Richard Spring MP
Member of Parliament for West Suffolk

As many of you may know, this week has given us an opportunity to acknowledge and pay tribute to the valuable work performed day-in, day-out by carers in Britain. Carers Week, in June every year, is a time when the role of carers is deservedly placed in the spotlight.

Carers devote much of their time to looking after someone close to them who would not be able to take care of themselves. They may be frail, ill, or suffer from a disability which prevents them being independent. Many of the carers are children themselves, with an estimated 175,000 child carers in Britain, and 18,000 children aged between 5 and 15 providing 20 or more hours of care a week.

People who choose to care for a loved one often make large sacrifices in terms of their jobs, careers and their own personal life. Caring can be extremely difficult and stressful. Yet the carers I have met not only work incredibly hard but do it modestly and discreetly.

There are many organisations across the country that help provide information, support and guidance for carers. Suffolk Family Carers in my constituency provides support for 98,000 family carers in Suffolk. Their efforts deserve to be recognised and highlighted and I am proud to have this opportunity to do so.

If you are a carer in Suffolk and would like further information about this organisation, please visit www.suffolk-carers.co.uk 

Further information about carers nationally can be found at:

http://www.carersuk.org/ 

http://www.carers.gov.uk/ 

http://www.carers.org/ 

At a breakfast yesterday morning we all agreed that if Britain is to retain its role as one of the world’s leading economies, we need to address one of the problems which threatens to put that reputation as risk – our “skills shortage”.

Last year, Lord Leitch’s Review of Skills Report concluded that “our nation’s skills are not world-class. We run the risk that this will undermine the UK’s long term prosperity. Productivity continues to trail many of our international competitors.” The facts speak for themselves: we have 5 million adults who cannot read or write properly and 17 million adults who problems with numbers. The number of 16 to 18 year olds not in education, employment or training has risen by 40% since 1997.

This is why the Economic Competitiveness Policy Group, set up by David Cameron and chaired by John Redwood has been examining the skills problem in this country and this week published a policy submission entitled “Skills Training for a More Competitive Economy” which is available in full on their website http://www.competitivechallenge.com

It is a thoughtful and insightful consideration of the issues and what we need to put in place so that we can continue to compete globally. The vision entails “significant cultural and social change, including breaking down the current distinction that is made between general and vocational education and the attendant class prejudices.”

They have made a series of recommendations including:

Taxpayer’s money should be allocated in accordance with choices made by the trainees and not the providers

A national Careers Advisory Service that is highly visible to aspiring trainees

Bolstering the Sector Skills Councils (SSCs)

Professionalising apprenticeships and bringing them under the control of employers

When it comes to wasting public money, I wonder sometimes if it wouldn’t be easier for some Government departments to go down to the bank, withdraw millions, if not billions, of pounds in hard cash and then set fire to it in the car park.

I suspect one of the reasons they steer clear of this particular approach is because, with climate change constantly in the news, such a noxious cloud would do some serious environmental harm.

Instead, when they feel there is a little too much of the taxpayer’s money cluttering up the place, some clever special advisor decides it is probably time they implemented a new IT project. With one fell swoop the mountains of cash are disposed of quickly, efficiently, with no damage to the environment and little benefit to the country.

The reason for this train of thought are the reports this week that HM Revenue and Customs IT budget will soar to £8.5 billion – three times the original estimate. Typically, it started at £2.8 billion and then escalated rapidly, including £52 million in “transition” costs to the firms, including Capgenemi who are estimated to make a £1.1 billion profit on the deal.

Even if this was a one-off, it could not be excused, but it comes in the wake of a history of IT failures and overspends under this Government. The NHS IT projects have been billions of pounds over budget, the tax credits fiasco has caused widespread misery for claimants and the problems at the Department for Work and Pensions, which crashed 80,000 computers simultaneously in 2004, was the biggest computer crash in government history.

It really is a case of money to burn, and its ours.

It was an extraordinary scene in the Commons yesterday when William Hague invited the Government to agree in principle to look at the Iraq war fiasco, in the form of an enquiry led by Privy Councillors. The Government refused, despite precedents in two world wars. They had no argument, and certainly no senior officer has ever indicated any objection to such an enquiry.

