Royal Mail and the post offices need more than gestures

Peter Hain was unequivocal on "Question Time" last night. He will vote against any privatisation of Royal Mail. However, he did not offer a solution to two major problems facing the postal system: where is the money coming from to update the Royal Mail's technology, and what is to be done about the post office network?

A purely public service answer is feasible. The government could put back some of the money previous administrations have skimmed off, money which should have gone into continuous technological improvements, and replenish the pension fund, which it has forced to take contribution "holidays". (Both Conservatives and Labour have been guilty of treating the Post Office as a cash cow, though credit should be given to Tony Benn in the 1960s for giving a kick-start to modernisation.) The Post Office, both collectively and individually, should be allowed to advertise its facilities. Its ability to accept and receive payments should be increased, not discouraged.

But there was no promise of extra money last night. So there will have to be external investment, or not only the post offices but also the Royal Mail will wither away.

Liberal Democrat policy, which Mr Hain misrepresented last night in line with Labour spin-machine directives, in spite of vigorous correction by Kirsty Williams, is laid out in the background notes to our petition of last year protesting against post office closures. (An excerpt is at the end of this posting.) The government has yielded on the post office card account, and gone a little way on the universal service obligation; now let it go all the way.

Lib Dem proposals - your questions answered

"Is this a privatisation of the Post Office?"

No. This is not a privatisation of the Post Office. That is a misrepresentation of our policy spread by some of our opponents which relies on creating confusion between the Royal Mail and the Post Office. Under our plans the Post Office franchising company – Post Office Ltd - will be separated from the Royal Mail and retained in the public sector. Our proposals will lead to extra investment in existing branches, the opening of new ones and will give the network new markets.

"Could a part-privatised Royal Mail decide not to deliver in rural or remote areas?"

No. Royal Mail will continue to deliver to every address – it will be required to do so under its licence.

"Will the daily delivery of mail continue?"

Yes. We will protect the Universal Service Obligation (USO) and therefore the network will be required to be able to deliver to each property 6 days a week.

"Will customers have to pay more to post a letter to a rural area?"

No. The USO will require the Royal Mail to deliver to every address at a uniform price.

"Will stamp prices go up?"

Big rises in the price of stamps will be less likely under our proposals. The only source of cash for investment if the Royal Mail is in the public sector and not allowed to borrow is the income from stamps and charges to business customers. To make the investment needed without borrowing, these costs will rise considerably. We do not wish to see the price of stamps rise in this way. Borrowing to pay for investment will be repaid through the company being more competitive and efficient.

ID cards - government suppresses criticism

The Office of Government Commerce has spent huge sums of taxpayers' money to help the Government avoid publishing reviews of ID card plans.

A tribunal has ordered the reviews to be released under the Freedom of Information Act, but it is still not certain that this will happen.

You can read the full story here.

John Warman says Assembly's rail policy disappoints

In an interview by the Evening Post, Neath Port Talbot councillor and former Rail Users Consultative Council member John Warman argued that the powers that be should be doing more.

He said: "People are disappointed by the Assembly's stance on transport.

"Fares need to be reasonably priced and we need to have a good service. There are benefits to the economy and to communities from having good public transport and that includes the rail network. We are forcing people off trains and onto the roads and that is defeating the environmental arguments.

"Unless something is done to improve public transport links from Wales our economy will be left behind."

Jacqui Smith caught out

The Home Secretary encouraged people to spy on their neighbours, but she couldn't have reckoned on her own neighbours casting doubt on her explanation of her Commons expenses.

Job title corrected 2009-02-25

Liberal Democrats now alone as council tax axers

The Welsh Nationalists have gone quiet on their manifesto commitment to oppose council tax, while the Scottish Nationalists have done a complete U-turn.

