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Death of Steve Doo/Boots bid

31 March 2007

Hello all -

Everyone involved in local politics will be sorry to hear that Cllr
Steve Doo (Beeston Central) has died. He has been ill for some time
but seemed to be getting through it, and the news came as a big shock
to all his many friends. He's given many years of service to the community and will be a real loss.

An effect of this is that the borough election in May will not
take place in Beeston Central (as he was a declared candidate) -
there will be a by-election for the ward a month or so later.

The major local business news is of course that Boots management
seem inclined to recommend the revised offer for the firm from the
private equity firm KKR, under the leadership of Stefano Pessina, who
is already a senior figure in Boots after the merger with Alliance.
The possibility of a counter-bid from others is still there so we
should avoid premature speculation, but it appears that KKR's bid
doesn't involve a massive change of direction of the firm, and
possibly the injection of new capital.

In an unrelated development, Boots announced the loss of a
contract with Reckitt Benckiser, which will result in 300 jobs going,
but not for up to 18 months: they hope to cover most or all by
natural turnover and voluntary redundancy. As you'd expect, I'm
watching these moves very closely, and would welcome informal updates
from staff to supplement the official briefings from the firm: I'll
keep you informed.

Best regards

Nick

Hain meeting postponed/£73 million rise in Notts NHS funding

26 March 2007

Due to an emergency HOC debate tomorrow on Northern Ireland following
today's events and the historic agreement, Peter Hain cannot come to
Beeston. He has asked to postpone the meeting for exactly one week.

So the meeting will now take place on Tuesday 03 April at 7.30 at the
New Venture Social club. It should be a good meeting especially in view
of Peter's work in Northern Ireland and the fact that he has at last
got Ian Paisley talking to Gerry Adams! Peter is also anxious to talk
about the Labour party, post-Blair.

Also a brief reminder - there are still a few places left for the
dinner with Malcolm Wicks, my boss at the DTI on Friday, 6.00pm at
the New Venture Social club. Please contact nickmp1@aol. com if you want
a place, cost £10 single, £18 a couple. This promises to be a good
meeting.

While I'm here, a bit of good Budget-related news that has just popped in. Notts Primary Care Trust is getting a rise of 9.6% in funding (£766 million to 839 million), which should help a great deal after the recent problems in the local health community.

Thanks and apologies for the postponement of the Hain meeting - it's in a good cause!

Best wishes

Nick

Peter Hain speaking here after N Ireland decision/Dine with Science Minister

23 March 2007

Hi all -

There are two major events this week to which I'd like to invite you.
Both are at the New Venture Social Club in Technology Drive (the
former Siemens site), Beeston - see

http://www.newventuresocialclub.com

On Tuesday, March 27, Peter Hain will be visiting, two days after the
dealine for restored devolved government in Northern Ireland. He'll
be able to tell us how it worked out, or what went wrong if there's a
last-minute hitch. And he's also going to talk about his view of the
future direction of the Labour Party.

I support Peter for the deputy leadership, oddly enough to some
extent because he's not entirely like me - like me, he's greener than
most MPs, but he also has a particular interest in issues of
individual freedom and safeguarding people against excessive state
power - something that goes back to his days as an anti-apartheid
campaigner. I've not been much involved in those issues, but I
recognise that Labour needs to keep them in focus, and I think Peter
as deputy leader would be healthy for us.

Whether you agree or not, it should be a fascinating evening, and
I hope you'll come. This is now open to anyone who feels reasonably
friendly to Labour, and if you want to you'll have the opportunity to
join the party on the night and vote in the coming contest. Admission
is £3 (free to New Venture club members). This event starts at 7.30pm
(doors open at 7).

On Friday, March 30th, we have a more intimate event. As you may
remember, I'm parliamentary private secretary for Malcolm Wicks, who
up to recently was Minister for Energy and is now Minister for
Science. As the Energy Minister is now a Lords member, Malcolm still
covers many energy issues in the Commons as well, and one of the big
things coming up (in May) is the Energy White paper, following the
consultation last year.

