DOING NUMBERS

Andrew George, Libdem MP for St Ives, recently said that altogether “two thirds” of what he called “unfettered” Liberal Democrat MPs rebelled against the Health and social care bill (the health bill) in various votes on it.

Let me suggest another way of looking at this.

The official record of the make-your-mind-up final vote, the third reading vote, in the Commons reveals the shame of the Libdem party (Hansard 7 September 2011 column 497).

There are 57 Libdem MPs and 41 of them supported the health bill on third reading (40 votes for and a teller).

How many of the 57 voted against? Get your heavy duty calculator out. Are you ready for this? Okay? Four. Yes, that’s right, just four. Let me repeat that. How many Libdem MPs voted against the health bill at third reading? Four and only one of them from a Cornwall seat, namely Andrew George to his credit. There were also abstentions.

George has also now described what happened as “my almost sole rebellion against the health bill” which suggests the cold and cruel reality of four has trumped two thirds.

It’s been a joint Conservative Liberal Democrat bill from the start; indeed, the bill passed in the Commons only because Liberal Democrats voted for it; it would have failed had that forty one voted against. They’re up to their armpits in it.

None of this is a surprise. The coalition Liberal Democrats have supported every reactionary measure the Tories have introduced and only a progressive handful have dissented in vain. Truly the orange poodle party.

The extant and details of the rebellion by Libdem MPs on third reading is set out on the Public Whip and the Social Liberal Forum.

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LIBDEMS AND THE NHS BILL

Nick Clegg and the Libdems are asking us to believe that they have taken the Tories by the scruff of the neck, shaken the nasty party hard, and rewritten the NHS bill (that is, the Health and social care bill) which they were against all along. This is brazenly rewriting history.

The original NHS bill was introduced with the total support of Nick Clegg who signed it off in the Tory Libdem cabinet. Not a single Libdem MP voted against the original bill at second reading (Hansard 31 January 2011 column 605 ff).

The Spectator of 6 April 2011 ran the wry item ‘Nick Clegg was claiming that the NHS reforms were the Lib Dems’ idea just three months ago,’ a reference to Clegg on the Andrew Marr program on 23 January 2011.

What changed?

The opposition and concern of many health professionals, the local elections, disastrous for the Libdems, and public opposition reflected in the vast NHS petition through the website 38 degrees, along with a fortuitously timed conference of Libdems from outside parliament which hammered the bill. The lemmings stopped at the cliff edge.

It makes sense to listen and change when there is such a confluence of events and people but trying to rewrite history is undignified and unpersuasive. However, the Libdems are desperate to find areas where they may safely and popularly disagree totemically with their Tory allies while remaining in government with them.

Is the Libdem party trying to save the NHS or trying to save its skin? But it is a famous victory … of Clegg over Clegg, of Libdems today over Libdems of 31 January.

Cornwall notes
Andrew George, Libdem MP for St Ives, said in the Commons debate on 31 January 2011 that he would not vote for the second reading of the bill; nor did he. However, he did not vote against it then either but he has been consistent and outspoken in his robust criticism of the bill from the start. Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) voted for second reading. No vote is recorded for Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay).

It was a famous victory: a satirical refrain in the poem Battle of Blenheim by Robert Southey.

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BOUNDARIES 2

Andrew George, Libdem MP for St Ives, has put down several amendments to the votes bill. I don’t know whether all or any will be debated and voted on.

One amendment, which would apply to all principal local authority areas such as counties, would make all our constituencies wholly within the Cornwall county boundary, none crossing it into Devon, if there is near-universal agreement. Another would reduce the Commons to five hundred members from its present 650 and from the 600 proposed by the Tory Libdem government; and another would introduce weighted whipped votes in the Commons.

Read the amendments here. And read the bill here.

Related posts
Will Cornwall spill over? 7 July 2010
Boundaries 9 September 2010
Boundaries 3 17 September 2010
Boundaries 4 11 October 2010
Boundaries 5 24 November 2010
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A TENT STORY

Last year there was a story with a startling contrast. Andrew George, Libdem MP for St Ives, lived in his £300 000 Rotherhithe flat while working in Parliament in London and a constituent from west Cornwall lived in a £30 tent in Epping Forest while working in London. You can read that story here but it appeared in similar form in many newspapers. And here are instructive and contrasting comments on the newspaper reports from Philip Hanman, the man who lived in the tent; scroll to the sixth item, Intent to protest?

