In my view
by Grant Shapps MP
October 2006
Two wrong
decisions – with one obvious conclusion
Welwyn Hatfield has learnt
about two big potential decisions, but neither makes sense for our area.
Taken separately each is bad news, but combine the two and the
consequences could be explosive.
Of course there are no prizes for guessing the two top issues of the
day.
Over the summer, quite out of the blue, we discovered that two
unelected, apparently ill informed, Government Inspectors -- working
from somewhere in Norfolk -- had decided that Welwyn Hatfield should
play host to a massive additional house building project. Of course
people have to live somewhere and lack of affordable housing is a huge
problem for our area, but most experts agree that we can’t simply build
our way out the problem and in trying to do so we will completely
destroy our much cherished Green Belt.
In fact, just to get the facts straight, Welwyn Hatfield had already
agreed to play its part by agreeing the development of a further 5,800
homes by 2020, so no one could ever accuse our area of not being
prepared to pitch-in with the South East housing shortage. But this
summer’s bombshell hit us after the undemocratic regional government
appointees decided that Welwyn Hatfield should increase its quota to
10,000 homes by 2021.
Joining forces with Welwyn Hatfield Council, the Welwyn Hatfield Times
newspaper, the LibDems, the Conservatives and a host of other community
groups and residents associations, we set about fighting the plans. The
proposals are due to be commented on by central government some time in
November and before that we’ll be presenting petition signatures to
Downing Street. Anyone who has yet to sign up should visit
http://www.NoWayTo10k.com urgently.
The second bombshell that hit over the summer was in relation to a new
hospital in Hatfield that we were faithfully promised before the last
election. Readers will recall John Reid visiting Welwyn Hatfield and
declaring that we had been “chosen” to host a new half billion pound
teaching super-hospital to incorporate cancer care and replace the QE2.
However, with the election been and gone and the Health Minister that
used to represent this constituency as MP removed, the new
super-hospital plan has looked increasingly improbable. Then suddenly,
following the government’s latest rearrangement of the NHS (this time it
has merged the Primary Care Trusts which they had only set up 3 or 4
years ago), we learnt that the entire Hatfield Hospital project had gone
back to the drawing board. So years of consultation resulting in a
process they called Investing In Your Health were thrown out and the
entire project now looks shaky to say the least.
Worse still our services at the QE2 are about to be savagely cut.
Closures to Maternity and Paediatrics, followed by the closing of our
A&E and Surgery, are sadly all on the cards. But residents will recall
my long running www.SaveTheQE2.com campaign – and I was recently very
relieved when we urgently needed to take our 5 year old, Hadley, along
to A&E in the middle of the night to discover that the Paediatric
Assessment Unit (PAU) was in fact still open. Saving this unit was one
of my key campaigns in the lead up to last year’s General Election. But
if all the proposed cuts seemed bad before, then they appear even worse
now that the Hatfield project is in such jeopardy.
So in the summer just passed, we’ve been confronted with two partial
decisions which when taken together spell disaster.
The first is to build thousands of extra homes, meaning that our area
will have an additional town the size of Hatfield, most likely joining
Hatfield to St Albans in fact.
The second is the probability that despite this massively increased
local population, we will not only see our QE2 Hospital all but closed,
the new super-hospital which the government once pledged Welwyn Hatfield
is no longer looking very likely.
Unsurprisingly there is a palpable feeling of betrayal left hanging in
the air. Without consultation, democratic mandate, evidence or a proper
legal investigation the government has told Welwyn Hatfield to find room
for 10,000 extra houses! And in a complete about turn to Tony Blair’s
own pledge that there were just 24 hours to save the NHS back in 1997,
we now face the virtual closure of our local hospital with no
replacement on the cards.
Would any of this be different under a new government? Yes, because we’d
do two things straight away.
First, we are pledged to scrap the undemocratic and expensive Regional
Assembly and Government and return powers to decide where and when
housing is built to the County Councils.
Second, we’ll stop reorganisation of the NHS for the sheer sake of it.
Tony Blair’s pre-election claim that there were 24 hours to save the NHS
quickly became 24 ways to reorganise it. This has meant that the extra
taxes that have been pumped into our health service have failed to
produce the outcomes. Who could possibly have imagined that 10 years
later our hospital would be threatened with virtual closure? We’ll
ensure that the constant turmoil stops and the money reaches the
hospitals and patients.
One summer and two decisions later, Welwyn Hatfield is collectively
holding its breath to see what happens next!
In my view
by Grant Shapps MP
June 2006
One Year
On...