You couldn't make it up

A Labour candidate in a recent by-election in England (no names, no pack-drill) follows in the footsteps of John Prescott and George W Bush:

"I was [XXXXX] ward councillor for over 10 years and I want this to stop"

The Crosby mysteries

There is doubt about how much Sir David Crosby, who has been forced to step aside as deputy chief of the Financial Services Authority, genuinely believed in his bank's policy at the time he allegedly fired a whistle-blower.

In the Independent yesterday, Vince Cable was quoted as saying that at HBOS Sir James privately accepted the banks were taking risks. The banker was "smart enough to realise he was on a very dangerous treadmill", he said. In meetings with him, Sir James argued he would be "fired" if he changed HBOS's behaviour while other banks pressed on, Mr Cable claimed.

According to thismoney website: "[The London Evening] Standard also revealed today that Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable felt Sir James had also tried to silence his warnings over the looming economic turmoil."

Tonmawr children’s playground safety queried

Liberal Democrat councillor Des Sparkes is pressing for a long-overdue safety inspection of the children’s playground in Tonmawr. The community council promised last October to send the community’s footpaths officer on a course that would enable him to carry out this function. Four months later, this has still not been done.

Des Sparkes says: “To my knowledge, the playground at Tonmawr has not been inspected for five years. This not only flouts the law, but also the duty of care the Community Council has to the children of Pelenna. I am calling on my fellow county councillor, the member for Pelenna, to join me in impressing upon Pelenna Community Council the seriousness which the County Borough Council attaches to child safety.”

Labour solution to rising unemployment: close job centres

The number of people on Jobseekers in Wales is four times higher than the number of jobs available, the Liberal Democrats have revealed.

The figures, revealed through Parliamentary Questions, also show that:

· There are 6 Welsh constituencies in which Jobseekers outnumber vacancies by more than 10 to 1.

· There are 16 Welsh constituencies in which Jobseekers outnumber vacancies by more than 5 to 1 – 14 of which have Labour MPs

Commenting, Jenny Willott, Welsh Liberal Democrat MP for Cardiff Central, said:

“These figures underline just how badly Wales is being hit by the unemployment crisis.

“Gordon Brown can talk about there being half a million vacancies all he wants, but if they aren’t being advertised and they’re not in the areas they’re needed, they aren’t going to be much help.

“Some parts of Wales are looking increasingly desperate with over 10 Jobseekers for each vacancy.

“Rather than provide help when it is needed, ministers have closed almost 50 Jobcentres across Wales over the last five years alone.

“We need to ensure that Jobcentres are easily accessible for the public and that they offer access to all the jobs available.”

Welsh Lib Dem Shadow Economy Minister, Jenny Randerson AM added:

"This is a worrying milestone in this increasingly long and bleak period. The UK rate is running at 6.3%, so Wales is in a considerably worse position. For a long period, the Welsh unemployment rate was below the UK average, and now we have fallen behind. This raises serious questions about the unsustainable nature of the economy that Labour has built in Wales over the last decade.

The worrying thing is that because no-one can tell how long this recession will go on for, we just do not know how bad things are going to get. It is clear however that Wales is facing an even more difficult time than the rest of the UK. This means the Assembly Government's response needs to be sharper, more focused and more effective."

Israel: another argument against party lists

"Make Votes Count" explains why the Israeli system leads to governmental constipation.

The Cabin, Cwmgwrach

We have commented before on the loss of this facility to Blaengwrach ward. The condition report, about which there has been much dispute, has still not been put in the public domain.

However, one immediate threat has been removed. Neath Port Talbot planning and development department has rejected the application by the former Neighbourhood Watch group to develop the site for housing. The fact that this has been done under delegated powers, without any councillor asking for the determination to be made by committee, shows that the applicants have no supporters on the county borough council, even among the Nationalists.

The situation is still unsatisfactory. A building which required regular maintenance to be usable has been left to decay and Cwmgwrach has no equivalent facility.

Scot Nats / Trump Aberdeenshire golf course "worst planning decision of 2009"

Debra Storr, one of the four Liberal Democrats on Aberdeenshire council who stood out, unsuccessfully, against approving the potential environmental disaster, said: "May it be the only Award ever given to this development".

