blog rather than Twitter account because it gives you the space to develop an argument. I subscribe to the David Cameron school of thought when it comes to Twitter. I am also not a big fan of Facebook and use it very rarely, despite having an account of sorts. I think that people share far too much about themselves on Facebook and it undermines the genuine art of communication.

So for me, a Blog is a happy compromise and is my nod to the internet age. But we are about to arrive in Plymouth so that's it for this post!

Good parenting is the way to tackle poverty

2011-01-28T05:51:00.000-08:00

I have always had a lot of time for the Labour MP Frank Field. We worked together on the campaign against the euro ten years ago and he has always been independent minded. That is why I was delighted when David Cameron put aside party differences and asked Frank to lead a report on ending child poverty and helping children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds to achieve their full potential.

Last week I attended a debate in parliament which aimed to explore this area in more detail. Tony Blair set a target to halve child poverty by 2010. There was a focus on redistributing wealth through the tax system which helped to get some of those people just below the poverty line to being just above the poverty line. However, the approach failed to tackle the root causes of poverty and disadvantage, the target was missed and those at the very bottom are still there.

If we are serious about breaking the cycle of disadvantage and serious about giving children from poorer backgrounds the best possible start in life then we need to tackle the causes of disadvantage, not just treat the symptoms. It also means taking a longer term approach.

Good parenting is the essential ingredient. Getting things right in the first five years is crucial. By the age of three, a toddler’s brain is already 80 percent formed and his or her experiences in those first few years will have influenced how their brain has grown and developed. The things that make a difference are a healthy pregnancy, a secure bonding between mother and child with plenty of love at home, clear boundaries and real attention to developing a child’s communication abilities through reading books and speaking to them.

Where this doesn’t happen, things go wrong. That is why the sorts of solutions put forward by Frank Field included refocusing government efforts on early years support. A lot of people say that they do not have enough help to prepare them for parenthood and the huge responsibility that carries. They would welcome more advice and help to become good parents, to establish a learning home environment for their baby and to have some support for childcare.

Councils have a role too by making full use of the voluntary groups and social enterprises out there in delivering their services. Last autumn, I visited Action for Children at Trevu Road in Camborne to discuss some of the fantastic work they do in this area, helping to support and advise families on how to become good parents.

A stitch in time saves nine and it is work like this that will really make a difference. While it won’t deliver overnight results, it is the right way to help those on the lowest rung of the ladder and we should make it happen.

The Benefits of Regeneration

2011-01-18T09:36:00.001-08:00

How do we make sure that proposals for regeneration actually help the local communities which are asked to support such plans? One of the problems in the last ten years is that development has been seen as something done to communities rather than with them.

This week, the government outlined a raft of policies to take power away from developers and central government and put control back in the hands of local people, where it belongs. This is a major step forward but there is something else we need to achieve. Wherever possible, construction projects should employ local staff and local contractors. We need communities to see and feel the economic benefits of regeneration.

Last Friday I visited Working Links, a job placement service based in Redruth. That morning, they had held a meeting to recruit fifty local people to begin work on the reconstruction of North Quay at Hayle harbour. ING have a target that 90 percent of the people working on the North Quay project should be local and live within a 30 mile radius. The work is being spearheaded by the construction company, Carillion. Despite being one of Britain’s biggest companies and having a global reach, Carillion have risen to the challenge and have made it their priority to recruit local builders. All credit to them for taking such a lead. We need others to follow. One critic of development in Camborne recently told me that Midas Homes rarely employed local people but instead sent in gangs from upcountry. That’s no good. Developers like Midas could learn a lesson or two from Carillion.

Which brings me to Hayle. This week there have been public meetings to weigh up the various options for a supermarket in the town. Big planning issues are always contentious. The easy thing for a politician to do is keep their head down. But the right thing to do is to exercise judgement and say what is in the best interests of the town.

That’s why I came out very clearly in favour of the ING proposal on South Quay at the end of last year. If we are going to have a supermarket in Hayle, then let’s at least locate it where it will bring new life in to the town rather than drain life away from the town. Let’s demand something in return from all these supermarkets and use their interest as an opportunity to repair the harbour and regenerate South Quay. Let’s demand something for the community and make plans for a new cinema in Hayle a reality. Let’s celebrate our heritage and bring the famous Goonvean Engine back to the town where it was made.

Some are suspicious of ING simply because it’s a Dutch bank. But if their recruitment policy for staff on North Quay is anything to go by, we should give them a chance.

Aiming to get lower water charges in the South West

2011-01-18T09:35:00.001-08:00

One of the first things I did when elected in May was stand for election on parliament’s Select Committee on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Having spent the first ten years of my working life in the farming industry, I thought it was an area where I had something to offer.
DEFRA is also responsible for policy on water and just before Christmas, we published our first report which identified some of the current challenges in the water industry. The current high level of water charges is a contentious issue in Cornwall. Despite having some of the lowest average incomes in the country, our water bills are the highest. While people on meters generally enjoy lower bills, the average unmetered water bill in Cornwall is almost double the national average and this reflects the fact that just three percent of the population have to pay for the cost of maintaining 30 percent of our national coastline.

For many years people have talked about the problem, but the key with all things is to try to find a solution. There are two ways of addressing the problem. The proposal that works best for Cornwall is to add a small levy on the water bills of people in other parts of the country to deliver a significant reduction in all South West Water bills. The only problem with this is that it is not easy persuading MPs in other parts of the country that they should support such a move. There is also the counter argument put forward that it would be wrong for someone on a very low income in the north to subsidise the water bills of a wealthy second home owner who has retired in Cornwall.

The second option would be what is described as a “national social tariff” where you would have a national scheme targeted only at those on the lowest incomes. This would not help everyone in Cornwall but it would be better than nothing.

The idea that I have put forward is to have a mixture of the two. First it would address the affordability issue by only being targeted at those people who spend more than three percent of their household income in water. That would help around 70 percent of people in Cornwall, but only a small percentage elsewhere in the country. But secondly, you would address the issue of fairness by introducing a taper on the amount of discount offered which would be relative to the extent to which water bills in a given area varied against the national average. A place like Cornwall where bills are almost double the national average would get the full discount. Those areas where bills are perhaps just 10 percent above the average would get much less and those areas where water bills are below the average would not qualify at all.

It might just get wider support but there is more work to do.

Welfare Reform

2011-01-18T09:34:00.001-08:00

For as long as I can remember, people have talked about the need to shake up the welfare system but governments have always ducked the difficult decisions. The culture of welfare dependency that has developed in recent decades is not only unfair on those who have to pay for it through their taxes, it is also a chronic waste of human potential to see so many of our fellow citizens trapped in poverty because they become dependent on benefits. How do we sort it out?

First, we need to make work pay. All too often people find themselves trapped in the situation where, if they work more than 16 hours a week, their benefits are withdrawn and they are worse off. This is crazy and we need to introduce a much simpler single benefit payment which is tapered so that it always pays to do more and work longer hours.

Second, if people come off benefits to take a job which doesn't work out, we need to make it easier for them to switch back to the support they had, otherwise they will be reluctant to try jobs in the first place.

Third, we need to be tougher about withdrawing benefits from people who could work but won't work. We also need to recognise that doing voluntary work is often a good first step towards employment because it helps people get used to getting out the bed and turning up for work on time and their confidence can grow as they become part of a team which depends on them.

Finally, we need much more support to help people get back to work. I meet many people who would like to do some work but they don't always get the support they need. This year the government is introducing the new Work Programme. It will be a radical new approach that goes beyond Job Centres and engages a whole range of private businesses, charities and social enterprises large and small to give people the help they need.

As well as the diversity of different projects on offer, the other big difference from what has gone before is that there will be payment by results. These private groups will only be paid if the people they are helping actually get a job and stay in work and they will be paid more for delivering in the most difficult cases.

In the past, agencies have all too often filled out some tick box questionnaire in an interview to pretend they have helped and then collected their fee. We need to put a stop to this by making sure they are only paid once they deliver. Payment by results is the best guarantee that good projects will grow and succeed and that the form fillers will be left behind. It will be an interesting year.

The Right Choice for Students

2011-01-18T09:33:00.000-08:00

Making ends meet when the country inherited record debts and an annual black hole the size of the entire NHS budget was never going to be an easy task for the new Liberal Conservative government.

Last week saw the first tensions with student protests in London. The one predictable thing after any difficult protest is that armchair commentators ask questions about the police. I actually think they did an amazingly professional job given that the protest had been infiltrated by violent, far left extremists. As a country, we need to start expecting people to take responsibility for their own actions and, yes, that includes student protestors.

It was a difficult week for some Lib Dem colleagues but I do think that Nick Clegg demonstrated good leadership by doing what was right for the country even though he knew it would be unpopular.

I have some sympathy with future students on one level. They are being asked to pay back some of the cost of their university education when their parent’s generation were not. But, for years now, there has been a looming crisis around funding universities which needs to be addressed. The number of people wanting to go to university has shot up from about 13 percent a generation ago to almost 50 percent now. Having well funded academic institutions that are international centres of excellence is important to the competitiveness of our nation. The money needs to come from somewhere. You either have a sharp increase in taxes for everyone else or you ask those who actually benefit from a university education to pay back something towards it during their working life.

Some students say it is unfair to expect them to contribute to their own education at university. But why should someone who leaves school at 16, gets straight to work but might have to struggle on a low income have to subsidise a high flying doctor who might earn £300,000 per year? Is that fair? Under the current proposals, no graduate will be expected to pay a single penny back until they are earning over £21,000 a year. That’s a lot of money.