At the end of my first
year as our MP, I can definitely say that it has been both hectic and
enjoyable.
Fellow residents often ask me if being Welwyn Hatfield’s MP is as I
imagined it would be before I was elected. “How do you cope with the
long hours?” and “What do your family think about it?” are two very
frequent questions.
The truth is that the job is even more interesting and far more varied
than I dared imagine and that makes answering the third common question,
“What’s your average day like?” virtually impossible.
Some days I’m involved in large projects. Usually problems that I’ve
taken up on behalf of local residents, only then to discover that they
represent much bigger national problems. Readers might well recall these
examples:
When Welwyn man Rodney Bailey had his car broken into in the middle of
the night, he was relieved that the police caught and cautioned the
criminal. Bizarrely the police then withheld the criminal’s information
and in the process prevented Mr Bailey from claiming damages for his
vehicle. Apparently Data Protection legislation meant that the police
were effectively left defending the criminal, while the victim had to
pay up. I felt that this went against natural justice and managed to
obtain Parliamentary time to hold a debate about Mr Bailey’s case in the
Commons. Raising the problem in this way resulted in the Home Office
issuing fresh guidance to Police Forces nationwide instructing them to
rebalance the approach in favour of victims.
The situation of a 14 year old WGC boy who was picked up by the police
in a case of mistaken identity became nationwide news when his DNA
profile was stored for life, despite the fact that he was known to be
entirely innocent by law enforcers. With his case in mind, I started
asking Parliamentary Questions and was soon to discover that there were
24,000 cases of entirely innocent children’s DNA data being stored on
the Police National Database. This led to my setting up a campaign to
have innocent children removed from the national DNA database – see:
www.cond.org.uk. Now the
Association of Police Chief Officers has since clarified its rules for
DNA retention, though these are not yet satisfactory and the campaign
continues.
When a Welwyn Hatfield resident, John Mitchell sent £15 to our
cash-struck NHS Health Trust after he felt bad about missing his
hospital appointment, he was amazed to have it returned with a note
saying that the money wasn’t required. Since the East and North Herts
Trust that runs the QEII is projecting a £53m deficit over the next
couple of years and is shedding 500 jobs and closing vital departments
like maternity and A&E, their decision to return the £15 donation seemed
extraordinary to me. I decided to ask all 264 NHS Hospital Trusts across
the country how much money patients’ missed appointments were costing
them. I was staggered to discover that it more than equalled the entire
£1/2bn NHS deficit. I was later to hold a debate in the House of Commons
to reveal the true extent of the problem.
But these examples of local problems turning into national campaigns
represent just a small part of my work in Parliament. Residents will
know that I’m particularly keen on ensuring that everyone has the
opportunity to visit their Parliament and during the first year it has
been a pleasure to welcome over 1,000 Welwyn Hatfield locals to
Westminster in order to let them find out more about the place and
discover its rich history. I’ll be arranging more trips soon and any
Welwyn Hatfield constituent who would like to join a tour can call my
constituency office on 01707 262632.
Over the past 12 months there have been some great successes. After
seven years campaigning to reduce the noise from the A1(M) through
Welwyn Hatfield, I have finally had assurances from the Highway Agency
about resurfacing work, which will cover 85% of the motorway through our
area. Residents can download detailed maps of the resurfacing and works
schedule at my www.Quieter-A1M.com campaign website and can also view
the history of my campaign itself. Incidentally, I will continue to keep
the pressure up until 100% of the motorway through Welwyn Hatfield is
resurfaced with the quiet material.
Currently I’m robustly lobbying the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
to release the cash needed to get the problems in Briars Lane resolved
as a matter of great urgency. Dozens of residents and hundreds of school
children are having their lives disrupted after the discovery of 200
year old chalk mines under this part of Hatfield. Despite a minister
giving me his personal assurance that the necessary mechanism would be
used to release the money via Parliament, nothing happened. A couple of
weeks ago I’d quite simply had enough and told the minister that unless
I had answers by 4pm the next day, I would take the entire story to the
national press and TV. Within 15 minutes we finally had the answers we
were looking for and the money will be released by August.
There have, of course, been some frustrations since I was elected and
the QEII remains my main concern. The new super-hospital in Hatfield
will now only be a replacement District Hospital, which makes you wonder
why they need to waste all that money closing down the QEII in the first
place. Meantime our NHS Trust is slashing 500 jobs and closing down
departments in a manner that will seriously put the health of us all at
risk. Closures are now scheduled or being consulted on from A&E to
Paediatrics and Chemotherapy to all surgery. It’s simply not good enough
and I’m demanding a meeting with the Secretary of State for Health
Patricia Hewitt to put Welwyn Hatfield’s case. Hertfordshire is quite
simply being forgotten by this government when it comes to our hospital
care and it’s my job to remind them.
