Time for change

Over the last month, the media – and Parliament - has been dominated by the stories about criminal and unethical behaviour by the News of the World over the last decade.

It has involved telephone- and computer-hacking, unlawful payments to police officers and blagging confidential information. Neither the stories nor the information are new. Much of the evidence has been around over the last eight years. But, the issue only sparked into international life when it was revealed that Millie Dowler’s phone had been hacked, almost certainly after she had been murdered.

The renewed investigations have already claimed the jobs of senior police officers, media bosses, journalists and David Cameron’s press spokesman. But, I think the whole story has a long way to run as the Metropolitan Police now seem finally to be getting to grips with an investigation. But, who knows how much evidence has already been consigned to shredders and whose silence has been bought?

It is difficult to believe that it is only News International journalists who were involved. The Information Commissioner’s 2006 investigation What Price Privacy Now? reported that 58 journalists from the Daily Mail had paid a firm of private investigators, specialising in blagging- and hacking-, in 952 transactions. Surely they weren’t doing that just to ask them to find their lost car keys?

Public faith in the media has been shaken to the core. It is time for a change. But, already, the media is campaigning against any shake-up, arguing that there wouldn’t be any problems if the police just investigated allegations of wrong-doing properly.

I’m sorry, but that won’t do. Neither is it simply a choice is not between (failed) self-regulation and state regulation, which is not the hallmark of a democratic society. But, we do need to find the best balance between regulation externally imposed by the law and that imposed by the media industry itself.

We must give ordinary citizens proper redress for defamatory statements, an apology and correction, enforced by a regulator. We do need to decide how far the law should constrain the publication of facts about people’s private lives. We do need to find a way in which ordinary people normally have a right to put their side of the case before they are improperly castigated.

Further, as an international society, we need to find ways of addressing these issues in the internet world, where a lie can be published and have travelled several times round the world before the victim is aware and, however untruthful or malicious, finds it virtually impossible to redress.

It won’t be easy, but it has to be done.

A growing challenge

We are living longer and, generally, we are fitter and healthier at 60 and 70 and 80 than we have ever been before. This is something we ought to celebrate. However, that brings some big challenges.

If we are living longer in our pensioner years, we need to make increased contributions during our working years in order to fund our pensions. We can’t expect that our children, grand-children and even great-grand-children will simply be able to support us out of their current income.

Secondly, in general, as we grow older, we expect and need increased medical care. Together with significant advances in medical intervention – and they always seem to be very expensive – this inevitably means we need to pay more for our health services.

Thirdly, the increase in the numbers of people living longer also means an increase in the number of people requiring considerable social care. Whatever changes are made to continue to support people living in their own homes, it is inevitable that there will be an increase in demand for residential care. Today’s residents of old people’s homes require much more care than those of even twenty years ago. Further, there will be a continuing increase in the number of people who need specialised care because they are suffering from dementia.

These are really big challenges – economically and socially. The challenge is growing every day. It won’t go away by sticking our heads under the pillows. Neither should we believe that it is simply possible to continue as we are.

This is not an issue for cheap political points scoring. All political parties need to work together to find long-term solutions. Therefore, I was pleased that Ed Miliband recently said that he was prepared to work with the government and a wide range of other agencies to find an agreed way forward.

However, this will not be without difficulties, as there are some fundamental differences in values between political parties which will determine their approaches to particular issues.

Just look at the current debate – and industrial action – relating to pensions. Just think about the issue of how much we should contribute to our residential care from our savings, including the value of our homes.

The Dilnot Report inevitably proposes that we will need to increase pension contributions during our working lives, make an increased contribution to personal care of the elderly and disable through our taxes, and insist that those with savings and assets will have to contribute to the cost of care, although there may be a maximum cap on the amount.

It won’t be easy, but neither can the issue be ducked.

Free electricity …. a good deal?

If something looks too good to be true, it probably is.

That aphorism needs to be at the forefront of our minds whenever we’re offered what looks like a really good deal. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t a good deal to be done. It does mean that we need to ensure we’ve asked all the important questions and satisfied ourselves about the answers before we sign on the dotted line.

