Paul Smith and his safe speed campaign has done a great job in highlighting the folly of relying for our road safety policy on spoeed cameras. The latest road death figures are too high, and show we no longer are doing a better job than other countries in bringing deaths down.

Speed cameras were never going to make our roads safer, as more than 9 out of 10 accidents have nothing to do with speeding. More accidents occur at road junctions. The usual cause is careless driving combined with poorly designed roads and junctions.

Our safest roads are our fastest roads - the motorways - because their design builds safety in by segregating traffic going in different directions, and by ??banning pedestrians and cycles from the carriageway - just as they are banned from railway tracks.

Mixed user roads will be less???? safe, but more could be done to give pedestrians and cyclists their own space and to keep traffic going in different directions apart.

??

I was delighted to learn yesterday that whilst we were outvoted in the Commons when some MPs??drove through an?? attempt to exempt MPs from FOI legislation, we seem to have won in the Lords.

??If no peer picks up this private members bill from the Commons it will perish. That would be the best outcome. I was one of those who lobbied David Cameron to come out against it. He did so. Gordon Brown followed soon aferwards. Let’s hope the Bill is dead.

In the upside down regulated world of the actuaries and pension advisers there is bad news and good news.

The bad news is that the bonds pension funds were told to buy in large quantities have gone down in value. That’s no surprise to readers of this site, as government bonds were very dear a year ago. Funds have lost around 10% on the ones they bought at the peak.

The good news is that pension deficits have gone down, not up. The actuaries base the estimate of the long term costs on the funds on the interest rate. When the rate goes up (bond prices falling) they say the long term liabilities fall!

So that’s??OK then. It was a masterstroke to make people buy assets that have gone down.

Conservatives are being urged to lift the life-chances of the 1.25 million 16-24 year-olds who are not in education, employment or training, and to improve the opportunities of all young people who are in training.
<span />To boost their hopes, harness their ambitions and enhance their prospects, the report of the Conservative Party’s Vocational Skills Working Group argues for a radical overhaul of state funding for skills training.
<span />The aim is to give industry the trainees it needs and trainees the jobs they want.
<span />The group, which forms part of the Economic Competitiveness Policy Group, argues that the training system is at present unable to fill Britain’s skills gap because it is an unresponsive, top-down bureaucracy. The Group recommends a <strong>new, demand-led system</strong> in which:
<span />-?????????????????? <strong>industry rather than bureaucracies identify the types of training needed by future employers;</strong>

<strong /><strong>
-?????????????????? <strong>the allocation of taxpayer funding to particular courses follows student choice; and</strong>

</strong>-?????????????????? <strong>
-?????????????????? <strong>a new careers service guides trainees to courses that lead to real jobs</strong>.

</strong>-?????????????????? .
<span />The Group also recommends a new employer-based apprenticeships system which would restore the importance of apprenticeships in the education system.
<span />Commenting on the proposals, John Redwood, the Chairman of the Economic Competitiveness Policy Group, said:
<span />It is a scandal that so many young people are not in jobs or receiving worthwhile training. Our skills system is expensive, bureaucratic and not nearly effective enough. There are too few apprenticeships, too few young people undertaking Level 3 vocational training and the success rate is too low. We recommend ridding ourselves of the clumsy architecture of the current skills quangos, and replacing it with a system which is driven by student choice and business needs.?
<span />John Hayes, Shadow Minister for Vocational Education, said:
<span />This report tackles the scandal of the 1.25 million 16-24 year olds who are not in education, employment or training a lost generation that deserves better. To meet this challenge we want to see the value of vocational training elevated within society. In any other field, if only half of those people enrolled on courses completed them, it would be a national scandal this is the case with apprenticeships, and it is unacceptable. Apprenticeships must be the right vehicle for boosting skills in the economy and adding value to the organisation and individual involved.?
<span /><strong>The report argues that Britain is under-skilled:
</strong>