And there are more challenges to come. The parking situation in Hatfield
still needs resolving. The CPZ plan is not without difficulties and
ultimately any resident approved solution will be far from perfect.
Personally I believe that since these problems came to town with the
massive expansion of the University, it should be that institution that
pays for the running costs of the scheme and not the residents. The
University always tells me that it’s keen to ingratiate itself with the
local community and this is an ideal opportunity for them to show that
it means business by picking up the bill.
Like many WGC residents I’d like to see the land that was once
Splashlands at Stanborough used for the benefit of the whole community.
I can reveal that I am looking into the possibility of leading a
fundraising effort, but first I want to be 100% certain that any
proposed plans are completely viable before launching any campaign.
Contrary to recent letters in the Welwyn Hatfield Times, I didn’t
campaign on this issue at all during the last General Election because
the expense and practicalities of rebuilding a swimming pool on the site
so many years after the Labour council closed it down are simply
immense. I did however campaign about Splashlands soon after it was
closed in 2001 and as a father with three young children we’re often
down at Stanborough on a Sunday, so I’m acutely aware of the need to see
the land that was once Splashlands restored to something useful. I
intend to find out whether the community would be prepared to back a
fundraising campaign, just as soon as I’m satisfied that there’s a
viable scheme in the offing. Watch this space.
If you’re involved in representing the public as I am, it’s never too
long before you meet people who are highly cynical about politics and
politicians. With this in mind, I am pleased to report that the one
thing which has struck me about the House of Commons is just how
determined the vast majority of MPs are to serve their constituents.
This point is vividly illustrated through the amount of issues brought
to my attention. For example, my own office has received around 15,000
cases to work on in the last year. Sometimes we get great outcomes and
on other occasions it can be frustrating not to be able to
satisfactorily resolve a problem. MPs have no magic wands and in fact
run nothing. However, whilst I can’t always guarantee a successful
outcome, I can promise to do everything possible to try and resolve
problems. In this spirit I will continue to work hard as Welwyn and
Hatfield’s MP throughout my second year and the rest of my term in
office.
Grant Shapps MP
In my view
by Grant Shapps MP
March 2006
Clubs, Societies and Charities are run with
more financial accountability than our local hospital.
Like a naughty school child
late with their homework, our NHS Trust has found every excuse under the
sun not to provide any financial projections on time.
The campaign to secure the £500m funding needed to build a new hospital
could not be more important to people in Welwyn Hatfield and beyond. A state
of the art hospital right at the heart of our community is precisely what we
need.
But what will become of our beloved QEII in the meantime?
According to bosses at the NHS Trust which runs our popular WGC hospital, it
must be substantially closed down – for our own good. They argue that a huge
looming financial deficit of some £49m, over the next three years, means
that the priorities are to urgently close blue light A&E, whatever is left
of the Children’s Paediatric Assessment Unit (PAU) and of course, shut
maternity. In addition all surgery will in future go to Stevenage and
they’ve already cut out chemotherapy and closed beds for the elderly.
Recently they decided to stop cleaning surgical instruments at the QEII and
are famously shipping patients’ notes to be typed up in India.
Under these plans our WGC hospital will become a shadow of its former self.
No longer a General Hospital, more a specialist medicine facility.
Frankly, it’s hard to understand how we’ve got into this mess. The
government claims that it’s spending twice as much on our hospital and yet
we’re getting half as much in return.
With these closures in mind, I turned my attention to trying to understand
the financial constraints that our hospital Trust is operating under and
during my December quarterly meeting with the Chief Executive, Nick Carver,
I asked for a set of detailed financial projections for the next three
years.
Three months later, and despite repeated requests, the only thing I’ve
received is a six line spreadsheet totalling £49m deficit in three years
time.
Now I spent fifteen years building up my own printing business before
becoming Welwyn Hatfield’s MP and from day one we had a set of projections
which we updated every single month. Trying to project the future is of
course a crucial part of running any small business or household budget.
In fact, I visit Clubs, Societies and Charities in Welwyn Hatfield on a
weekly basis that, despite dealing with relatively small budgets, have a
clear understanding of their own financial position and have a set of
projections in place for at least the next twelve months. It’s simply common
sense to know where you stand and where you think you might be headed.
