Manufacturing
Debate between Chris Ruane and Guy Opperman(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Guy Opperman
I completely agree. To put it in the vernacular, we need a go-to guy who is the one person looking after manufacturing.
Guy Opperman
Of course, it could be a woman—I accept that entirely. I was using the term generically. Such a Minister could provide co-ordinated responses to the concerns of manufacturing businesses. Having such a Minister would send out a message that this really matters. I challenge anyone to say that that is not a good idea. It is something that successive Governments have consistently failed to do, and I do not blame previous Governments for that, but doing it would send out a positive message for the future.
The second issue I want to address is banking and the chronic deficit that every Member of the House must be facing in their constituency—a lack of bank financing for businesses. Every one of us, in every constituency surgery, will regularly have businesses coming to us and saying, “I cannot get the funding I need,” or “I cannot get the borrowing I used to have.” It is a chronic problem. Much good work is done by business angels and credit unions—those hon. Members who attended the debate on credit unions yesterday will know that very positive steps were discussed there—but when it comes to bank finance, the system of the main banks is clearly logjammed. What can we do about that?
Currently, to set up a bank one needs £110 million-worth of assets—of cash, effectively—or the Financial Services Authority will not allow it. If the FSA relaxed that rule or changed the figure to £10 million, for example, then prominent local businessmen or businesses in a local community could set up a local bank.
Traditionally, the problem has always been that banks go bust, as they did in the 1920s and ’30s, because they over-borrow and over-lend in effect. If there were a restriction such that they could not exceed the money held on deposit with the Bank of England, the only loss that could be sustained would be the funds in that bank. The effect would be true localism. Someone could set up the bank of Hexham—or, in the Minister’s case, the bank of Bognor—and that bank would be specifically focused on providing small and medium-sized enterprise lending to local businesses.
Police Funding
Debate between Chris Ruane and Guy Opperman(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
I have a background in criminal law, and have spent a large part of my time down the years prosecuting and defending people in various trials, including murder trials.
I have been out on the beat with members of the Hexham constabulary, who do an amazing job in supporting the police and the community. They undoubtedly need our support, and we should provide that support unequivocally—for the police force and for the operational command—if at all possible; but if we are to do that, we must change the position that we acquired on 7 May. There is currently a significant financial deficit, and that means that we must make choices. Whether we like it or not, we have had to make cuts. That gives no one any pleasure, but we have been forced to do it by our present position.
We are adopting a good procedure in attempting to do a series of things at the same time. There will be a settlement. My local chief constable, who has done an amazing job, wrote to me outlining the cuts that she might have to make, which are undeniably significant. My hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) and others have pointed out that the cuts are a problem that we must address, but choices need to be made, and the chief constable is dealing with them very well. There will be a reduction of 450 officers or civilian staff. In this context, I should remind the House that she was the chief constable who looked after Raoul Moat and all the difficulties and problems that followed on from the events in the summer. She has done a sterling job in trying to hold everything together, but when I asked the Chairman of the Select Committee on Home Affairs what he would cut and what his approach would be, he initially said, “I can’t really answer that question,” but at the very end of his speech he said, “This will require the Home Secretary to go back to the Chancellor and ask for more money.”
Guy Opperman
That is an interesting observation, but when the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) was Home Secretary he famously said there would not be enough money to pay for various things, and the home affairs budget would clearly have gone down. It is not in dispute that that will present the Department with a significant problem. Efforts are being made, but a choice had to be made, and I applaud the Government on the choice they made and for going ahead with it.
I asked the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) whether he supported the police and crime commissioner changes. We find from talking to our constituents that the centralisation of control under Labour over the past 13 years is a significant problem. The legislation that the Labour Government brought in put ever more work under Whitehall control. The Home Secretary was given ever stronger powers to intervene and to direct police authorities. Labour’s approach failed to recognise the fundamental problem of policing, which is that those who should be in the driving seat, and those who suffer when things do not work, are the public, not the Government.
In the last year prior to the change in Government there were 52 documents of central policy guidance, and a further 60 on planning. The average length of the manuals was just under 100 pages, and they included 4,000 new promises. The principle is very simple: the police are there to serve the local community, not Whitehall, but for too long they have been serving Whitehall.
Guy Opperman
I make this simple point: what would Labour have cut? All parties would now be facing this difficulty and, frankly, it is fanciful to argue there would not have been any cuts whatever to, say, the Birmingham or Northumberland police forces.
I want to turn now to the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill. When under the leadership of the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), Labour planned for elected representatives. In the 2008 draft legislative programme it announced that its Policing and Crime Bill would include proposals to provide
“a clear and powerful public voice in decision making through directly elected representatives”.
To my untutored mind, having done nearly 20 years at the Bar, that sounds remarkably similar to what we are introducing now. Labour referred to elected representatives in a policing Green Paper published in July 2008. I accept that I was in another place.
Guy Opperman
No, you are wrong. The promotion is delightful, but it is premature. Mention has been made of “Strictly Come Dancing” and other things, but I was not in the House of Lords then. Instead, I was probably somewhere near the Old Bailey. My point is that even Ed Balls has conceded that there is more to do on accountability.