<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>Just 28% of Britons are qualified to apprentice, skilled craft and technician levels, compared to 51% of the French and 65% of Germans.</li>
</ul>
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>The UK has a higher proportion of the workforce with low or no qualifications, compared with its main competitors in the USA, France and Germany.</li>
</ul>
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>The UK is 17^th out of the 30 OECD countries, in a comparison of post-16 rates of participation in the economy.</li>
</ul>
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>The proportion of the UK workforce with Level 4 qualifications ranks 11^th in the OECD.</li>
</ul>
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>The UK is placed 17^th on the World Economic Forum’s Human Capital league.</li>
</ul>
<span /><strong>The report puts forward a new analysis of why Britain is under-skilled:
</strong><span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>The training system is dominated by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), with its nine regional and forty-seven local offices (now moving to 148 local partnerships).</li>
</ul>
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>This large bureaucracy absorbs over ??250 million in meeting its own administrative costs, but spends only 16% (??1.7 billion) of its funding on intermediate skills training.</li>
</ul>
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>The LSC, rather than business, takes the lead in determine what sort of training is offered; as a result, much of the training is not properly matched to the needs of the marketplace.</li>
</ul>
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>Trainees do not receive adequate help in making choices about the course that will lead to real jobs, because the Connexions service is not a careers service focused on the job market.</li>
</ul>
<span />And finally:
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>The LSC also runs the apprenticeship system, with employers playing a subservient role; this has resulted in only 20% of so-called apprenticeships being employer-based, and only 5% of employers providing training directly themselves.</li>
</ul>
<span /><strong>To attack these causes of under-skilling, the report recommends</strong>:
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>Replacing the complex funding architecture of national, regional and local LSCs, the Sector Skills Development Agency, and the Regional Development Agencies by a single, simple system, in which money follows the trainee. (Funds of the same quantity as at present would flow from the DfES to the trainee’s local authority, and from there, on behalf of that trainee, to a training provider.)</li>
</ul>
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>Giving the employer-based Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) the responsibility for:</li>
</ul>
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<ul type="circle">
<li>Designing training programmes with training providers, to ensure that they match employer needs;</li>
<li>Working with accreditation bodies to shape qualifications that reflect the needs of industry; and</li>
<li>Providing the DfES with information on the job market, which enables the department to set entry criteria for training that weights the allocation of finite funding towards the skills requirements of the market.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>Establishing, as a partial replacement of the Connexion service, a dedicated Careers Advisory Service, which would make a reality of trainee choice by offering:</li>
</ul>
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<ul type="circle">
<li>Knowledgeable advice that is tailored to both trainee and business needs, maximising young people’s chances of employment; and</li>
<li>Advice on applicants’ eligibility for state funding.</li>
</ul>
</ul>

Yesterday I launched the Conservatives policy on apprenticeships and vocational training.

After months of reading and hearing ??in some parts of the media that the Conservatives are superficial because they do not set out well considered policies, it came as no surprise to find the media unwilling to report or analyse a serious piece of work on the current problems with our vocational training system. Unlike Mr Blair I make no complaint about the media’s refusal to follow it. I take is as a sign that we did not make any obvious mistake in our analysis and policy. If we had done a bad job ??I am sure you would?? now know all about it. We have our own means of communicating the message, in Commons speeches, on websites, and ??in newsletters we write and publish ourselves.

??

Those who are interested can see the full text on our website <a href="http://www.competitivechallenge.com/">www.competitivechallenge.com</a>. I will post the press release on this website today.

The kernel of our approach is to cut the bureaucracy by removing the Learning and Skills Council, so we can spend?? more of the money on the training itself. We will give more weight to student choice and employer need in awarding money to individuals seeking training or apprenticeships. Under the present regime far too many people drop out of courses, there are too few qualifying for a Level 3 technical qualification, and too few apprenticeships take place in the workplace. Our new system we think will make improvements in all these areas.

<strong>John Redwood made two interventions in the Commons yesterday in the debate on the Iraq Inquiry, posing questions to William Hague and Margaret Becket:</strong>

<strong>1) Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con):</strong><!–Mr. John Redwood–> Is one of my right hon. Friend’s arguments for having a Privy Council inquiry the fact that much of the material is very sensitive and intelligence based, investigating why we went to war and how we handled the intelligence? What would be my right hon. Friend’s advice to such an inquiry on the publication of its findings, given the sensitivity of the intelligence work?

<strong>Mr. Hague:</strong><!–Mr. Hague–> That is one of the arguments for having a Privy Council inquiry. It would have to make its own judgment, as would any inquiry at any stage, about how much of the information could be published. All the conclusions would certainly have to be published.

