2013-06-19T16:04:39-04:00 Tony Baldry http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=tony-baldry Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Tony Baldry Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3237724 2013-05-08T10:46:32-04:00 2013-05-09T05:20:35-04:00

Tony Baldry http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-baldry/
There is now a Government in Mogadishu, led by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.

Like many of the Ministers in his Government, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is not a traditional politician. He is an academic, an engineer turned educator, who has returned to help rebuild his country.

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud talks about taking Somalia from being a "failed nation" to being an "emerging nation".

His aspirations are understandable.

Every institution, every organisation, in Somalia needs to be rebuilt.

At this week's International Pledging Conference for Somalia, held at Lancaster House, African Heads of Government lined up to commit support to the new Somalia.

President Museveni of Uganda undertook to help train Somalia Army officers, Somali NCOs, and to help train the Somali Armed Forces in technology, so that they would be better able to deal with the threat of Al Shabab.

The reality is that two-thirds of Somalis are under 25.

A huge number of these young people are fed up with living in conditions of grinding poverty, with little prospect of work.

They are desperate for attention and I don't suppose it takes much more than a promise of a mobile telephone and some recognition for Al Shabab to enlist the support of younger Somalis. Al Shabab might have been driven militarily out of Mogadishu and many of Somalia's towns and villages, but there are those including the President of Somalia who would simply argue that Al Shabab has now melted into society.

The challenges facing Somalia are enormous.

• Lack of food security;


• Shortage of jobs;


• Deforestation;


• Widespread sexual violence;


• Thousands of Somalis are either refugees in neighbouring countries, or internally displaced within Somalia;


• There is a serious lack of infrastructure with a need for roads, hospitals, prisons, courts.

There is a need for functioning state institutions.

There is a need for security.

Although the Pledging Conference was held in London, and raised some £240 million of initial pledges to help build a new nation in Somalia, what is encouraging is the number of African countries who have pledged to support Somalia.

There is a growing recognition in Africa that there is a need for mutual security. What happens in Somalia will have a regional effect and although the changes in Somalia need to be Somali owned and Somali led, there is a clear recognition that what happens in Somalia will have an impact on Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Djibouti, and throughout Africa.

There is a growing recognition in Africa that whereas the United States and many European and developed economies flatline, Africa is the one part of the world which is seeing significant year on year growth.

But Africa still needs to attract foreign direct investment and having countries such as Somalia has been on the continent, doesn't help anyone in Africa.

No one can underestimate the challenges that confront Somalia, but there is some cause for optimism.

There have been no piracy attacks this year.

The international community has kept its promises to Somalia.

The African Union has increased numbers of peace keepers in the country.

Mauritius and the Seychelles have prosecuted Somali pirates, and those convicted have been imprisoned in Somaliland and Puntland in prisons funded by the international community.

The people of Somalia are building a country from the bottom up.

This clearly needs more than humanitarian assistance. It needs jobs. It needs investment. It needs long term security and State institutions that work.

This is why the UK and the international community have pledged sums of money to support Somali Armed Forces. They support the development and training of the Somali police - so that it can be a police force which people run towards, rather than run away from - and the international community is supporting investment in Somali Judges, Lawyers and Courts.

It is in no-one's interests that countries such as Somalia are failed states.

It is in everyone's interests to help the people of Somalia become a fully functioning working state, defeating terrorism and building a brighter future for young Somalis.

Sir Tony Baldry is co Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Somalia and Somaliland]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2321146 2012-12-18T06:55:10-05:00 2013-02-17T05:12:01-05:00

Tony Baldry http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-baldry/
They are frustrated that all too often they are told by ministers that ministers are unable to do or not do something as a consequence either of

• Europe; or
• The judges and the courts; or
• Particularly human rights legislation;
• The coalition agreement.

So it is not surprising that ministers are keen to score some runs in increasing their ability to take a decision.

On Thursday, Chris Grayling, the secretary of state for justice, issued a written ministerial statement on judicial review.

This appears not to have been particularly picked up by the press.

At first sight, it is a written statement drawing attention to a proposed set of reforms for judicial review. On the face of it, they all look perfectly sensible measures to make the judicial review process work more effectively or, as the written statements says "... a targeted approach to ensure that legitimate claims are brought more quickly and efficiently to a resolution without affecting the rights to properly hold the Executive and other public bodies to account."

However, a press release issued alongside the written ministerial statement would seem to indicate that Chris Grayling and the government are wanting to go much further in rebalancing who it is that actually takes decisions in this country - is it ministers or the judges?

In his press statement, Chris Grayling says: "We have seen a huge surge in judicial review cases in recent years. The system is becoming mired in large numbers of applications, many of which are weak or ill founded, and they are taking up large amounts of judicial time, costing the court system money and can be hugely frustrating for the bodies involved in them.

I am concerned that judicial review is being used increasingly by organisations for PR purposes. Often the mere process of starting a judicial review will generate a headline.

We want to go back to a planning system where judicial review is available for genuine claims which provides people with access to judicial review where they need it, but weeds out the cases that should, frankly, never be there in the first place".

The fact is that judicial review applications have grown exponentially in recent years.

Judicial review, or rather, concerns about whether one might be taken to judicial review, are taking up more and more of ministers' and officials' time.