Everything in government is about choices. If you choose not to increase tuition fees you would have to take the money away from others and that wouldn't be fair. Alternatively you would have to cap the number of university places funded and perhaps return to the situation a generation ago where only a few people went to university and where millions of young people were told that university was not for them. I think that would be wrong too. We should aim to support young people in the choices they make in life and if large numbers of them want to go to university then we should put in place a system that makes that possible. That is what the government did last week.

Reforming the CAP

2010-12-08T13:50:00.000-08:00

Is a Jaffa Cake a cake or a biscuit? Is Dolmio a soup or a vegetable? I suspect that most of us don't really care but the European Parliament has hours of fun arguing over issues like this, usually because how such products are defined can affect VAT or taxes of some sort.

As long ago as the 70’s, James Callaghan bemoaned the fact that he was tired of going to Brussels to argue about the size of rear view tractor mirrors. Earlier this summer I was elected to the select committee on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and last week we went to Brussels for a briefing ahead of an Inquiry we are about to launch into CAP reform.

The Common Agricultural Policy takes up about 43 percent of the EU's total budget. For as long I can remember, the CAP has always been followed by the word “reform” when discussed which suggests that changing it is a slow process indeed. In the early days the CAP was seen as a success, ending the shortage of food in the aftermath of the war but then it came under fire for creating so called "butter mountains" and for a controversial market support mechanism which distorted world trade.

In the 1990s it was slowly reformed and market support systems were taken away and direct subsidy payments were paid to farmers instead. Finally, ten years ago the direct subsidy payments made to farmers were switched to a simpler "single farm payment" based on land area rather than what was being produced on the land to discourage intensive farming. More support also went into schemes to enhance the environment and wildlife.

But guess what? Now people are worried that we don’t have enough food again. The butter mountains are long gone. With a rising world population, food security has become a pressing issue and farmers, who have often been derided as subsidy junkies, are suddenly needed again. One of the most fascinating statistics I came across last week was that 35 percent of farmers are over 65 years of age and only 7 percent are under 40. What happens in twenty years time? I think we need to do more to support and encourage young farmers in Britain today.

I have long held that the expansion of the European Union from the original 12 member states to 27 means that we need to significantly streamline the role of the EU. It is currently a failing institution and has become so big that the countries can rarely agree and struggle to get anything done. There are two possible solutions to this problem. The solution favoured by the European Commission is to undermine the power of member states even more and centralise power. But a better solution is to cut back the role of the EU so that it does much less but does what it does much more efficiently. We will find out in the year ahead how strong the mood for change is.

Let's regenerate Hayle

2010-12-02T13:49:00.000-08:00

Really big decisions are always difficult, usually contentious and often divisive. The easy thing for a politician to do is keep their head down and try not to get involved. But the right thing to do is to study the detail, exercise judgement and do what’s in the best interests of the people you represent.

I grew up near Hayle and my family have lived in the area for over four hundred years. We have seen the town built from scratch and parts of it fall back down again. All my lifetime they have talked about regenerating Hayle Harbour but, over the years, too many people have bottled the big decisions and so nothing has happened. I want that to change.

If it was easy to regenerate Hayle then it would have been done years ago. It isn’t easy so we need to be prepared to compromise to get a result. We should also respect differing views. Earlier this summer the Mayor of Hayle, John Bennett, was criticised for expressing a personal opinion at odds with the Town Council. I didn’t agree with that criticism. People should be free to say what they think. I respect John Bennett and weighed up his arguments carefully before reaching my own conclusion.

There are four rival plans for a supermarket in Hayle. Three are out of town and one, the ING proposal, would be in the centre at the Foundry end of South Quay with restaurants and other mixed development on the rest of the quay. I think that out of town supermarkets have done a lot of damage over the last twenty years. So if we are going to have a supermarket in Hayle, then let’s at least put it where it will bring new life in to the town rather than bleed more life away from the town. The South Quay proposal would be connected in the most literal sense possible with a footbridge over the harbour to Biggleston’s, one of Hayle’s oldest shops.

If all these supermarkets want to locate in Hayle, I also feel strongly that we should demand something in return. That is why I pushed to get serious negotiators on the other side of the table from ING early this summer. It is also why I have insisted that a community cinema should be part of the plan because Councillor Bob Amos’ Pioneerium project is the brightest idea to come out of Hayle for years.

The ING option on South Quay gives Hayle at least £6 million more than any rival plan because it repairs the harbour walls and delivers the necessary flood defences before anything can happen at all. I have nothing against Morrison’s, Sainsbury’s or ASDA. Each has something different to offer and any one of them could locate on South Quay. They should start thinking about this now. Hayle was built by people with the courage to take big decisions. Now it’s our turn, so let’s seize the day.

Clamp down on the wheel clampers

2010-11-25T04:46:00.000-08:00

Last year I became one of the thousands of victims of private car clamping firms. I had actually just stopped at this particular car park in Camborne to pick up some volunteers who were going to help me deliver leaflets. I had a permit to use the car park but on that day was borrowing my mother's car. I came out to find that it had been clamped. They said that if I came out with a temporary permit then they would remove the clamp so I went back to the owner of the car park to get a temporary permit. But then they said it was too late. I explained that the owner of the car park was happy for me to use it and had given me a permit but the wheel clamper said it was nothing to do with the owner of the car park. That's an interesting concept.

I resolved on that day that if I were to make it to parliament then cowboy clampers like these should be shut down. It turns out that a lot of other MPs feel the same way and so the new government is going to abolish wheel clamping on private land. Wheel clamping and "towing away" was first used in very rare cases in inner cities where an illegally parked car could cause huge traffic disruption. The development and growth of this industry into the sphere of private car parks has been a disgrace and amounts to little more than legalised extortion.

A couple of weeks ago I came across the case of a constituent who had parked his bike in a visitor’s bay while he met his grandmother. You can't display permits on motorbikes because they blow away but the permit was produced when the clamping van arrived. Too late he was told and given an extortionate fine. We all have enough frustrations in life without this sort of nonsense so I am delighted that the government is putting a stop to it.

We also need to look at the conduct of companies which issue parking tickets on private land. I would like to see new legislation that limits the powers of these companies by capping the maximum "fine" they can levy at the same rate of the local authority and which requires them to cancel any fine if a valid ticket is produced retrospectively. We also need an independent appeals process to end the ridiculous situation where the people who judge your parking appeal are the very ones trying to rip you off in the first place.

I don’t want to prevent the owners of private car parks from protecting their property but this private “enforcement” industry has become completely out of control and so new legislation is required to create limits.

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.

A modern day National Service

2010-11-16T04:45:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday I attended the Remembrance Sunday parade and service at Redruth. There was a very strong turnout. With so many casualties from the recent war in Iraq and the current fighting in Afghanistan, the work of the Royal British Legion seems more important than ever. We hear about those that are killed in action, but there have also been thousands injured and many of those will need support from charities like the Royal British Legion.

The fact that our armed forces are currently engaged in a difficult operation in Afghanistan means that people feel a strong need to remember the sacrifices being made on our behalf. The other thing that I have noticed in recent years is the growing support for remembrance services among young people and children. In particular there has been a really strong growth in the membership of groups such as the Scouts, Cadets, Boys Brigade, Girl Guides and Brownies. All were out in full force on Sunday and it was good to see the next generation doing their bit at such a young age.

Earlier this year, the Scouts Association announced the biggest surge in their membership for forty years to 500,000. But a shortage of adult volunteers means that there is also a waiting list of over 33,000 wanting to join. I remember speaking to a volunteer at one local branch who explained that they had managed to help deal with the problem by telling parents that their children could join as long as the parents did too!

Five years ago, before becoming leader of the Conservatives, David Cameron announced his plan to introduce a modern day National Service which would bring teenagers of all different backgrounds together to achieve something for their community. It would build on some of the excellent work already done among teenagers by groups like the Cadets. The aim is that it would be something universal that all young people do around the time they leave school. It would improve community cohesion, develop responsibility and confidence in young people and act as a "rite of passage" to adulthood.

Over the last few months, the government has been working on plans to make this new National Citizen Service a reality and many groups have submitted plans to run pilot projects next year so that we can see what works. Earlier this summer I discussed the idea with the Goody Grane Centre near Penryn which was established by the Bishop’s Forum to provide outdoor activities and challenges for young people and which has been a tremendous success. I also fed in a suggestion from a constituent that we should reward young people who take part in the scheme by giving them access to affordable car insurance. It is an exciting project and anyone else with suggestions should feed them in now.

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.

Improving support for disabled people

2010-11-12T04:45:00.000-08:00

One of the roles I accepted soon after being elected as a member of parliament was to become the new Chairman of the Conservative Disability Group. The CDG was formed some 25 years ago to champion new legislation to make life easier for disabled people.

The result was two ground breaking pieces of legislation introduced by Margaret Thatcher under the last Conservative government. First, the Disability Services Act which required local authorities to take their responsibilities to disabled people seriously and provide necessary support and secondly the Disability Discrimination Act to improve access.

Last week, the Conservative Disability Group held a major conference to discuss the challenges that disabled people face today attended by leading charities such as Scope and Mencap. One emerging theme was the need for greater flexibility in the way that support for disabled people and their carers operates and the need to reduce bureaucracy. At the moment people find themselves endlessly filling out forms, giving the same information over and over again. One idea is to condense all of that into a "single assessment" so that need is identified in detail once only and that all government departments recognise that. If someone has a long term condition, then it only really needs to be assessed once because the difficulties they face remain the same.