<span style="font-size: 12pt"> </span>

<strong>2) Mr. Redwood:</strong><!–Mr. Redwood–> Why is it not possible to accept the proposal in principle, while leaving it to the Government to choose the date for dealing with all the issues that the Foreign Secretary has raised? To refuse that makes the Government look as if they have something to hide, and I am sure that they would not want that coming across as their true view.

<strong>Margaret Beckett:</strong><!–Margaret Beckett–> That is complete nonsense. As I say, we are being urged now to commit ourselves not only to the principle but to a form of inquiry. From the words of the shadow Foreign Secretary? I nearly called him the Leader of the Opposition; perhaps I would be percipient in saying that? it is clear that he envisages an inquiry taking place in the quite near future. As I say, it is not sensible to put that proposal before the House at this time.

We now have a framework of Select Committees? whose role and resources, incidentally, have been substantially strengthened under this Government, despite the nonsense talked about our approach to Parliament. They carry out independent inquiries, as they already have into different aspects of our involvement in Iraq.

I argued in October that the situation in Iraq was too delicate for us to turn our attention away from the immediate task of how best we could help the Iraqi people here and now. I make no apology for saying the same today. Indeed I remind the House that only a few days ago the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq urged us to concentrate our minds, will and interests on continuing to work with the people there to give top priority to rebuilding and helping to reform the situation in Iraq.

There are four main reasons why politicians lie.

The first is when they do not know the truth but feel they have to say something.

The second is when their party is pursuing a stupid policy which requires "white lies" to keep it going.

The third is when the media force a lie from someone, because the game would not allow the politician to tell the truth.

The fourth is the deliberate lie by the dishonest politician who thinks he will get away with it.

The first requires more politicians to say occasionally they do not know, or to decline the media request because they know they will be skating on thin ice.

The second requires parties to be more careful in the policy they choose. Both main parties have presided over fixed or "managed" exchange rates. In each case these have broken down leading to a devaluation. When the currency is near to cracking Ministers have to say "We are not going to devalue". They then look silly or dishonest when the currency does fall.

The answer is to admit governments cannot fix exchange rates, to avoid putting Ministers into such a position. There are many other cases where Ministers claim to be in charge of things where they are unlikely to be so. It??is wiser, for example, to say "I will do my best to prevent such a disaster in future" than to say as some do when defending another mess up in government "We will make sure this will never happen again".

The third case overlaps with the second. A favourite trick of the media is to ask questions which by convention politicians are not allowed to answer honestly. Most senior Labour figures knew they were heading for an electoral disaster in 1983, and again in 1987. Most senior Conservatives knew we hadn’t a hope in 1997 or in 2001. Had any senior figure in either Shadow Cabinet or Cabinet said as much on the TV or radio, they would have been accused of the gaffe that lost their party the election. As a result some??decided to fib by saying Yes they were going to win. Others used side stepping words like "We are going all out to win", "We want to win", "We can win" etc. The Liberal Democrats, struggling to be credible contenders in many seats, reguarly claim they are going to win seats where independent polling tells us they have no chance. This debases the currency of political prediction further. Voters shrug their shoulders about all of this and say "He would say that, wouldn’t he"

The safest course is to say "I never make public predictions of ??election results - that’s the job of commentators and pollsters." The aim should be to get the interview back onto what your party will do for people if elected, rather than sterile discussion of who will win. If you do this you have to be consistent. I?? refuse media requests to predict my own result in Wokingham, as well as the result elsewhere. If I did not the media would be able to put more pressure on me to predict the national result. I also think it presumptious of those seeking office to be too sure of the result before the electorate has spoken.

The fourth type of lie can only be made less likely by eternal vigilance of press, public and the other political parties. If politicians discover they are likely to be found out when they lie, they will do it less often.

