25 MPs voted against the Bill to remove Parliament from the FOI provisions.

They were:

??Labour: Jeremy Corbyn,Jim Cousins,Frank Field, Mark Fisher, Neil Gerrard, Kate Hoey, Dan Norris, Peter Soulsby and David Winnick???? (9)

Conservative: James Clappison, Philip Hollobone, John Maples, John Redwood, Richard Shepherd?? (5)

??Respect: George Galloway

Plaid:?? Hywel Williams

Liberal Democrat: Norman Baker, Lorely Burt, Tim Farron, Sandra Gidley, Julia Goldsworthy, Evan Harris, David Howarth, Simon Hughes, Susan Kramer (9)

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Amongst the 78 Labour MPs who voted it through were:

Nick Brown,John McFall, Tony McNulty, Gillian Merron, Stephen Pound, Martin Salter, John Spellar.

??Ed Balls did not vote to give the Bill a 3 rd Reading (as some have wrongly reported), but he did vote to close down debate so the Bill could be pushed through on two of the divisions to stop discussion.

The government should announce it is not going to??pursue the??war on terror further – it was a huge mistake of the the US and Uk administrations to think you could invade enough countries harbouring terrorists to close terrorism down. Instead the government should make clear it is going to use every?? diplomatic and democractic means to isolate terrorists from the communities that bolster them, and bring as many to justice as possible. Now both countries and their forces are bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is time to think again. I am glad to read that our new Prime Minister is thinking of changing the approach to Iraq. He should think of changing the whole approach to Islamic terrorism.

When I belonged to a government which faced a dangerous terrorist threat from Irish sources, we never once thought we should invade southern Ireland where terrorists could find shleter and support, nor did we contemplate military action agianst the countries where the money came from to finance the murderous activities. When the government departed from the normal process of treating terrorists as criminals by ??seeking to prosecute them and put them in prison after trial, it usually strengthened the hands of the terrorists.

There is a terrorist threat. We need to redouble our efforts to intercept their emails and correspondence, to eavesdrop on their mobile phone calls, infiltrate their networks and collect intelligence form neighbourhoods where they live. The best way of tackling terrorism is to use intelligence to be warned of their next likely actions. We need to follow the money, taking?? powers to search through bank accounts of suspects and where there is evidence obtaining Court permission to seize the funds. We need stronger controls at the ports of entry to keep out people who may threaten our way of life.

The art of tackling terrorism also rests on winning over people in the host communities to our way of due legal process and democratic debate, away from assisting or permitting violence as a political weapon. That also applies to the host governments abroad, where some will be easier than others to win over to suppoting the forces of international law and order. Showing frustration by invading countries that do not help us enough just creates more problems. It is also difficult to justify, when our own country harbours terrorists, thanks to weak border controls and insufficient intelligence.

There are strong rumours that Gordon Brown will recognise the dangerous drift in the UK’s energy policy. Commentators think he will come out in favour of a series of new nuclear power stations, and a tidal barrage to generate power across the Severn estuary.

He certainly needs to do something, and quickly. The UK’s energy position is weakening rapidly. Our requirements now outstrip North Sea oil and gas from the UK sector. Our nuclear power stations still generate about one fifth of our electricity, but they are all getting old and in need of closure. Meanwhile President Putin sits astride the energy pipelines to western Europe, ready to turn the tap off if he sees an advantage in doing so. This is no time for the UK to increase its dependence on imported gas from the European mainland, nor from nuclear power generated by France given the shortage of power on the continent.

Some ultra greens seem to oppose all ways of generating electricity. They condemn coal and gas stations because they produce CO2. They condemn nuclear because they do not like it, even though it does not produce CO2. Some even oppose schemes like the Severn barrier and the windmills, developed and invented to meet the green point about using coal and gas. At some point the government has to tell people that we need to build new power facilities if we wish the lights to stay on. The government should aim for diversified sources of power where we do not depend on Russia or the Middle East, involving the market to find the least costly way of achieving the capacity we need.