We also need to give people with impairments or the carers of the severely disabled much more control over how their financial support package is spent. I have come across parents of severely disabled children who complain that, while they are offered large sums of money for professional carers, what would really make a difference to their lives is more support to allow one parent to become a full time carer and stay at home. In some cases parents need to be present anyway to administer medication and the revolving door of different carers can lead to the situation where they feel their home is not really their own.

We are entering a period when money is tight but one of the things that the new government has been very clear about as it embarks on a programme to reduce public spending is that it is determined to protect the most vulnerable in our society. As a result, many of the changes announced to Housing Benefit for other benefits such as Employment Support and Job Seekers, will not apply to those with serious disabilities. But beyond that we also need to do more to help those with less serious impairments back in to the workplace. Over fifty percent of disabled people already do some work and the government has announced a new Work Choice programme to help others lead fulfilling, working lives.

The thing about disability is that each and every case is unique and different people value different sorts of support. The system needs to be flexible enough to allow people that choice.

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.

Cut the EU's budget

2010-11-05T08:12:00.000-07:00

Should the EU be increasing its spending at a time when the rest of us are having to pull our belts in? My view is that they should be cutting their budget and Britain should be cutting its contribution and two weeks ago I supported a motion in parliament to that effect.

The last government went along with plans to increase the budget of the EU and one of Tony Blair's last acts as Prime Minister was to give away Britain's budget rebate. Last week David Cameron went to Brussels to try to knock some sense into the European Commission. The new government managed to halt plans to increase the budget by a staggering 6 percent and got the increase reduced to 2.9 percent. That's still too high but the best that could be achieved in the circumstances so David Cameron deserves credit for having forced this issue on the agenda.

My first job in politics was working for the anti-euro campaign. Ten years ago, people used to say it was inevitable that Britain would have to join the euro but no serious person today would say we should join. It has turned out to be a failure and countries like Ireland and Greece are seeing their economies wrecked by the inability to set their own interest rates and manage their own economy through an independent currency. I think it would be wrong for Britain to have to pick up the tab for bailing out those countries which were foolish enough to join the euro. Those that are now locked into the single currency must make the best of a bad job but those that remain outside the eurozone must retain the economic freedom that they opted to keep.

However, at the heart of this row is a wider debate about the future shape of the EU. European officials often appear to be trapped in the 1970s and have failed to notice that the world has moved on. They spend far too much time worrying about whether their silly blue flag appears next to regeneration projects they have supported and not enough time tackling important problems like fraud and corruption.

The truth is that EU is trying to do too much and needs to be streamlined. This is more true than ever since the EU expanded to include 27 countries. In the 21st century we need an EU which does much less but does what it does more competently. More powers need to be returned to nation states.

Modernising the EU starts with national governments and national parliaments. We need our Westminster parliament to assert its authority over the EU. In future, British law must take precedence over EU law. That is why I support the plans for a Sovereignty of Parliament Act which would make clear that it does. Once we have restored some much needed accountability then, who knows, we might even see the EU budget being cut at long last.

Investing in the future

2010-10-29T03:12:00.000-07:00

With the painful decisions on public spending now done, it is time to start thinking about how we can create new jobs in the future. One of the keys to creating new prosperity in the long term is strengthening education and it’s no surprise that spending on schools was protected in last week’s Spending Review.

There is to be a new Pupil Premium to ensure that more money goes to those schools supporting children from the most deprived areas so that they can employ the best teachers. There was also hope for those Schools in Camborne and Redruth who earlier this year had started working on plans to build new schools. The so called "Building Schools for the Future" programme introduced by the last government was extraordinarily wasteful. Schools were expected to spend millions on consultants before they could lay a single brick. It was costing twice as much to build a school in Britain than it was to build a school in Ireland and that means the money was not going very far. The scheme had to be scrapped.

But last week George Osborne announced a £16 billion fund to refurbish or rebuild 600 schools across Britain over the next few years. That could go a long way and makes far more sense than the old scheme. He also stripped away all of the ring fencing on capital grants to schools so that they will have far more control over how money is spent in their school. One of the things that infuriates head teachers at the moment is the fact that they have to go without important things they need because someone else has decided to spend their money on something they don't really need. Head teachers have been telling me is that when money is tight, we should just let them make the decisions about how it is spent.

The new government wants all parents to have the sort of choice that today only money can buy and this school term, the first wave of schools became academies, were set free from council control and given the money to manage their school as they see fit. The rest will follow in the years ahead. These newly independent schools will be free to all and publicly funded but they will have the freedom that today only private schools enjoy. They will have control over their curriculum and will be able to set terms and conditions for teachers so that they can reward and retain the best staff. The single most important factor determining school performance is strong leadership from the top and good teachers but all too often, good teachers leave the profession early and we need to do more to retain them.

Competition is good and the one thing that I have detected in our local schools is a healthy rivalry that goes beyond the sports pitch. We should harness it to give our children the best possible start in life.

The spending review

2010-10-20T03:09:00.000-07:00

By the time you read this, we will know all of the details of the Comprehensive Spending Review and months of number crunching will finally have come to a conclusion. There will be announcements on a number of substantial decisions but there will also still be some local projects where decisions are postponed until later in the year.

There is no doubt that we need to get to grips with the scale of the debt that Britain currently has. Last year the government spent some £150 billion more than it received in taxes. That is more than the entire NHS budget and all of it had to be borrowed from other countries. As a result of all the borrowing that has been piled up over the last few years, next year this country will be spending more money on interest charges than it does on schools. You can’t keep borrowing money forever. In the end it catches up with you and the longer you leave it, the harder it is to put things straight. We have to bite the bullet now.

But I am also very conscious that the tough decisions taken this week will have a real impact on people’s lives. There will be public sector job losses, some projects cancelled and there will be cuts to some benefits.

No one relishes the prospect of job losses and I wish there was another way through. But given that there isn’t, I think there are two key things the government needs to get right. First is the importance of fairness. I think it’s very important that we share the pain and that no single group of people are singled out and expected to carry more of the burden. That is why in the budget George Osborne announced some tax rises as well as spending cuts. It is why the government has left the higher rate of tax at 50 percent, increased Capital Gains Tax and it is also why they have taken Child Benefit away from the highest earners who pay the top rate of tax.

Secondly, it is crucial that we do all we can to help those who lose their jobs or are affected by the cuts. The government has set up a £1 billion Regional Growth Fund to help develop new businesses and private enterprise. We need to support people who want to set up on their own and be their own boss. We also need to redouble our efforts to help people get off benefits and in to work. There are thousands who are trapped in poverty by welfare dependency and often it becomes a culture that spans generations. I have seen some really good projects that help break that cycle with effective mentoring given over a long period of time to instil a work ethic in people and give them the skills and the self confidence to get a job and earn a living. We need more work like that.

Cornwall’s LEP

2010-10-01T03:08:00.000-07:00

Cornwall looks set to get government approval for a Local Enterprise Partnership covering Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly to replace the old Regional Development Agency which went all the way up to Swindon. I think the new organisation offers us a chance for a fresh start on local economic policy.

I have always believed that smaller organisations can be more effective than larger ones because they are more agile and responsive and a small group of talented people can break through, take control of the reins and really get things done. One of the problems with the old RDAs was that they were too big, covered too large a geographic area and often cut across accountable bodies like Councils when it came to their priorities. Many businesses also found them remote and out of touch.

An LEP covering Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly starts with some plus points. It is much smaller and therefore more agile than the RDA and there are fewer councils to contend with which makes it easier to take and implement decisions. But the big test is still to come. We need to make sure there is strong business leadership on any new LEP.

Economic regeneration is one of the most important issues in this area. Since the loss of the mining industry and iconic firms like Holmans in Camborne and J&F Pool in Hayle, we have struggled to regain our footing and incomes have fallen well below average. I want to see that reversed. We need to develop new industries and build the wealth that will create new jobs in the private sector.

CPR Regeneration has made a good start locally under the leadership of David Brewer and Nigel Tipple. The culmination of six years work should come to fruition over the next couple of years with the Heartlands project at Pool and the regeneration of Tuckingmill which will probably even include the reopening of South Crofty mine.

But we are entering an era where there will be less public money around for capital investment and so the lead will need to come increasingly from the private sector. We need more people with a bright idea to have a go, set up their own business and, hopefully, make money. Helping people get off the ground with their business idea must become the main focus. The sorts of people who in the last decade might have worked for government agencies like "Business Link" advising businesses what to do are the sorts of people who must now fly the nest and do it themselves. Our economy depends on it.

The problem in recent years is that there have been a plethora of government quangos tripping over one another to tell businesses what they should be doing. We need to turn the tables so that real life businesses tell the Local Enterprise Partnership what they need and then together they make it happen. Time will tell whether we get it right.

The coalition is working

2010-09-25T05:12:00.000-07:00

This week marks the start of the political conference season kicking off with the Lib Dems in Liverpool. I recently met the Political Editor of a major national newspaper who informed me that he was attending the Lib Dem conference for the first time ever and the same is true for many others too.

For the first time in almost a century, the Lib Dems are part of the government and what happens at their conference is of significance. Journalists who, just a few years ago, would have scoffed about the Lib Dems and their resolutions to ban goldfish and the like, this year take the party far more seriously and will be there in many cases for the first time in their life.