<p>12 years ago Tony Blair posed as the white knight on the charger. He launched a ferocious Labour anti sleaze campaign on some hapless Conservative backbench MPs, a couple of Ministers and a former Deputy Chairman of the Conservative party. He and his colleagues used the media brilliantly. Once in power his media acolytes bullied, pursued, briefed journalists to follow their lines. Their success in managing the media from 1995 until around 2000 was phenomenal.</p>
<p>??What a different figure is leaving Downing Street. Bloodied and bruised by endless sleaze rows within the Labour government, exhausted by ten years of government spinning, bemused that now the press and media have shown some independence and do not always follow the government line, the outgoing Prime Minister moans that we need a new relationship between politics and the media. He complains of a feral pack hunting down the mistakes, misjudgements and worse of this government.</p>
<p>He claims it is all so different today because of the technical changes in media and the more competitive market created by the internet. Does he seriously believe Labour and Conservative governments of the last century did not feel the heat of media pressure when they made mistakes or presided over scandals? Does he not recognise the important role of the press in exposing wrong doing and major errors in high places under several governments of the last century? How does he think we know about the sale of honours by one of the last Liberal governments? Or the Profumo affair under the Conservatives? Or the devaluation crisis under Harold Wilson and the winter of discontent under James Callaghan?</p>
<p>??</p>
<p>The Prime Minister came over as a sad figure, bemused by the strength of media attacks upon him and his government, when he had unleashed such power to ridicule and condemn the previous Conservative government. One of the main reasons Tony Blair has not achieved what many expected of him when he was first elected with so much goodwill and such a big majority, is that he wrongly thought he could manage the media. He would have done better to spend more time and attention on managing the government.</p>
<p>??I want a government that thinks running the administration is its most important task, not dreaming up new initiaitves and press releases to amuse the 7 x 24 media. What Tony Blair has proved is that no matter how much you spend, how talented you may be, politicians cannot control the media or their image in it. Staying out of the media is often a shrewder strategy for a Minister than inviting controversy and criticism. The best way to stay out of the media is to run your department well, and spend most of your waking hours on solving the problems that government can solve, whilst telling people honestly that other problems are beyond the scope of government.</p>
<p>??</p>
<p>There is something amusing about the master of spin departing by saying spin can damage your image. Let us hope politicians learn from the Blair experience. The media have a job to do, and governments cannot control all??of the media all??of the time. So why not concentrate on doing the day job better. Then handling the media will be easier, or less important.
</p>

If Gordon Brown is serious about wanting to strengthen our feeling of Britishness, he should start by ruling out all further changes to our constitution that give more power to Brussels. Many of the politcal elite on the continent wish to replace national feelings of identity and community with European ones, and see the draft Constitution as part of that process.

We are told we must have a new Treaty because a Union of 27 will otherwise be unable to make decisions. What a load of nonsense. The EU is busily passing more laws than I want, and making more decisons than I would like, even with its current architecture.

The EU is on another of its power grabs. ??It wants to centralise more, and speed up decision taking, overriding individual countries who do not agree with its proposed new laws. We should be making the case for less EU decision taking. We want fewer laws, not more laws. The fact that the EU is arguing for streamlined decision making should cause an explosion of anger about how undemocratic the current procedures are for law making, not a passive acceptance that they do need more power to speed the process up.

One of the cleverest things about the EU power grab is they always try to find individual laws or proposals that each member state would like, and then argue they will be thwarted if they do not sign up to enormous power to the unelected government in Brussels. Let me make it clear, there are absolutely no new laws or powers I want Brussels to have, nor shoudl any other sensible British person.

They have already shown their unsuitability to wield serious power by the mess they have created in agriculture and fishing where they run the whole show. That’s no advert for them to take over criminal justice and foreign policy.

This is a time for the UK to play the veto - and to offer to vote for a new Treaty or Constitution only if we write in an opt out for the UK from?? the current main powers of the EU that get in our way as a free country, as well as opting out of the new Treaty’s unacceptable transfers of power.

Teachers are right to say there are too many exams. Young people are examined in national tests at 7,11,14,16,17,18 and then again at University if they go on the Higher Education.

I would like to see the abolition of the 14 year old tests and the 17 year old exams.

There is a need for 11 year old appraisal, so the secondary schools know what they are taking on. Remedieal teaching??may be ??necessary?? because children have not reached a level of attainment in English and maths to be able to tackle a secondary school course.

16 year old exams are school leaving exams for some, and pointers to future capability when going on to A levels or more advanced technical and vocational courses for others. They should remain.

A levels should be made more difficult and return to being the "gold standard" of the educational system. Predicted grades are an important part of the University selection process.

If every summer from 16 to 21 is taken up with important exams - as it is for some young people going to University - it occupies every summer term in revision, testing and celebrations. Some of that time would be better spent reading and learning more.

