Why do people fall for this?

Whilst the national media is obsessed with the reporting of the Brexit machinations, this week’s little reported government announcements about local government and police finance will have a comparable impact on our area, our services and our quality of life.

Let’s just focus on the police and the threats to our community safety.

The Conservatives long ago ditched their (quite undeserved) reputation as the party of law and order. It’s now clear that this government has given up on any pretense of acting to ‘protect the public’.

This will be the eighth consecutive year of police cuts. Police officer numbers nationally have fallen to the lowest level in three decades at the same time as some types of crime are increasing dramatically.

In South Yorkshire, the government announced another £3m real-terms cut in grant between this year and next and told the Police and Crime Commissioner to fill the gap with an inflation-busting precept increase on our council tax.

The budge cuts have meant that since 2010, South Yorkshire Police has lost  480 police officers (a 16% cut) and 117 PCSOs (a 36% cut).

It’s little surprise that the crime figures released last month showed the highest annual rise in police recorded crime since comparable records began in 2002.

In South Yorkshire, violent crime rose by 62%, robberies rose by 46% and total recorded crime (excluding fraud) rose by 34%. 

Our police are at breaking point and the Tory prescription is yet more reckless funding cuts.

This is madness. It’s little wonder that local people are concerned about the increasing risk to their community safety. It’s more police and less cuts we need, not the other way round.

Yet, the government’s strategy is very simple.

• Ensure big cuts in national funding of local police with the savings being used to fund tax cuts for the already wealthy
• Take credit for cutting the national tax burden
• Tell police and crime commissioners to push up precepts and council taxes to fill the budget gaps
• Blame police commissioners for local tax hikes, falling police numbers and rising crime.

Why do people fall for this?

TAXI LICENSING UPDATE

For a long time now, I have been campaigning for big changes in the licensing arrangements for taxis and private hire vehicles and their drivers.

This was in the opposition of many Conservative MPs who, as part of their ideological obsession with cutting regulation (buses, banking, health and safety, workers’ rights and more), had been pressing the government to reduce what they called ‘the regulatory burden’. In fact, the Conservative/LibDem Coalition government had already removed some of the licensing powers of local councils and were proposing further cuts in powers as well as resources.

Then, of course, new technological initiatives (like UBER) demonstrated that the law relating to taxi licensing – much of it from the 19^th century when the taxis were horse-drawn hackney cabs – was completely inadequate to address the challenges of the 21^st century. The deregulatory pressure was increasing.

However, the importance of this issue really reached the public consciousness in the shocking revelations about the roles of some – of course, a minority – taxi and private hire drivers in child sexual abuse in Rotherham and, subsequently revealed, in other parts of the country. Suddenly, thank goodness, the government started back-tracking and some, previously voluble, MPs went silent.

There have been some changes in the licensing law, but nowhere near enough.

I have previously pointed to the existence of private hire vehicles and drivers, with licences being issued in Lancashire and Lincolnshire (and elsewhere), operating in Sheffield and South Yorkshire. Why? Because some drivers have found that the existing law is being operated in a relaxed way in those areas. Bluntly, they’re getting a licence there when they would be turned down for a licence in Rotherham or Sheffield. That simply isn’t acceptable.

I have been backing a campaign with the Suzy Lamplugh Trust to update the law. A recent report  by the  Trust revealed that taxi and private hire vehicle licences are being granted to drivers with criminal convictions that include violent offences. Passenger safety is being compromised because there are no national minimum standards to enforce sufficient safety checks for taxi and private hire vehicle licensing.

Of course the majority of drivers do not pose a personal safety risk to passengers, but they, and we, are being let down by a minority who are slipping through the net. Although taxi and private hire drivers hold a position of trust, transporting passengers who are often alone and in a locked vehicle, the highest level of criminal checks is not required in law, only recommended in guidelines. Passengers are at risk.