Next week we are told the government will announce an easing of planning controls over individual properties, where people wish to extend and improve.

I usually am the first to say "Yes" to any deregulatory crumb which any government lets drop from the groaning tables of bureaucracy. It is so rare for them to come up with anything which makes life a little easier for the law abiding who want some freedom to get on and do as they wish in a responsible way.

There is no doubt that the present planning system creates many problems. It often impedes or stops the householder from extending their property as they would like. It always slows it down and makes it dearer. It restricts the supply of building land, driving up the price. It gives to the lucky few who win the planning lottery to build?? homes on gardens and fields huge gains, preventing the rest from selling their land for development.

??Despite all these negatives the planning process is very popular with people who do not want to do anything with their properties, or who do not own any, as it protects large areas from change and from unsuitable development.

The government is trying to change the two ends of the planning scale – relaxing small improvements and speeding up large national projects.

Do bloggers approve? What controls, if any, would like on your right – and your neighbour’s right – the extend a house without public controls over how far and in what style?

The press has savaged Parliament for voting to exempt itself from the Freedom of Information legislation, and rightly so.

The main mood on the doorsteps is still one of disillusion with the Commons and politics. People want an open and accountable political process. They are suspicious of how 78 Labour MPs?? just happened to be around?? to vote this through, when only a handful of MPs usually turns up on a Friday. The Minister claimed the government was "neutral" yet she favoured the arguments for the Bill. If the government truly believed in freedom of information, it would have opposed this measure. If they were seriously worried only about keeping individual constituents’ cases confidential, they would have produced a modest amendment to the FOI Act which we could all have supported.

Indeed, it would be difficult to write a caricature of this event – no-one would believe a fictional account of a Parliament which imposed Freedom of Information requirements on everyone else, then proceeded to exempt itself, and stopped a number of the MPs who wanted to oppose such a measure from speaking. Not only are our written views to be hushed up, but now we cannot tell people our views in the House because debate has to be closed down as rapidly as possible.

I hope the Lords shows it is more in touch with public opinion than the Commons, by voting this measure down. It would be a final irony that the unelected House acts as the people’s champion, against the secretive instincts of the Commons establishment. I will contact my friends in the Lords to see if they will do what the Commons failed to do.

When it came to the Third Reading of the bill to remove Parliament from the public bodies that have to disclose information, there were only 25 of us who voted No.

There were three successful motions to close down debate on the issue during the course of the proceedings. Proposers of amendments did not get to speak to their amendments. Many of us who wanted to speak had no chance to because time was so rationed.

Parliament has shot itself in the foot again. Of course MP’s letters revealing personal details about constituents should be protected. The present law is meant to do so. If it is not doing so successfully then the government could have brought a limited amendment to deal with the issue. Instead the government welcomed a measure which could be much more restrictive. Some of us come to Parliament to get our views across, not to have them kept secret.

I welcome Des Browne’s decision to back home bases for service personnel, where they buy rather than rent a property.

That makes up for quite a lot Des – I look forward to seeing the first soldiers buying their own home under the scheme.

??9 billion of drugs are bought every year by the NHS. No-one knows how many of these drugs are taken – maybe only half.

Today’s POA report highlights the ??300 milllion a year of drugs returned to the NHS unused. These are burned at our expense. It’s another damaging decision by the government which does nothing to??further its aims on ??for global warming, whilst hectoring the rest of us for driving cars!

This is but the tip of an iceberg. Other evidence suggest that many prescribed courses of drugs are not taken in full by patients. These pharmaceuticals are disposed of by the patients themselves.

Why is this? Doctors in the NHS always seem keen to prescribe drugs. Maybe they think that is what their patients want. Maybe patients think it is what they want when they see the Doctor. After reading the possible side effects on the packet at home, or after feeling a bit better a few days later, patients may change their minds. Many conditions are not serious and will pass after rest and the passage of time. If doctors were more willing to say that at the beginning fewer courses of drugs would be prescribed.

In hospitals much of the infection control regime seems based on taking antibiotics rather than on very high standards of cleanliness. Hospitals prescribe?? large quantities of drugs daily to their patients.