Whilst I agree with the profession that there are too many external tests, I do think we need some national tests at important landmarks in a child’s progress. The two most improtant are when they shift from primary to secondary school, so the new school knows what they are inheriting, and when the young person leaves school. The outside world needs some external standard of achievement to help?? find suitable openings for the school leaver. Parents do want to be able to judge the performance of schools. In the case of secondaries, that requires comparing the results of the leavers with their level of achievement five or seven years earlier when they first joined the school.

I see lawyers want to keep the wig and gown, whilst a majority of voters think its is very old fashioned.

Yesterday I went to Oxford to see the new Bishop enthroned in his cathedra in Christchurch Cathedral. It was a very English ceremony. The new Bishop had to hear his Mandate from the Archbishop. He had to pledge to follow only the approved forms of service laid down by the Anglican Church. We were reminded of the 39 Articles, in a part of the service clearly constructed for the difficult days of the sixteenth century when heresy mattered to both Church and State.

Present at this cermeony were academics??in colourful gowns and hoods,??Lords Lieutenants, Chairmen of Councils, Mayors, Sheriffs, and other ancient office holders showing their chains, jewels and fancy dress. The idea was to introduce the Bishop to the other leaders of institutions and communities, and to demonstrate how he would serve the diocese.

The Judges present wore their wigs and looked in keeping with the spirit of the ceremony. it meant they were instantly recognisable as emissaries of the legal profession.

Most of the people who now wear chains of office or special clothes do so because their role is ceremonial, as in the case of the Mayors and Chairmen of Councils, or because it is a special occasion. Academics no longer teach in gowns and hoods. Maybe the compromise position for the legal profession??is to keep the full regalia for parades, ceremonies?? and services. Maybe wearing the gown and wig for the most serious trials in the highest courts adds solemnity to the occasion and is also worthwhile.

MPs do not wear any special clothes or chains of office. Ministers of the Crown do not need such trappings to be taken seriously. The power of their office does that, unless they are bufoons and fail to live up to the potential of their position.

The G8 celebrations are a little premature. The debates themselves were vacuous and some of the coverage particularly stupid, drawing as it did on the spin of a major fight between the virtuous Europeans(in favour of targets) and the wicked Americans (in favour of cleaner technology).

Why did no-one point out that several EU countries will fail to hit their Kyoto targets? Is it better to set a target and ignore it, or refuse to set one in the first place through an appreciation of how difficult it is for government to control all the carbon emissions in a free society?

Why should we believe this group of politicians that they and their successors over the next 43 years will take the 2050 targets seriously enough to make it likely they are hit? What is going to change today that it makes it any more likely they will halve CO2 output over that time period. Why did EU emissions rise last year? What will they do differently this year to change that?

How did people fall for the spin that India and China are part of Kyoto, with just the US refusing to join - when neither India nor China have a Kyoto target to hit?

The truth is that carbon emissions will only be cut if new technology is adopted. There is absolutely no likelihood that people of the first world will renounce their good lifestyle to make a dramatic reduction in their CO2 output, and no likelihood that the Indians and Chinese will forgo the benefits of economic growth to control theirs. So it is down to changing the way we do things, to developing the new technology, if the EU and the rest are to even make a start on cutting the world’s soaring CO2 outputs.

What people like about the NHS is the promise of care free at the point of use. No-one in modern political parties in the UK is saying take that away. Most of us??are?? children of the NHS and support the social insurance that lies behind it.

I am not sure??people are so keen on - or hung up on - nationalised hospitals. Most of my constituents are very relaxed about?? whether their NHS treatment comes from the local GP surgery, the local NHS hospital, or a modern private treatment centre working on an NHS contract. People want the best, and they want it delivered in a timely and convenient way.

I am saying that to do this we need more variety of provision, and more choice for patients on the advice of their GPs. Monopolies don’t work well. Monopoly hospitals serving ever larger areas and bigger populations are not the??only model.If we want to tackle the bed shortage, and the District General Hospitals won’t deliver the extra beds, then we need to look elsewhere, as the government is beginning to do.

We do need to remind people that every adult is paying on average more than ??2000 a year for the NHS. That’s a lot of money over a lifetime. Those big payments should give us more rights to choose and influence what we are getting for it.

Many of the comparisons between the UK and the US system fail to take into account all the costs of the UK system. For example, they usually leave out all the costs of raising the tax revenue in the UK, whilst including all the costs of collecting the premiums in the USA. One of the biggest costs of the NHS is the Inland Revenue.