At a conference this week on judicial review, one government department was represented by no fewer than a staggering 16 officials and lawyers, all concerned with an annual update on what is happening in law and procedure on judicial review and at the same conference, there were 18 lawyers present from the Treasury Solicitors Department.

What the secretary of state for justice is proposing is a number of changes to try and ensure that the judicial review process cannot be unnecessarily dragged out.

So, for example, for cases based on a continuing issue or multiple decisions, the court should clarify the point when the time limit starts, to avoid long delays and for planning cases reducing the time after the initial decision that an application for judicial review can be lodged from three months, to six weeks to match the time limit for planning appeals.

However, the secretary of state's statement seems to suggest that he would like a rather more radical reform and shake-up of the whole JR process.

There is an important public debate to be had here, much broader and more fundamental than is suggested by a comparatively short written ministerial statement on a Thursday.

To what extent should political and administrative decisions be taken by ministers, and to what extent should they be taken by the courts?

Various factors, such as ever-widening boundaries of human rights legislation, and the introduction of the Supreme Court have inclined judges to be increasingly adventurous in deciding JR decisions.

The uncertainty of what can happen in JR proceedings, and the uncertainty as to the length of JR proceedings, can have a considerably dampening effect on ministers' and others' willingness to take initiatives and to take decisions.

On the other hand, over the years, JR has been seen as becoming an increasingly important counterbalance to preventing the executive from simply riding roughshod.

Even failed JR applications can often have a valuable role in preventing ministers taking bad decisions.

During the time of the last government, ministers came up with a proposal to build a huge asylum accommodation centre outside Bicester in my constituency for thousands and thousands of asylum seeker families.

This proposal was not surprisingly resisted by the local commniiteis and by local councils.

They took the case to judicial review.

As it happened, they lost.

However, the delay gave the Treasury time to get to grips with situation and in due course the Treasury stopped the project - not before the last Labour government had spent some £25 million on it, notwithstanding that a single stone had not been laid on the side.

I am confident that if it hadn't been for the JR proceedings delaying matters, at the outset, when ministers wanting to take the asylum accommodation centre project forward as a matter of urgency, they would have built the thing overnight.

It was only some time later that the National Audit Office (NAO) were able, at my request, to undertake a review, which demonstrated that at no point in time had the project been in any good value for money and was never going to work.

The NAO seriously criticised the Home Office and Home Office Ministers.

Of course, by then, such is the way of the world, that the ministers who had taken the decision and the permanent secretary who had been the accounting officer at the time when such a significant loss in public finances had been incurred, had all moved on.

At the present moment a large number of local authorities have come together to take JR proceedings against the government on a number of grounds in respect of the HS2 project, including the important grounds that there hasn't been a proper environmental impact assessment done, and that the proposals in respect of any compensation are flawed.

The High Court has now heard the competing arguments and will give judgement probably next February or March.

It surely must be an important check and balance that local authorities, either individually or collectively, are able to get some independent judicial oversight of decisions taken by ministers that can and will affect local people.

On the other hand, the undoubted massive increase in JR cases relating to all sorts of areas such as immigration, environmental protection, etc. are clearly unsustainable.

There is real danger that good JR cases get delayed and obstructed because there are so many JR cases in the system, many, as the minister points out, simply there for PR benefit and point-scoring.

What I suggest is needed here is not a consultation on a limited and technical set of reforms to judicial review, but rather, a more widespread debate in Parliament and society more generally as to where is the appropriate balance to be drawn between Judicial Review being a proper and legitimate means of holding the executive to account, and where does it become a mechanism simply for seeking to frustrate and thwart decisions taken by ministers with which one happens to disagree.

This is an important issue and requires a proper and informed public debate.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2192402 2012-11-26T12:18:23-05:00 2013-01-26T05:12:01-05:00

Tony Baldry http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-baldry/
Not particularly looking for spiritual guidance but because I Chair the House of Commons British/Italian Parliamentary Group which brings together UK and Italian Parliamentarians on a reasonably regular basis because we are interested in each other's countries.

Italy is a net donor to the EU Budget so one would have thought that they would share the UK's interests in trying to get the EU Budget under some control.

Not so.

Italian politics are complex.

There is something of a divide between the mainly wealthy northern Italy and broadly poorer southern Italy.

Although Italy overall is a net contributor to the EU, the Italian south actually benefits quite a lot from EU funding in terms of regional grants and money for southern Italian agriculture.

So the EU Budget provides an extremely useful mechanism for northern Italy to effectively recycle money to southern Italy via the EU but without it looking to northern Italian voters as if they are simply giving money direct to their southern cousins.

Put another way, northern Italians seem not to mind giving money to Brussels - even if they know in a roundabout way some of it is going to be recycled back to southern Italy.

They would rather do that than simply give the money to the south direct!

Italian politics are complex.

A Parliament shaped in a horseshoe and an electoral system based on PR and Party lists means that new political parties and alliances between political parties are continuously emerging.

Italy are due to have elections next year.

There seems to have been some agreement that these will now take place early in March.

Interestingly, no-one that we met in Rome knows who is going to be the candidate to lead the Right at those elections.

Possibly Berlusconi will re-emerge - possibly not.

Likewise, there are four or five candidates about to slug it out to see who emerges as leader of the left.

Moreover, no-one is quite sure which political parties are going to be in alliance with whom at next March's elections and all of this is being done as against the background of attempts to change the electoral system, supposedly to make the PR voting fairer.