Malcolm and I are doing a small fund-raising dinner, proceeds to
go to helping fund my newsletters (the Commons finances one a year
but I'd like to keep in touch more often than that). We're just
expecting 20-30 people, and the idea is to have a friendly discussion
on how the Ministerial process works, how energy and science policy
is developing, and what we ought to be doing in the coming months.
It's an opportunity to engage a senior Minister personally and get a
moere direct impression of how politics works in a serious policy
area. It doesn't matter whether you support Labour or not, so long as
you don't mind helping finance my newsletter and you don't actually
disrupt the thing. We'll charge £10 a head or £18 for a couple, for
which you'll get a light meal (don't expect anything grand!) prepared
by the Club (drinks are extra). Space for this one is limited and I
need to know by Wednesday who is coming (and any special dietary
needs). It starts at 6pm (after Malcolm has visited science
departments in both local universities) and carries on till 8pm, when
we need to let Malcolm catch a train.

Malcolm is one of the most issue-oriented politicians in the
Commons - expect a serious evening leavened with his dry wit.

Best regards

Nick

Climate change/fair trade event

15 March 2007

Hi all -

1. Climate change
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~

A constituent reproves me gently that I natter about all kinds of
things yet I've not done a detailed piece on climate change, which if
the majority scientific assessment is true is genuinely an issue
aqffecting the future of the entire planet. This is obviously a good
moment for it, but the issue is being quite heavily covered in
today's broadsheet papers, so I hesitate to duplicate what you can
read there. Instead, what I'll do is prepare a really extensive
briefing of what the proposals are and how they will work, as well as
possible alternatives, and send it to the 800 or so of you who are on
my list as wanting upodates on environmental issues. As this is
likely to contain printed material from others, I need your postal
address - if you're not currently on that mailing list and would like
to be, please let me know.
Briefly, though, the bottom lines are these:

* Any effective effort has to be as global as possible. We need to
show we're doing our part, but it only makes sense as part of an
international effort. This is why Tony Blair placed such stress on
the EU agreement last week (which makes the EU the first major bloc
to agree collective binding reductions in carbon emissions) and why
we're working with India and China and individual American states 9in
the absence of a clear US ogvernment lead) to get global carbon
trading and emissions control.

* In Britain, we're proposing a reduction of carbon emissions by 2050
of 60% over the 1991 level (a generally-accepted starting point). To
avoid this being pie in the sky, we propose checkpoints every 5 years
with the option of court chakllenge to the governments of the day if
they haven't met them; there will also be an independent commission
to audit progress and an annual report to and debate in Parliament.

What do others propose? The Conservatives have tentatively
suggesdted an escalating new tax on air travel, with anyone taking
more than one flight a year paying much more. Originally the idea was
that they would ring-fence thhe revenue for environmental purposes,
but they are now thinking of using it for "promoting the family", in
ways not yet described. As with the Government's Air Passenger duty,
this would discourage a currently small but rapidly-expanding type of
carbon use, though I'd suggest it only addresses a small aspect of
the issue.

The Green Party has proposed individual carbon allowances: as I
understand it, we would all have a personal account with a credit
card which we'd use for all carbon-emitting activity (like buying
petrol or using electricity) : anyone who used more than their ration
would pay more. This goes further than we are proposing at the moment
though David Miliband has expressed interest in exploring it.

The Liberal Democrats are in general in favour of more green taxes
balanced by reductions in other taxes; I don't think they have
detailed proposals as yet.

Setting a framework in itself doesn't solve the problem, but I
think a legally-binding framework with a clear objective and annual
independent reporting responds well to the scale of the task - trying
not to be partisan here, but I think it's quite a good day in showing
the government getting on with the difficult job of responding to
issues of long-term importance. The emphasis on joint international
action is absolutely central to it, and I hope that even those of you
who dislike the EU will agree that it's an area where EU agreement
can play a crucial role.

Incidentally, some of you will have seen the Channel 4 programme
claiming that the problem doesn't exist and global warming is not
happening, or if so that it's not to do with human activity. While
this would be jolly, it is not supported by the overwhelming majority
of scientists who study it (and one of the experts cited in the
programme has furiously denounced it as deception and manipulation of
what he actually said), and it would simply be unsafe for governments
to take a chance that they are all wrong.

