Spring Forum News - Newsletter from Margot James

Spring Forum News
Keeping you up to date with my latest activities in Stourbridge. The latest campaigns, letters to the press and events in and around Stourbridge


April 27th 2009

Dear Supporter,

Please find below my comments and thoughts from the Conservative Spring Forum in Cheltenham last weekend.

The economy

David Cameron and George Osborne drew the battle lines for the next election with their demolition of Darling’s budget last week. The IMF and the latest unemployment and productivity figures laid bare the false premise on which yet more increases in borrowing and spending are based. The public finances are out of control and the leadership are preparing for how to make the best of the austerity years if we are elected. The key planks for that policy development are:

• Restoring confidence
• Pursuing sustainable growth that is founded on savings and investment instead of more debt
• Getting more for our spend and focussing on outcomes not inputs
• Protecting front line services
• Getting control of spending now, not deferring the difficult choices until after the election

I was interviewed on the BBC ‘Politics Show’ about these issues and the implications for us Conservative candidates in marginal seats.

Watch on BBC iPlayer (scroll to about 47:20)

Boris Johnson

Boris was one of the main highlights of the conference. The man has the ultimate in star quality and delivered a speech to match. He spoke of the achievements so far in London, all of which had been achieved at no additional cost to the taxpayer. People are safer on public transport since he banned alcohol on busses and the tube. No mealy mouthed questions as to ‘how would this be enforced’ he just took the decision and it has worked.

Investment in the tube infrastructure, approval for Cross Rail, the doubling of safer transport teams. Plus quality of life measures like the bike hire scheme, the planting of 15,000 trees and experiments in ‘shared space’ to slow traffic and help pedestrians.

All of these improvements financed by £180m savings found by cutting Labour waste. And by the application of Conservative principles to budgetary management.

Age Concern and Help the Aged

These two excellent organisations have merged into one powerful voice for older people. I attended and spoke at their fringe meeting.

Angela Kitching, national policy advisor for the new group spoke of the funding gap. There is a gap of £1.5 billion between the assessed level of care and what is budgeted. There are huge variations in care and money spent around the country. Social care is patchy. Sadly the Age Concern leaflet on ‘How to complain about your care’ is the most downloaded leaflet out of all the many leaflets on their website.

Cllr. Felicity Hindson, Cabinet member for Adult and Social Care in Hampshire gave an excellent talk about what has been achieved there following a budget crisis in 2007. The crisis was precipitated by a rise in the number of people requiring care and an increase in the complexity of their needs.

Hampshire responded by diverting resource from other areas and modernising their service. They raised the savings barrier (if your savings exceed a certain amount you get no support and this is seen as very unfair on those who have saved for their retirement). The barrier was raised from savings of £20,000 to £50,000. Self funders were given more information and support. And steps were taken to improve the communication between different agencies responsible for care. People in receipt of state support were given much more control over how they spent their allocation, known as ‘self directed care’.

I pointed out that in this target driven culture it was instructive to compare the number of targets against which performance was assessed for older people’s care and children’s services. When I was older people’s champion in Kensington and Chelsea I had noted that just seven targets applied to older people versus nearly fifty for the care of children.

I am determined to do everything I can to ensure that older people get a fair deal and this means a bigger share of public service resources than they receive at the moment.

Michael Gove on schools

Policy on education is forging ahead. Over the weekend we heard how a Conservative government would extend the academy programme to primary schools. Greater independence for all schools, autonomy for heads and greater rigour in all exams is the main thrust of our policy development. This is manifested by policy commitments as follows:

• Heads to have the power to exclude violent or disruptive pupils and to ban any items from school that might cause violence and disruption
• Heads will have more control over staff pay and conditions
• Schools will be permitted to offer the best international exams
• Ofstead will report on the drive to ensure teaching by ability in all state schools
• Parents will be empowered to apply to a new academy and have the per pupil funding transfer from the old school to the new Academy
• An independent body will be established to ensure exams are tied to world class standards. There is no doubt that the rigour of our examination system has been gradually eroded over the last twenty years and more. The next Conservative Government will start to reverse this trend.

Energy and the Environment

Nick Herbert and Greg Clarke led an excellent session on we will set about creating a low carbon economy. Attending the session made me realise that it is not just this government’s economic policy that is such a shambles. There has been no coherent energy policy over the last ten years.

We have easily the largest potential for renewable sources of energy in Britain with both tidal and wind power to be harnessed. Yet we generate less or our energy from renewable sources than any other European country except for Luxembourg and Malta.

We have known that our North Seas reserves are finite and that our nuclear power stations are coming to the end of their lives. Yet there has been no plan to replace them. Even if nuclear power stations were commissioned now they would not be productive until 2018.

Feedback

Please forward this campaign update on to any fellow Conservatives in our area who you think would be interested.