(At the moment, under the present weighted party list system, depending on the way it tends to work out is those who get more votes, get even more votes added to them and so there is an element of unto them who hath is given more and those that hath not is taken away even that which they hath).

The truth is that the vast majority of Italians, rather like the present government of technocrats headed up by former EU Commissioner, Mario Monti.

This government has the support of left, right and centre and everyone knows that as a consequence, it is able to do things which no government from either end of the political spectrum could necessarily achieve.

The truth is that most Italians aren't particularly concerned about politics - certainly don't care about the European Union - aren't desperately impressed by politicians - they just want to get on and see the country's economy grow.

And they are continuously wanting to make the point that they are neither Spain nor Greece and actually, all things considered, have done pretty well in their austerity drive without everyone turning out onto the street to protest.

The conundrum of Italian politics is that those who are doing best are those who can portray themselves as the 'anti politician' candidates.

For a long time this was the character that Berlusconi created for himself - the outsider who wasn't part of the various ruling cliques.

I suspect that there are just too many court cases into Berlusconi's finances, his conduct as prime minister and the general aura of 'bunga-bunga' for him to continue to be a powerful force in Italian politics. And, in any event, anti-politics politicians tend to get more anti so the latest is a political party in Sicily headed up by a comedian called Grillo whose party seems to have done fairly well in local elections and have said they would challenge Italian parliamentary elections next year.

It is a bit like if people on their ballot papers in the UK were allowed to tick a box which said 'none of the above' - one suspects that such a candidate might win in a number of constituencies.

All the Italian politicians that we met irrespective of where they stood on the political spectrum recognised that the only way forward for the euro is with greater fiscal and banking union.

They also recognise that Britain not being in the euro was going to have to work out some sort of different relationship with the EU but the fact is that almost everyone we met in Italy amongst the Italian politicians rather like the UK and feel that the EU would be somewhat incomplete if Britain wasn't part even if one does get the sense that we are perceived as a somewhat difficult relative who turns up at family weddings and christenings and usually manages to create a row.

The truth is that Italian politicians of left, right and centre are really too preoccupied with trying to sort out Italy's problems to be particularly concerned by those of the UK.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1645471 2012-07-03T19:00:00-04:00 2012-09-02T05:12:16-04:00

Tony Baldry http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-baldry/
The United Kingdom emphatically decided that Britain did not wish to be part of the euro.

John Major negotiated for Britain a specific 'opt out' from the euro at the time of the Maastricht Treaty.

Successive Conservative Party leaders have made it clear that Britain would never join the euro under a Conservative government.

A sizeable number of countries, including France and Germany, are member of the eurozone.

They are also our neighbours and significant trading partners.

It is not in our interests that the eurozone collapse.

There is a general consensus within the eurozone that for the eurozone to stabilise and to have greater stability in the future there needs to be even greater integration of central tax and spending policies within the eurozone - i.e more centralised decision-taking, greater central control, reflecting one currency and one currency reflecting the need for one tax policy and a single approach to public spending within the eurozone.

Britain is clearly not going to be part of this ever more closely integrated eurozone.

This is going to mean that there will be a number of countries within the European Union outside of the eurozone, made up of

• countries such as Britain that have made a conscious decision that effectively they never wish to join the eurozone;
• newer members to the European Union who may have been contemplating joining the eurozone but had not yet been accepted for membership; and
• the possibility that some countries, such as Greece, which have been members of the eurozone, may for various reasons fall out of the eurozone.

Can the European Union copes with two such distinct blocs?

If so, how do the institutions of the European Union, particularly the Commission, fairly reflect the interests of both countries within the eurozone and countries outside the eurozone.

If not, do the EU member states outside of the eurozone start to have a completely new relationship with the EU Member States within the eurozone?

Somewhat akin to the relationship that EFTA (European Free Trade Association) countries used to have with the Common Market before many of the EFTA member countries joined the EU.

However, in these circumstances, would the UK still nominate Commissioners, attend meetings of the Council of Ministers, and be part of the European Parliament.

Would it be in our interests to help set up a new Trade Association of countries within Europe but outside of the eurozone?

Or if everyone just goes their own way?

What would all of this mean for the City of London?

UK Banking, insurance, chartered Surveyors, Lawyers and other professions, directly and indirectly provide huge numbers of jobs in London and the South of England. What would happen to the City of London if it were to be outside of the European Union?

There are many similar issues.

For the last nearly 40 years, UK agriculture has been based on policies of a Common Agricultural policy. If Britain were to leave the EU, what impact would this have on UK farming and the cost of food?

What is for certain is that at some point in the not too distant future, the European Union is going to look different from that which it looks today.

However, at the present moment, everyone is "doing immediate fire-fighting" on saving the eurozone.

It will only be once the eurozone is stabilised and working reasonably effectively, that it will it be possible for people to give time to working out the shape of a new European Union.

At that point it is clearly going to be sensible for the United Kingdom to negotiate a different relationship with what will be a different looking entity and at that time for Britain to have a referendum on determining Britain's future.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1596568 2012-06-14T10:36:30-04:00 2012-08-14T05:12:09-04:00

Tony Baldry http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-baldry/
Firstly, there are the approximately 1 ¼ million carers who spend more than 50 hours each week caring for family members who cannot look after themselves.

These carers are of every age.