Research into safety checks for taxi and private hire vehicle drivers highlighted:

• only 46 out of 316 local authorities are able to provide detailed information about drivers’ criminal histories on request;
• a significant number of licensed taxi and private hire vehicle drivers highlighted in the research have criminal records including convictions for actual bodily harm, common assault, speeding and drink driving;
• current taxi and private hire vehicle drivers have successfully applied for or renewed their licence despite having committed crimes in the last 6 years. Their convictions included battery, assault occasioning actual bodily harm as well as speeding;
• at least 865 drivers in just 38 licensing authorities have successfully applied for or renewed their licence despite their criminal convictions; and
• some licensed taxi and private hire vehicle drivers have multiple convictions. One currently licensed driver has over 36 separate convictions dating from 1973 to 2017, with offences including actual bodily harm, taking a vehicle without the owner’s consent and threatening behaviour.

So, as well as backing the Trust’s campaign, I have also been supporting a Private Members Bill in Parliament, promoted by my colleague Daniel Zeichner to close some of the loopholes. The Bill isn’t perfect and it can’t be comprehensive but we can’t wait any longer for the government to act.

We need a strong national licensing framework, with committed local implementation. All our health and safety depends on it.

Unfair and wrong

This government, like its’ predecessor coalition government, has pursued a determined course in cutting financial support and benefits to those on the lowest incomes and those with disabilities.
It’s bad enough that Mrs May is hitting hardest those who can least afford it. It’s even worse when the government tries to achieves its objectively by acting unlawfully, makes and announces decisions in ways designed to avoid scrutiny and then plays fast and loose when the courts say the government is wrong.
The latest example of the government’s degrading and unfair treatment concerns Personal Independence Payments (PIPs). It’s a replacement for Disability Living Allowance for people aged 16-64 with long-term chronic health problems or disabilities. A full roll-out of PIP was originally planned for October 2013; it has now been revised to by mid-2019.
In February 2017 the government changed the PIPs law through the back-door – it couldn’t be voted on by Parliament – to change the PIP regulations to strip entitlements from what it said was over 160,000 disabled people – a £3.7bn cut. The Government even failed to consult its own Advisory Committee about the changes. Labour MPs spoke out strongly against the changes.
The government then spent £181,000 trying to defend the indefensible in court. On 21 December 2017 the High Court ruled that the Government’s changes to PIP were both unlawful – because of the failure to consult and “blatantly discriminatory” against people with mental health conditions. Despite questions, the government remained silent about its response.
Then, a month later, late on Friday 19 January, to avoid scrutiny, the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions announced that the Government would not challenge the ruling. He said “(we)
accept the High Court’s judgment; we do not agree with some of the detail.” Subsequently, he admitted that up to 220,000 people could be affected, 30% higher than we’d been told.
It is clear that the PIP assessment process is simply not fit for purpose. It’s time for the government to listen to those with serious health and disability issues, their families and the doctors, charities and experts who are calling for urgent reform to the plans.

Grief and debt

Every year, about 5000 children die in the UK.

Some are stillborn and some die shortly after birth from complications. Some are born with, or develop, life-limiting illnesses. Some die from tragic accidents.

Whatever the reason, the fact remains that some 10,000 parents each year have to face the unimaginable grief of losing a child.

Nobody expects to bury their own child. No-one plans or sets money aside for this. Therefore, when having to cope with the worst possible experience they will ever have to face, bereaved parents have the added worry of finding funds for a funeral they never wanted nor expected.

Some 14 months ago, Carolyn Harris, the MP for Swansea West, spoke eloquently in Parliament about the loss of her young son Martin. It was from this that the idea of a Children’s Bereavement Fund, to help parents in those tragic circumstances, was first conceived.

I am embarrassed, but pleased, that the Welsh Government listened and acted. It realised that, for a modest amount of money, it could make a real difference to bereaved families in their hour of need. It established a Children’s Funeral Fund meaning that, across Wales, with the support of funeral directors and many local authorities and others, parents could bury their children without the added worry about how they could afford it.

Many times, over the last year, MPs from all parties have pressed the government to show compassion  and to work with others to follow the Welsh model. There have been many discussions with Ministers and hopes have been raised.

Unfortunately, the government has failed to act and two budgets have passed without any positive announcement about the relatively small sum of money required to bring this scheme into being.

