John Hemming's Web Log

Predictive Diallers (DoH) Q: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many calls were made from call centres in her Department in 2004–05 using predictive diallers; how many such calls resulted in contact being made with the recipient without a Government agent available to talk to them; and what assessment she has made of the likely impact of Ofcom's policy on silent calls on the use of predictive diallers in departmental call centres.(John Hemming) A: The Department has a single call centre, part of a customer service directorate. This centre does not use predictive dialling. (Jane Kennedy, Minister of State (Quality and Patient Safety), Department of Health) Fuel Duty Q: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the level of fuel duty for a liquid fuel produced from (a) biomass and (b) waste cooking oil that is (i) diesel quality and (ii) not diesel quality. (John Hemming) A: I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave him on 15 December 2005, Official Report, column 22...

In all of the work I have been doing to get the rules for passport photos simplified it has been pointed out that a Passport Office for the Midlands would be helpful. At the moment you need to go to London, Peterborough or Newport. With all the hassles getting passports now it strikes me that an office based in Birmingham would be really helpful.

Something like 18 months after Labour ex-Councillor Tony Kennedy pushed Jim Pendleton into a wall at the Prince of Wales pub in Moseley the Judge has now produced a judgement in the "Malicious Falsehood" case brought against Lib Dem Councillor Martin Mullaney for sending an email saying "Tony Kennedy is going to be Arrested." As a sort of Small Claims version of Libel none of the outcome is particularly surprising. In this instance Martin gets costs of £60 rather than the £6000 or so he should be due for the amount of work done. Jim Pendleton also gets £50 for loss of earnings. The case has had its surreal moments like when the Chief Executive of the Pub Chain was suppoenaed to stand as a witness - as if he was there on the night. A key part of today's press report which has more impact than a row in a pub is the following: [Mr Kennedy] maintained ... attempts to set up as new business as an independent consultant to developers suffered. Mr Kennedy said a numb...

There seems to be getting to be a pattern of Ministers denying that they are responsible for Silent Calls. First we had the Chancellor saying "The Treasury Does not use predictive dialling". OK so that was a true statement, but it ignored the fact that the Inland Revenue made hundreds of thousands of Silent Calls. Now we have the health minister claiming that that department is not responsible for phone nuisance. The National Blood Service, however, does make silent calls (about 80,000 a year). All we are asking them to do is to provide a recorded message to stop the anxiety. It may be that the National Blood Service is not part of the Department of Health and hence the Minister's answer was right, but this does seem to be pushing the boundaries of "answering" questions.

I have now heard this joke twice. The votes yesterday were on the details of what should be unlawful. I am always worried about laws where people break the law when they did not intend to. The problem with the government's approach on Religious Hatred is that they approached it much like breaking the speed limit. With the Speed Limit is entirely fair to have a strict liability rule although that should only apply when the speed limit is obvious. If, however, you are going to lock people up for being unintentionally abusive or insulting then I think that is clearly going too far. I understand a considerable amount about different cultures, but many people don't. Certain statements can really jar and act as being abusive or insulting without the person saying it being aware at all. If you start going down that route you are really making government take control over the minutae of people's lives. I have accepted (and demonstrated by 3rd reading support) the principle th...

John Hemming MP together with Lorely Burt MP, John Barrett MP, John Leech MP and Richard Ross MP attended the vigil in memory of the deaths of 100 British Servicemen and Women at 5pm on Tuesday 31st January 2006. The Liberal Democrat MPs shared in the reading out of the names of the servicepeople who had died. John Hemming MP said, "The government have a key responsibility for the lives of our service people. They need to recognise that there is no good reason for keeping our boys and girls as military targets in Iraq. Work should commence for their return to the UK." "This war was a mistake. The continued occupation is also a mistake." "We do recognise that in theory we could have been arrested for reading the names of the service people. However, it is important that MPs stand up for free speech and the right for people to have their voice heard." Lorely Burt MP said, "Our hearts go out to the families of the service people who have been...