My father, for example, well into his 90's, is carer for my mother.

But many young people act as carers for a parent.

These carers are not a static group. Every year hundreds of thousands of people become carers for the first time as a loved one becomes sick, has a stroke or develops age-related dementia.

Similarly, each year, hundreds of thousands of people cease to be carers, as a consequence of the person that they have been caring for, getting better, able to look after themselves unaided, or because the person that they have lovingly cared for for some time has died.

Then there are those people who are also called "carers" who give professional help and support to people either living at home, or resident in care homes, who can no longer look after themselves. If living at home, they may well have the support of a family member as a carer, but also need the regular support and assistance of a professional carer, paid for either by themselves or by their local council.

Responsibility for supporting both groups of carers at present falls between Primary Care Trusts and Upper Tier Local Authority Social Service providers.

As from next year, responsibility for looking after both types of carers will fall between the new Clinical Care Commissioning Groups - which will replace Primary Care Trusts, and Upper Tier Local Authorities as Social Service providers, and these two coming together to form statutory Health and Wellbeing Boards - all overseen by newly formed "HealthWatch" committees which will be supposed to look after the interests of local people and local patients.

Shortly - I would hope in the next couple of weeks - the Government is going to publish the long-awaited White Paper on "Social Care".

I suspect that most of the immediate press attention will focus on nursing home provision and nursing home fees in particular.

However, the White Paper will also hopefully contain good news for carers.

In a recent interview, Paul Burstow, the Minister in the Department of Health responsible for care services, admitted that "carers are treated as second-class citizens compared to those whom they support. Yet if we don't provide them with the right support they are unable to carry on with their caring responsibilities."

It is shocking, and should be of concern to us all, that even Government Ministers consider that at present carers are treated effectively as second-class citizens.

That should not be the case.

Quite rightly, Ministers want to significantly enhance the rights of carers. That carers' rights should be much clearer and more certain.

Over the years, there have been a number of Acts of Parliament relating to carers - almost all Private Member's Bills, introduced by MPs concerned to enhance the status of carers.

However, whilst those Bills for example now mean that local councils are obliged to assess the needs of carers, there is no requirement on local councils to provide services to help them.

This has to change.

A recent report from the Law Commission recommended that carers should receive new legal rights to services and improved carers assessments.

Hopefully, these new rights for carers will be clearly set out in the forthcoming "Social Care" White Paper.

Under the Law Commission's plans, councils will have a duty to consider whether a carer wishes to work or to udnertake education, training or leisure activities. In other words, there will be an obligation on Local Authorities to give carers practical and real support.

Hopefully carers and disabled people will be assessed for their health and wellbeing, and local councils will have a new statutory responsibility and duty to provide carers services.

Of course, to be effective, new carers services will need more funding.

There is no point in giving carers greater rights if there isn't the money to underpin and sustain those new rights for carers.

In particular, for many carers and their wellbeing, what they welcome - Carers Breaks - whether a holiday for a week once in a while, or a three day break, or even to support a carer to take the person they care for out for a day.

What is important here is giving a carer a break, rather than simply picking up the pieces if and when a carer can no longer manage.

However, whilst it would be very good new if the "Social Care" White Paper contains new rights for carers, that is only the start of the task. I think that those of us concerned about carers, are going to have to take a number of initiatives.

Firstly, I think that on each of the new Clinical Commissioning Groups, i.e. the bodies replacing Primary Care Trusts, the NHS organisations that will be commissioning local healthcare, that we should seek to ensure that there is a member of the Board who is a carers champion, who has the responsibility for regularly trying to ensure that their Clinical Commissioning Group is doing all that they reasonably can to assist, support and help carers.

Likewise, on the new Health and Wellbeing Boards and new local HealthWatches, again, we need to do everything possible to encourage carers champions.

There needs to be a lead member of the Health and Wellbeing Board , whether an elected councillor or official - either way a person who has clearly seen, understood and known as being the carers champion on that Health and Wellbeing Board.

Likewise, every HealthWatch should have amongst their members someone who is responsible for taking the lead on carers issues.

Then I suspect that for many carers, one of their needs is training.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people become carers for the first time.

No two instances are exactly the same, but almost certainly they will not necessarily have had any experience previously of being a carer.

There are all sorts of issues - practical, legal, from how to secure help and support, to accessing respite care - which they will suddenly be having to cope with and I would hope that Health and Wellbeing Boards would see the value of encouraging the provision of training course.

Then I suspect that there is more that needs to be done to support and recognise the status of professional carers, i.e. those people working in care homes, acting and working as domiciliary care workers.

Often, not always, they will have NVQ qualifications as carers, but at present there is no way of recognising a professional care assistant who has reached a level of professionalism.

We are going to need many more professional carers, particularly if we are seeking to try and ensure that people can stay at home as long as possible, rather than going into residential care. They are only going to be able to do that if they have proper professional, external, support.

So there is a huge agenda here for the All Party Group for Carers, for MPs generally, who are concerned to improve support for carers.

A huge agenda for the excellent national organisations dedicated to supporting carers and for very large numbers of people in health and social care.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1451839 2012-04-25T09:35:47-04:00 2012-06-25T05:12:02-04:00

Tony Baldry http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-baldry/
Contrast a United States Senate of 100 elected members representing the whole of the United States.