The advent of coalition government has created its challenges for both the Conservatives and the Lib Dems. As a Conservative, I firmly believe that we should renegotiate our relationship with the EU and scrap the Human Rights Act. My views on these things have not changed but the new coalition government has had to compromise and delay such policies for the time being.

But I am also conscious that, for the Liberal Democrats, there have been compromises too. Some of the traditional support for the Lib Dems in Cornwall comes from voters on the left of the political spectrum and there will be some nervousness about the priority the new Liberal Conservative coalition has placed on getting to grips with the budget deficit. But I think this judgement will be proved right in the end and, in a few years time, people will look back and realise that the action being taken today was necessary.

I think a Liberal-Conservative coalition is what the country voted for and certainly what Cornwall voted for. Although there was no outright winner on election night, there were some clear messages from voters. People wanted Gordon Brown and the Labour Party out. But they were not willing to give David Cameron full control. What they actually wanted was David Cameron as Prime Minister but working together with a third party and that is what they got. It’s proof that our electoral system is capable of delivering the will of the people and one of the reasons why I will be protecting our current voting system in any referendum.

In Cornwall, well over 80 percent of voters supported either the Conservatives or Lib Dems. Now we must work together to deliver for our duchy in a way that has not been possible for years. It is undoubtedly awkward for all the Cornish MPs to suddenly work together having just come through tough election campaigns against one another, but I detect that the will is there. There has been a gradual warming in relations between the Liberals and Conservatives and a clear sense of common purpose on many fronts such as water charges. Above all, it is what the voters asked us to do.

The Big Society

2010-09-18T05:10:00.000-07:00

What is the Big Society? It is the idea that David Cameron has put at the heart of his agenda but critics say they don't understand what it means and that the public don't get it either.

In a nutshell, it is about getting more people to do more for their community. Why is it that in some cases brilliant ideas and successful charities apparently spring from nowhere and grow whereas in others no amount of government help seems able break the cycle of social breakdown?

The answer is that in virtually every single case, successful community groups start with just one single person who initiates action and takes a stand. They soon find that they are not alone and that there are other like minded people in their community who will lend a hand and support their lead. Then it grows further. When other people see that it is possible to make a difference and that things can change, they get involved too and so there is a snowball effect and the result is a stronger society.

But if government intervenes too much and has an "initiative" to try to deal with every problem, then people retreat from their responsibilities to their community. An attitude can develop which says it’s the government's job to make things happen. People start to think they can't make a difference anymore. That has been the story of the last twenty years and we need to reverse the trend.

There are some great examples of community action here in Cornwall. From youth groups like Searchlight in Redruth to social projects that provide work for former offenders or help the long term unemployed back in to work.

One way to help such groups grow lies in smarter procurement by the public sector. There is nothing new about “outsourcing” work, but, in the past, too much money has been hoovered up by huge companies such as Serco and Capita who want as much money for as little work as possible. Imagine if we could change that so that small and local social enterprises who give something back to the community were awarded those contracts instead?

A few weeks ago I visited the Foyer at Carn Brea. It takes young people who have had a hard start in life and creates a community where they live in the same block of flats and support one another. As part of their presentation Shaun, one of the residents, read a poem. Another resident, Sophie, had discovered it while doing some research on the internet. It was called the Power of One and included the lines:

“One smile begins a friendship. One candle wipes out darkness. One laugh will conquer gloom. One step must start each journey. One life can make the difference.”

This is the essence of the Big Society and, whatever the critics might say, people like Shaun and Sophie understand it.

Cornwall is a duchy, not just an ordinary county

2010-09-09T08:40:00.000-07:00

Parliament returned this week, much earlier than usual after changes to cut the length of the summer recess that MPs used to have in the past.

They say that turkeys don't vote for Christmas but in a separate move last Monday MPs did exactly that by voting through legislation that will cut the number of MPs sitting in parliament by almost 10 percent.

I think that's right. There are going to be some very difficult decisions to be made on public sector spending in the months ahead and I think MPs need to lead by example and be the first to cut their own numbers. We cannot expect other people in the public sector to take job cuts but then protect our own positions and so I supported the Bill.

The legislation also aims to make our electoral system more proportionate by moving towards equal sized constituencies. At the moment, there is too much variation in the size of constituencies with those in the North and Scotland generally being smaller than other parts of the country. The effect of this anomaly is that a vote cast in Scotland currently counts for more than a vote cast in Cornwall. That's not fair and it needs to change so that voters in Cornwall are given an equal voice in how our country is governed.

There will be a lot of debate in the months ahead about the prospect of a parliamentary seat that straddles the Devon and Cornwall border. I have always been clear that Cornwall is not just an ordinary county, we are a duchy and have always had special status so I think we should try to find a way to avoid a cross border constituency if possible.

The final thing agreed in this week’s Bill was that there should be a national referendum to decide whether or not to change our voting system. I have always supported the use of referendums because I think they are good for our democracy. Having a national debate on a single issue can be a powerful antidote to the growing trend of personality politics in General Elections and it also forces politicians from all sides of the political spectrum to work together on an issue where they have a shared conviction.

But in that debate, I will be campaigning for a no vote to protect our democracy. Our current one person, one vote system, where you mark a cross in the box next to the candidate you want, is simple and clear and has stood the test of time.

The so called "Alternative Vote" method is a multiple voting system where you write lots of numbers on the ballot paper and where some people get more votes than others, depending on how they order their votes. I don't think that's fair and it does nothing to help smaller parties like Mebyon Kernow.

It promises to be an interesting debate!

Does university matter?

2010-09-02T08:43:00.000-07:00

I left school at 15. It’s a statement that makes me sound older than I am but it’s true. Although I had a very good set of O Level results, I decided I wanted to go into the family business. But I also did a part time Business Studies course at Cornwall College so that, when I changed my mind and decided I wanted to go in to higher education after all, I had a qualification that allowed me to take that step.

This year’s A level results are now in but there are thousands of students who are going to struggle to get to university because of a shortage of places. In a final bizarre twist, the last government set a target of getting 50 percent of young people to university but then fined universities who expanded to meet that challenge.

Does education matter? It is the title of a book by Alison Wolf and at a time when students are expected to pay towards their university education it has become a salient question to ask. There is evidence that a good school age education counts for much more than university. That was certainly my own personal experience.

That is not to take away the importance of our academic institutions. They are centres of excellence, have a vital role in rebalancing our economy towards new industries and are absolutely the right choice for many young people to continue their studies, especially those who want to enter the professions.

But they are not the only choice. I think there is a danger that by over-emphasising university education you can create the impression that those who don't go to university are somehow a failure. They are not and we need those young people to understand that there are other routes to success in life.

I recently met a group of teenagers who had had a tough start but were getting their lives back together. I told them that some of the most successful people in the country suffered adversity early on in their lives and that, with the right support, they could turn that experience to their advantage.

Last week I visited a project in Redruth called Real Base Training. It aims to take teenagers who are falling behind at school or college and inspire them with the idea that they could set up their own business and be their own boss. They have a cluster of new businesses which are given support and mentoring at the centre. Sometimes if you take a young teenager and put them in a working environment their confidence blossoms in a way that is simply not possible in a formal learning environment and so you can help them on the road to success.

Someone once told me that you don't have to be clever to be smart. He was right and we need to encourage approaches which show young people how to use their talents.

Curbing senior pay at County Hall

2010-08-25T03:22:00.000-07:00

In the last two weeks the West Briton has questioned senior executive pay at Cornwall Council and the “golden parachute” deals paid to senior staff in some cases. This week, Alec Robertson, the Leader of the Council, returned from holiday and took immediate action to tackle the issue. All credit to him for taking a lead.

Getting to grips with the financial mess left by the last government requires some painful decisions on public spending. We need to make sure the pain is shared and I believe that any cuts must start at the top.

It is not a problem limited to Cornwall. Across the country senior pay in local authorities has got out of control. Some people say that council chief executives manage large budgets and so should be on a salary comparable with those in major companies. But there is a big difference. The Chief Executive of a large company has to make money whereas a Council Chief Executive only has to spend money and we all understand that it is easier to spend money than make it.

Then there is the fact that the really big decisions in a council are taken by the Council Leader and his cabinet, not by the Chief Executive whereas the boss of a large private company has to take the major decisions himself.

I think the civil service provides a better guide to the right salary for local authority chief executives. The Permanent Secretary of a typical government department is around £150,000. There is no logical reason why the pay of a council chief should be more than this. But across the country they are regularly paid £100,000 a year more than the Prime Minister. How can that be right? Such high levels of pay are not driven by the market, it is more the case that a high pay culture has been allowed to develop over the last decade and this must now be quashed.

Kevin Lavery is a talented Chief Executive of Cornwall Council and I rate him. I have also met many of the directors of service who have impressed me too but I don’t think we can duck the issue of pay any longer. Some say that you can’t change someone’s contract of employment but just this week I met a woman who works for Cornwall Council who has been asked to consider a 5 percent pay cut as part of a consultation. If it’s ok for the junior ranks to take a cut, it’s ok for those at the top to do the same.

I don’t like to see people at the very top of organisations seeking refuge in arbitrary employment contracts. People who are worth their salt in such positions are guided by what is right not by some piece of paper. They should lead by example and always be the first to make a sacrifice and we should give them credit if they recognise this.

Getting the banks under control

2010-08-12T11:06:00.000-07:00

Last week the major high street banks between them announced combined bumper profits of over £8 billion for the first six months of this year. A different statistic showed the other side of the equation. Four thousand businesses were forced into liquidation in just three months as the banks horded the money for their own bonuses rather than lending it to hard pressed businesses trying to generate real wealth for the country.