Have you been offered free electricity?

Recently, I attended a really useful session about micro-generation organised by Consumer Focus. Last year, it did a really good piece of work on npower which had been overcharging customers for gas supplies, which is why many npower gas customers got a rebate cheque. It’s probably because Consumer Focus had done such a good job that the government is determined to close it down!

But, back to free electricity and micro-generation. Since April last year, electricity suppliers have had to pay a feed-in tariff (also known as ‘clean energy cash-back’) to people who generate their own renewable electricity. There aren’t many of those, you might think. And you’d be correct.

However, a number of companies are now offering free solar panels to some households and businesses. The deal is that the home-owner or business gets free electricity and the organisation takes the income for the surplus electricity produced and fed into the national grid.

Well, free electricity sounds like a really good deal, doesn’t it? And it could be.

But, just think about these questions:

• What are the guarantees about electricity production?
• What happens if the kit stops working?
• Will it affect my mortgage?
• Do I need planning permission or building regulations approval?
• What happens if I want to sell my house but the buyer doesn’t want the kit?
• Who is responsible for any damage to neighbouring properties during installation?
• What happens if the organising company goes out of business?

And there are many, many more.

So, before you sign up to any such free electricity deal, make sure you do your homework. There’s some really good advice on the website of the Energy Saving Trust.

A growing challenge

We are living longer and, generally, we are fitter and healthier at 60 and 70 and 80 than we have ever been before. This is something we ought to celebrate. However, that brings some big challenges.

If we are living longer in our pensioner years, we need to make increased contributions during our working years in order to fund our pensions. We can’t expect that our children, grand-children and even great-grand-children will simply be able to support us out of their current income.

Secondly, in general, as we grow older, we expect and need increased medical care. Together with significant advances in medical intervention – and they always seem to be very expensive – this inevitably means we need to pay more for our health services.

Thirdly, the increase in the numbers of people living longer also means an increase in the number of people requiring considerable social care. Whatever changes are made to continue to support people living in their own homes, it is inevitable that there will be an increase in demand for residential care. Today’s residents of old people’s homes require much more care than those of even twenty years ago. Further, there will be a continuing increase in the number of people who need specialised care because they are suffering from dementia.

These are really big challenges – economically and socially. The challenge is growing every day. It won’t go away by sticking our heads under the pillows. Neither should we believe that it is simply possible to continue as we are.

It is against this background that we should all welcome the decision of Sheffield NHS Trust to change its decision about the future of two care homes – Woodland View and Birch Avenue.

The Trust had originally proposed removing a £2.8m annual additional grant to the homes, suggesting that this was an unnecessary subsidy and that equivalent care could be provided for considerably less.

I have strongly supported residents, relatives and staff in exploring whether this was really the case. Detailed investigation showed that the homes were providing enhanced care for residents with special needs. Although most of the residents required this level of care, a minority didn’t. However, the demand for enhanced care places is increasing.

Therefore, the Trust has made a sensible decision. All future admissions will be for people who need enhanced and complex care; meanwhile, current residents not requiring such support will be allowed to remain.

It’s the right decision, but it isn’t cheap. The top-up cost alone is equivalent to the total council tax income from 2000 homes. It makes you think.

When the electors find you out

I wasn’t surprised that the Liberal Democrats took an absolute drubbing in the local elections, nor that the referendum on the Alternative Vote resulted in an over-whelming ‘No’ majority.

Throughout the year, I spend a lot of time on the doorstep across my constituency just talking to and listening to people about their aspirations and concerns. This means I get continual feedback about the mood and feelings of local people.

Over the last couple of months, even I was surprised at the depth of the vitriol towards Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader and Sheffield Hallam MP. This was most vehement from people who had switched to voting Lib Dem at the last general election. They used words like ‘betrayed’, ‘lied to us’, ‘broken promise after broken promise’, ‘I no longer believe a word he says’, ‘he says he’s proud of Sheffield; let me say, we’re not proud of him’…………

It wasn’t the fact that he’d gone into a government coalition with the Conservatives. It wasn’t the fact that any government right now is likely to have to make some difficult decisions.