Now there is an update to the story. And here too.

ADDENDUM 16 August 2010: Here’s a by-story.
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CORNWALL MPS ON SELECT COMMITTEES

Four Cornwall MPs represent their parties as members of the House of Commons select committees:

EUSTICE George (Conservative Camborne and Redruth) Environment, food, and rural affairs select committee
GEORGE Andrew (LD St Ives) Health
GILBERT Stephen (LD St Austell and Newquay) Communities and local government
ROGERSON Dan (LD North Cornwall) Environment, food, and rural affairs

Membership of the Commons select committees 2010-11

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ANDREW GEORGE AND EDMs

I’ve looked at the early day motions (EDM) of the present new parliament. Basically, these motions are not for debate in parliament but express MPs’ views on current issues.

Andrew George, Libdem MP for St Ives, has signed eighty seven; the other five MPs for Cornwall constituencies have signed none but it is early days in this parliament so nothing should be read into this absence of signing.

What is very interesting is not the absence of signatures but that among the EDM that George signed in May and June are these:

EDM 4 which calls for the minimum wage to be paid to support workers who provide overnight support to vulnerable adults and who presently can be paid below the minimum wage.

EDM 35 which calls for more money for adaptations to homes for disabled people as the present funds are insufficient for the demand

EDM 37 which calls on the Tory Libdem government to retain the disability attendance allowance and the disability living allowance

EDM 62 and 61 which acknowledge reports on poverty in Britain and call on the Tory Libdem government “to pursue policies to eradicate poverty and promote equality”

EDM 84 which calls for the release of the two homosexuals imprisoned in Malawi and calls for the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Malawi.

George is very commendably supporting (small-l) liberal motions which taken together show a pattern of serious concern for practical social justice. I think these motions show that he is socially liberal not conservative; and there are left rather than neoliberal rightwing economics in there.

The other EDM he has signed include forced marriages, butterflies, dragonflies, our armed forces, diabetes, and Gaza and Israel. It is catholic and meritorious range of views which I would largely support with varying enthusiasms (and no enthusiasm at all for EDM 124 on Israel).

I don’t know whether anyone in the government takes serious notice of EDM; I doubt it. The local media do not seem to report them and there is no direct link to them that I can see on the websites of Cornwall MPs (I haven’t looked at any others).

MPs’ websites tend naturally to be about their positive involvement in local issues. They usually lack a link to Commons debates which give a fuller picture. Here is a link to an MP’s part in parliamentary debates. You can ask for an email to be sent to you every time he or she or they speak. It’s a free service.

And here again is the link to early day motions. You can click through to an MP’s name.

KICKING PEOPLE WHEN THEY’RE DOWN

Andrew George, the Libdem MP for St Ives, has signed Early Day Motion (EDM) 1576 of 2 June 2009 in support of the report Hung up — the cost of calling government from a mobile phone from Leeds Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB).

I congratulate Leeds CAB on their report, direct and concrete, detailing the problems, showing solutions. I warmly commend Andrew George for signing the supportive EDM. This is an issue which also affects people in Cornwall.

The report is a sorry tale of government ineptitude and failure to adapt to changed circumstances rather than government raw callousness. It is a problem that can be readily solved.

The costs of ringing government help lines from a mobile phone are high; at present free and cheap government department numbers are not available for mobiles. Yet mobiles are the only phones that many vulnerable and poor people have.

The only way of contacting many government services is by phone.

This results in some people with mobiles not claiming benefits they are entitled to. The folly of the present arrangements is best seen in that it costs desperate people dearly to ring the government’s crisis loan help number. This is kicking people when they are down. This is making life more difficult for people in difficulties.

There is a solution through the government negotiating with the mobile phone companies to make 0800 numbers for selected government services, such as the crisis loans service, free on mobiles, if necessary through the Telephone Helpline Association scheme (0800 numbers are free on landlines but not usually on mobile phones).

Here is a problem. Here are vulnerable people needing help. Here is a solution. Here is a government…Ah, how will that sentence end?

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EDM 1576 is here.

There is an article about this in the Observer for 14 June 2009.

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DARWIN DAY

Andrew George, the Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives, has commendably signed a House of Commons early day motion supporting calls for 12 February, the anniversary of Charles Darwin birth, to be a public holiday, Darwin Day. The motion celebrates Darwin’s setting out the theory of evolution by natural selection and celebrates him as “one of Britain’s greatest, if not the greatest, scientific minds.”