This can’t go on. The banks have got to learn that they can’t just go back to the way they behaved before the financial crisis. The bonuses they were paying themselves were totally out of control and divorced from reality. So much so that they had to be bailed out by the taxpayer because all of them had become “too big to fail.” So a first step is to look at ways of breaking them all up again so they are smaller and could just go bust without anyone really bothering. That way, you encourage some much needed responsibility in this wayward industry.

Second, if we want to rebalance our economy away from banking towards wealth creating industries, then we must also rebalance the law. There is only one way out of this recession and that is through enterprise. We need talented individuals to have a go, take risks and try to turn new ideas into industry and business. But an integral part of enterprise is risk and how the law regards risk is important.

Earlier this summer I was one of the twenty MPs to be given a chance to introduce a Private Member’s Bill. Private Members Bills are a way of introducing legislation through parliament but outside of the government agenda. Individual MPs draft their own laws on issues they think are important and must then win support for them from across the political spectrum.

My Private Member’s Bill has the not so catchy title of the “Secured Lending Reform Bill.” At its heart is a simple premise. If an individual or business offers a bank a charge over their assets, then they have a special right to expect that bank to behave honourably. Among those four thousand businesses shut down by the banks in the last three months will be cases where hard working, conscientious people had offered their home as security to a bank in order to secure support. But having made this extraordinarily generous gesture they currently have no real protection under the law. Banks can and do enforce their security recklessly and prematurely, without regard for either the entrepreneur or their other unsecured creditors.

So my Private Member’s Bill would rebalance the law, making it harder for banks to enforce their security and throw people out of their homes. It will encourage and reward real enterprise and might well mean that the banks have a little less money left to waste on their Ferraris which is no bad thing.

Reasons to be cheerful

2010-08-06T09:09:00.000-07:00

As Parliament enters recess for the month of August, we end term on a much brighter note.

Last year Britain spent some 150 billion pounds more than it raised in taxes which is completely unsustainable. So there has been much talk of cuts in recent months, whether the suspension of capital building in schools or delays in match funding for major redevelopment projects until after the Comprehensive Spending Review is completed in the autumn.

But last week we managed to get money flowing on a whole range of projects which are important to Cornwall and which are dependent on tight time scales in order to draw down public grants managed by the EU.

All projects funded under the European Regional Development Fund which don't require government match funding have now been given the green light. That means that all but two of the 49 projects that looked in doubt two weeks ago are now ready to go without further delay.

This week the government also agreed to inject £5 million into the regeneration of Hayle harbour, which is at a crucial stage. The investment will help repair the harbour walls along the north quay and put in place the infrastructure to support the new Wave Hub project which is the first of its kind in the world and really puts this part of Cornwall in a world beating position to develop this new technology.

But as well as putting in place the infrastructure, we also needed to support the small firms that are developing the technology. So further technology grants to drive development have been made available to ensure that wave power developers choose to come to Hayle.

Three projects at the new Combined Universities for Cornwall at Tremough have also been given the green light this week which means we can continue to develop our academic lead in Cornwall in sustainable energy and the digital and creative industries.

So there is a lot more to be optimistic about than there was a month ago, but much more to do. As a former student, I was incredibly disappointed not to have been able to get Cornwall College access to funding to refurbish the campus at Pool. They do some great work there and have built strong links with business. We need to look for other options to try to take some of their plans forward.

There are other important projects still on hold until after the Spending Review in October including the East-West road link at Pool and some other businesses are still waiting to hear whether their grants will go ahead. Finally, I want to make sure that those schools who are not now going to get funding under the old, rather bureaucratic "building schools for the future" programme, are at least prioritised when it comes to allocating the capital spending that is made available for schools after the spending review. So my in tray will be full when parliament comes back in September.

But August will also an important month because we are in the process of putting together plans to replace the Regional Development Agency with a new Local Enterprise Partnership covering Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. Making sure that the business community decide the shape and form of that LEP is a key priority,because if we don't get it right, we will not succeed in accessing the newly created Regional Growth Fund.

But my main focus in August will be getting around the constituency and meeting as many people as possible. Have a good summer.

Giving schools more freedom

2010-07-29T09:18:00.000-07:00

When I was at Cornwall College in the late 80’s, I remember one project we were given was to weigh up the pros and cons of the "Net Book Agreement.” This was an arcane law that fixed the price for all books. Those who supported it said it was needed to protect book shops. Those who wanted to scrap it said the market should decide book prices. As one politician said at the time, “The only way to find out who is right is to scrap it and see what happens.” They did, and no one today can remember why we ever had it.

Which brings me to the lengthy debates we have been having on the Academies Bill this week. Opponents say school independence is a bad thing and the accountants at Cornwall Council wring their hands and worry about money by-passing their bank account and going direct to schools. But head teachers, governors and parents want more independence. They want the freedom to reward good teachers, change their syllabus, change term times and basically be captains of their own ship.

The only way to find out who is right is to try it and see. The key thing about this reform is that is up to schools to decide. No school is being forced to become an independent academy. Some will decide to stay under the wing of Cornwall Council and that is their choice. But those who do want to take control of their own school only have to ask.

I think it’s a great idea. We need our schools to have the freedom and independence that previously only private schools were allowed to have. I have met some fantastic head teachers in Camborne, Redruth and Hayle but they sometimes have to work with one hand tied behind their back. At the moment, head teachers work for the council but under these reforms, the council will work for head teachers. If a school judges that the support services being provided are falling short, then they will be able to fire the council and employ someone else.

The changes which passed into law this week give schools much more independence. Schools will control their own budget and decide their own curriculum and their own school ethos. It also makes it easier for head teachers to reward good teachers by setting pay and conditions. I think this is really important because too often good talent leaves the teaching profession early because the current system is too rigid.

The Prime Minister has often been attacked for the fact that he went to a particularly well known private school. But what some people fail to realise is that few issues motivate him more than education and the new government wants to give all parents the sort of choice that today only money can buy. In ten years time, we might well look back and wonder why on earth it wasn’t done sooner.

European funding

2010-07-22T06:47:00.000-07:00

Last week there was a flurry of speculation about the future of regeneration schemes after the RDA suggested that all projects under the European Regional Development Fund had been stopped. Cornwall’s MPs found themselves hard at work making the case for important plans like “Next Generation Broadband.”

Regional development programmes have played an important role in the regeneration of Cornwall. Objective One helped kick start some really worthwhile projects such as the Combined Universities for Cornwall and there are good plans being put forward under the new “Convergence” programme too.

But the new coalition government has its work cut out getting to grips with the financial crisis. Although George Osborne made clear in his emergency budget that he would make no further cuts to capital spending, the last Labour government had already put in train a 50 percent cut in capital spending and those cuts now have to be reconciled against specific projects.

As the government identifies which projects to cut and which to keep, I think it must apply some clear criteria to ensure we get things right.

Firstly, where no government match funding is required, projects should be approved immediately. That is why the swift decision to make clear that projects like “Next Generation Broadband” will go ahead unhindered was so important.

Secondly, one of the key criteria applied should be the extent of match funding on offer. In Cornwall, because of the support we are entitled to from EU funding streams, each pound that national government spends usually levers in three pounds of additional investment. That puts us in a strong position relevant to other projects elsewhere in the country.

This case would be made stronger still if EU rules on the amount of match funding needed could be modernised. At the moment, the EU sets rigid rules stipulating that projects must have “match funding” from other sources – usually national government. It leads to the ridiculous situation where the inability of a national government to find the cash demanded means that its poorest regions lose everything –not just the money from national government but also the EU money which makes no sense at all. EU officials need to be ordered to prioritise spending in areas most in need and on projects that add most value and not to get bogged down by petty rules setting arbitrary requirements for match funding.

Finally, when it comes to prioritising capital spending, the most important factor considered should be the impact on jobs and enterprise. There is only one way out of this recession and that is through creating new businesses and new industries. The government needs to separate out the "nice to have" projects which could wait from the essential projects that unlock economic potential. If all these criteria were applied, then many of the projects currently being reviewed in Cornwall will come out well from the current spending review and this puts us in a strong position.

Bringing new life to our towns

2010-07-10T06:55:00.000-07:00

Earlier today I opened a new shop in Redruth for Rodda and Hocking, the conservatory specialists who also have a shop in Cross Street, Camborne. They have done a fantastic job fitting out the shop and this is exactly the sort of organic change we need to see in our town centres.

I have always thought we need to focus on measures that will bring new life to our towns and, earlier this year I organised a mini conference on the subject. It sought to answer the question, "How do we bring new prosperity to our towns?"

I am conscious that all too often such events are attended by councillors and advisers, Business Links and other employed experts, but not by the hard pressed business people who have to man the shop because they can't afford the staff cover that would allow them to attend.

So to make sure their views were represented, I spent two days walking through Camborne, Redruth and Hayle, going in to shops and talking to as many entrepreneurs as possible. It was an eye opener.

The first thing I found is that "regeneration" was seen as a dirty word by some. There is a reason for this which we need to recognise. Too often in the past, town centre regeneration has been associated with "townscape" issues: one way systems, pedestrianisation, new pavements, resurfacing car parks. In practice, work like that can be incredibly disruptive in the short term for businesses trying to build a customer base and we all know it’s a lot easier to lose customers than to gain them.