There are two main??reasons why so many drugs are wasted. The first is too many are prescribed,??including ??for conditions that would be self correcting. The second is patients are more wary of chemical drugs than doctors give credit for, so??patients decide for themselves to reduce the dose or length of time they take the drugs. It would be better if Doctor and patient could reach agreement at the time of prescription so those issued would be used.

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The quickest way to offer hope to pupils going to poor performing shcools would be to make all schools independent, with the state offering to pay fees up to a sensible limit to preserve everyone’s right to a "free" education. Schools could adopt one of several structures for going independent – educational charity, not for profit company etc. The only thing they could not do would be to cease offering education to sell the assets for their own profit. Schools that had to close for lack of pupils would surrender the school property or the proceeds from its sale back to the state.

This would end apartheid between independent and state schools, allow parents to top up state fees if they wished, and provide the freedom to all schools to strive for the best to attract more pupils.

I have always supported grammar schools – and ??the old direct grant schools, and assisted places in independent schools. They represented opportunity for children from lower income backgrounds to go to an academically demanding school, giving them more chance of a good university place.

All too many parts of the country no longer have them,thanks to Labour’s educational vandalism from an earlier era. It means in many parts of the country the ladder of opportunity has been kicked away from anyone without rich parents.

I hope David Cameron’s approach of creating a grammar stream in every comprehensive represents a quicker and easier way of giving opportunity to children in all?? parts of the country, because we need to do something rapidly about the declining social mobility in Brown’s Britain.

I don’t want to live in a country where half the students going to a top university come from independent schools when only one in 12 of all pupils goes to an independent school. Nor do I want to live in a country which seeks to close down the good schools because the bad schools are unable to compete. I want them to sort out the poorly performing schools, and allow new better performing schools to be established. I want parents and pupils to have more choice, to drive standards up.

The big educational divide in the UK is between independent schools and state schools.

The top universities do not want to take a disproportionate number of public school students,?? but end up doing so because the standards have diverged so much. Even after the Universities have made allowance for the better teaching or the other privileges of independent school life, and have allowed for the unfulfilled potential of some from comprehensives, they end up taking three, four or fives times as many independent school pupils than their proportion in the total student population would suggest.

I visit schools on a regular basis. The last time I went to a top public school I was invited by the boys to speak??to their Economics society in the evening. The audience was large, organised by the boys and all volunteers. They listened attentively to a talk that I have also given at university level, and then asked a wide range of well informed questions afterwards. The leading lights of the society wanted my views before the?? formal proceedings on how they might prosecute applications to Oxford University. They were polite, self confident and keen to understand the adult world.

The typical audience in a comprehensive behaves differently. There is not that same independent enquiry, that same confidence, that same interest in how they can strive for the best. I do not want to live in a Britain where the children of the rich can buy so much advantage. Nor do I think the answer is to destroy the good independent schools we have or to seek to prevent people sending their children to such schools. A vindictive attack would merely drive it offshore or overseas. What we need is reform of the state sector, to give the children of the rest of us the same opportunity and the same self confidence.

I look forward to setting and streaming, to create a grammar stream in every comprehensive, and I look forward to more City academies. The most academically gifted young people in the state sector need to be challenged and stretched more. I also want to see more business people and other adults coming into state schools and helping find and fire the enthusiaisms??of??the pupils??. Businesses often complain about a shortage of skilled and motivated people. They can make a contribution by allowing some fo their executives to help the schools as part of their corporate social responsibility.

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You learn a lot about Ministers by watching them when they have to perform in Parliament. Ministers who know what they are doing and who are democrats like the opportunity to set out their case and deal with criticisms. Authoritarians and incompetents wriggle, skate and writhe in the Chamber. There are all too many of the latter in this government.

Yesterday we saw the extremes. Jack Straw was relaxed, at home, capable of??presenting the government’s swift change of tack on Parliamentary approval for the war with a hint of amusement, confident??because he had always favoured the latest position. He is one of the few that recognises the need to keep the House informed and to treat all MPs who intervene seriously on the merits of their points. Gordon Brown will doubtless move him up in the reshuffle and will benefit from doing so.