So how can it possibly be that the bureaucrats running our local hospital
quite literally have no idea what the future holds?
I didn’t believe it either, so I contacted the Finance Department directly
to ask them to send along their projections for the next financial year,
which was only three weeks away. But guess what? Apparently no such
projections exist!
Now just like every school kid trying to explain why their homework is late,
there have been plenty of excuses. The government is changing their payment
by results system and that means that the projections are delayed. Stripping
out all surgery from the QEII was going to have an unpredictable impact on
income, so no projections exist.
Of course all of these “the dog ate our projections” excuses might be okay,
if we were only talking about a child’s homework, but sadly we’re not. What
the Trust has in mind is the closure of the most vital parts of our hospital
and these are cuts that they argue must happen right now. In fact they’ve
started closing some of the facilities and are already consulting about
closing the rest.
How can this be when they don’t even have ‘back of envelope’ projections to
support their assumptions?
What these bureaucrats seem to forget is that they manage the QEII Hospital
on behalf of the residents. They are entitled to go about their business,
but they must be answerable to the people via their elected representatives.
For the past three months this MP has been asking for the most basic
financial information imaginable.
I’ve got no specific reason to doubt that the deficit might be £49m over the
next three years. In fact, it’s absolutely impossible for me to reach any
kind of conclusion about the size of the likely deficit, because this NHS
Trust is incapable of supplying me with even the most basic financial
information.
On the other hand they have given me grave doubts about their own financial
ability and in doing so have demonstrated their indifference to local people
by failing to provide straight forward information to their democratically
elected representative.
The NHS Trust may be deliberately withholding financial information or they
simply don’t have it. Either way their approach is incompetent and with the
new financial year starting in less than one week and the Trust in financial
meltdown, perhaps the best start to 2006/7 might be for the Chief Executive
of the East and North Herts Trust to consider his own future.
In my view
by Grant Shapps MP
January 2006
Events have suddenly made what goes on at Parliament
seem far more relevant for residents in Welwyn Hatfield.
I say this with a sense of relief, because before being
elected to the House of Commons I was frequently asked whether the old place
actually had any power left. “Will there still be a job left to do when you
get there Grant?” was an all too frequent question.
My guess is that several factors drove this lack of
belief in what is the world’s oldest Parliamentary democracy:
1. The
power of the European Union which presents Directives which sometimes have
little scrutiny and even less chance of amendment at Westminster.
2. The
huge power of the Executive, which technically means the Cabinet, but in
reality has often meant the Prime Minister alone.
3. The
lack of any obvious connection between what happens in Welwyn Hatfield and
the heat and light generated in the Chamber of the House of Commons.
However, a
combination of factors has now made Parliament far more influential for us
in Welwyn Hatfield.
First, the
power of the EU to interfere in our lives has been severely restricted by
the French and Dutch rejecting the Europe-wide Constitution. For the first
time in years, fewer pieces of significant legislation are coming out of
Brussels and – speaking as a euro sceptic – that seems to me to have been a
good thing, refocusing attention on national Parliaments.
Next, the
power of the Prime Minister has been severely curtailed in two ways. Last
year’s general election means that Blair has to manage with a vastly reduced
majority of 66. A far cry from the whopping 160+ seat majority that he
previously enjoyed. This narrower lead means that the Government has to
consider Parliament more and he has already lost one vote in the House. But
it isn’t just the pure arithmetic that’s clipping Blair’s wings. His unusual
announcement that he’ll stand down before the next election, has meant that
the leader has less control over his own Party and this has boosted the
confidence of Parliament itself.
Lastly (and
most importantly) from our own Welwyn Hatfield point of view, the Chamber of
the House of Commons has become the focal point for several debates which
directly affect our local interests.
On one
occasion, the misuse of the Data Protection Act led me to hold a debate
about a Welwyn man whose car was broken into in the middle of the night.
After the police had arrested an individual who admitted to the crime, they
still refused to hand over his details to the victim in order that he could
claim for the damage caused, claiming instead that it would violate the Data
Protection Laws. The debate received plenty of publicity and as a result
the police reversed their earlier ruling. In addition the Home Office
offered to issue fresh guidance clarifying the law to Chief Constables
around the country.
More recently
I held a debate about the proposed closure of services at the QE2 Hospital.
