John Hemming's Web Log

I explained why Birmingham was wrong to do this in parliament yesterday. The video of my speech is here . The text of the debate is here There is always a challenge understanding the arguments when different people quote different figures. I will, therefore put up the two arguments about costs. These figures look only at the effect on the city council. That is about 88% of the total council tax bill. The rest goes to Police and Fire. Labour's figures My figures 2012/3 government support 88,231,598 88,231,598 2013/4 government support (79,494,242) (79,494,242) Shortfall 8,737,356 8,737,356 Contingency 882,316 0 Requirement for 1.45% increase in Council Tax 1,292,152 0 Total to find 10,911,823 8,737,356 From Flexibilities 5,437,977 6,012,692 Government Grant 0 2,129,441 Final Shortfall 5,473,847 595,223 The money that can come in from reducing backdating is 792,542 which is more than that required for my approach to the figures. The policy question is the one hi...

This is from the other main polish language media operation in the UK.

There are two aspects of fossil fuel production that affect GDP. The first is that higher oil prices tend to reduce economic activity. The second is that if the UK produces less oil or gas then that takes down the GDP. Because this is a geological issue it needs to be excluded from consideration. The GDP index at the end of Q4 2011 excluding oil and gas was 103.5 and the provisional Q4 2012 figure is 103.9. For some reason ONS make this growth of 0.3% (I make it 0.4% - actually 0.3864%). The figures including oil and gas are 102.8 and 102.9. The ONS make this flat whereas I make it a 0.1% (0.09728%) increase. The reason why the ONS figures and mine are different is that I am comparing the 2011 figure directly to the 2012 figure whereas the ONS are summing the percentage variances (their approach brings in a rounding error). [note it is possible that if the figures are expressed to a greater accuracy that the ONS are right on the rounding, but wrong on the economy being flat ...

Follows Success of Online Petition and Motion from Member of Parliament NEW YORK, Jan. 24, 2013/PRNewswire/ – In the wake of the child-abuse scandal surrounding BBC presenter Jimmy Savile, the United Kingdom lifted its 500-day travel ban on American journalist Leah McGrath Goodman and restored her visa this past week, allowing her to complete an investigation into allegations of systemic child abuse in the UK and its territories. As reported by The Guardian and the BBC, Goodman was banned after being detained and questioned by UK authorities in September 2011 about her research into allegations of horrific crimes against children at the orphanage Haut de la Garenne on the island of Jersey, a leading offshore tax shelter controlled by the British Crown. Amid fresh allegations about Savile’s predatory activities on the island of Jersey, Member of Parliament for Birmingham Yardley John Hemming filed a parliamentary motion in September 2012 protesting Goodman’s ban. “I am pleased that ...

This is my contribution to the committee meeting today which looked further at the issue of the Department of Education answering questions.

It was at 21:33:13.25 I am not sure how to embed it at a particular time. If you wish to go directly to the right time please click here . The reason the speech was given quite quickly was that the time of the debate had been reduced and I wished to get it all on the record. The record is here .

As I was leaving the House of Commons today I noticed that the fountain statue had icicles. It would have been really good with the right lighting sadly I didn't have the time to wait for the sun to get in the right place.

Because of the economic difficulties the government has extended the period during which it is aiming to reduce the structural deficit. This, however, has required the finding of additional saving. Although I pressed for the full inflation increase on all benefits last year I did support the new Welfare bill which limits the increase to 1%. That is because we cannot expect the Welfare budget to be immune to savings. If we do not have a general limit on benefits then any specific targeted changes would have to be much more. The proposal is to increase by inflation those benefits that specifically relate to disability, but to hold other state payments to the same figure as applies to public sector workers (viz 1%). It is worth noting that there has been a 100% reduction on child benefit for families with earners earning over £60,000 (the only benefit available to such families) In the mean time Labour seem to want to tax people on benefits in Birmingham. This, however, is not t...

This is an interesting story about Hong Kong where the Chinese government committee selected leader is under threat as a result of building without planning permission.