I am glad many agree with me that the NHS has cut its bed numbers by too much - and yes I agree this has happened under both parties in power.

My critics confuse two things - monopoly, and who pays. I am against monopoly, as it invariably delivers less for more??with worse quality.I am not in favour of making the??less well off??pay for their own health care. Like most people in?? the UK debate I do believe in transferring money to the less well off by one means or another. It is usually better to let people have choice of how they spend this money, or at least to have choice of which doctor/school etc??to use, than to make the transfer through the supply of monopoly goods and services. We do not make the poor go to a state supermarket to obtain a rationed supply of state food from a limited list of items. We give them extra income so they can go to the supermarkets we all use. In health care we let the rich choose where to go for healthcare, but make all the rest of us go to the??monopoly provider. I welcome moves to offer??a wider range of health facilities, and to give us choice on how to spend the NHS money that we rely on.

It is no coincidence that the things we are short of - hospital beds, train tracks, roadspace,good school places,NHS dentists are all state monopolies. We have no shortage of hotel beds, ferries, cars and lorries, or private sector dentists.

When I asked the PM in the House why emissions of CO2 had gone up last year in both the UK and EU whilst falling in the USA, and what the government was going to do about it, he had the decency to confirm my figures. Clearly he has been briefed ahead of the G8 exchanges on climate change, when someone else may point out that the UK and EU have not lived up to their fine words on cutting carbon.

He told me that the new EU Emissions Trading Scheme (coming in next?? year) will sort this out. He did not remind the House that we have had an EU Emissions scheme throughout last year when CO2 output rose, nor did he go into details on how next year would be better and different from last. His strategy was to double up on carbon trading, and quit the job leaving Gordon with the task of explaining why it isn’t working.

Meanwhile, back at the DTI debate??on Wednesday??afternoon the DTI Secretary assured us we are on target to reduce our carbon emissions by 2050. That is a much safer thing for Ministers to pledge, as??even the youngest of them will be?? retired by then.

The truth is government does not have control over CO2 in the way they like to pretend. Last year UK power generators decided to burn a lot more coal in their power stations, whilst the EU set up an Emissions Trading scheme which was never going to curb CO2 output. They have then all congratulated themselves on doing something about climate change and blamed the Americans because they did not do the same!

Choice and competition works. Monopoly doesn’t.

In recent years we have been short of hospital beds, despite the huge increases in health spending. Some people have had to wait for a year or more to get a bed in hospital for a few days so they can have an operation.

I cannot remember us ever being short of hotel beds. If??you needed a bed for the night in London or Wokingham tonight I could ring up and book one. Indeed??you would have a wide choice of different styles and prices, whether you were payting or someone was paying for you.

The difference is one is supplied by a government monopoly, the other by free enterprise.

??I have sympathy with the consultants in criticising the crass political interventions made by this government into the NHS, and agree that some??of the?? decisions about cuts have been ill judged. However??it is not good news that staff in the NHS enter such public spats with their employer, fueling the story that the "NHS is on its knees". The Parliamentary Opposition may today be grateful that staff share some of our analysis, but would be unwise to fuel confrontation between doctors and government as that just helps make the NHS even more unmanageable.

Only the EU could turn an environmental scheme into a way for some countries and companies to make money out of a bureaucratic monster, whilst achieving the opposite of the intended outcome.

??Since EU carbon trading was introduced CO2 emissions have INCREASED throughout the EU, whilst they have been falling in the USA, despite that country growing faster. Some countries obtained too many carbon permits, enabling their companies to sell the surplus ones to generate??free gift??cash and profit.

In the meantime?? companies in receipt of carbon permits, issued free of charge, were able to put these new "assets" on their balance sheets. Regulated industries could then put their prices up, because their "capital" had been increased on which they are allowed to make a profit.

The whole thing reads like a parody, but I am afraid this really has happened. Worse still, the UK of course did not receive a generous over allwowance in?? the way some others did, so??UK companies??did not have the same scope to make money out of this absurdity.

The UK’s CO2 emissions went up last year because we generated more power from coal than in previous years. Electricity privatisation remains the only successful CO2 reducing policy this country has followed. The UK will ony hit its Kyoto targets because we privatised electricity, which led to a big switch from coal to gas. When is this government going to do something which cuts CO2 emissions, given that they think it matters so much?