It is difficult to justify such a large body and in an era where there is clearly a desire for increasing democratic accountability and transparency, it is difficult to justify a revising Chamber that is wholly nominated and where no member is elected.

However, arguably one of the strengths of the present House of Lords is that its membership does comprise people such as former Presidents of Royal Colleges, Vice-Chancellors, senior Judges, senior members of the Armed Forces and others who bring specialist knowledge to Parliament.

Hence the suggestion for a mainly elected Second Chamber but a mainly elected much smaller Second Chamber but providing a number of places for a proportion of members to continue to be nominated.

Constitutional Reform may never be particularly high on the immediate political agenda - indeed Lords' reform has been being debated since the Parliament Act of 1911 - but that is of itself not a reason for not doing it.

Does this need a referendum - hardly.

All the main Political Parties had a commitment in their last General Election manifesto to Lords' reform.

In any event the Labour Party's call for a referendum is somewhat self-serving.

The Labour Party do not wish to see either a reduction in the number of Parliamentary constituencies nor an equalisation in the number of electors for each Parliamentary constituency because the present constituency boundaries are skewed in favour of the Labour Party and they would benefit from representing a number of constituencies with small electorates.

You could almost fit two Welsh Parliamentary constituencies into my seat of nearly 90,000 voters.

The Liberal Democrat Party has made it clear that a pre-condition of their support for the new constituencies and even constituency sizes is that Lords' reform should be completed this Parliament.

So an increasing number of Labour MPs clearly believe that if they can thwart Lords' reform, they won't be bothered by changes in constituency boundaries.

Having for a long time campaigned for a fully elected Second Chamber, it is difficult for the Labour Party to oppose the principle of Lords' reform - hence they are resorting to filibustering tactics seeking to delay legislation for as long as possible and hoping generally to gum up the works.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1326961 2012-03-07T12:38:47-05:00 2012-05-07T05:12:02-04:00

Tony Baldry http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-baldry/
The second parallel universe which we occupy when we have time is that of the wider world: Of today's headlines - killings in Syria; insurgency in Iraq; The Arab Spring.

The third parallel universe in which we occupy in every sense is that of the natural environment. However, all too often we don't have time to concentrate or consider what is happening in our natural environment until we can get through the looking glasses and wardrobes of the various earlier concerns and preoccupations of the various earlier parallel universes.

A quarter of a century ago, the Brundtland Report introduced the idea of sustainable development to the international community arguing that it could be achieved by a policy framework embracing economic growth, social equality and environmental sustainability.

Sustainable development was defined by Our Common Future, the landmark report of the World Commission on Environment and Development published in 1987, as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." In other words, we should not steal from our grandchildren.

In this sense, sustainable development is not a destination but should be a dynamic process of adaptation, learning and action. It is about seeing the whole picture, such as the critical connections between food, water, land and energy. Sustainable development is about ensuring that our actions today are consistent with where we want to go tomorrow.

So it is clearly sensible to ask how much has really changed since the Brundtland Report or since The Earth Summit, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, which was held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, or indeed since the reaffirmation of the Rio principles at the Johannesburg Summit in 2002.

The fact is that progress has been made, but a more disturbing fact is that the world is not on the path of sustainable development. And the simple truth about unsustainable development is that it is, by definition, unsustainable. There are a number of things that the world needs to do urgently even before 2020.

In 2000, the world made a promise to halve the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015 compared with 1990. Today, the world is on track to meet that target - however it should be noted that more than a quarter of the world's population - some 27% - still live in absolute poverty. So although global economic growth is up 75% since 1992, inequalities are still high.

The per capita income difference between rich and poor countries has grown continuously. The gap between rich and poor has widened in many developed countries in the past twenty years and the average income of the richest 10% of the population is now about nine times that of the poorest 10%.

The world now has a population of some seven billion people, and indeed as the world's population has grown to its current level of seven billion, food production has kept pace. Today enough food is still produced to feed all of us comfortably. However, access to food is another matter.

Hunger has risen seriously in recent years and the number of undernourished people in developing countries increased by about 20 million in recent years. There are serious issues about prices and inputs, such as fertilisers, water availability and competition for land. Mahmat Gandhi once observed that, "earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need but not every man's greed".

With the majority of the world's people living in coastal areas, oceans are crucial for humanity's future - whether through direct economic activities or because of the environmental services they provide. However, overfishing has led to 85% of all fish stocks now being classified as over-exploited, depleted or fully exploited.

As for climate change, there has been a 38% increase in annual global carbon dioxide emissions between 1990 and 2009. Despite the adoption of the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, annual global carbon dioxide emissions from fuel combustion grew by about 38% between 1990 and 2009 with the rate of growth faster after 2000 than in the 1990s. Even with serious action to reduce emissions, the world could still face challenges to limit global temperature increases to 2°C since pre-industrial times.

Among its expected impacts are reductions in crop yields, particularly at low latitudes where most developing countries are, change precipitation patterns and reduce water availability, increase land degradation and desertification, negative impacts on human health, sea level rise likely to pose a threat to some smaller islands, developing states and communities and countries with large coastal areas and new risk from extreme weather. These risks are particularly severe for the world's poorest.

The problem is that the concept of sustainable development has not yet been incorporated into the mainstream national and international economic policy debate.

I think a large number of economists still regard sustainable development as extraneous to their core responsibilities for macro-economic management and, of course, it is challenging having on the one hand to increase growth in economic activity so as to help take millions of people out of poverty, whilst at the same time trying to ensure that such growth can be sustainable.