It was the revelation that he’d never had any intention of keeping his promises on issues like student tuition fees, even if he’d won the last general election. It was his attempt to blame public-spending levels for all the country’s ills, when the record shows that he demanded higher spending in every budget. It was his statement that ‘no Lib Dem council has closed a library or Sure Start centre’ when every Lib Dem council was planning big cuts in both library and Sure Start budgets.

Now, Nick Clegg is trying to spin a new line about the Liberal Democrats demanding changes in the coalition government’s NHS proposals to ‘protect the NHS’.

Before the last general election, Nick Clegg was a co-author of the ‘Orange Book’ in which it was suggested that the NHS be replaced with health insurance schemes. Then, in various speeches, he proposed that national health targets and standards should be abolished – effectively imposing local postcode lotteries for all health services.

Since the Liberal Democrats went into the Conservative-led coalition government, Nick Clegg personally signed off the proposals in the NHS Bill.

There will be changes in the NHS Bill, because of the mounting opposition from doctors, nurses and patient representatives as they have seen the proposals as a prelude to breaking up the NHS and then privatising health in the UK.

I’m sure the electorate will find Nick Clegg out on this as well when they realise the coalition government’s unwelcome intentions are exactly what he’d proposed and supported.

Fueling inflation

This week, the rail companies announced that there had been a 5% increase in passengers in the first quarter of this year. Bus operators report similar increases. They said this was because high petrol prices were making commuters look for a cheaper alternative.

In itself, this is no bad thing. In our area, the dramatic increase in commuting by car followed the deregulation of the buses by the Thatcher government twenty-five years ago. This was particularly the case in South Yorkshire, with its low fares and high frequency service policy. Many people, who lived in North Derbyshire, but worked in Sheffield, commuted by bus. Deregulation meant increased fares, fewer services and dramatically fewer passengers – resulting in big increases in car use and massive increases in congestion.

In opposition, David Cameron promised to keep down the cost of fuel by pledging to introduce a ‘fair fuel stabiliser’: this would vary taxation on fuel based on changes to petrol prices. He said "when fuel prices go up, fuel duty would fall. And when fuel prices go down, fuel duty would rise. This is regardless of the wider economic situation.” He claimed: "If a Fair Fuel Stabiliser had been introduced at the 2008 Budget - fuel would be 5p per litre cheaper". It was little surprise that his announcement produced newspaper headlines proclaiming “Tories vow to slash fuel duty” in the week before the general election.

So, what happened to this promise? Last September, Cameron’s newly established Office For Budget Responsibility advised against a ‘fair fuel stabiliser’ as it would have a significant negative effect on UK finances. So, there appears to be very little prospect of that promise being kept.

And what has happened to fuel prices? World energy prices have increased considerably and the prospect is for further increases. However, George Osborn did keep his promise to reduce fuel duty – by 1p a litre – but at the same time increased VAT to 20%, increasing fuel prices at the pump by 3p a litre! So, it’s been give with one hand, but take three times as much with the other.

The result has been a very high cost of fuel which is driving up costs to business of transporting goods and therefore prices in the shops, hitting families in the pocket twice. It’s been a policy which has driven inflation and halted growth, at the very time when we need a strategy which cuts inflation and promotes growth.

The Old Bill Bill

The Conservative-led government seems determined to press on with its Police Bill to have a directly-elected Police Commissioner to replace the existing police authorities.

This is despite the fact that, in the latest poll, less than a third of the public supported the proposal and senior police officers are overwhelmingly opposed because they believe it increases the politicisation of policing. Last week, the House of Lords also opposed the proposals.

