Gareth Epps

Welfare Reform Bill: Which way do Lib Dem MPs vote?

by Gareth on 26. Jan, 2012 in Uncategorized

Those 57 Liberal Democrat MPs, whether on the Government payroll or not, are going to have some very tough choices when they come to vote on all the amendments to the Welfare Reform Bill.
It’s been suggested that the difficult position the Party finds itself in is all down to communications. Tell the world about all the concessions the Lib Dems have achieved, the spin doctors say, and all will be OK.
But of course it’s not. Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords were thoroughly unconvinced by this argument when they rebelled over ESA, the cap and CSA fees. Those rebellions seem to have achieved far more of substance.
In any case, a re-evaluation of priorities is needed.
That’s why I’ve been working with other grassroots Lib Dems like the author of Party policy on ESA, Liberal Youth’s blogger extraordinaire George Potter; former Guildford MP Sue Doughty; Social Liberal Forum colleagues and members of the Liberal Democrat Disability Association. Sue has orchestrated an open letter to Nick Clegg, signed by a significant number of Liberal Democrat candidates in 2010 (the most significant number since the General Election).
There will also be meetings with Liberal Democrat Parliamentarians – an almost unprecedented move – and I have put the issue on the agenda of the Federal Policy Committee next month.
Liberal Democrats need to be very careful to spell out their priorities. That should be ensuring the most vulnerable people receive proper care, while ensuring that the benefits system can no longer be used by the right-wing press to assert that working people earn less than claimants. The premise of the Coalition’s approach to welfare reform is generally right – and the many conversations I’ve had with people in areas of high deprivation in Reading prove it. But the Coalition will lose the argument unless they deal properly with the substance rather than retreating into their collective bunker.
That means that the smaller of the rebellions so far – on ESA – should be seen as a greater priority than the controversial benefits cap. Paddy Ashdown has been clear on the cap that he wants to see effective mitigation, and the bishops’ amendment to protect children is a start. Many people, though, are concerned that the real winners from the current, uncapped system – the landlords – are being left off the hook. A look at rent controls in the small number of most affected boroughs would be wise. But there is some consensus on this – and to concentrate on the cap is to focus not on the most vulnerable people at risk from the provisions of the Bill. The localising and non-ringfencing of the Social Fund is one measure that the Lords have let slip through – and an example of unfairness masquerading as localism.
Worst of all, though, was the discovery of the blatantly discriminatory proposals to charge lone parents to pursue maintenance via the Child Support Agency. Anyone who has ever been anywhere near running the smallest council will be aware of nonsense proposals produced by lazy or incompetent officials suggesting ways to save money. Those who wish for a political future ensure such proposals never see the light of day and that the bureaucrats’ move is not career-enhancing. How has an entire coalition Government made such a schoolboy error?
So the job of Liberal Democrats in Government on the Welfare Reform Bill is not yet done. There’s work to do to stop landlords profiteering at the State’s expense, providing the means to provide adequate mitigation on the benefit cap. The positions on the CSA and ESA are more serious. Both go against the fundamental values of the Liberal Democrats. One goes against party policy passed only months ago. Neither was part of the Coalition Agreement. I do not know of any concession we have made that remotely legitimises any of this.
So until I see change, I will continue to work with a great many Liberal Democrat colleagues to ensure the Coalition Agreement is honoured to encourage work and enshrine responsibility and fairness in the welfare system. The Agreement states:-
“Our government will be a much smarter one, shunning the bureaucratic levers of the past and finding intelligent ways to encourage, support and enable people to make better choices for themselves.”
Let’s not let lazy politicians, let down by lazier bureaucrats, get in the way of it. Lib Dem MPs should retain the Lords amendments.

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We need to tackle ‘crony capitalism’ on our watch

by Gareth on 23. Jan, 2012 in Coalition politics, Liberal Democrat politics, Uncategorized

The Liberal Democrats’ vision of a John Lewis economy, and an end to ‘crony capitalism’, as articulated by Nick Clegg, is welcome. So why, then, is this approach not yet embedded in Government?

Rewards for failure, a failure to listen to small business over big property interests, short-termism and the perpetuation of a failed business model are at the heart of the Government’s pubs policy, according to MPs of all parties in a Commons debate on 12 January.