Ultimately for the sake of our national credibility, and that of both our armed forces and our security services it is imperative that we learn the lessons. Iraq is now in parts a hotbed of al-Qaeda. Part of the reason Tony Blair advanced the need to attack Iraq was to prevent terrorism in the first place. 

Most electors recognise that their individual Member of Parliament works hard, and across the party political divide that is undoubtedly true. It does not translate itself, however, into a generalised view of parliamentarians. Politicians have never been high in public esteem.

Ken Clarke has just chaired a Democracy Task Force to try to address this. In its conclusions, it makes the following points:

Parliament – and in particular the Commons - must be the focal point for rebuilding public trust in our democratic institutions. This requires a Commons that is visibly independent of the executive, controlling its own procedures, enhancing its scrutiny of government and leading rather than following public debate. This would result in:

Greater autonomy to ensure that the Commons can lead debates, set agendas and introduce legislation to deal with issues of concern, not merely respond to public actions

Greater independence to ensure that Parliament is seen as representing the public’s interests, not just those of the executive

Greater timeliness to ensure that MPs can act and respond to issues of the day

Greater scrutiny to ensure that Parliament has the mechanisms and authority to scrutinise and hold government to full account

Greater accessibility to ensure that the public have more understanding and access to Parliament and its powers

It then goes into some detail as to how in practice this can be realised. Despite being a brilliant Commons performer, Tony Blair transparently dislikes the place, and that has been part of the problem. The Democracy Task Force may just be part of the solution. 

When London won the bid for the 2012 Olympics, fighting off fierce competition from Paris, New York, Madrid and Moscow, there was a true sense of jubilation. The first time in nearly 60 years that one of the landmark sporting events in the world would be held in Britain.

Sadly, since the halcyon days of the announcement, the Olympics saga has been marred by controversy over the budgets, the huge overspends totalling nearly four times the original estimate of £2.5 billion and now another disaster. The new logo for the 2012 Olympics. The words that spring to mind include awful, tatty, garish, appalling and hideous. The papers have been full of scorn and ridicule for the logo since it was unveiled and quite rightly so.

London as a capital city has a reputation to live up to. Whilst there is a tendency to sneer at radical and modern designs in the arts, this has none of the redeeming qualities that one can belatedly see in parts of the British modern art renaissance of the past decade. It was designed by what is, by all accounts, a reputable advertising agency at a cost of £400,000. It is such a shame when modern British design talent is now arguably the best in the world.

David Cameron, speaking the day before yesterday at the ‘Islam and Muslims in the World Today’ rightly warned against cultural separation in Britain. We do need to inspire people coming to this country, and those ethnic minorities living here, to embrace the feeling of being British. The Government should help this process by shifting power away from the centre and back to local communities, helping to foster a sense of UK identity. However, David Cameron stated that the onus also lay with the Muslim community and faith leaders to lead actively the communities they represent in the direction of involvement with the wider local community.

The type of leadership and courage we need to see was recently shown by the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Dr Ali Gomaa, one of the world’s foremost experts in Islamic scholarship. He had the courage to state categorically that the ill-trained scholars who preach extremism have no authority to do so.

In Syria, the Grand Mufti openly talks about his Christian and Jewish brothers and sisters, all linked to Abraham. He invited me to speak in his mosque in Aleppo last Friday – there were 2000 people in the congregation. My fellow MPs and I were very well received. It was an extraordinarily moving and memorable occasion. This is what tolerance and mutual understanding is all about.

The establishment of Conservative Business Relations has given the party a proper, professional and coherent approach to listening to the business community in all parts of the country, region by region and sector by sector. Information and feedback gathered is channelled back to the Shadow Teams and policy groups, and best practice is shared.

Last night we had the launch of the South Eastern and Southern London sector branch of Conservative Business Relations headed by a very successful businessman, Patrick Frederick, who has particularly pioneered links to ethnic minority business people.

There is real anxiety about the huge increase in the complexity of regulation and micro-management from the Government and the costs this imposes on businesses in Britain today. This came through loud and clear at the event last night, held at the Cass Business School. I made a speech setting out some of the themes we are pursuing as a party currently in opposition.

A copy of the speech is available on my website:

http://www.richardspringmp.com/