Today, I – together with MPs from all parties – have written to the Prime Minister to ask her, once again, to take the initiative to help bereaved parents across the country. We want to ensure that parents, already struggling to cope with the cruellest fate life has dealt them, do not have to face the added burden of indebtedness.

If you support us, please write to the Prime Minister and tell her so.

Ducking and diving and a lack of transparency

Asking difficult questions is one of the key tasks of members of parliament. By difficult, I don’t mean that the answers are necessarily complicated, but that the simple and accurate responses are likely to prove embarrassing to the government.

So, it is no surprise that some Government Ministers turned the whole business of not answering questions in to an art form. They would commit thousands of hours of civil servant time in to providing non-answers, misleading responses or the most dubious legal justifications for making ‘no comment’.

Former Conservative Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, was an expert at all this.

He committed £250 million of tax-payers’ money in to an inept promise to ensure that every household would have “a weekly all-purpose refuse collection”; he called it a “basic human right”. In fact, in each and every year in which he was the Minister, the number of households getting a weekly collection dropped by hundreds of thousands, with the biggest falls being in Conservative and Liberal Democrat controlled councils. But, however often and in different ways he was asked the question, he found numerous ways of refusing to provide the numbers.

Eric was just the same when it came to not answering questions about the government’s new-build housing commitments. It was clear that none of the promises were being kept but, instead of providing the answers, they’d sack or move the Housing Minister. It was no surprise that Mrs May has sacked another one in her latest reshuffle when it became clear that the last promise had proved to be little more than a newspaper headline.

Before Christmas, Theresa May spoke about the need for transparency in government and wrote to her Ministers:

“Online transparency is crucial to delivering value for money, to cutting waste and inefficiency, and to ensuring every pound of taxpayers’ money is spent in the best possible way…

The sunlight of transparency also acts in itself as an important check and balance, and helps ensure the highest standards of public life among senior government representatives.”

So, you might be surprised to learn that, in response to a Freedom of Information request to publish the guidance given to government departments on how to prepare registers of Ministerial gifts, hospitality, travel and meetings – all mentioned in the Mrs May’s letter on transparency – No 10 says ‘No’.

It said:

“…we consider that this information is exempt from disclosure under section 35(1)(a) (formulation and development of government policy).  While we recognise there is a public interest in understanding how this transparency information is prepared, we consider that this is outweighed by the public interest in not providing information that may be soon out of date and therefore potentially misleading and  inaccurate. On balance it is therefore not in the public interest to release this material."

It is difficult to believe that the supposed legal justification for the refusal will stand up in court, but it will take a lot of hard work and probably more than 12 months to show that. The argument that “the information may become out of date or may be misleading” is not a relevant public interest factor for refusing disclosure.

Therefore, I have now tabled a Written Parliamentary Question to Theresa May’s Cabinet Officer Minister asking him to publish the guidance. He is due to answer it on January 29^th.

On that day, we’ll find out whether Mrs May is committed to the transparency she asserted just a month ago,  or whether it was simply more hot air from this government.

You couldn’t make it up

Just imagine a fictional drama which featured the leader of a right-wing, anti-European, populist political party deserting his (third) wife and children in Austria, then entering a new relationship with a model, half his age, who specialised in sending racist messages to her friends about the prospects for the royal family which, when made public, resulted in the leader ditching the model in a desperate bid to keep his position.
Just imagine a drama which suggested that the same party’s elected representatives in the Welsh Assembly had decided to prevent the latest representative – only elected this month – from being a member of its group because they don’t like the staff she has appointed.
Just imagine a drama which suggested that the former leader of that same party had claimed that his principles had “cost him a knighthood”, just two weeks before the European Parliament – following an investigation – announced it was reclaiming £35,000 from him because of his mis-spending.
Now, just imagine If the BBC had broadcast these dramas as radio plays.
Undoubtedly, the Daily Mail and the Telegraph would be publishing editorials condemning the state broadcaster for its disgraceful abuse of its position, followed by demands for the BBC to be broken up and privatised.
They would be supported by the alt-right commentators on social media and President Trump would be busily retweeting the demands.
Hundreds of members of the party would be writing angry letters to The Star and Yorkshire Post and be ringing Toby Foster on Radio Sheffield to demand retribution.
Of course, no broadcaster would treat you seriously if you wrote plays with content like this.
Why should they? You couldn’t make it up.
Except, of course, that I didn’t have to make this up. It was what made the news this morning and…… no…… it wasn’t fake news.
It should provide a cautionary tale to recall next time you are asked to cast your vote.
As Churchill once commented “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried”.
We can all make mistakes and we should learn from them.
So, next time, make sure you look well behind the populist rhetoric before you put your X on the ballot paper.