So as we discuss ways to increase the number of people visiting our towns we should apply a clear principle of "first, do no harm." Any disruptive work must be done in the fastest possible time and we must really test to destruction the value we expect to get from changes to urban layout.

My own view is that having one or two destination retailers that make towns a place people will make the effort to visit and thereby lift the tide for all traders is the single most important objective we should have. It is why I think the prospect of a JD Wetherspoon pub in Camborne creates a lot of new potential.

There were two other issues that came up in my meetings with retailers. The first was business rates. I came across a number of good businesses who took a real pride in what they did and their work added to the overall offering of the town but they were struggling to make ends meet. I think this is particularly sad in the case of new businesses starting out because there is a danger that morale can fall quickly. So I am keen to explore ways of cushioning such businesses against business rates in the early years.

Secondly, we cannot ignore the importance of parking. There is a reason why many major players moved out of town. They have the space to offer free car parking. The reality is that people want to be able to park their car, fill it with stuff and drive home. We should not side step this issue. I have seen some argue that free car parking has not helped towns where it has been piloted. It won't on its own but I do believe it could have an important role to play alongside other measures and we should look at how this might be made possible.

Why I will be campaigning against AV

2010-06-27T06:54:00.000-07:00

The notion of giving each and every adult in Britain an equal vote in the election of our national government has been the cornerstone of democratic government since the days of the suffragettes. It became the core principle of a free society and it has stood the test of time. In the last century Britain has had governments of every hue, coalition governments and even governments of national unity. So in the forthcoming referendum I will be defending our democracy against those who want to meddle with our voting system.

Under our current system, you mark an ‘X’ by the name of the candidate you want. Everyone’s vote counts for the same. Under the system they call “AV” some people get more votes than others. It is a complex multiple voting system with unpredictable results. Some people get two or three votes counted while others only get one.

At the moment, voters weigh up the pros and cons of each candidate and then make a decision about what they want. There are numerous factors that affect their decision. The views of the candidate, the policies of the party they are standing for, people’s experiences of those parties in the past and their chances of success in a given seat.

Under a multiple voting system, it is all about political tactics. The name of the game is to read the runes and vote tactically to try to keep out the person you hate the most. I don’t think that’s a good basis on which to run an election. The evidence from countries like Australia is that the Alternative Vote system leads to more negative campaigning and more personal attacks in politics. We don’t want that in this country.

In private company, the political activists who say they want an Alternative Vote system admit that it’s just a “foot in the door” and their real aim is to have a continental style PR system where the political parties call the shots and decide who represent them. I don’t agree with PR myself because I think it cuts voters out of decision making, but I do understand the argument for it (namely that is allows representation for minority parties like the Greens). I admire those who are honest enough to say what they really want. But what I cannot accept is the trickery of pretending you want one thing when you actually want to sneak through something else on the sly.

The AV system doesn’t even help smaller parties. If you are a Lib Dem and decided to vote Mebyon Kernow as your second preference, then that vote would not get counted. But if you were BNP and voted Labour as your second preference, both your votes would count. That can’t be right but at least we will have the chance to vote ‘no’ to this system in a referendum.

DEFRA Select Committee

2010-06-20T06:46:00.000-07:00

This year, parliament changed the way that it chooses MPs to serve on Select Committees. Members used to be appointed by the whips offices of the main parties but this time round all MPs got the chance to vote members on. With some 30 Select Committees in total, it made for a lot of ballot papers!

Select Committees were introduced thirty years to improve the accountability of parliament. Although made up of MPs, they are cross party and independent of the government of the day and the political parties. They can take expert evidence to really try to get to the bottom of issues and their recommendations can have an impact on government policy.

I managed to get elected on to the Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee. It is a subject close to my heart. I spent the first nine years of my working life in the farming industry in Cornwall and I studied horticulture at agricultural college. Britain's self sufficiency in food has declined sharply in the last 12 years and I think we need to reverse that trend. Food production should not just be about economics because it also has an impact on the environment and implications for animal welfare standards. I think we should be producing our food as close as possible to the communities that consume it, and that is why we need to make issues like animal welfare a much more important dimension of trade negotiations.

But DEFRA is also the department responsible for water policy. Water bills in the South West are the highest in the country because 3 percent of the population are expected to carry the burden of maintaining 30 percent of our coastline. I have long said that we need to address this unfairness but that it is time to move on from talking about the problem to implementing a solution.

There were three ideas highlighted in the Walker Review into water charges. One was to introduce a seasonal tariff in the South West so that bills are higher in the summer but lower in the winter. I don't think that is the right answer because it could be seen as a tax on tourism which is a vital industry in Cornwall.

The second was to offer specific help to those on lower incomes, but, while the cost of that could be spread nationally, it wouldn't help everyone here in the South West.

The final option, which is the best in my view, is to charge an annual tariff to other water companies to help deal with the cost of maintaining our coastline. This could equate to a small increase of say 13p per month on water bills in other parts of the country but would allow a significant reduction of around fifty pounds a year here in the South West.

All we need to do now is persuade the rest of the country that they should accept such a policy!

Making cuts fair

2010-06-17T16:39:00.000-07:00

The one thing that was always expected regardless of who won this year's election was a cut in public spending. You can't spend money you don't have for very long and over the last year the government spent some £170 billion more than it received in taxes.

Many government departments are now having to review their spending and look again at the projects they are supporting. Last week the Department for Transport announced they could not confirm their support for any transport projects until they know how much money they will have this autumn. This could affect some projects here in Cornwall.

I think the most important thing we need to see in next week’s emergency Budget is fairness. As the Chancellor, George Osborne has said before, we are all in it together and must share the pain of any cuts. Last week, Vince Cable expressed the view that the North should be spared some cuts in spending, putting more pressure on other regions. Such an approach would be completely unfair in my view and would not be the right way to maintain public support for the difficult decisions ahead.

I hope that many important projects in Cornwall will still be able to go ahead, albeit in some cases by cutting their cloth to fit the new financial reality and I am going to be making their case over the summer.

Cornwall College was a victim of the fiasco last year where funding for a rebuild of the college was suddenly withdrawn. The new coalition has found a way to make some money available to colleges caught out in the disaster but in return has asked them to revisit their plans and find ways of saving money. I think this is the sort of solution we are likely to see more of.

Our schools in this part of Cornwall need capital investment and have been overlooked over the last decade, and I will be making their case too. But many schools say they would be only too happy to spend less on the architects and consultants who proved to be such a costly component of the old "Building Schools for the Future" programme run by the last government. When money is tight we should spend what we have on schools and children's education rather than architects and consultants.

And when it comes to other development projects we have a strong case too. In some instances there is match funding from the EU. In others the projects form an important element in the regeneration of our towns.

Finally when it comes to making savings, I think it is clear where government should start. We need to cut back the 900 or so quangos and government agencies that currently exist. Many duplicate the work of each other and have grown out of control. In difficult times, it is where we should start.

Royal Cornwall Show

2010-06-10T09:56:00.000-07:00

Today I will be up early in the morning to make my way to the Royal Cornwall Showground in time for a breakfast meeting with local farmers.

There before me will be the many volunteer stewards who keep the show on the road. I remember when I was growing up, we would often come up to the show with my father who was a steward on one of the gates. It often meant a 5am start and made for a long day.

Some agricultural shows have suffered in recent years but the Royal Cornwall remains one of the strongest. I think you can put that down to the strength of community spirit down here in Cornwall. As well as being a major agricultural show it is an important meeting place where we bump in to old friends that we haven't seen since last year.

One of the things I hope people will see from the new coalition government is a better understanding of farming and rural communities than we have seen in recent years.

We used to have the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. But the last Government removed any mention of farming from the title. You couldn’t escape the feeling that they thought farming was an old industry that didn’t really fit in with their “new” agenda.

I was brought up at Trevaskis Farm and spent the first nine years of my working life in the fields. I think the issue of how and where our food is produced runs far deeper than just economics. If we want to protect our environment, have healthy food and raise animal welfare standards then we must produce food as close as possible to the communities that consume it. We should not be traipsing livestock over long distances or flying vegetables half way round the world.

Our self sufficiency in food has fallen sharply in the last decade and "food security" has started to be recognised as a concern. We need to reverse that and support local producers.

There are things that government can do to help. First, we need to curtail the power of supermarkets who all too often abuse their position in anti- competitive practices which undermine producers. So we need a powerful new watchdog that brings them into line.

Next, the least government can do is buy British food itself. So we need to make sure that government departments buy produce that comes up to British standards.

And finally, we need to make sure consumers know what they are buying so we need to improve labelling to get rid of misleading claims that food is British when in some cases it has only been processed in Britain.

It’s a start but as someone whose heart is still in the countryside, I want to find out what else needs to be done and where better to start than the Royal Cornwall Show.

Bringing new prosperity through enterprise

2010-06-05T12:36:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago, I attended a night of entertainment organised by the Holman Climax Choir at Camborne School to celebrate the history of the iconic firm that played a huge role in shaping Camborne. The event was attended by over 300 people and included some fantastic old footage and photographs.

Here in Camborne, Redruth and Hayle we take a lot of pride in our heritage and history. But since the loss of mining and iconic firms like Holman Brothers in Camborne and J&F Pool in Hayle, this part of Cornwall has struggled to regain its footing. How can we get our local economy back on its feet?

There were initiatives as long ago the 80’s under the last Conservative Government to encourage businesses to locate here and create jobs. Some firms, like the US engineering firm Case, left again once the benefits that tempted them down expired.