But all too often we have treated areas such as food, water and energy as being separate issues whereas all three need to be fully integrated and not treated separately if we are to deal with the potential crisis in global food security. We need to spend much more time considering planet "pantry" boundaries, "tipping points" and "environmental thresholds".

Few goods and services sold today bear the full environmental and social costs of production. We only measure development as growth in gross domestic product but perhaps we should develop a new sustainable development index or set of indicators.

Sustainable development is about seeing the whole picture, such as the critical links between food, water, land and energy. I think one of the reasons why we have failed to make greater progress on the sustainable development agenda is that for many decision-takers, there is a feeling that it can be business as usual for just a bit longer.

I think we have to be careful if we think that we can simply shut off responsibility for our actions today to our children or grandchildren. There is evidence to suggest that climate change could well be abrupt as well as linear. Indeed, it has been claimed that the impact of climate change is likely to be greater on developed societies, such as Europe and the United States, because of our lack of resilience.

I think it would be a brave person who believed that intense climate change events won't, for example, be without risk of immediate security implications. There are pollutants other than CO2 that contribute to global warming, namely Black Carbon and Ground Level Ozone which are not part of the negotiations on greenhouse gases. HFCs could be controlled efficiently under the Montreal Protocol which has already successfully phased out nearly a hundred similar chemicals.

What the United Nations Environment Programme has recently shown is that an approach concentrating on these short term climate drivers, which account for 40-45% of global warming could buy humanity several decades of breathing space by cutting the rate of climate change nearly in half through 2040 or beyond.

But I think partially because there isn't the sense of urgency and partially because the science behind this isn't perhaps widely enough understood, little action in this regard is being taken.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1276016 2012-02-14T09:48:25-05:00 2012-04-15T05:12:01-04:00

Tony Baldry http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-baldry/
In an attempt to demonstrate what indeed everyone - including the critics of the Bill - know to be the case that the Government does not and never has had the intentions ascribed to the Bill by its critics in the Lords, Ministers have sought to amend the Health Bill to make it clear beyond a shadow of a doubt what the Bill is intending to do.

But of course the critics in the House of Lords don't wish to be reassured.

They are instinctively opposed to any reform whatsoever of the NHS.

As a consequence, the Lords' amendments are becoming more incoherent.

Last week, the Lords passed an amendment saying that in providing a universal Health Service, the NHS should have proper regard for mental health.

Of course it should - but the amendment could as equally have said that the NHS should also have proper regard for:

• Cancer services
• Preventative medicine
• Concern about neurological disorders
• Palliative care
• Respiratory diseases

or a host of other causes and conditions that one would expect in any comprehensive 21st century health system.

The fact is that the realities concerning the NHS are the same now as they were last year or the year before when the Labour Party signed up to the Nicholson Challenge.

The Nicholson Challenge which makes it clear that there needs to be efficiency savings delivered in the NHS, made without harming patient care and that these challenges and the challenges for the NHS will grow with a growing, ageing population.

The issue is - as it has always been - with finite resources for the NHS, do we want decisions about medical priorities taken by managers acting on the instructions of political masters or do we want priorities set by GPs, clinicians and healthcare professionals, acting in the interests of their patients.

I think the overwhelming majority of people would prefer the latter and GPs in my constituency and elsewhere are repeatedly making it clear that they too want to be able to design health services for their patients.

GPs want the procrastination to stop - they want to get on with GP commissioning. ]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1212995 2012-01-18T10:51:03-05:00 2012-03-19T05:12:01-04:00

Tony Baldry http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-baldry/
In his speech to the Fabien Society, Ed Balls said that he would make cuts to education, policing, defence and the NHS and importantly said that he would support the public sector pay freeze that the current government is proposing.

It is, at last, some atonement from the Labour party; whose reckless spending during the boom period left Britain highly vulnerable to the subsequent banking crisis of 2007, a crisis which the Labour government dealt with so poorly that even the former Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling has admitted in his memoirs: "[Labour] failed to win the 2010 election because the public did not think we had dealt with the resultant economic crisis as well as we should have done."

Such admissions merely weaken the Labour Party's claims that they have a credible alternative plan to that which the current coalition government is undertaking. It is clear that the opposition are confused over the direction to take given that, on the one hand, they accuse the Chancellor of making mistakes, but on the other support the government's policy in order to reduce the deficit.

The facts show that the coalition's economic strategy although tough, is starting to work. Since the general election we have seen over half a million new private sector jobs, our cost of borrowing has fallen to record lows and businesses have invested £119 billion across the economy over the last year. Confidence from the markets proves that that government's economic plan is working. It is therefore not surprising that the opposition are left with no other alternative but to, begrudgingly, support the coalition.

The result of Ed Balls' speech demonstrates at least some element of responsibility, recognising the seriousness of the deficit crisis. Time will tell as to whether this is a genuine attempt by Balls and Miliband to be 'responsible' in opposition. Given the backlash from trade unions in the aftermath of the speech and further backtracking on Balls' part, I am not filled with much hope.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1162826 2011-12-21T10:37:52-05:00 2012-02-20T05:12:01-05:00

Tony Baldry http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-baldry/
Our government has steered Britain through the global debt storm with its credible deficit reduction plan which has ensured UK market interest rates on government debt have fallen to record lows.