Passports Q: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer of 9 January 2006, Official Report, column 378W, on passports, whether the notice added to the UK Passport Service website on photograph standards was published on 22 November 2005 as referred to in the answer or on 21 December as referred to on the UKPS website. (John Hemming) A: The UKPS website was updated on 22 November to reflect the revised policy adopted after consideration of feedback following the introduction of new photo standards in September 2005. Changes are made to the website as the need arises, and on 21 December a further change was made to advise customers that the digital enhancement of photographs was not recommended. The date on the web page reflects this latter change. The website has been amended to make the timing of these changes clearer. (Andy Burnham, Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office) Passports Q: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant ...

As someone who has never smoked anything (apart from other people's smoke) and who is quite anti-smoking, I still have some problems with banning smoking in public places. I am happy with the argument about protecting the workforce, but feel that a simplistic ban is not necessary the best way. I will probably go along with banning smoking from all pubs. I have some difficulty with clubs, however. What I think might be a good way forwards is to have "Smoking Rooms" which are licensed for smoking on the basis that they have good ventilation and staff are protected from breathing in smoke. This at least would prevent the entrances to pubs ending up plastered with fag ends and having people walking through smoke. I have, therefore, tabled such an amendment to the Health Bill to have a debate about this. My amendment would allow local authorities to license certain rooms for smoking. There are clearly good cases for such provision such as specialist smoking shops where peop...

Predictive Diallers (DTI) Q: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many calls were made from call centres in his Department in 2004–05 using predictive diallers; how many such calls resulted in contact being made with the recipient without a Government agent available to talk to them; and what assessment he has made of the likely impact of Ofcom's policy on silent calls on the use of predictive diallers in departmental call centres.(John Hemming) A: The Department of Trade and Industry does not use predictive dialling in any of its call centres. (Alun Michael, Minister of State, Industry and the Regions, Department of Trade and Industry) Predictive Diallers (NI) Q: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many calls were made from call centres in his Department in 2004–05 using predictive diallers; how many such calls resulted in contact being made with the recipient without a Government agent available to talk to them; and what assessment he has ma...

George Galloway and Mark Oaten appear to have decided to challenge the "any publicity is good publicity" theory. I have frequently qualified the statement as almost any publicity is good publicity. With Mark Oaten it is entirely clear that the particular NOTW article is not good publicity. The situation for George Galloway will not be entirely clear until the dust has settled when he leaves the "Big Brother House". On one side he will continually have replayed the cat act and the photo above. On the other hand he may end up on loads of chat shows. He may even become "Chatshow Georgie". In the mean time Channel 4 will have paid him a reasonably substantial fee. I suppose if he is aiming for an income as a chat show guest then that will give him a chance. He would, however, have to find even more absurd things to do than those he has done on Big Brother. In the mean time the NHS is in a financial crisis, strife in Iraq continues and the country's...

The link is to a treasury web page with various PFI reports on it. Mott MacDonald researched "optimism bias". I think that it is not entirely fair to call it "optimism bias". Generally people don't know all the details of a large project when they start it. However, Mott MacDonald found that there were various reasons why projects both traditional and PFI/PPP ended up having an "optimism bias". Meanwhile back at the ranch only Public Sector Comparators have an "optimism bias" penalty added to them. Noone is likely to complain because they want the projects to proceed and they know if they complain they won't get their projects. This has only changed because PbR means that people really are looking at the real costs (eg what they have to pay out rather than fiddle factors). Such arcane issues of accounting really do matter because when they are wrong (which is generally the case at the moment) wards get closed, new hospitals are not b...

Saturday 28th Jan Plymouth 1.30pm Monday 6th Feb Cardiff 7.30pm Sat 11th Feb Slough 9.45am Mon 13th Feb Edinburgh 7pm Sat 18th Feb Coventry 3pm Mon 20th Feb Manchester 7.30pm Thurs 23rd London 7.45pm Open to members only.