But there were other success stories which have endured. Pall at Redruth is one of the firms that was attracted to Cornwall at that time and is still one of the largest employers in the area today and they have played an important role in helping us retain a strong skills base in precision engineering.

Building lasting prosperity depends on taking an international lead in new industries where our geographic location as a peninsula is an advantage rather than a disadvantage. For instance, when it comes to wave power, Cornwall is the place to be because we have a huge coastline, powerful waves and the engineering know-how to turn ideas into industry. And when it comes to the new creative industries like digital animation, distance is no longer a barrier. What matters is having the best talent in one place and high speed broadband connections to the rest of the world.

The building of the university at Tremough has been a significant step forward. The result has been some world leading academic work in marine energy and world leading courses in the creative industries. The hope has to be that the best talent in these new industries settles where it is being fostered.

The last decade has seen a focus on capital projects with the help of public funding. There are some important plans still taking shape, for instance the regeneration of Hayle Harbour, Wave Hub, the Heartlands project in Pool and the Redruth Action Plan.

But regeneration work can only be judged a genuine success once the conditions are right for private enterprise to take flight unsupported and bring real prosperity in its path. So we need more people to have a go and set up their own businesses. Ten years ago, the challenge was to get young people into university. As a result of the latest recession, the challenge now is getting them from university in to work. Many will decide to set up on their own and build a business. I hope they do and wish them luck.

Getting things done

2010-05-25T12:32:00.000-07:00

I held my first surgery in Camborne last Saturday morning to meet some of the people who have written to me to ask for help. One of the things that persuaded me to stand for election this year was seeing the work that MPs do in their constituencies to help people deal with specific problems in their daily lives. You can’t always solve the problem, but you can always try, give advice and lend a helping hand. When you do succeed, it makes the job worthwhile.

I think that one of the problems in society today is the relentless growth of bureaucracy in recent decades. It sometimes seems so hard to get apparently simple things done. People find themselves passed from one agency to another; “held in a queue” on the phone; being told they have the wrong form, are in the wrong place or need to call a different number and being told different things by different people. There seems no shortage of ways to lodge a complaint but actually getting things changed is harder. We have all experienced it in our daily lives and it gets very frustrating.

I have heard it argued that such complexity is a fact of modern life and can’t be changed. But why is it? The way people live their lives today is not that different to the way it was in the past. Perhaps we just need to change our mindset and make a conscious effort to reverse the trend because government doesn’t have all the answers.

This was the aim behind many of the announcements in this week’s Queen’s Speech. If we want people to take more responsibility for their lives, their families and their communities then they need to feel that making an effort will make a difference. If people feel that the decisions that affect them have already been taken somewhere else anyway then they won’t bother.

So we need to rebuild local institutions and replace bureaucracy with accountability. For instance by giving parents and local voluntary groups the ability to set up new schools; giving people the ability to elect a Police Commissioner to set priorities for their police force; giving local people the right to take over local facilities like post offices and community centres and getting voluntary groups to step in where government has failed to deal with difficult problems like welfare dependency.

These are potentially bold plans, but they need active people to play their part too. It is likely to be an evolution rather than an overnight revolution because it will take time for people to realise that they can make a difference and get back into the habit of doing their bit. But in the meantime, I will be holding a surgery most weeks to try to help people wade through the treacle of government bureaucracy. So do get in touch!

Making the coalition work for Cornwall

2010-05-20T12:31:00.000-07:00

My first job in politics was working for the cross party ‘no’ campaign against the euro. It was a diverse coalition of business leaders, trade unionists, greens and MPs from all parties. Keeping everyone happy was a challenge at times, but it was also refreshing to get people from so many different backgrounds working together for a common cause. It might prove good training for the sort of politics we are now in.

Making a coalition government work is undoubtedly more difficult than running a government of one party with a clear majority. The compromises made to form this new Liberal Conservative coalition have understandably caused some unease among both Conservative and Lib Dem supporters. But there are strengths in coalitions too. They force a change in the culture of our politics and encourage people to set aside differences and work together in the national interest.

Here in Cornwall, a new coalition government offers the prospect that, at long last, we can move on from talking about the problems our county faces to actually implementing the policies that will solve them.

There are some areas where the Lib Dems and Conservatives have long agreed. We need to tackle the unfairness of water charges in the South West. The proposal that I favour to deal with this problem is to charge a small tariff to water companies in other parts of the UK to help cover the cost of maintaining our coastline so that there could be significant reduction in water bills here in Cornwall. All MPs in the South West must now work together to try to make such a policy a reality.

Then there is the problem of the NHS funding formula. Despite the squeeze on public funding, we need a new formula that recognises the fact that we have an older population in Cornwall and therefore a greater need for medical care. Again, I want to work with all MPs of both parties in our county to make a reality of such a change in the NHS funding formula.

Here in Camborne, Redruth and Hayle, I have always maintained that economic regeneration is the single most important task facing us all. There are some important decisions to be made about the plans to regenerate Hayle Harbour, the Heartlands project at Pool is at a crucial stage and we need to make sure that we are able to sustain the progress made at the Wave Hub project in Hayle and actually convert a good idea into a world leading position in marine energy.

Delivering all of this will need not only a coalition at the top but a spirit of cooperation among MPs in the South West and a willingness among all the MPs in Cornwall to take a stand in the interests of our county.

Thank you...and now to work

2010-05-09T16:04:00.000-07:00

It was a tense night at the count. We all knew it was close and spent the final day reminding people that the Conservatives and Lib Dems were "neck and neck" in this seat. But I don't think any of us expected it to be quite so close. In the end just 66 votes between us. We won fairly comfortably on the ballot boxes from polling day but the Lib Dems had done surprisingly well at getting together postal votes.

Camborne, Redruth and Hayle certainly lived up to its reputation for being a marginal seat.

With the election over, I want to pay tribute to the other candidates who took part in this election. It is sometimes easy to forget that our democracy depends on unpaid volunteers who are willing to give up their time to deliver leaflets and campaign for the party they believe in.

But most of all I want to thank everyone who put their faith in me and especially those who helped me. I will do my utmost to ensure that this part of Cornwall gets its voice heard and I will also represent everyone, regardless of whether they voted for me or not.

I will be holding regular surgeries so, if you need any help, then please get in touch. You can contact me by email at: george.eustice.mp@parliament.uk or by post at: The House of Commons, LONDON, SW1A 0AA.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Vote for change

2010-05-05T14:01:00.000-07:00

The last but one door I knocked on tonight was answered by a woman who said she was still undecided, "it's between Julia Goldsworthy and you" she said, "but you are the only person to turn up at my door." As I shook hands to leave, she wished me luck. If it comes down to one vote then deciding to do that last road in Gweek will be what counted.

I have attempted to cover each and every part of the constituency in a gruelling canvassing programme since January. It has been a really enjoyable campaign. You meet so many people that you learn a lot and you can sense changes in the public mood. Early on in the year, there was disillusion with all politics and all politicians. As the campaign has progressed, the mood among voters has become far more positive and during the last couple of weeks people have started to make their minds up and I have been getting more and more support.

Cornwwall has failed to get its voice heard in recent years and I want to put that right. From NHS funding to water bills, Cornwall has been taken for granted. I think we need to move on from talking about problems to implementing solutions. If we had a Conservative government and Conservative MPs in Cornwall, at last we would be able to get things done rather than just talk about problems.

But tomorrow is also a big chance to change our country and we probably won't get another opportunity for five years. Unless the Conservatives win seats like Camborne, Redruth and Hayle, Gordon Brown will cling to power and no one will be able to stop him. That is why the way people vote tomorrow is so important.

We have a saying in Cornwall, "one and all". Let's see that spirit of unity on polling today to give Cornwall and Britain the change that is so desperately needed.

The home straight...

2010-05-02T16:20:00.000-07:00

So, we are in to the final few days of campaigning. In the days ahead our many volunteers have a lot of letters and leaflets to deliver and I will be making one last tour of the constituency to knock on as many doors as possible before polling day.

I have noticed a change in mood over the last week or so. People are starting to make their minds up. Even Andrew George, the dithering former Lib Dem MP for St Ives, has apparently decided that he will vote Lib Dem after all. This has been bizarrely flagged up by local Lib Dems in their literature as some sort of coup for their campaign.

Leaving aside Andrew George's surpise decision to vote for his own party, the reception on the doorstep is very good. Many former Lib Dem voters are switching to the Conservatives this time. They want change. The negative Lib Dem campaign and the vandalism of posters has also offended many. Julia Goldsworthy boasts that she is going to win and that anyone who votes for another party is wasting their vote. But I think she is wrong to take people for granted.

Cornwall has failed to get its voice heard in recent years. From water bills to NHS funding, under the Lib Dems' watch, Cornwall has lost out. I want to put that right. It is not enough to talk about problems, we need to implement solutions. If we can get a Conservative government and Conservative MPs in Cornwall, we can get Cornwall's voice heard at last. So let't make it happen...

The puffing devil

2010-04-24T22:00:00.000-07:00

We had better weather for Trevithick Day this year and the crowds turned out in force. Last year it rained for most of the day and we all ended up drenched. This year we have been lent the use of a shop right in a prime location in Commercial Street which attracted a lot of interest.

At one point we had a queue and I got held up talking with a gentleman at length about pensions. I had to run across town to make it to Trevenson Street by 2pm for the unveiling of a plaque to commemorate the work of the Holman family over two centuries in the town. It was at the site of the old Holman No 3 works with the Holman Climax choir in attendance. I recently met Nigel Holman at a meeting where we were talking about the possibility of salvaging the old assembly rooms building on that site which is opposite the Conservative office in Camborne.