Hundreds of constituents watched the debate live, either at the House of
Commons or from their own homes, despite it being scheduled at 10 o’clock at
night. The full debate is still available at
www.shapps.com
A Health
Minister responded to the debate and although she failed to provide any
grounds for optimism, hundreds of Welwyn Hatfield people got a chance to see
how Parliament could be used to highlight local, as well as national,
problems and the debate added to the weight of evidence showing why the
closure of health services could easily end up costing lives. The hospital
battle continues.
Even more
recently, a 14 year old boy from Welwyn Hatfield topped the national news
after I was approached by his mum who explained that her son had been
arrested in a case of completely mistaken identity. In the process his DNA
sample was taken and stored for the rest of his life. The questions that I
then asked in Parliament led to the story becoming headline national news
because the answers revealed that this 14 year old boy from Welwyn Garden
City was in fact one of just 24,000 youngsters in a similar position
throughout the UK.
Personally I
think that the DNA database is a good thing and can effectively help fight
crime, but if a database is to built on everyone, then Parliament should
definitely take an active part in this decision, whereas right now the DNA
National Police Database is being built by stealth.
My conclusion
is that, for a variety reasons, what goes on at Westminster has suddenly
taken on additional importance for our lives here in Welwyn Hatfield. My
challenge is to ensure that democracy continues to deliver results for our
residents. After I was elected I said that I was determined to represent
Welwyn Hatfield’s interests in Parliament, not the other way round. I hope
that after some months in the job, the House of Commons is a little more
relevant to all our lives locally.
The
House Magazine
by
Grant Shapps MP
December 2005
Just
like politics, flying is desperately
intolerant of failure.
Politics and flying have more in
common than most people realise. Each pursuit requires time to study, an
assessment of the facts and the creation of an action plan. Both activities
necessitate thought and discipline and significantly, both politics and
flying are – in their own way – desperately intolerant of failure.
The sheer excitement of being able to fly an aircraft in any direction that
takes your fancy constitutes my personal definition of freedom. It’s a
feeling way beyond what’s imaginable on today’s busy roads. And whilst the
sky over Britain is of course highly regulated, it surprises most passengers
to discover that it is still perfectly possible to take off, cut radio
communication and spend an hour or two sightseeing from 2,000 or 3,000 feet,
without speaking to a soul.
Notwithstanding the need to stay alert and focussed, I admit to finding
flying a truly relaxing pursuit. By order of the Civil Aviation Authority
you must remain out of contact with the world because they mandate that
mobile phones are switched off. This instant sense of remoteness, mixed with
exhilarating freedom is a genuine forerunner to blue sky thinking,
regardless of the weather on the day.
I learnt to fly 10 years ago and have owned two single engine propeller
aircraft since. As politics became an increasingly central part of my life,
I developed ever more creative ways of ensuring that I still kept my licence
current. For example, the top prize in many local fundraising raffles or
auctions in recent years has been Lunch for Two in Le Touquet, France,
piloted by the then prospective MP. In reality I was always keen to give
away this particular prize, it meant that keeping my licence up-to-date
became dependent on a promise that I’d made to the winners of that prize. On
more than one occasion the trip raised as much as £1,000 for Welwyn Hatfield
charities.
But let me take you back to the similarities between politics and flying
with the law of unintended consequences for example. I hardly need explain
that most political decisions have some unintended and often undesirable
consequence and the same applies to decision made whilst flying.
Just study the report from any flying accident and you’ll discover that the
disaster was not the result of a single catastrophic incident. Engines and
wings don’t just blow-apart unless they’ve been improperly maintained;
pilots don’t fly into hillsides in poor weather unless they’ve failed to
plan their route and check the forecast properly in advance. In almost every
case there are clear secondary factors. Items which should have been
checked, but weren’t. Usually there’s a catalogue of items that went wrong,
each quite small and usually easy to overlook. Preventing a future disaster
means systematically cross-checking each item in turn.
And in my view, failures in politics exist for the same reason. It may be
the temptation to take a policy shortcut and opt instead for a headline
grabbing solution. Perhaps it’s policy on the hoof which is to blame or
legislation which is unchecked and unchallenged by the Cabinet and
Parliament.
Regardless of the reasons, the outcome is the same. Avoiding due process
often means that inherent disaster waits patiently down the line, but in
each future policy catastrophe there will be a string of errors, any of
which could have been avoided and each of which has the potential to add to
a future policy malfunction.
When I step into my aircraft there are 8 checklists providing around 160
items to check before take off. The consequence of skipping any item could
be calamitous and so I follow each item in detail; in politics the same
level of attention to detail is rare and yet the consequences of leaving out
a few steps on the road to policy creation can also mean the difference
between life and death and extreme cases.