The politicisation concerns were heightened this week when David Cameron, following a national newspaper campaign, heavily leaned on the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to divert resources away from the priorities the Police Authority had already agreed – including tackling gun crime and distraction burglaries – to investigate the disappearance of Madeline McCann in Portugal four years ago. Of course, we all understand that the McCann family want to bring all the resources possible to discover what happened – but so did the Needham family from Sheffield when their young son Ben disappeared twenty years ago. And so do all the other families whose children have disappeared.

What appears on the face of it to be fairly innocuous orders from David Cameron, it’s a fairly short step from this to telling the police they have got to investigate one thing rather than another. What is the likelihood of one of these directly-elected police commissioners being able to resist the pressure of a local newspaper editor – to investigate thefts at the local golf club? – before instructing the Chief Constable that these thefts take priority over anti-social behaviour or distraction burglary? I think the dangers are obvious and the proposals should be halted now.

Incidentally, South Yorkshire Police has launched a new initiative to tackle distraction burglary – this is where villains knock on front-doors, usually of elderly residents, and often claim to be from one of the utility companies to gain access to the home, before stealing cash and goods and then make off.

As a colleague pointed out to me, someone in the police force must have both political insight and a sense of humour when they gave the initiative a name. So, what have they called this scheme to tackle people who knock on your front-door and promise you one thing and then do another? ‘Operation Liberal’! Spot on.

Sheffield Labour Party Welcomes Election Results

Paul Wood [Chair, Sheffield District Labour Party] welcomed the local election results.

Paul Wood described the results as:
“A big step forward for local people.”

Paul Wood said:
“I am pleased by the local election results. People across Sheffield have taken the opportunity to demonstrate who they trust most to take them through the difficult times ahead. I am not at all surprised that the majority have chosen to elect Labour councillors.

Local people know that it is only Labour who will stand up for Sheffield.

Paul Scriven and his LibDem colleagues have shown, time and time again, that they choose to stand up for Nick Clegg and his broken promises rather than the interests of Sheffield and its citizens.”

Paul Wood continued:
“Sheffield remains a Conservative-free zone. Local people have had the opportunity to reflect on the real performance of the Liberal Democrats when they’ve run Sheffield City Council and on the policies of the Conservative-led coalition government. They haven’t been impressed by either.”

Paul Wood concluded:
“Labour councillors now have a difficult time ahead. We all know that the Liberal Democrats passed a City council budget for this year which has front-loaded the use of balances, left the reserves dangerously low, and balanced only by making big cuts in services to take effect after the election. These cuts include £1.4million in library services and 15% cuts in grants to local voluntary organisations.”

Betts slams Tory and LibDem vote against protecting Children's Centres: it's no longer a Sure Start, but a series of backward steps

Speaking to a group of parents in Mosborough today, Clive Betts MP [Sheffield South East] said that he was appalled that, this week, Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs had voted against Labour’s attempts to protect children centres [1].

Clive Betts told the parents:
“We now know that you can’t trust a word that David Cameron and Nick Clegg have said about giving children the best start in life.

A year ago, David Cameron said he would protect and improve Sure Start Children’s Centres [2], yet despite this promise to voters, the budget for children’s centres has not been protected.

The Early Intervention Grant (EIG) through which these services are provided has been cut, in real terms, by about a quarter [3]. In Sheffield, this is a £7.2m cut – equivalent to £60 per head.

Before the election, Nick Clegg promised to ‘give every child the best start in life.’ [4] His promises are not worth the breath he uses to make them.

• Sure Start? – cut by 25%
• Education Maintenance Allowances? – to be removed from the vast majority of 16-18 year olds
• Tuition Fees? – not removed, but now to be £9000 a year at the vast majority of universities
• School budgets? – I understand every secondary school in his own Hallam constituency is getting a budget cut this year.
It’s no longer a Sure Start for our local children; it’s a series of backward steps.”

Clive Betts continued:
“This week, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reported [5] that Labour’s investment in support for children and families – in child benefit, in working families tax credits, in childcare support – had seen child poverty cut from 17.4% to 10.5%. This was more than any other OECD country in the same period. Then, the report warned that child poverty reduction in the UK has stalled, and that we’re going to go backwards.”