But the highlight of the day was, as always, the replica of the Puffing Devil, the very first steam locomotive which was invented by Richard Trevithick. It is unique and moves at quite aa pace as it comes up Camborne Hill...

The first rule of online lobbying: get the email right

2010-04-24T01:41:00.000-07:00

I have written previously about the politically motivated smear campaign being run by local Lib Dems over the fact that I used to work for a media consultancy called Portland.

Last week they returned to the fray with a leaflet which made great play of the issue. Their timing couldn’t have been worse because the biggest story on lobbying of this election is that Nick Clegg used to work for a lobby firm called GJW which he failed to disclose on his election literature and does not mention on his CV. GJW controversially advised Colonel Gadaffi over the Lockerbie trials. Perhaps Julia Goldsworthy would like to publically condemn her own party leader over his “secret lobbying past”?

A couple of months ago, I read a story in the Observer newspaper that there was going to be an online lobbying campaign against me. It was initiated by a girl called Tamasin Cave, a political activist who writes regularly for Lib Dem blogs. It focused only on Labour and Conservative candidates and was immediately condemned by other commentators in the blogosphere. Tamasin was teaming up with a group of lobbyists called “38 degrees”. A curious name, but apparently, 38 degrees is the angle at which an avalanche happens. The idea was that I would receive an avalanche of 100,000 emails. So what sort of avalanche did I experience? Not one single email.

Initially I assumed there was no interest but it transpires that they had spelt the email address wrongly on their system. I think that’s a shame because I always make the effort to reply to every constituency email I receive in person and I don’t like the idea that there might be some people out there who think I ignored their email as a result of the incompetence of this group. I also pity the poor person somewhere else in the world who has a similar email address to me and must be completely bewildered by it all. Last night I met one of the 38 degrees team at a hustings and gave him my email so he could sort their problem out.

There are already strict rules that mean MPs must declare all their financial interests from clients to directorships and major shareholdings. I think that’s right because it is essential that there is transparency where there might be a conflict of interest. The Conservatives have gone further still. We are the only party where candidates have already made a declaration of their own interests at the point of nomination.

There are many charities and campaign groups out there who encourage their members to email parliamentary candidates. Many have their own manifestos and pledges. In this election, they range from the NSPCC to Macmillan Cancer Care, the Ramblers, Greenpeace and the Woodland Trust. I rarely sign up to pledges directly even where I have a lot of sympathy with the cause, but I always reply to the constituents who email me to explain my views.

The reason I generally don’t sign the pledges of other organisations is that I think politicians should be independent minded, listen to all of the arguments from all sides and then exercise judgement about what they think is the right thing to do.

When it comes to so called “lobbying”, the answer is to make sure that any financial interests of MPs are declared so there is no conflict of interest. That already happens. People shouldn’t fear that politicians are exposed to the arguments made by charities, campaign groups or businesses. After all, we live in a democracy and we should have free debate. So I don’t support a mandatory register of meetings which would just be a tier of bureaucracy that adds nothing to our democracy. But they should expect their MPs to remain of independent mind and exercise judgement themselves rather than do what lobbyists ask them. That is why declaring financial interests is what matters.

The irony is that 38 Degrees are a lobby group themselves and, to date, the only candidate in this seat to resist their lobbying is me.

A new constituency and a fresh start

2010-04-20T15:22:00.000-07:00

I spent today canvassing in Connor Downs and Hayle. I am really pleased that Hayle is included in the new boundary. We are getting a good reaction here. I was brought up at Connor Downs and came across many people who knew the family or have been involved in Trevaskis Farm over the years.

The new Camborne, Redruth and Hayle constituency stretches from Hayle up to Mount Hawke on the north coast and from Budock Water to Gweek in the south. The Lib Dems have got themselves in a real muddle over it all.

Last week I spent a lot of time explaining the new boundary to residents in Mawnan Smith and Constantine. Terrye Teverson has been delivering leaflets in the wrong constituency and many signs bearing her name have gone up in the wrong place, causing confusion and irritating former Lib Dem voters.

The Lib Dems used to have local activists to deliver their leaflets and put up signs but this time round are relying mainly on party workers parachuted in from up-country who don't know what they are doing.

Hayle has been ignored for far too long and the new constituency offers a chance for a fresh start. The area has struggled to regain its footing after the loss of iconic local firms like J&F Pool and has had no political voice for thirteen years. We need to attract new industries and new jobs. The Wave Hub project in Hayle is promising and I would like to build on it and establish this area as the international centre of excellence in such technologies. There are also potential plans to redevelop the harbour area which could strengthen the town's position as a tourist destination. But there are some big decisions that need to be got right and, if I am successful on May 6th, it will be an important focus for me.

Food yards, not food miles

2010-04-17T16:52:00.000-07:00

We have had a busy week canvassing many areas across the constituency with teams out every day. This morning we were back in Redruth around Albany Road, Carknown, Westbourne Heights and Trewirgie Hill. Its going well and the reaction is good.

This weekend, Ed Staite, an old friend from the Conservative Press Office is down to help and its been good to catch up.

This afternoon, we had a vist from another old friend, Nick Herbert, who gave me my first job in politics at the anti-euro no campaign and who is now Shadow Secretary of State for DEFRA. He was down to see the work that is taking place here at Trevaskis.

My parents founded Trevaskis Farm in 1979. It quickly became the leading farm shop and pick-your-own fruit business in the westcountry. It has always prided itself on offering quality local food to the local community. All of the pork comes from our own free range British Lop pigs and we source local South Devon breed beef. My brother returned home a few years ago and runs the business today. Nick had a thorough briefing on their work and also the educational role that the farm now plays with local schools.

The Trevaskis slogan "Food yards, not food miles" fits with the Conservative agenda for agriculture.

Canvassing in Hayle

2010-04-09T16:43:00.000-07:00

Over the last three days we have successfully delivered 25,000 leaflets across the constituency. Its been hard work and on the first day we all got drenched in the rain. But we have covered just about every town and village in the constituency.

Today we are pressing ahead with the canvassing in Hayle. We are getting a good reaction. I came across someone who knew the family and whose wife used to work at Trevaskis. Then there were others who used to know my grandfather.

There is disullusion with politics too. A lot of people feel let down by MPs, like Julia Goldsworthy, who abused the system. Its important to remember that most candidates and those helping them in an election are volunteers. We have a great team doing their bit for their country. But we all know we have a lot of work ahead.

My favourite moment today was meeting a lady who initially waved me away because she was sick of all politicians and thought they were all the same. She had previously voted Lib Dem but was not going to bother again. But we ended up chatting for 10 minutes and she ended by saying I had her support...

The election is called at last...

2010-04-06T09:39:00.000-07:00

The decision by Gordon Brown to go to Buckingham Palace this morning has been long predicted and awaited. Our priority today is to get around all three towns and make a start on the formal election campaign.

We started this morning in Hayle with a strong turnout from our Hayle branch and delivered leaflets across much of the town. The weather was dry if a bit breezy and we were getting a very good reaction from the people we met.

On the way back, the weather started to break up. As we headed back to the car ready for lunch, I passed a man with a young daughter who must have been about 4. "Look!" she said to her father, pointing at us in our blue rosettes "They have won something." Not yet...off to Redruth this afternoon and Camborne later on.

Cornwall Deaf Centre

2010-04-03T18:18:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I met a number of parents of disabled children. Among them were Kate and Martin whose youngest son is deaf and who have another son with a learning difficulty that gives him problems with communication. They invited me along to a new parents' support group they have helped get going and its first meeting took place today at the Cornwall Deaf Centre in Camborne.

If you want to understand the challenges that disabled people and their families face, you can't beat meeting them. Each case is unique and every one of them has their share of frustration with the system. It can range from a lack of specialist support, like language therapists or signers, to problems navigating the bureaucracy of the benefits system. All of the people I meet would welcome a simplified and more flexible system of support where they have more say over the support that they need and how their budget is spent.

After meeting parents at the Cornwall Deaf Centre, Toby, a regular user of their facilities gave myself and Katy a lesson in British Sign Language. We covered most of the alphabet and a few other words.

Jude Robinson, the Labour candidate in Camborne, Redrtuh and Hayle has come up with the great idea of holding a hustings at the Cornwall Deaf Centre with a signer on hand to do the translation. So I might be coming back here soon.

Holman Climax Choir

2010-03-27T03:09:00.000-07:00

The place to be last night was Camborne School where hundreds of people packed the main assembly room for a night of nostalgia and entertainment put on by the Holman Climax male voice choir.

It followed the highly successful Holmans reunion which took place earlier this year and featured the recently discovered treasure of old footage and photos from the iconic engineering firm that was once at the heart of life in Camborne and exported world beating air compressors across the globe.

I found the old photos fascinating. I can remember the last days of Holmans at the main works along Wesley Street and also the old Maxam building at Pool.

The Holman Climax Choir, now coached by leading musical director Angela Renshaw, treated their audience to an impressive and often poignant performance and there was plenty of audience participation too. We all took part in old favourites like Camborne Hill and finished the evening with Trelawney, Cornwall's anthem. Singled out for praise was Agnes, who has played the piano for the choir for half its 70 year life. What a commitment.

This part of Cornwall has struggled to regain its footing since the loss of firms like Holmans and it is why I have championed initiatives to bring new industries and new prosperity to our area - such as wave power which would need support industries that play to our engineering heritage and strengths.