BNP fishing in troubled waters

It is typical of the British National Party, like similar organisations before them, to take advantage of difficult times to try to recruit members. The Evening Post shows them in Neath, presumably blaming Jews and Muslims for the economic crisis. They have apparently added to their platform the breaches in electoral law committed by Peter Hain's leadership campaign. How discriminating against people of different ethnicity or religion is expected to clean up the UK political system defeats us.

We support Mr Hain's condemnation of the BNP and trust that the county borough issues its own rebuttal of the party's divisive message. We deprecate the Evening Post's giving the organisation more publicity than it deserves (including a colour photograph which is technically better than those which have illustrated many more deserving news stories) and for not making clear that Brian Mahoney is not a local councillor (nor a member of any principal authority in Wales), but merely the BNP's national organiser.

Readers who are tempted to join BNP are advised to read Searchlight first.

Recession cheats means-tested beneficiaries

Many government benefits, such as Job Seekers Allowance and income support, are means-tested. The test assumes that, if one has capital, it earns interest at 7% and the government payout is tapered accordingly.

This may have been a valid assumption in the boom years ending with Gordon Brown's chancellorship, but it certainly is not now. Interest rates have plummeted to the extent that a cash ISA with National Savings offers just 2.4%. Stock market returns and those from most other government savings vehicle are even worse. (Current rates of return from NS&I are here.) The government assumed rate has not changed for three years.

Pensioners are particularly badly hit. LibDem shadow Work & Pensions Secretary, Steve Webb MP, said: "Life is hard enough for savers without the government making it more difficult by inventing interest rates that nobody could possibly hope to get. The government should immediately change its rules and bring its assumed interest rates into line with what pensioners can actually hope to receive," he demanded.

More allegations of Labour parliamentary corruption

The Sunday Times has named four Labour members, two of them ex-government ministers, of the House of Lords as being ready to amend Bills for cash.

Both the House of Commons and the House of Lords are overdue for reform. Only Liberal Democrats are prepared to grasp that nettle, as Nick Clegg has made plain.

"Question Time" from Wales

BBC-2's "Question Time" will be coming from Merthyr Tydfil on 26th February. Our information is that Kirsty Williams is scheduled to appear.

Labour planning for spring election

With all the experts predicting that the recession will get worse before it gets better, the Labour government is preparing to make the best of a bad job by calling a snap general election in April. Gordon Brown wants to take advantage of opinion poll ratings which can only follow the employment figures as they plummet through 2009/10. Pensioners, who vote in larger numbers than the rest of the population, will receive their uprate during the month. And, on April 2nd, the G20 summit will take place in London and be attended by Barack Obama. (Expect plenty of photos of the prime minister shaking the hand of the new US president.)

Liberal Democrats are ready. The shadow cabinet is in place. Leading members of it are engaging senior civil servants in the private briefings which are held for opposition parties. The manifesto is being drafted.

The sooner Vince Cable gets into number 11 Downing Street to restore confidence in the UK economy, the better. So we say: bring it on!

Kirsty leads attack over crumbling Welsh NHS estate

Figures uncovered by the Welsh Liberal Democrats have revealed that the cost of maintenance and repairs to get NHS hospitals to operationally safe levels are close to ½ billion pounds.

Targets were set by the Assembly government in 2002 to get 75% of all NHS estates across Wales up to operationally safe level by 2005 and 90% by 2008. Out of the 14 Health Trusts in Wales, only 3 met the 90% target, 5 met the 75% and 6 failed to meet the 2005 and 2008 targets.

A catalogue of other failures from Trusts not meeting statutory and safety compliances to fire safety regulations reveal the Assembly government has been failing to meet its own targets and legal requirements.

Kirsty Williams, leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats has described this as a dire situation for the Welsh NHS. In a debate on a Liberal Democrat motion in the National Assembly today, she urged the Health Minister to bring forward an action plan to bring our hospitals up to a decent standard.