We have also cut income tax for 25million people, frozen council tax for the second year running and cut fuel duty to 10p lower than would have been set under Labour.

This government has also seen the biggest increase in the State Pension since 1948, so as from April next year State pensions will be uprated by earnings, prices or 2.5% - whichever is highest, raising the basic state pension by £5.30 a week.

Alongside this we have seen the largest ever increase in the Child Tax Credit, by £225. This is due to increase again in April next year by a further 5.2%.

In business and banking we have also seen great progress. In January the government imposed a levy on the balance sheet of UK banks and building societies and to the UK operations of banks from abroad. This is expected to raise £2.5 billion a year. We have also got credit flowing to small businesses and created 24 new Enterprise Zones across the country.

This government has shown commitment and enthusiasm toward the National Health Service by reinvesting into its core function of frontline patient service. This means there are now more 3,500 more doctors, and a smaller but more manageable bureaucracy.

There is also now much better access to cancer drugs. The government has introduced a £200 million per year Cancer Drugs Fund which has already been able to give 5,000 patients the cancer drugs they need.

Britain remains an important part of the international community. This year we have been leading the international efforts to support the Libyan people in their hour of need, preventing the massacre of thousands of innocent civilians under Colonel Gaddafi and his troops and supporting their wish to elect their own democratic government.

This government remains loyal to protecting Britain's national interest in Europe. Our European Union Act ensures that in future, changes to the EU treaties that moves power from the UK to the EU is proposed, the UK Government cannot act without the consent from the British people in a national referendum. The Prime Minister also made it clear before the EU Summit on the 8-9th December that Britain's national interests remain at the heart of decisions, and Britain would only agree a new treaty if modest, reasonable safeguards were obtained.

Overall 2011 has been a challenging year not least with the financial crisis in the Eurozone, but a year of achievements nonetheless. ]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1116171 2011-11-29T19:00:00-05:00 2012-01-29T05:12:01-05:00

Tony Baldry http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-baldry/
I personally think that the strikes are inappropriate and untimely, especially whilst talks are ongoing.

I hope everyone will reflect that what the government is offering is both fair and affordable.

The fact is that:

• Public sector pensions will remain inflation-proofed and among the very best available at a guaranteed level.
• Most will see no reduction in the pension income they receive at retirement and many low- and middle-income earners will in fact receive a larger pension income at retirement.
• Low earners making under £15,000 a year (approximately 15% of the workforce), will not have to make increased contributions. Another million workers earning up to £21,000 will have their total increase limited to 1.5% over three years.
• The pot people have built up so far will be protected. This will mean a guaranteed benefit in retirement which is free from market fluctuations or fees - something all but eliminated elsewhere.
• No one within 10 years of retirement will see any change - either in the age they retire or in the amount of pension they will receive on retirement.

I think it is also important to recognise that:

• People are living longer, so spending longer in retirement.
• Public sector workers are on average better paid than those in the private sector.
• Over the past decade public sector pension costs increased by one third in real terms.
• To get an equivalent pension in the private sector you would have to contribute over a third of your salary each year.

Lastly, I think it is important to note that only about one-third of union members actually voted for strikes.

It is wrong to say that the government isn't listening or interested in negotiation. Our offer is fair and sustainable and it protects lower earners and all the benefits people have built so far. The offer has also been improved in response to concerns of public sector workers.

It isn't correct to suggest that the government is penalising public sector workers. Difficult decisions have to be made to ensure public finances are sustainable for the future. Our reforms are about striking a fairer balance between what public sector workers pay and what other taxpayers pay as we all live longer.

Reform is needed. A civil servant retiring at 60 today can expect to draw on a pension for 30 years. The cost of pensions has jumped by a third in a decade to £32 billion - an unsustainable burden on taxpayers.

We've always said that we want public sector pensions to remain amongst the very best available - reforms are about striking a fairer deal. It is also important to remember that the most recent data shows that the average public sector worker is paid more than those in the private sector and typically enjoys a better pension.

The current arrangement is not sustainable. We have made sure that all benefits people have built up so far are protected, and low earners will not have to make increased contributions. No one within ten years of retirement will see any change.

Of course everyone's pension is important to them but these issues are not going to be resolved as a consequence of the disruption which will be caused by the strikes on Wednesday. They are only going to be resolved by sensible discussion and negotiation. ]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1092000 2011-11-14T18:00:00-05:00 2012-01-14T05:12:02-05:00

Tony Baldry http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-baldry/
Actually, the tax-take during much of the 1990s was far higher, rising to a peak of 86% in early 1999. In other words, for every pound spent on a litre of petrol, 86 pence went to the Chancellor.

This trend has since been reversed, and the October 2011 tax-take was 60% for petrol and 58% for diesel.

I think we need to be clear what changes to duty and VAT have been made under the present government.

The previous government had planned increases for October 2010 and January 2011 and those were increases which were implemented by the present government under plans inherited from the last Labour government.

A VAT increase from 17.5% to 20% on 2 January 2011.

In the 2011 budget, George Osborne announced he would abolish the fuel duty escalator and instead cut duty by one pence per litre on 23 March.

He also announced a 'fair fuel stabiliser' where duty rises in line with RPI (Retail Price Index) inflation, plus one pence per litre when they are low for a sustained period.