Back in the pilots’ bar, more experienced airmen like to quip that older
pilots all have one thing in common; up until now they’ve all performed an
equal number of take-offs and landings. That’s a reminder that flying is
indeed desperately intolerant of failure, but then so too is politics.
In my view
by Grant Shapps MP
November 2005
Why Welwyn
Hatfield Guided Me To Become David Cameron’s Seconder
Most people
were taken by surprise when the current Conservative Party leader, Michael
Howard, announced that he would step down by the end of the year.
At first people thought Howard had got it wrong by announcing his departure
months in advance. However, on reflection virtually everyone now accepts
that the debate that followed has been both worthwhile and healthy. The
question: “where should the world’s oldest political Party go from here?”
seemed to light up the debate and suddenly, somewhat out of the blue, the
Party has started to look interesting and relevant once again.
Whilst many of my colleagues plumped for one of the contenders in the early
days of the campaign, I decided to hold off, waiting instead to see each of
the prospective leaders put through their paces.
My thinking was straightforward.
What we need now is a leader with the capacity to win and take Britain in a
better direction. Although that sounds simplistic; winning requires
encouraging all of your existing voters to stick with you – whilst
simultaneously adding Labour, LibDem and those who have just given up voting
altogether – on to that total. It may sound obvious, but putting this easy
theory into practice is of course much more complicated.
In Welwyn Hatfield last May I was fortunate enough to gain almost 50% of the
vote (out of the 70% of the electorate who went to the polls). Ask me how
and I’ll tell you that the theory explained above is quite simple, but that
the work involved very hard.
Naturally enough, I was keen to maintain the support of all those who would
normally vote Conservative, but I also knew that winning involves building a
coalition which includes making those who would normally support other
Parties (or indeed no one at all), feel at home with their vote.
Unlike most Conservative MPs, I happen to be a member of Friends of the
Earth, I actively support Welwyn Hatfield Amnesty and I regularly meet and
lend my support to groups like FairTrade, Oxfam and many others who are not
normally seen to be aligned with my Party. I should stress of course that
I’m not saying that they support me, but merely that I support them.
As an aside, I can’t understand why Conservatives haven’t made more effort
nationally with each of these groups (and many others besides) over the
years. After all, anyone who doesn’t think that global warming is really a
problem must, quite literally, be living on another planet. So why not back
up that conviction by being a member of Friends of the Earth. Similarly, we
should all be in favour of freedom and liberty from wrongful persecution in
all its forms (including being banged up for three months without actually
being charged for anything), so why don’t more Conservatives support
organisations like Amnesty International, whose aims are to set people free?
For reasons that escape me, in the past Conservatives have been slow to back
such groups which, incidentally, individually often boast more members than
any political Party in this country.
So back to the leadership campaign and I was actively seeking out the
contender who would be most capable of taking onboard the job of broadening
our Party’s appeal. The only other thing that I wanted to know was that the
potential leader would be generally euro sceptic and believe that a
deregulated economy with less red-tape would produce more growth and that
these proceeds should be shared between tax reductions and investing in
public services.
During my conversations with David Cameron it became increasingly clear to
me that this was the leadership candidate who understood all of this. His
views on issues like Europe and Tax are settled and in line with mine and
most people that I meet in Welwyn Hatfield, but he also understands that in
order to be a modern and inclusive Party, we need to attract people from
across the traditional political spectrum.
I’m certain that one of the reasons that I won in Welwyn Hatfield was
because my campaign was generally optimistic and talked about the future,
rather than the past. For example, I didn’t spend time telling people how
awful the country is today or how that was all the fault of the current
government. It just turns people off. In my view, positive campaigning is
always better than negative.
And in many ways I’m backing David Cameron because of that Welwyn Hatfield
experience. I believe that if he becomes leader, David will achieve an
increased level of support nationwide, in the same way as I did here in
Welwyn Hatfield.
For the first time that I can remember, a potential leader is articulating
the simple message that Britain’s best days can still lie ahead. I happen to
agree. And it was therefore with some pride that I accepted his invitation
to become David Cameron’s Seconder for leader of the Conservative Party.
Grant Shapps MP
Member for Welwyn Hatfield
In my view
by Grant Shapps MP
September 2005
New
Licensing Law may create havoc for Welwyn Hatfield
On the day
of the 2001 general election, my telephone bleeped as I received the
following extraordinary text message from Tony Blair. It read:
“If you don’t give a XXXX about drinking up time, vote Labour today.”