This article in the Sunday Express highlights the fact that currently Queens regnant are treated as being less important than Kings regnant. It is, in fact, a matter of discussion as to what title the Monarch's spouse is given when the Monarch is crowned. There are a number of options to deal with this: To give the monarch the choice of a number of titles for his or her spouse To have all called the same. To have a resolution of parliament to resolve the issue each time. I personally think a bit of flexibility is best so the option of calling them all the same is not the one I would pick. However, it should be clear who is the monarch and who is the spouse. There is a bill coming to parliament that would facilitate resolving this aspect of sex discrimination where a Queen is treated as being less important than a King.

This proposal from the Chinese Government is an interesting aspect of family law that probably does not exist in any democracy. "China has passed a law requiring adult children to visit their elderly parents regularly or risk being sued. The law does not specify how frequently such visits should occur, but warns that neglect could risk court action."

There is a continuing debate about Marriage and the meaning of Marriage. In 2011 Mostyn J addressed the all party parliamentary group on family law and spoke about what marriage was from a legal perspective. The speech can be read via the report  here Historically marriage was more about children than adults.  Today, however, from a legal perspective it is mainly about an ill defined economic contract which can cost at lot of money to terminate. The aspects of family law that relate to the care of children have been taken substantially outside the law of marriage.  Additionally in the last parliament the common law duty of a husband to care for his wife was abolished - without a peep from anyone at the time. Hence Marriage today is mainly legally about divorce law. Generally family law in the English and Welsh jurisdiction has evolved through the courts with an element of intervention from parliament.  However, because it is not the sort of things that f...

I am not sure that there is a category of people that is always truthful.  It is clear from Hillsborough and the Andrew Mitchell sagas that police don't always tell the truth. Politicians are not always honest, nor are business people, nor are doctors, nor indeed are judges and other lawyers. That is why transparency is so important because it has two effects: a) It allows independent people to work out what the truth is. b) It discourages people from lying because they know that people can discover that they have done so.  That is why I am concerned about the decision to stop people from listening to independent court recordings. This is a movement away from transparency and accountability.

Sir Albert Bore has referred to the "jaws of doom". This he has done when central government are cutting the spending power of the city council by 1.11% in cash terms. Nationally the figures are 1.7% (across England). At the same time the council has decided to put up the wages of all council staff paid under £7.20 to £7.20. This is called the "living wage". Many people who earn less than this get tax credits. Hence it is substantially a swap between central government costs and local government costs. They have also included the 16-21 year olds. Hence some of them have had increases of 75% or 85%. It is a nice policy in the sense that it is being nice to people. However, because they propose also to ensure that contractors do the same they wish to find £10m per annum for the same policy. At the same time they want to raise more council tax by charging people on JSA 24% of the council tax. The council could find £10m pa by sacking over 300 additional st...

This is a meeting of the procedure select committee looking at the issue of the reasons as to why the Education department doesn't answer questions properly.

This story in The Telegraph where a SpAd threatens the newspaper with Leveson over an Expenses story is such a good example of why politicians should not be writing the press regulation rules that you couldn't make up a better one.

This provides more information about the case.

I was surprised that Liberty seemed to be backing a role for government (through Ofcom) in monitoring the activity of the press regulator. However, This story in the Mail on Sunday appears to contradict this. Why should those whose function is to investigate wrongdoing by the powerful be held to higher standards than anyone else in society? Judges have a different view on communication and information than others. They tend to believe that it is better to be tightly controlled. Hence it is not surprising that he came up with an idea to stop journalists squirreling away information in the hope that at some stage it might be useful. The point about that is that at the start they don't know for certain that it is useful. Hence if you apply a public interest test to that process at that stage then you basically stop the collection of information. Even Ed Milliband could see that this was wrong. The timing of the Welsh Government's attempt to censor Pobl y Cwm (see here ) c...

It is unusual for The Sun to come out critical of the system. This Article by Jane Moore is not officially from "the sun", but it is exceptional to get this reported. It properly identifies the flaws in government policy in keeping what is happening in the courts secret. " IT can no longer be ignored by those who purport to be in charge of this country that something is deeply rotten at the core of Britain’s social services."

this briefing is a good summary of the new standards regime. The new regime reinforces democracy ensuring that councillors are primarily accountable to the electorate.