Clive Betts concluded:

“I voted for this motion to protect children’s centres. Neither David Cameron nor Nick Clegg has the guts to be honest about the cuts that they are making to Sure Start.

Instead they have cut the budget, removed the ring fence and offloaded the problem and responsibility to local councils. Every Sure Start centre in Sheffield is having its budget cut.

These cuts are going to affect every child and every family in Mosborough and the rest of the city.”

Further information:
[1] Opposition Motion – 27 April 2011
That this House believes that improving the life chances of children and young people from all backgrounds should be central to Government policy; recognises that the Sure Start network of 3,600 Children's Centres, introduced by the previous administration, is crucial in delivering high quality early education and early intervention for children, as well as support, advice and specialist services for parents and carers; notes that the funding to local authorities for the Early Intervention Grant in 2011-12 represents a real terms cut of 22.4 per cent. nationally, compared to the 2010-11 allocations before in-year cuts to area based grants; recognises that, in the context of this cut to early intervention funding, the large, front-loaded cuts to other local authority funding streams, and the removal of the ring-fence around Sure Start funding, Sure Start Children's Centres will inevitably be put at risk; notes that before the General Election the Prime Minister promised to protect and strengthen Sure Start; and therefore calls on the Government to protect the Sure Start network of Children's Centres by thinking again about their deep cuts to Sure Start funding, to monitor the evidence and, if local authorities are choosing to disinvest in Sure Start centres, to commit to reinstating the ring-fence for Sure Start funding to ensure that vital and valued services are not lost.
2 “I want not just to repeat our commitment to keep Sure Start. But to set out how we will improve Sure Start.”
David Cameron, Supporting Parents speech, 11 january 2010, http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2010/01/David_Cameron_Supporting_parents.aspx

“We are strongly committed to Sure Start Children’s Centres”
David Cameron, National Childbirth Trust message (pre-election), http://www.nct.org.uk/active/network/election2010/conservative_party_response_to_nct_manifesto

3 EIG allocations for 2011/12 and 2012/13 attached

4 A Fresh Start for Britain, Liberal Democrat Party, October 2009
5 OECD report ‘Doing better for families’ published 27 April 2011, www.oecd.org/social/family/doingbetter

Concerns about social care

We have an ageing population. People with chronic health problems are living longer.

A recent survey of councils about the challenges of providing care and support for elderly citizens demonstrated the scale of the challenge ahead. These demographic changes are increasing the pressure on services. One council was predicting a 70% increase in residents aged 75+, whilst another was expecting a 44% increase in residents aged over 90.

It is clear that these increases in demand cannot be met by expanding services when budgets are being cut. There are three main ways in which a council can maximise the services provided through the social care budget. It can raise charges, tighten eligibility and re-shape the way in which care is provided.

The survey showed that 88% of councils were increasing charges this year – most above the rate of inflation. Government ministers talk a lot about council tax levels, but they don’t like to talk about increasing charges.

16% of councils were tightening the eligibility criteria for receiving care. This might seem quite a small proportion, until you realise that the majority of councils are already meeting only substantial and critical need. They already have no room left to manoeuvre. It appears that, in the near future, just about every council will only offer support to those requiring substantial and critical. People who have previously been supported will no longer be eligible or will get a significant reduction in their support.

63% of councils are already closing care homes and/or day centres and more expect to follow in the next couple of years. More people will be supported in their own homes – which may be a good thing. However, it is clear that some people who really need 24 hour support in residential care will not get it in future.

Perhaps the biggest surprise, given all the Prime Minister’s talk about the role of voluntary organisations in his Big Society is that more than 50% of councils are cutting their financial support to the voluntary sector providing care services and another 25% expect to do this in the next year. Locally, in Sheffield, the council is making 15% cash cuts to the voluntary sector this year and is closing both residential homes and cutting day-care.

So, elderly people in need of support can look forward to increased charges and less support in future. This is one of the real impacts of the cuts that are now being made. I just wish Ministers would be honest about what the budget cuts really mean.