I support the call for Darwin Day. The theory of evolution by natural selection is one of the greatest discoveries of the human mind and enables us to make a just assessment of our place in the world and understand the common descent of all animals; and, with the work of the astronomers from Copernicus and Galileo onwards, our place in the universe.

The slogan of this blog is Eat the apple, look through the telescope. Very inadequately, here everyday struggles to be Darwin and Galileo day.

WARM FRONT IN CORNWALL

Parliamentary questions from Andrew George, the MP for St Ives, have exposed
the extra costs for people in Cornwall using the government’s national Warm Front scheme.

This provides help with paying for heating and insulation for vulnerable householders undertaken through selected installers. There’s a grant from the government but the householder has to pay towards the cost if it exceeds the grant. The scheme covers things like central heating, loft and wall insulation, and draughtproofing.

Here’s what the questions revealed.

Percentage of those helped under the scheme who had to pay something 1 June 2005-31 March 2008 (I have turned the numbers in Hansard into percentages):

St Ives 31 percent
Cornwall 29
England 20

Average contribution requested from householders helped under the Warm Front scheme in £:

St Ives constituency 1025.74
Cornwall 1018.99
England (all) 538.00

Hansard 3 July 2008 columns 1087W-1088W for percentages and 4 November 2008 columns 400W-401W for costs.

Andrew George, the MP for St Ives, raised this issue back in February. He has recently suggested that the scheme should “ make greater use of local contractors who can complete work at a cheaper rate than the centralised private management company currently in charge of the scheme.” That is a sensible proposal which would help local people and bring financial fairness to the scheme in Cornwall.

The parliamentary answers reveal unacceptable price differences. The government must look again at the working out of the scheme in Cornwall and ensure more equality.

Additamenta
15 June 2009
Matthew Taylor asked how many people over sixty had received a Warm Front grant in Cornwall: the answer is 10 681 households were helped in the eight years 2000/01-2007/08 and 1383 April 2008-January 2009 (Hansard 15 June 2009 column 128W)

18 May 2012
Hansard 17 May 2012 column 692 Andrew George (Libdem St Ives):
“…Warm Front was, in my view, undermined by the extortionate charges of a small cartel of suppliers. Given that only 22 companies are so far among the providers for the green deal, can the Minister assure us that local fitters and local suppliers can be part of the programme, so that costs are competitive?”

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TORY WATER BILLS

There was a debate in the House of Commons the other day about water usage and bills (Hansard 2 June 2008 column 614 onwards).

The main focus was on the high bills in the southwest and the especial difficulties that those on low income have in paying them. Linda Gilroy, a Labour MP from Plymouth who initiated the debate, put the context well: “too many people are struggling to pay bills that are unacceptably high. As things stand, the problem looks set to get worse.”

There was the usual nod to water meters which make people more aware of their water use and, according to Phil Woolas, the minister, reduce overall consumption by ten percent. However, I don’t see meters reducing prices as opposed to consumption in the long run as I explained in my previous water and sewerage post. Andrew George, the Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives, made the interesting point that metering benefited second-home owners by keeping their water usage bills low. Fairness is always complicated.

In the Commons there was a recital of small measures to help but no one seemed to have any effective major idea about getting to more affordable prices here (apart from the Libdem idea of a national equalisation scheme, in effect a subsidy of bills in Cornwall and the southwest by the rest of England, an idea which has its own problems as I outlined in my previous post). The (im)practicality of southwest customers breaking out of the geographic straitjacket into a genuine choice of supplier was not discussed.

I’m afraid it reminded me of HG Wells’s comment about the Fabians: piddling under the door and calling it the stream of progress. I think it’s obvious that customers in the southwest are stuffed: high bills and no choice in supplier. The problem of how to unstuff them is truly difficult. Phil Woolas said that “affordability continues to be a key concern of the government” which shows how desperately bereft of transformative ideas the government is.

Who’s to blame for our present position? Linda Gilroy put it crystal clearly when she spoke of “the botched privatisation by the Conservative government.” Indeed.

I repeat what I said before: it is time the Conservatives came up with some ideas for making better this situation that their party created. They keep very quiet about this problem and I think they aren’t going to volunteer a solution so let’s press them.

related posts

Can Cornwall’s water bills be cut? 6 June 2007

The water of affliction 2 October 2007