Since at
that time I was challenging the then incumbent Labour MP for this seat,
there was little chance of me heeding Mr Blair’s advice, but I do recall
thinking that this apparently popularist text message could one day come
back to haunt the Prime Minister.
In fact the
result of this abrupt text message was the 2003 Licensing Act and it’s only
now that we’re starting to understand the significant ramifications for an
area like Welwyn Hatfield.
The
Licensing Act sounded like a good idea in principle. Rather than having
unelected magistrates decide which premises would serve alcohol, public
opinion would actually be taken into account with licensing shifted to
elected local councils.
That should
have meant that Councillors would be able to respond to public pressure to,
for example, prevent an unruly pub from staying open. However, in
reality, the new law provided very few powers for the local authorities to
reject applications and in the vast majority of cases – whether they wanted
to or not – Welwyn Hatfield Council will have had no option but to extend
drinking and closing times.
Over the
past three months I’ve received endless correspondence from concerned
residents in parts of the constituency which already have problems with
anti-social behaviour. However, it quickly became apparent that the
Licensing Act made it virtually impossible for the Council to say NO to the
vast majority of the extensions.
For
example, a number of residents wrote to me about a WGC pub complaining about
the very real potential of a 2am closing time disrupting sleep. Incredibly
these letters of objection could not even be legally taken into account,
because the Act says that they were based on mere speculation, rather than
fact. So the law’s presumption is to enable much later licensing than
currently exists and the Council’s powers to reject an extension to drinking
up time are severely limited, to say the least!
I’m not
against some changes to the licensing laws and in areas where it’s locally
popular, later licensing is fine. But what this Act has done is to remove
powers from the local community, by providing an assumption that licensing
hours will be extended and by deliberately ruling out the views of local
residents on dubious grounds.
This is a
poorly drafted and reckless piece of legislation that could exacerbate
existing alcohol fuelled anti-social behaviour in Welwyn Hatfield and I’m
calling on the government to think again before it comes into place this
November.
In my view
by Grant Shapps MP
August 2005
The London bombs change
everything and nothing
Grant Shapps MP reflects on the
impact that the recent bombings and attempted bombings have had on London
and concludes that it changes nothing.
Unusually for a Thursday, I
wasn’t due in Westminster first thing on 7th July, instead I had
a pre-arranged engagement at the Mid Herts Centre for Music and Arts in
Birchwood Avenue, Hatfield.
The event was designed to
showcase a year long music project involving pupils from across
Hertfordshire schools, including many from Monks Walk in Welwyn Garden City.
Before arriving at the jamboree
I had become aware of a problem on the tubes and so was contemplating
driving from Hatfield to Westminster. Sadly, as I emerged into a sunny
Birchwood Avenue, great music still ringing in my ears, I tuned in to hear
the devastating news of a series of bombs designed to cause maximum death
and disruption to our capital city.
As we now know, four
British-born suicide bombers (and four more subsequently) had deliberately
detonated explosives, apparently believing that, in some sick way, killing
innocent people would secure them a direct route to heaven. Later the
horrific events were brought home by the knowledge that amongst the 52
innocent people murdered, one of the victims was from Welwyn Hatfield. Our
thoughts will remain with that family, now and forever.
So what did this outrage change?
In some senses a great deal.
London’s transport system had
been performing somewhat better in recent months, but the disruption created
by the bombings has sent us back to the bad old days. Now you can expect
frequent security alerts resulting in the temporary closure of stations and
the partial shut down of railway lines. It’s disruptive, very inconvenient
and takes us back to the bad old days of the 70’s and 80’s when the IRA were
at their most active on the mainland.
Certainly therefore, something
has changed in London this summer, though perhaps not as much as we think.
When I talk to Welwyn Hatfield
commuters, not one of them now says that we should heed the demands of the
suicide bombers. For the most part we are not even clear of their formal
objectives. All the more bizarre that they should be willing to slay
themselves and others, whilst the world watches on, utterly uncertain about
what they actually hope to achieve.
If our doubt about their
objectives is unclear, our understanding of their intention to disrupt and
terrorise is absolutely unambiguous. Yet these brainwashed and bitter young
men have horribly miscalculated the truth. We know that others have tried
and failed to bomb London into
submission before. From Hitler's Luftwaffe to the IRA campaign, each has
failed in turn. And now, despite the disruption and sorrow that flows from
the consequences of the barbaric acts of these suicide bombers, they will
change precisely nothing. Least of all, the determination of the commuters
of Welwyn Hatfield to continue to get to their place of work if that is in
London.