Des Browne bombed even by his standards. He looked like a man embarrassed by having more than fifteen minutes to fill at the end of the debate, with nothing to say and a slow delivery that at times slowed so much??I felt he was going to stop altogether. He had no answer when I asked him the obvious question, why had he changed his mind over Parliamentary votes before military action? It was hardly an unexpected or difficult question, but all the preparation time had produced no answer he could pass on. After the mess of the media presentation of the Iranian hostage fiasco Gordon Brown would be wise to let Des Browne spend more time practising his speeches from the backbenches.

Gordon Brown’s campaign website and election pamphlets list eight priorities for his Premiership.

They do not include the promised strengthening of Parliament and our democracy. Mr Brown himself has voted in only 20% of all Commons divisions this Parliament (They work for you website) and spoken in only 12 debates in the last year. If he really wants a stronger Parliament he needs to lead by example – voting more often, volunteering more debates on crucial issues which he will use to set out his views to the House.

His??first five aims are ones most people can agree with. They are:

??An NHS that earns the trust of patients and staff

More affordable housing

Making Britain Number One for education

Every child to have the best start in life

Stronger, safer, more cohesive communities

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??It is all couched in very out of date language. He wants to give "priority to the needs of hard working families" – ignoring the 30% of the population who live alone, and the millions of couples living together before having children or after they have left home.?? These are the same hard working families that he has taxed and taxed again, taxing their homes,their pension funds and their incomes to give more and more money to non working families and others.

The questions to ask about the priorities are:

1. To earn the trust of patients the NHS has to get on top of hospital infections, cut waiting times further and ensure poeple can get access to the best treatments and drugs. How is he going to deliver this?

2. Where are the affordable homes going to be built? Will more of them reflect the need for homes to buy rather than rent?

3. Will he apologise for attacking Magdalen Oxford over Laura Spence- surely Oxford is part of the solution to making Britain Number One in education, rather than part of the problem?

4. Will he allow more choice of school, so capable and energetic young people from poor backgrounds get a better chance in life than the local comprehensive with poor results?

5. How is he going to get on top of gun crime, anti social behaviour and casual violence in many of our communities?

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<p>Today we are told by Mr Brown that 10 years of "Education, education, education" has failed. Come the Brownian revolution, all will be different. Pupils who are struggling with maths will have one to one teaching, which will sort the problem out.</p>
<p>??Given the large numbers of pupils who do badly at maths and give it up as soon as they can, Mr Brown will struggle with his maths trying to find all the money needed for all these single pupil teachers. To go from a staffing ratio of around 25:1 to a ratio of 1:1 is a very?? expensive move.</p>
<p>How does he know this will work? Where are all these people with the gift to teach maths successfully to pupils who don’t like it and don’t understand it? If they exist, why aren’t they already in our schools teaching whole classes? Who says that someone will start to learn when it’s one to one whereas they will not when it’s a class activity???</p>
<p>It would be usual to pilot an idea like this. It would be better if it was something individual schools and LEAs were pressing to do, rather than coming as an instruction from on high. Presumably it will lead to more inequalities in funding, with more and more money going to areas with failing schools or poor results. It could also mean less yet again for schools and Councils doing well, another perverse incentive to go with the others.</p>
<p>The UK has fallen behind many Asian countries in teaching maths. They don’t use one to one teaching in Asia. They teach maths in traditional ways to whole classes, usually considerably bigger than UK classes.</p>
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Labour claimed to make the Office of National Statistics "independent". It all turned out to be a bit like the Bank of England’s fabled "independence" – the one that led to a big reduction in its regulatory powers over banks and its right to manage the foreign exchange reserves. In the case of the ONS it has watched powerless as

1. The Chancellor switched from the RPI to the CPI, to reduce inflation by more than 1% per annum at??a stroke!

2. Public sector productivity figures were stopped, as the Chancellor decided they were not good enough so they had to be recalculated putting in a positive variable to allow for "quality".