The polls will close on Writers by the end of February. The numbers to phone are: Historical Vote for Arnold Bennett (Staffordshire) - 09011962040 Vote for George Eliot (Warwickshire) - 09011962041 Vote for A. E. Housman (Shropshire) - 09011962042 Vote for William Langland (Shropshire) - 09011962043 Vote for Philip Larkin (West Midlands/Shropshire) - 09011962044 Vote for Wilfred Owen (Shropshire) - 09011962045 Vote for Sir Philip Sidney (Shropshire) - 09011962046 Vote for J.R.R Tolkien (Birmingham) - 09011962047 Vote for Izaak Walton (Staffordshire) – 09011962048 Vote for William Shakespeare (Warwickshire) – 09011962049 Contemporary Vote for Jonathan Coe (Birmingham) - 09011962050 Vote for Jim Crace (Birmingham) - 09011962051 Vote for Judith Cutler (Dudley, West Midlands) - 09011962052 Vote for Roshan Doug (Birmingham) - 09011962053 Vote for David Edgar (Birmingham) - 09011962054 Vote for David Lodge (Birmingham) - 09011962055 Vote for Meera Syal (Staffordshire) - 0901196205...

The factor that is added to the estimates for a public sector cost for a PFI project is called the "optimism bias". This is used to calculate the "public sector comparator". When the National Audit Office says PFI is "cheaper", it means that it is cheaper than the inflated figure.

Terminator Seeds Q: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what his policy is on proposals for changes to the United Nations convention on biological diversity to legalise an international market in terminator seeds. (John Hemming) A: I have been asked to reply. Terminator seeds' are plants bred using genetic use restriction technologies known as GURTs. The parties to the United Nations convention on biological diversity decided, in 2000, that there should be a precautionary approach to the use of GURTs while research into the possible impacts of these technologies was carried out. Parties at the meeting in March, this year, will consider a recommendation by the convention's subsidiary body for scientific technical and technological advice to reaffirm the previous decision. The subsidiary body's recommendation also encourages parties to continue to undertake further research on the impacts of GURTS and to share information from these studies and address...

Local Strategic Partnerships Q: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what (a) guidance and (b) advice the Learning and Skills Councils have issued as to who should chair local strategic partnerships.(John Hemming) A: The consultation paper "Local Strategic Partnerships: Shaping the Future" launched on 8 December by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister examines the future role of LSPs, their governance and accountability, and their capacity to deliver sustainable community strategies and local area agreements. Membership of LSPs is drawn from a wide range of local partners, including the Learning and Skills Council (LSC). The leadership of individual LSPs is a matter for local discretion and members' views can be sought on their chairmanship. The LSC has not issued guidance on who should chair LSPs. (Bill Rammell, Minister of State (Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education) Department for Education and Skills) Habitual Residence Test Q: T...

PFI has been TINA (There is No Alternative) for some time. There are a lot of games played with PFI. The first one is that it is basically very expensive compared to traditional procurement. However, if the traditional method is found to be cheaper then PFI cannot be used. Because there is no funding for the traditional method it means that people "make assumptions" [fiddle the figures] to make sure that PFI looks cheaper. The biggest fiddle comes from multiplying the traditional cost by a multiplier for notional increases in cost. However, the public sector comparator (as it is called) is still adjusted until it fits. The second one is FRS5. There is a sort of ideological demand for the payments for a PFI project to be more than just leasing a building. Hence you have a demand to transfer the management of a service into the private sector. This creates a massive conflict. There are two real things about PFI. The first is that all the effort goes into specifying the...

I have not read James Lovelock's new analysis in any detail. There are issues relating to global warming, however, that don't seem to have hit the consciousness of government. The essential problem is that if it is the case (which it most likely is) that a certain level of CO2 concentration implies an increase in the amount of heat trapped, then even if CO2 concentrations stabilised at the current levels then temperatures would continue to rise. All the Kyoto and similar proposals talk about continuing to have increases in CO2 concentrations. Hence they really do not deal properly with the issue. At the same time, however, little attention is given to carbon capture. There are mechanisms for carbon capture other than growing trees. There needs to be further work done on this.

VAT Q: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has plans to charge VAT on domestic flights.(John Hemming) A: VAT is already charged on aircraft fuel supplied for flights within the UK at either the standard rate or reduced rate of 5 percent., depending on the type and quantity of fuel being supplied. (Dawn Primarolo, Paymaster General, HM Treasury)

I managed to get three key points into the energy security debate http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2006-01-12a.486.0&m=1420#g490.3 about the nature of the gas market http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/cm060112/debtext/60112-31.htm#60112-31_spnew3 about the fact that nuclear raw materials are imported http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/cm060112/debtext/60112-32.htm#60112-32_spnew2 about importing into storage. My actual speech is on the gas blog.