2. Fair trade event
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~

I've been asked to pass this on and am glad to support it:

SECOND FAIR TRADE FASHION SHOW AT BEESTON BAPTIST CHURCH
Beeston Baptist Church in Dovecote Lane will be holding their second
Fair Trade Fashion Show on the evening of Friday 23 March.
As with last year's packed-out fashion show, new season clothes,
designed for children, men and women, will be modelled and orders can
be taken on the night. These clothes and accessories are designed
and produced in communities where previously the producers had the
skills and abilities but not opportunities for trading.
Fair trade is increasingly common, though some observers suggest that
this is more about flattering Western shoppers than transforming the
lives of Third World farmers and workers
Judith Dare, one of the organisers, said:
"Traidcraft works so that farmers and workers in developing countries
receive an agreed and stable price for the crops they grow or the
craft they make, as well as an additional premium to invest in social
projects or business development programmes, as do the Fairtrade
mark, and other similar organisations. `A few more pence' can make a
huge difference."
Tickets are available from the church office, open on Tuesday to
Saturday mornings, 8:30 am to 12:00 noon; telephone 0115 925 8465;
email office@beestonbapti sts.org.uk. Any profit from the ticket
sales will go to Traidcraft Exchange and to the "Work a miracle"
project with Tearfund, preventing transmission of HIV from women to
their newborn babies.

Apologies for any typos in this one - written in haste before a busy
day. As always, feedback welcome!

Best regards

Nick

Brinsley and the BNP/A52 works

6 March 2007

Hi all -

Brief notes...

A number of you have asked what is happening in Brinsley, where it's known that the BNP are making a big push to get their first seat on Broxtowe borough council: they got 43% last time and their candidate is a national party official. Labour is delighted to have the Vicar of Brinsley, Robert Murray, standing for us, and we hope that people averse to having the politics of hatred in Broxtowe will rally behind him. He is determined to fight a positive campaign for Brinsley, rather than just relying on anti-BNP feeling. If you'd like to help this effort regardless of normal politics (the other parties are believed not to be standing), let me know and I'll put you in touch with the campaign.

David Watts (chair of planning at Broxtowe) has asked me to use this channel of information to help pass on some urgent info that affects many of you, as the work was due to start next Monday:

Subject: Highways Agency A52 Bardill's Roundabout Improvement Update

Work Schedule Update
The date work will start on this scheme has now been changed. Work is now scheduled to begin on 11th April 2007 and last until the end of August 2007.

[What they hope the work will do is greatly improve traffic flow and pedestrian crossings; the downside is severe disruption during the construction period - avoid the junction if you can!]

This reminds me that another colleague in politics from another party has asked me to help him put the record straight. A letter in the Evening post purporting to be from Cllr Richard Jackson was in fact not from him at all. The Post has apologised, and Richard thinks it was an admin mistake in the letters section rather than a deliberate fraud. There was a problem of a different kind recently when someone made a false allegation about my colleague Steve Barber; the Post immediately agreed to print a prominent rebuttal. The bottom line is to bear in mind the possibility that anything you see in the press is not necessarily correct and if it's important is always worth checking.

Best regards, Nick

Lords reform/agency workers/public sector pay/Trident

05 March 2007

Hi all -

Thank you for all the feedback on Lords reform. I've studied it carefully and wanted to let you know what I plan to do in the votes over the next two days. I've got a few other updates too...

1. Lords reform - feedback to feedback
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~

Your views are as interestingly diverse as MPs, who famously failed to agree on any option last time we voted on it. To summarise the general trend, though:

- There is a clear majority in favour of a predominantly elected system, though a minority sent serious and detailed arguments for a system of 100% independent appointments.

- There isn't much strong feeling on exact percentages, but most people favour retaining some appointed element, so as to give scope for putting particular expertise into the upper house.

- Quite a lot of people spontaneously said that they objected to the 25 most senior Anglican bishops having automatic rights, not an issue I'd raised in my survey.

- Few people want to abolish the Lords altogether.

- Almost nobody spoke up for retaining a hereditary system or continuing to link the honours system to the legislative system. (Jack Straw's proposal is to separate them, so you could be made a peer as an honour or you could get elected or appointed to the upper house, but there would be no particular link.)

In the light of the above, I plan to vote:

FOR a bicameral system with between 50% and 100% elected by open-list PR to the upper house

AGAINST having 0%, 20% or 40% elected.

In addition, I've put down two amendments of my own. The first simply proposes that the Upper House should be explicitly seen as a revising chamber, with powers to block and delay limited and spelled out in
the legislation (rather than by vague convention): this is not especially controversial and may well not get selected for debate by the Speaker.