Too little, too late

More than 400,000 patients have now waited longer than 18 weeks for their operations compared to less than 250,880 in 2010.

10% of arrivals at A&E are still waiting to be seen 4 hours later. More than 50,000 patients each month are now waiting more than 4 hours in A&E from the time a decision has been taken to admit them to hospital until the admission takes place.

Patients arriving at A&E by ambulance are meant to be handed over to staff within 15 minutes. Between 20th November to 31st December, more than 75,000 patients waited for over 30 minutes in the back of ambulances so far this winter. 17,000 patients waited over 60 minutes.

In the week running up to Christmas, over one third of children’s care units were 100% full, with not a single spare bed.

This week, the new Conservative Health Minister told us that we shouldn’t be concerned that, at times, there are no beds to which patients can be admitted, as there are always chairs, so they don’t have to lie on the floor! Can you believe it?

At the same time we learned that hospitals have already been advised to defer non-urgent operations until the end of January to ease pressures. This is an unprecedented move. It is likely that 55,000 operations will be cancelled, with knock-on effects throughout the rest of the year at least.

When interviewed by Andrew Marr on TV, the Prime Minister told us that this was all part of a carefully planned arrangement to deal with winter pressures and that “the NHS is better prepared for winter than ever before.”

Given that we haven’t had a flu epidemic (although numbers have increased in the last week), that novo-virus isn’t running riot, and that ‘winter weather accident admissions’ are lower than normal, this is a staggering decision. Even Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston, a practicing GP and Chair of the Health Select Committee, warned that Theresa May must “get a better grip”.

All last year, the government was warned consistently about the looming crisis, but it wasn’t until 22nd November that the Chancellor announced some extra funds to meet winter pressures.

Too little, too late.

DEVOLUTION NOW!

Right now, all four local authorities in South Yorkshire should be planning for the May 2018 election of the first Directly-elected Mayor for the Sheffield City Region.  The election of that mayor will provide the opportunity for an additional £30million of Government money to come to the area to improve economic development, transport links and skills training.   All of these have been welcomed by all the local councils and by business leaders and the wider community.  

I’m very strongly of the view that there would be immense advantages for areas within north Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire to be part of those arrangements as well. Their economic prospects are fundamentally related to South Yorkshire. But, it is for them to decide.

Any devolution proposal is a compromise between competing perspectives and priorities. But disagreements should be healthy and constructive. In South Yorkshire, we are in real danger of making ‘the best’ the enemy of ‘the much better’ to the disadvantage of us all.

The Secretary of State suggests we go ahead with the devolution deal which has already been agreed for the four South Yorkshire districts. That appears eminently sensible. 

Everyone needs to recognise that there is no other deal on the table, nor is there a realistic possibility of any such deal being agreed in the immediate future.  The Minister says that, if at some stage in the future there is another deal offered for all or part of Yorkshire and some districts want to join that arrangement, they would be able to do so.   If they don’t, the existing arrangements would respect that  and carry on funding it.

This seems a win/win situation for everyone.   South Yorkshire gets a directly-elected mayor, and immediate additional money and powers.   If, in the long term, a different proposal is offered, districts can choose to opt for that without encumbrance. 

From a personal point of view, I do not believe an elected mayor for the whole of Yorkshire is feasible and will not work.  

But that is a debate for another day. Right now, we need to press ahead with the agreed deal for the benefit of the whole of South Yorkshire.