Today the Commons examines the Corporate Manslaughter Bill. It creates an offence of corporate manslaughter where a company can be prosecuted and fined if people have died as a result of its actions.

None of us want to see people die as a result of company errors. No airline or train company takes risks with passenger safety, no food company wants to poison its customers. Decency,?? the knowledge of the bad business consequences, and the criminal law unite to encourage high standards.

??The government seems to think we need a stronger law to stop the private sector making mistakes, but it does??not want this to apply to many actions of the public sector. We will be moving and backing an amendment to get the Law to apply to deaths in custody.

Although the Bill lists government departments to come under the Bill, there are large exemptions.?? Public policy, regulatory inspections, military activities, emergency services, ??policing and law enforcement are all excluded.

We also need to ask whether the government could do more to stop the many other deaths that occur on its watch.

Are they taking strong enough action to curb deaths from MRSA and c.dif in NHS hospitals?

Are they providing our forces with sufficient equipment and protection to minimise deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq?

Are they sufficiently in control of Network Rail to prevent deaths from broken track or damaged signals?

Have they put in place a good enough mental health service to reduce suicides?

The numbers involved are worrying -

??Numbers of deaths where MRSA/ c.dif is mentioned on the death certificate???? 5,890 in 2005

Numbers of deaths in custody -?? 174 in 2005

207 Service personnel died since??2001

The Conservatives Democracy Task Force will be recommending fewer MPs, English votes for English issues, Cabinet control over?? major policy?? and Parliamentary scrutiny of big issues like war and peace. That’s all sensible. We need to add the abolition of unelected regional government, and ??a repatriation of powers from the EU.

??Meanwhile Gordon Brown has decided to pick his fight on anti terrorist measures. Presumably he wants to show he is tough and can move against his left wing when he wishes. He wants to demonstrate that he can get 90 days detention without charge through where Tony Blair could not.

Whilst Brown’s approach is better than Blair’s, as he does accept the need for regular independent scrutiny of the continuing detention, and the desirability of allowing intercept evidence, we should still be questioning?? the need for this diminution in civil liberties. Wouldn’t it be better to get proper contorl of our borders, to keep high risk people out of the UK? And if we are going to allow intercept evidence, doesn’t that make it easier to charge people in good time, rather than delaying for 3 months?

Our new Prime Minister says he wants to be more accountable, and to take Parliament more seriously than Mr Blair. So what could he do to make this come true?

He is likely to say he will not go to war without Parliamentary??approval of action. This is giving away nothing, as we do not expect him to take us to war before the next election.?? Parliament met and approved both the Falklands and the Iraq wars, so it is not?? new ground.

What he could also do includes:

1. Come and answer questions twice a week in the Commons, as Conservative Prime Minsiters used to do.

2. Cancel the ten days half term holidays - we have just been locked out again for ten days - so Parliament can do its job on a more regular basis. Why not offer at least two days during the half term weeks for those of us who do want to turn up and ask??Minsiters questions and debate important issues? There does not have to be whipped business on during those days that requires all MPs to come and vote.

3. Have a two week September session so Parliament is not away from July to October - it is far too long to allow the government a free run.

??4. Allow Parliament to meet until 10 pm on a Wednesday, instead of 7 pm, to give us more time for debate.

5. Insist that all Ministers wishing to make announcements about changes of policy or difficulties with their departments have to tell Parliament first. Take disciplinary action against Ministers making announcements on favourable TV or radio shows, or leaking big stories to favourite newspapers before a Statement.

6. Require Junior Ministers to work harder at understanding the legislation and regulation they bring to the House, so debating it with them is a more worthwhile activity.

7. Stop introducing timetable motions for all Bills - try to get agreement from the Opposition parties on how much time is appropriate for a given piece of legislation, and only use government restrictions on debate????if the Opposition is being unreasonable over the use of time, as??the Conservatives ??used to do in government.

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Making these changes would still not get us back to as strong a Parliamentary check on government as we experienced before 1997, but they would help.?? I doubt if Gordon will do any of them, apart from making a statement about allowing a vote before going to war. That would just be more spin as in practise Parliament can always vote on something like that if the Oppositon tables a motion in its own time to do so.

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Is it coincidence that so many government departments have presided over chaos and waste at the same time?