The second proposes that EITHER the Upper House should include appointments from all major belief systems (i.e. including Catholics, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, and humanists) OR everyone should be appointed only on merit, with no special right of religious representation.
This is an alternative to an SNP amendment that would simply abolish the bishops' seats. While I'm not religious myself, I think the religions provide an important source of idealism and community spirit, and a purely negative vote to chuck them out seems to me unhelpful, but having 25 automatic appointments from one church and nothing from anyone else doesn't make sense in today's Britain. The way it would work in practice would be that the independent Appointments Commission would be asked to 'have regard' to the desirability of having people of major belief systems in the Upper House.

Whether we agree on these things or not, I'd like to thank everyone who responded. The email lisat enables me to consult on these issues in a way that was really impractical in the pre-electronic age.

2. Agency workers revolt
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~

On Friday, I voted against the Government whips on a timetable motion to consider a bill to improve protection of agency workers. The current position is that agency workers tend to have greatly inferior
conditions in return for greater flexibility. Some employers exploit this quite unreasonably (see Polly Toynbee's book "Hard work") - for instance, I used to know a nurse who did home care at minimum wage rates, from which the agency deducted 50p for giving her a wage slip!

The European Union is considering a directive to improve this across the continent, and the Government proposed waiting for that, but I felt it would be helpful to show that we thought it urgent, so with 118 colleagues I voted through a procedural motion to get the private bill considered on Friday. It still ran out of time (as private bills nearly always do) but the vote raise the priority of the issue.

3. Public sector pay rises
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~

As the media are always keen to report extortionate MP pay increases, you may have wondered why the latest public sector pay recommendations didn't mention it this time. It's because the rise is just 0.66%. Before we celebrate this frugality, though, note that we are awaiting a Senior Salaries Review Board recommendation later this year on whether MPs are paid appropriately: this is the one where a few MPs have notoriously asked for £100,000. (I've opposed that and not called for any general rise at all.)

What's attracted more attention are two of the health sector rises. GPs are getting no rise at all, and nurses are getting a mixed package: 1.5% now, 1% more in November and expected average earnings
growth of 4.9% because of various career progression schemes.

A very indignant GP has written to me to denounce the former. The case for it is that last year's settlement with GPs gave them very substantial rises if they fulfilled various government objectives (e.g. immunisation rates): I understand that income ranges from £50,000 to £120,000 (source: www.nhscareers. nhs.uk). Increasing this
further didn't seem a high priority, since the settlement has been widely-criticised as over-generous. The case against is that GPs who fulfill all the targets feel they've simply done the job well, and would have liked at least a small rise to keep place with inflation (currently running at 2.7% on one measure and 4.2% on another).

Nurses' unions have criticised the package too, since the basic pay increase barely or not quite covers inflation (depending on which measure you use). But I think it's fair to look at the expected earnings rise of 4.9% - this is still a good deal better than most people are getting, and it's on top of increases in nursing pay in
the last 10 years which have massively outstripped most other professions. As you may remember, I was heavily involved in the (ultimately successful) effort to get the break-even point for the merged NUH hospitals delayed by a year, and so far there have been few redundancies. But they are not out of the wood yet, and I think
giving priority to a much bigger rise this year would really be problematic.

4. Trident
~~~~~~~~~~

Looking ahead to next week, I've had discussions with local campaigners on the upcoming Trident vote and thinking through the cost and security issues: the cost is substantial and the benefits
debatable.

I'm committed by repeated manifesto promises and numerous doorstep discussions during the last election not suddenly to vote to scrap the nuclear deterrent. MPs try to keep election promises up to the following election, when voters get another chance to choose their MPs. Accordingly, next week I plan to vote to maintain the submarine system (as economically as is consistent with having a deterrent always at sea).

However, contrary to the impression given in the press, we are not voting next week on the nuclear missile system. There will be a separate decision to be made on that in about five years' time, and I'd like to give notice that I don't expect at the next election to give a binding commitment to voting to maintain them under all circumstances. It's possible that the time is coming to switch to equipping the submarines with powerful but non-nuclear missiles, and I'd like to decide on the merits of the issue when the time comes (if I'm still your MP, of course), rather than bind myself in advance as I've done up to now. What I do promise is to consult you extensively with the pros and cons before coming to any conclusions.

Best regards,

Nick