The answer, it seems, lies in the habitual practices of the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and its notorious revolving door to its pet trade interest groups. So when the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA), the in-house lobbyists of the pubcos that have done more than anyone to close community pubs, come calling, the condemnation of the outside world seems not to matter. BIS ducked the solution supported by the cross-party BIS Select Committee and a huge range of business and consumer groups including the Federation of Small Business.

Because, as Parliament heard on Thursday, the BBPA were not only invited into BIS regularly to discuss the Government’s response to the fourth critical Select Committee report on the pubco business; they were allowed to draft most of the reply. We know this thanks to an extensive Freedom of Information investigation by the All-Party Parliamentary Save the Pub Group, Chaired by Greg Mulholland MP.

That FoI request lists dozens upon dozens of communications with the BBPA between the Select Committee reporting and the Goverment responding. In the same period, none of the bodies supporting the Select Committee – CAMRA, the Federation of Small Businesses and a host of others – were not given the courtesy of a meeting to discuss the response at all. One rule for one side of the debate, one for the other. That hardly tallies with evidence-based and independent decision-making. It rather smacks of the ‘crony capitalism’ Nick wants to bring to an end.

The ensuing headlines saw a Liberal Democrat Minister, Ed Davey, accused of ‘collusion’ by his own colleagues, as well as coming under repeated fire from Tory and Labour MPs. This in a debate on a motion backing the Select Committee in its anger at the irresponsible capitalism of the pubcos and at the failure of successive Governments to act on a series of concerns about the treatment of tenant lessees. The Select Committee called for a statutory code of practice which includes a free-of-tie option with an open market rent review and an independent adjudicator.

Instead of this, and without evidence that an alternative would deliver the reform needed, Ed turned to the BBPA, an organisation discredited by the Select Committee and others, for a solution of self-regulation. The BBPA presented a report to BIS on 21 October and the Government response is basically the provisions contained therein. Significant sections of the Government response are similar to the BBPA report, much of it word for word – typos included, showing that BIS officials simply cut and pasted the BBPA’s view and presented it as the Department’s. Then the BBPA were working with the BIS press office on their press release as early as October 31, three weeks ahead of the Government response and just five weeks after the Select Committee report was published.

I have some sympathy with our Minister’s room for manoeuvre, in terms of the availability of Parliamentary time and in terms of the ‘one in, one out’ limit on regulation. This and the need for proper consultation may have meant some delay to Government taking the action the Select Committee called for – regulation even Conservative MPs want. However, I have no sympathy with the enhanced access to the very trade body slammed by four successive Select Committee reports, and letting it alone draft the Government’s own response. No wonder the Save the Pub Group and others have questioned the appropriateness of the relationship between BIS mandarins and the pubcos’ lobbyists.

A number of myths have been peddled by BIS and the BBPA; most significantly that the debate centred around competition and customer choice, on which a contentious OFT report had let the pubcos off the hook. In fact, the Select Committee’s inquiry and recommendations were not about this but the maltreatment of pubco tenants. Critically, the FoI reveals that the BBPA lied to the Government about the extent of trade support for its deal from other bodies in particular.

Ironically, of course, if Nick Clegg’s model of increased worker participation were extended to the pub trade, pubco tenants would without doubt lobby to radically change the broken business model. Instead, Nick’s description of the ‘economy driven by immensely powerful vested interests…. that politicians have abjectly failed to stand up to’ seems alive and well in BIS. In a similar way, Whitehall has faced criticism for years about the ‘revolving door’ between its top civil servants (not just BIS but the MoD) and the senior jobs in the arms industry that they are able to walk into and vice-versa.

The underlying reform highlighted by this sorry episode, therefore, concerns BIS itself. Our Ministers have done an effective job of encouraging long-termism and developing manufacturing and other industries long shut out of the corridors of power (not enough, in my view, to green industries – but that’s another subject for another day). Now it’s time to clean the stables. Get the builders in and take out the revolving door for the likes of BAe and the BBPA. Sack civil servants who let their cronies and lobbyists dictate government policy; and listen to the small entrepreneur as much as big business. Much of this was highlighted by Vince himself in opposition: now it’s time to change the culture of Government.

A shorter version of this article will appear on Lib Dem Voice.