3. The immigration figures have been changed to cut the numbers of recent migrants living in the UK. Four leading Councils that have to deal with the consequences for public services of?? rises in their resident populations today challenge the government’s assumptions, and show why they think the numbers are now substantially understated.

4. The unemployment figures have been brought down by transferring people to other categories and types of benefit, but still leaving them without a job. There are 5.4 million people of working age without a job living on benefit – about the same as in 1997. That’s a bad result when you take into account the growth we have had in the number of jobs since then.

5. The New Deal has not been properly accounted for. Frank Field today tells us it was a spectacular failure, costing us billions but not leading to a reduction in the number of young unemployed. The Opposition has opposed this waste of money.

6. The PFI/PPP obligations and potential risks are not properly accounted for in the National Accounts. Somehow the government has persuaded the independent Statistical service to leave out substantial off balance sheet financing, which any company would have to include on the balance sheet.

7. The government makes companies put pension deficits on their own balance sheets, raising the cost of capital for them, whilst steadfastly refusing to even mention the huge deficits on its own pension accounts, which include many pension promises that are 100% unfunded.

When past Conservative governments changed the way of calculating the numbers of the unemployed Labour always kicked up a big fuss. They implied it would all be different when they came to power. It has been. They change the way of calculating more of the numbers more of the time!

It’s another reason why people are so fed up with politics. It has not persauded people that Labour has solved the underlying problems. Why doesn’t the new government try creating a truly independent Stats service, and accept honest numbers when they come forward? If you want to solve problems you first need to measure and understand them. It’s no good denying there is a youth unemployment problem, an inflation problem or a long term unemployed problem and fiddling the figures to prove that, when everyone knows there is.

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Gordon Brown’s first foray into new policy is to propose 100,000 new homes built in 5 eco towns, with local power generation and a mixture of public and private finance. it sounded an interesting proposition, until I heard the spin behind the announcement.

It was all part of a clever plan to upstage David Cameron. We were informed that this would outflank??his green position whilst offering something to the aspirational who find it difficult to buy or rent a new home under this government. Some naive spin doctor went on to offer us more??of the same – a series of announcements to??upstage the Leader of the Opposition.

??For heaven’s sake! I thought we were moving on from the spin of the Blair era. Government is about solving problems, creating a framework of rules and taxes that allows the private sector to deliver most goods and services, and running good public services where the state needs to be involved. An announcement about housing should not be about creating impressions that might overshadow a poltiical opponent. It should be about the chronic shortage of housing for younger buyers.

The government should begin by admitting that the current rate of immigration is too fast, placing too much strain on a crowded island with limited places for new building. It should take action to control it.

It should admit that the average age for buying a first home has soared under this government because it has not tackled the problem of housing availability well.

It should then acknowledge that the main thing holding the market back from responding to housing demand is the availability of planning permissions. There’s plenty of money out there to build more properties if the sites are available.

The government should then decide where it is going to place the new towns or cities that it wishes to build. I have suggested expanding the Thames gateway projects into a new city, including construction on reclaimed estuarial land. What??are the government’s proposals? Where will they build all the extra homes we need to keep up with their rapid rate of immigration? The main issue is not how we generate the power for the new developments, but where we allow them, given the sensitivities in many parts of the country about major new development.

??I doubt if Brown’s eco towns, if they are ever built, will be anything like as advanced in the green direction as the Chinese eco cities which first launched this idea. In those there will be drinking water and seperate grey water supplies for other uses, the recycling of waste water, photovoltaics and green roofs on homes, a prohibition on landfill dumping of waste, electric or hydrogen vehicles only and windmills helping generate power.

I am all in favour of the UK making more moves in the direction of greater fuel efficiency in the home, higher standards of insulation, and better recycling facilities. The disappointment in Gordon Brown’s announcement is that is probably just another piece of Labour spin.

It is amazing how some in the media have fallen for the Brown spin that things are now going to be better if he is Prime Minister.