Kirsty said:

“This is a very dire situation for our National Health Service. These figures and failures really show how Labour has handled our NHS during the last decade of power.

“The Assembly government knew back in 2005 that 11 of the 14 Welsh NHS Trusts had not reached their target of getting 75% of their NHS buildings to operationally safe level and now at the end of the 2008 target period only three Trusts met the 90% target.

“This capital backlog is huge and the year on year massive increases in health funding is now behind us. The Assembly government didn’t manage to clear the backlog during times of plenty and as budgets get tighter and tighter, there is little hope that these backlogs will be cleared.

“The Labour-Plaid government is shirking on its responsibilities to ensure that NHS staff and patients work and get treated in decent and safe hospitals. This Labour-Plaid government is taking our NHS in the wrong direction.

“The Welsh NHS may seem to be the envy of the British Isles given its free prescriptions for millionaires and free parking in hospitals, but when you have nearly half a billion pounds worth of repairs to your hospitals, the real cost of giving out treats becomes obvious.

“The Assembly government’s priority now is to eliminate the most serious risks in NHS buildings to staff and patients. By using money from the Strategic Capital Investment Funds, most of which they are holding in reserves for an election year, and by reversing the decision not to allow private funding in the NHS, this Labour-Plaid government could reduce this massive backlog and improve the standards of hospitals in Wales.

“Only when our hospitals are safe to work in and be treated in can the Labour-Plaid government even consider implementing their vote winning gimmicks.”

Peter Black, Shadow Health Minister, added:

“NHS staff are already working under hard-pressed conditions with bed shortages, long waiting lists, strained maternity services and poor ambulance performance times. The added pressure of working in poorly maintained hospitals and possibly dangerous working conditions is not acceptable.

“I shall be asking the Health Minister for urgent action to ensure that NHS staff across Wales are able to work in a safe environment.”

Notes:

Physical Condition of Welsh NHS Trusts

• Backlog maintenance costs across Wales are £468.2 million

• Only three Trusts met the 2008 90% target

Statutory and Safety Compliance of Welsh NHS Trusts

• Trusts should have been fully compliant with Disability and Discrimination Act by October 2004. It would cost £20 million to make the NHS in Wales compliant with the Disability and Discrimination Act.

• It would cost £11 million to make the NHS in Wales compliant with Fire code requirements.

• Six Trusts failed to reach the 2008 90% target fire safety compliance.

• North Glamorgan Trust reached only 52% compliance on Fire Safety.

Bloodless coup in Portsmouth

Liberal Democrats have taken control of Portsmouth City Council by virtue of defections from other parties, one Conservative and two formerly-Labour Independents.

LibDem to sponsor bill to end fuel poverty

In December, David Heath, Liberal Democrat MP for Somerton & Frome, won second place in the annual ballot for private members bills. As a result of finishing so high in the ballot, David Heath is guaranteed time for a bill to be debated in the House of Commons. This week he announced that he will be bringing forward a bill on ending fuel poverty.

The Fuel Poverty Bill will bring in two measures:

• A major energy efficiency programme to bring existing homes up to the current energy efficiency levels enjoyed by modern homes.
• Social tariffs to limit vulnerable households’ exposure to high-energy bills.

These proposals will be great for the environment whilst also making a real difference to pensioners and others struggling to pay their energy bills. An estimated five million households are faced with the terrible choice between heating and eating this winter.

These proposals deserve the support of politicians from all parties. We hope that Dr Francis and Mr Hain will give the bill their support when it is debated in the House of Commons.

The date for the debate has not yet been set, but it is likely to be in March.

The measures in the bill have received the backing of many major charities and campaign groups, including Help the Aged, Friends of the Earth, Consumer Focus and the Association for the Conservation of Energy. They were also included in the Liberal Democrats’ Green Road out of Recession package.