Not us, gov

The national and local media are carrying reports of anti-terrorism raids and arrests in three different areas of Sheffield and one in Chesterfield. Counter-terrorism police and MI5 officers say they have broken up a suspected Christmas bomb plot and describe the arrests as significant. We await developments.

Meanwhile, an important government adviser – Neil Basu, the senior coordinator for counter-terrorism – says that the reckless cuts to neighbourhood policing have been "a disaster for policing in this country". Both David Cameron and Theresa May were specifically advised of the inevitable outcome of their cuts in police budgets, but both chose to make them whilst cutting the tax bills for the wealthiest and those with the biggest incomes.

After a long period of year-on-year cuts in reported crimes, the Conservatives have yet again reversed the trends.  

• Violent crime is up by 19% and knife crime is up 26%.
• For the very first time last year, 2 million crimes went unsolved with more criminals getting off the hook than ever before. 

Well, if you cut police numbers by 20,000 and put counter-terrorism police under such strain that some cases are simply not being investigated, it’s little surprise that crimes aren’t getting solved. There are now fewer police officers per head than at any time on record.

It’s rather like a variation of the old Tommy Cooper joke, with the government minister asking “Doctor, each time I cut police numbers, the number of crimes go up. What shall I do?”, and the Doctor responds “Well stop cutting police numbers then.”

But, instead of listening to the answer and acting on it, the Prime Minister accuses the police service of 'crying wolf'.

Then, to reduce the real extent of the national cuts in police resources, the government has instructed Police and Crime Commissioners to mitigate the situation by increasing the local precept. Of course, this is at the very same time as other government ministers are telling councils to increase the council tax to mitigate the big cuts in national resources for adult social care.

So, the government is forcing through inflation-busting increases in council tax throughout the country to pay for its own negligence.

I’m just waiting for next year’s local election campaigns when we will undoubtedly hear Conservative Ministers and MPs attacking big increases in council tax, as though they had nothing at to do with it, and bear no responsibility for rising crime, or the failure to provide old people with the support and care they need.

Border controls

Debates about border issues are likely to dominate the Brexit debate in the near future. What will be the impact on the movement of people, goods and services across borders between the UK and the EU and the rest of the world?

Whether it’s a hard Brexit (no agreement with the EU on future arrangements) or a soft Brexit (in, or equivalence with, the Single Market), the independent, international researchers all believe there will be a negative affect on the UK economy. They simply disagree about the scale of the impact.

But, it’s some other border controls that I want to address in this article…those relating to taxi and private hire licensing.

As you travel locally, you will probably have been surprised to see taxis and private hire cars carrying Licence Plates carrying the names of councils in Lancashire, Merseyside, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire. (I haven’s seen one from Cornwall yet, but I expect it’s just a matter of time.) You may even have ordered a private hire car to collect you from home, but only when dropped off at your destination, have you noticed the Licence Plate saying “Rossendale”.

What’s going on? Well, some Private Hire Drivers have been exploiting a loophole in the Licensing Regulations which allow them to register in one area and then operate in another. This known as cross-border operation.

Why would they do this? Well, although the legislative framework for taxis and private hire vehicles is the same throughout England (except for London which has different laws), the way in which the regulations are implemented vary from council to council. Historically, you could see this most obviously in relation to whether taxis were required to be purpose-designed (like Sheffield) or an ordinary car (like Barnsley).

The most obvious reason for doing this is that the policies and practices for licensing drivers are much tougher in some areas than in others. So, private hire drivers, who think or know that they wouldn’t get a licence in their own area, are getting themselves licensed in council areas where the rules and tests are less stringent.

We are all aware now of the role of some taxi drivers and private hire drivers in the child sexual abuse scandal in Rotherham and other areas. Rotherham has considerably tightened its licensing requirements. However, because of the legal loophole, Rotherham Council is completely unable to stop the Rotherham operations of drivers who wouldn’t get a licence in Rotherham but are getting a licence elsewhere.

That’s why I’m part of an all-party campaign to get the government to close this loophole quickly. Each day that passes without change, our lives are being risked unnecessarily.

Meanwhile, when you order a cab or private hire car, insist that you only want one whose driver is licensed in your council area.