This cut in the rate of duty on petrol and diesel of one pence per litre would have resulted in a real cut in fuel prices if pre-tax costs of fuel had remained the same.

The problem is that petrol prices have gone up since late last year, as a consequence of rising oil prices and the weaker pound.

Higher prices since early this year have been caused by higher oil prices following the political unrest in the Middle East, and particularly the revolt in Libya.

This uncertainty on the world's fuel markets has meant that petrol prices in the UK set new records in January, February, March, April and May of this year.

The mid-May 2011 price of 136.7p for a litre of unleaded petrol is the highest cash price ever. 141.5p for a litre of diesel in May was also the highest ever but as a note from the House of Commons library states:

"it is also clear that much of the trend in pump prices was driven by changes in the pre-tax prices rather than in fuel duty."

The UK used to have the highest duty rates for petrol of any country in the European Union.

The UK has moved down this list from first to ninth place, but the UK still has the highest diesel prices in Europe.

However, a number of factors have pushed up the relative price of diesel over time - the most important of which is the long-term increase in demand for diesel and the limited refining capacity.

Diesel became more popular than petrol in 2005 and this year again has seen a further increase in diesel sales and a fall in the volume of petrol but the difficulty is that refineries in the UK are configured to meet historical patterns of demand which maximise petrol and heavy fuel duty, so the output of UK refineries doesn't match UK demand and hence the UK has to import diesel, mainly from Russia and all of this increases prices.

Put starkly, 85% of the price increase in petrol over the last year has been related to changes in pre-tax prices, i.e petrol at the pump before any tax is added.

It is true that the fuel duty escalator which operated between 1993 and 2000 automatically introduced above-inflation rises in duty. However, that escalator ended after the September 2000 fuel protests.

Although the last Labour government effectively reintroduced a slower escalator in the 2009 Budget, the first increase was staged and the present Chancellor ended this automatic link in this year's budget.

So whilst people are understandably concerned about high petrol and diesel prices, these price increases are not as a consequence of increased taxes.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1069391 2011-11-01T11:31:15-04:00 2012-01-01T05:12:01-05:00

Tony Baldry http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-baldry/
A comparatively short time ago I contested a General Election on a very clear manifesto. I made it clear that the Conservatives wanted an open and democratic Europe:

"We will be positive members of the European Union but we are clear that there should be no further extension of the EU's power over the UK without the British people's consent".
And a Conservative Government that would:

• play an "active and energetic role in the EU";
• fight our corner to promote our national interests;
• never allow Britain to slide into a federal Europe;
• amend the 1982 European Communities act so that any proposed treaty would be subject to referendum;
• never take the UK into the Euro and prevent any future government from doing so without a referendum;
• introduce a UK Sovereignty Bill to ensure that authority remains in our Parliament - use of a 'ratchet' clause (where power is handed to EU) would also be subject to referendum.

All of this since the General Election we have either done or we are in the process of doing.

Nowhere in the Election manifesto on which I fought the last election was there any suggestion of an incoming Conservative government either seeking to introduce a referendum to renegotiate Britain's terms of membership with the EU or an in-out referendum.

On the Monday 24th October, the day of the vote, I asked the prime minister to reassure any doubts people may have, in my question: "Will the prime minister confirm that, at the last general election, the Conservative manifesto committed us to seeking to return powers from Europe on economic and social policy, but that nowhere did it contain a commitment to seek an in/out referendum or to seek to renegotiate our terms of membership of the European Union?"

The prime minister responded by confirming our above promise: "My hon. Friend makes an important point. We did have a commitment to seek the return of important powers from the European Union, such as the social and employment legislation....however, it was not part of our manifesto or our policy to seek a referendum that included an in/out option."

I would also like to add that over the years the benefits of the UK being part of the European Union far outweigh any costs incurred from membership and let us not kid ourselves that even if we left the EU we could never divorce ourselves from Europe and the Common Markets (54% of our trade is with Europe). ]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1030055 2011-10-25T07:43:22-04:00 2011-12-25T05:12:01-05:00

Tony Baldry http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-baldry/
Currently R.E is not included in the English baccalaureate (ebac) and statistics suggest this is putting pressure on the department in schools across the country. We are witnessing a decline in the number of students opting to take R.E; resulting in the reduction of staff, and some schools are cutting out a 'full course' option at GCSE altogether, as there are simply not enough pupils to teach (NATRE survey June 2011).

The success of subjects in the ebac is becoming quite clear as we are seeing a surging rise in the number of students opting for subjects such as History and Geography. Indeed this was confirmed in a question I put to Michael Gove, The Secretary of State for Education who confirmed "the English baccalaureate is having an immediate impact on subject choices. The numbers of students electing to study modern foreign languages, geography, history, physics, chemistry and biology are all up." Notably when asked if he was aware of the significant decline in the number of students studying R.E he begged to differ, suggesting R.E. as a choice was actually on the rise.

Figures produced in the NATRE survey, however are contrary to Mr. Gove's claim. The worry now is that, R.E. is being viewed as a 'lesser' subject to those on the ebac, in which both parents and students take advice, therefore without inclusion in the ebac, participation and interest will diminish further and risk the future of the subject altogether. In particular NATRE feel "in a place with such religious diversity as Great Britain, it would be a serious error to discourage young people from the religious tolerance and understanding provided by the Religious Studies GCSE course".]]>