The Home Office has failed to keep dangerous visitors out of the country, and failed to keep dangerous prisoners in prison.

The Environment Department has spent two years unable to give out money to farmers on an agreed EU formula.

The Welfare system admits to ??2,600 million of fraud and error in the last year alone.

The Health Department is unable to promote its own junior doctors into teaching grade posts, whilst managing at the same time to divulge confidential information about some of them.

The MOD is unable to find the equipment troops need when committed to hostile theatres.

The Department for Communities makes a complete mess of its Home Information pack proposals.

The Culture department fails to keep control of the costs of the Olympics and gets into a tangle over casino location.

The Scottish office agees to a Scottish election which produces 142,000 wasted votes as voters did not understand the varied requirements of the different systems used on the same day.

I could go on - the list is as long as the list of government departments. Ministers who have presided over failure include Milliband and Alexander, always hailed as Labour’s brightest and best, as well as Jowell and Hewitt, Reid and Browne.

Having run large organisations in both the public and private sectors,there is no doubt it is much more difficult getting things to work properly in the public sector. Labour Ministers make the task far more difficult by:

1. Failing to work through the policy detail with officials sufficiently before launching an initiative

2. Failing to understand the drafting of the regulations they are putting through

3. Failing to make officials accountable for budgets and outcomes in a disciplined way

4. Making their priority media handling and presentation rather than trying to ensure the department will?? work properly. If they got more things right they would not have so many difficult interviews to handle. The press is??most interested in a government department when it makes a mess.

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The great lost opporutnity of New Labour came about because they taught themselves how to oppose and how to spin, but they did not teach themselevs how to govern. It is more difficult getting results in a government department than at the top of big company because:

1. Ministers do not appoint and promote most of the senior staff

2. Ministers do not make pay awards or design bonus schemes to motivate staff

3. Ministers are often not told by their boss, the Prime Minister, what they are trying to do and how they will be measured and assessed

4. A Secretary of State’s judgement is more likely to be overturned by colleagues in other departments and by the Prime Minsiter than a CEO of a leading company, especially when he is right!

This government has set about making themselves less accountable so they can duck the blame, rather than trying to remedy the defects of a system which all too often does not deliver.

The public sector needs to make better use of competitive private sector busiensses offering to carry out defined tasks for the public sector, and it neeeds to find a way of offering incentives to its staff to allign their interests more directly with the objectives of policy and the public interest as defined by Ministers. If leading companies managed themselves as badly as the list of major errors above in government, many more would be bankrupt and many more CEOs would have been fired for incompetence. This government hires consultants and private sector specialists as well as paying for staff to do the same things, giving us the worst of both worlds and a large bill.

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The Conservative party faces a different problem in 2007-2010 in attracting all the votes it needs to win, to the problem facing the Labour party in the mid 1990s.??Labour had to live down its unpopular policies - nationalisation, high taxation, too much wasteful public spending and nuclear disarmament. The so-called "Clauee IV" monet was one of several as Labour went about ditching its old baggage and came up with Tory lite - adopting Conservative spending plans, accepting the importance of keeping income tax rates down, denying it would renationalise and living with nuclear weapons.

The Conservatives have no such toxic policy baggage. Their traditional policies of lower taxes, more freedom??and allowing people to make their own way in the world wherever possible are and have always been popular. The Conservative brand was damaged by over enthusiasm for Europe, when a Conservative PM accepted Labour and Lib Dem advice and wrongly linked our currency to the DM, doing considerable damage to the economy. It was further damaged by Labour’s infamous sleaze campaign, the biggest boomerang ever launched by a UK political party in the light of subsequent events.

The Conservatives now have to persuade a large number of poeple who have moved to abstention that it is worthwhile voting again. To do so the party has to show not that it has ditched its past popular policies, but that it can move on from the age of spin. People are fed up with all three main political parties, because they fear more??of the same - the Blair era lies, treating problems as media problems not as real problems, failing to fix things despite promising to do so, Ministers saying "Do as I say, not as I do"

Instead of staging a Clause IV moment, the party needs to show by its words and deeds that it is going to offer something more honest and reliable than the soundbites of New Labour. Voting down the Freedom of Information Bill in the Lords would be a good start. Following that up by refusing large donations from single sources would be another.?? Ending briefings about "positioning" and stopping spinning sensible speeches too far would be a third.