Grant Shapps MP.
The Parliamentary Dilemma
by Grant Shapps
First published in Welwyn
Hatfield Conservative Association members newsletter
August 2005
As a new-boy at Westminster, I don’t feel any particular pressure to stand
up for the long established ways of the House.
I should immediately say that
some of the traditions seem very sensible. Example: voting by physically
walking through the Lobbies forces conversation with fellow MPs for around 8
minutes until the Speaker shouts, “Lock the doors”. So voting in person
turns out to be a clever mechanism because it provides ample opportunity to
collar other MPs and Ministers about any pressing concern; very clever.
There are, however, other habits
of the House which are harder to appreciate. One of them is the eleven week
summer holiday which doesn’t end until 10th October.
Here I find myself caught in a
quandary. On one hand, I’d much rather see Parliament do less, pass fewer
laws. In my view, the government should be less involved in the nitty-gritty
of everyday life. A smaller administration and legislative, that does its
job better. Passing quality (not rushed) legislation.
But, on the other hand, I’m very
conscious that an eleven week summer break looks entirely ludicrous to the
rest of the working world.
Fortunately for me in the first
year of what I hope will be my first term of office, it obviously wasn’t me
who made the rules. I have the luxury of being able to stand back. However,
it does seem to me that whether or not Parliament continues to make laws
throughout the summer, it could still be a proper place of work and right
now it isn’t. The workmen are in at Parliament, the actual Chamber is
completely inoperable with sawdust and scaffolding everywhere, as the House
authorities install a new £2 million sheet of security glass to replace the
one which only recently partially covered the visitors gallery, itself
costing some £600,000. Parliament recalled? If it is, then we’ll have to sit
in the House of Lords, as happened during the Second World War.
So is Parliament out of date with
modern Britain? In some ways the answer has to be yes, but in reforming the
place, we must ensure that we always maintain the past -- like physically
walking through the lobbies to vote -- that somehow really seem to work.
In my view
by Grant Shapps MP
July 2005
Within days of entering the Houses of Parliament it
became obvious to me why so many MPs appear to completely lose touch with
their constituents once elected.
Everything about the Palace of Westminster (still a
Royal Palace despite no monarch living here since Henry VIII) seems
calculated to isolate the MP from the real world. A staggering three miles
of corridors link a network of buildings that make up the vast Westminster
Estate, whilst Westminster Palace itself – more properly known as the ‘New’
Palace of Westminster following the 1834 rebuild – boasts a staggering 1100
rooms alone.
Take the imposing gothic architecture and add a complex
array of old fashioned rules, regulations and conventions and the average
constituency MP is quickly immersed somewhere back in the 19th
Century.
Having been elected with a determination to represent
Welwyn Hatfield in parliament and not the other way round, the danger signs
were instantly recognisable to me. Add the above with the fact that the
House has now returned to late night 10pm sittings on Mondays and Tuesdays
and the alarm should surely be ringing.
For me then, the greatest tonic is to simply leave
Westminster and the surrounding area – where most MPs set up their weekday
London homes – and jump on the train back to the constituency each night. In
reality leaving what journalists love to call the “rarefied atmosphere of
Westminster” is a quick and easy method of bringing yourself back to earth –
with a bump!
A packed tube, followed by the often dysfunctional
train journey between Finsbury Park and Welwyn Hatfield, speedily reminds me
of the everyday problems that Welwyn Hatfield commuters who work in London
face.
Once home, no matter how late, my wife Belinda and I
try to unwind by chatting through our respective days. News of my son’s
progress at nursery, his application for a place at the local primary school
or our one year old twin’s attempts at walking, quickly reminds me that
there’s a world outside Westminster where everyday matters take precedent.
Fortunately parliament’s apparently cranky hours
actually turn out to assist an MP living in a constituency this close to
London. On a Monday and Tuesday the House of Commons may not finish until
after 10pm, but on the other hand, it doesn’t begin until 2:30pm in the
afternoon. This schedule means that I’m in Welwyn Hatfield during mornings
through the early part of the week and then in the evenings towards the end
of the week.
Parliament rarely sits on a Friday and never on a
Saturday or Sunday, so whatever I’m doing during the weekend – official
business or just out and about with my family on a Sunday – I gain
first-hand knowledge about the issues that matter most to us in Welwyn
Hatfield. Fortunately, my weekly schedule, combined with returning to the
constituency each day, guarantees that I’ll never fall into the trap of
forgetting why I was sent to Westminster in the first place.