Like many journalists, I like what Gordon Brown is saying about the need to strengthen Parliament, the need to make Ministers more accountable, and above all the need to give people power over their public services, allied to more choice.

The question they should be asking, is why should we believe him when he says he will do any of that?

??Gordon Brown has been responsible for some of the most successful and most misleading soundbites of the Blair/Brown spin years.

Let me translate for you:

made the Bank of England independent, creating economic stability? took away the powers and responsibilities of the Bank to regulate the banks in the UK, overrode the Bank’s advice on how to manage the foreign exchange reserves (losing us a fortune on selling gold) and set up a Monetary Policy Committee which he influences both by choosing the members and by changing the target when it suits him. As a result the UK has had higher interest rates on average over the last 10 years than Japan, the USA and Euroland, and has higher inflation.

No more Tory boom and bust? – refers to the bad period when on the advice of the Labour party, the CBI, the TUC and the rest of the UK establishment the Conservative government wrongly linked the pound to the DM, causing first inflation then high interest rates and recession. Gordon Brown has never apologised for giving the wrong advice the Conservatives have apologised for making such a bad mistake.

The test of his latest soundbites to create a more humble and accountable government are:

??1. What new powers and opportunities are going to be given to Parliament to cross examine and challenge Ministers?

2. What will he do to a Minister who has failed to deliver or who has failed to convince many in Parliament?

3. Has he grasped how angry Parliament is about all the pensioners who have lost out under his private sector pensions regime, and will he now do something to help resolve the crisis?

The tests of his admirable idea to give people more power over and choice of public service are:

1. Will he promote many more places at good schools, and the closure of unpopular schools?

2. Will he allow NHS patients to go to any NHS doctor or consultant of their choice?

3. Will he allow NHS patients to get their operation or treatment in the private sector, with the NHS paying the average NHS cost?

4. Will he recreate assisted places at independent schools for talented children from lower income families? If not, what is he proposing to give people power and choice?

There’s no surprise that the private sector cannot make the figures add up to go on investing in Galileo, when GPS is up and running and available for our use.

Nor is it a surprise that the EU wants to press on with this tit for tat prestige project, to show it is up there with the USA in crucial technology.

Presumably, after all the denials that Galileo has a defence or military purpose, it will now be financed by the EU’s taxpayer money as part of the EU’s military as well as civil ambitions. The EU did not create a Defence Agency for nothing.

??This is very bad news for EU taxpayers, who will be asked to shoulder the burden of a non commercial project. It is also bad news if the Chinese involvement in the scheme does damage to intelligence sharing and joint defence projects with the USA.

Gordon Brown should promise to honour Blair’s pledge to hold a referendum on the Constitutional treaty, which the outgoing Prime Minister is backing away from.

Tony Blair – to our delight – promised us a referendum on the Constitution. When Conservative MPs pressed?? him to give us one whatever other countries did, he said he would. ??He has failed to honour this promise. Worse still, there are now press briefings that he will accept some of the worst features of the Constitution before he leaves, and tell us we do not need a referendum.

It’s a great oppotunity for Gordon Brown to prove his Euroscepticism is more than skin deep or just spin. We need a vote on the EU, and we need it soon. We are fed up with the everlasting power grab by Brussels.

What could be better? 7 glorious weeks of Gordon Brown touring the country debating with himself the future of the Labour party, safe in the knowledge that he will either attract 100% of the votes for Leader or he will attract most of the votes, sweeping aside a token left wing candidate.

Having just one serious candidate makes it easier for the electors. Let’s hope the instructions on the ballot papers are straightforward. In the aftermath of the Scottish electoral disaster, I would suggest they hold the Deputy leadership election on a different day to avoid confusion!

It is amazing that no-one from the present or past Labour Cabinets apart from Gordon Brown wants to be Prime Minister, and that no serious candidate has emerged to challenge the Brown orthodoxy. Democracy is the loser – and so is Gordon Brown – as the contest loses all interest when someone is just fighting shadows.