For Greg Mulholland MP’s take on what happened, see: http://gregmulholland.org/en/article/2012/548932/foi-reveals-that-the-government-response-on-pubcos-is-actually-the-work-of-the-pubcos-representative-organisation-the-bbpa

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ESA: making tuition fees look like a picnic?

by Gareth Epps on 13. Jan, 2012 in Coalition politics, Liberal Democrat politics

While the initial reaction to this Wednesday’s House of Lords votes on the Welfare Reform Bill and in ESA reforms in particular was one of relief at the scale of the Lib Dem rebellion (fewer than half the Lords Party voted with the whip), in the cold light of day the reaction is somewhat different.

In fact, underpinning the vote are a series of fault lines that have the potential, if mishandled, to make the fiasco over tuition fees look like a picnic.

Picture, if you will, this. It’s 2015. You’re a Lib Dem MP standing for election. You have an event – be it a hustings, or maybe a visit by the Leader? And outside that event, TV cameras and all, are protestors at the ESA cuts; the very people affected, with visible symptoms of the conditions they are suffering from. Puts your student protestors into the shade, doesn’t it? The most vulnerable people will garner far more sympathy, after all.

Of course, that is not a dilemma facing our unelected colleagues in the Lords (nor, I fear, is it likely to be any time soon). But when Liberal Democrat MPs vote on whether to overturn those Lords amendments, it can only be presumed that the same whip will apply. And on at least some of those votes, that is a whip to vote against your own party policy on an issue that is neither contained in the Coalition Agreement, nor has been the subject of meaningful public engagement, let alone consultation.

A recent article from Mike German, who I like and respect, appeared to set out a case that our negotiations with our coalition partners on the Welfare Reform Bill have already concluded – successfully. I think it can be safely said that the mood of the party is the opposite. After all, we did not vote overwhelmingly in September to oppose the ESA changes for cancer sufferers just so our elected representatives could do the opposite. If we did, then why not tear up any pretence of being a democratic party, abolish Conference and let Danny Alexander and a few unelected advisers write the manifesto on their own? (Actually, I can sense some of my readers salivating at that thought)

The Welfare Reform Bill is a sprawling, complex piece of legislation, and Lib Dems have already extracted significant and important concessions to mitigate and reduce the impact on vulnerable groups. I strongly support the overall objectives of Government policy, especially a simplified system that dramatically limits the scope for abuse. But it’s insanely bad politics to throw away the positives in that message for a cut to some of the most visibly vulnerable people that will remove their independence and leave them open to a system that is humiliating?

The amounts of money involved in Wednesday’s votes are very small, for a Government – fewer than half a billion pounds. They are, however, of dramatic significance to the recipients. My understanding is that the villains of this particular piece are the Treasury, who have set rigid cash limits on the DSS, allowing no room for fine-tuning the welfare reforms, while allowing a broadly equal amount (£2bn this Parliament) to be spent on enabling works for a replacement of the Trident system that may and should not happen. There is also depressingly little progress on scrapping Labour’s callous, inefficient and insensitive Work Capability Assessment regime – you know, the one that treats sufferers of chronic conditions like MS as if they were ‘benefit scroungers’?

So it’s time for Lib Dem MPs to step up to the plate. Not only should they refuse to vote down the Lords amendments; they should not be instructed to do so. And if they are, it will be a car crash of which they have had more than sufficient warning.

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Meanwhile, in the distant galaxy known as Reading Civic….

by Gareth Epps on 10. Jan, 2012 in Reading Labour Lies, Reading Politics

Two interesting things seem to have happened in that distant galaxy, light years away from ours, known as Reading Civic Offices.

The Council’s propaganda department seem to be reporting as an ‘increase in funding’ the settlement to voluntary groups. Not if you factor in inflation, it’s not! A £40,000 increase on a budget of £12 million is a decrease in real terms. Maybe they could cover the costs of inflation by making ‘efficiency savings’ in the spin doctor department? (But of course that’s not Labour’s way.)

The Conservatives, meanwhile, have elected the surprise choice – to the outside world if not to those in with the gossip – of Tim Harris to be their new leader. Good luck to Tim – he’ll need it with that lot!

A bigger surprise was that the long-trailed replacement of Jeanette Skeats as Deputy by Richard Willis did not happen. While this does not mean that a vote took place (and I gather it didn’t), it suggests a real weakening of the position of the hapless Reading East MP and his proxies in the Civic. I strongly suspect we have not heard the last of it.

This is a huge promotion for Tim Harris, and a big test. And if the report is correct that Azam Janjua is to take on the transport brief and the egregious Tony Page, then there could be more surprises in store. More soon.

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