Political Round-Up

All laws should be subject to scrutiny

The Downing Street party penalties are a good example of what happens when laws are made without subjecting them to proper Parliamentary scrutiny. Even the Prime Minister seemed surprised that a short impromptu gathering in the Cabinet Room to celebrate his birthday was in breach of the criminal law. All this would have been avoided if the law of which he, his wife and others at the top of Government have fallen foul had not been enacted without any proper Parliamentary debate. There was no opportunity for the House of Commons to question or amend the detail of the regulations which created new criminal offences. No regulatory impact assessment was carried out, with the predictable result that absurdly disproportionate rules were enacted. As one of the few MPs who consistently voted against the lockdown regulations, I sincerely hope that the lesson has been learned that never again should the Government bypass Parliament. In this instance the Government and its senior civil servants, truly, have been hoist by their own petard. l Difficulties encountered by MPs in holding the Government to account for its policies and actions do not only apply to legislation. Health ministers in particular regularly fail to answer Parliamentary questions on time or at all, much to the chagrin of the Speaker. Many of these questions relate to the issue of vaccine damage and what national awareness campaigns are being conducted to alert the public to information from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. The MHRA has confirmed that ‘In a minority of cases the risks of the vaccine outweigh the benefits’. Public information is needed to enable individual patients to assess whether their own circumstances and those of their children are such that the risk of having the vaccine outweighs the benefit. A related issue is that of access to the Vaccine Damage Payments Scheme (VDPS) for relatives of those whose deaths have been confirmed by coroners as having been caused by the vaccines. My campaign on this has struck a chord with many who have suffered suspected severe adverse reactions and I have received many hundreds of letters and emails from across the country supporting my campaign for transparency from the Government and changes to the VDPS. l Let me finish with a ‘good news’ story. I recently visited the Ferndown premises of RCV Engines which manufacture engines for remote controlled vehicles. They are market leaders in this specialist area but were coming up against bureaucratic delays in obtaining export licences for some of their products. This was particularly galling when one of the countries involved was being supplied by a United States competitor without any problem. Following my intervention, this has now been resolved.

Christchurch & East Dorset CHRIS CHOPE MP

We should not be led by a law-breaker

Are we ‘onshore wind supportive’, Dorset? Because if we are, there might be money off our electricity bills! How much? Not sure. Who gets the discount? Still working that out. How do you measure ‘support’? Erm… It’s this sort of well thought out, long-term thinking that made it in to the long awaited and long delayed Government energy strategy. We are suffering an electricity price crisis in the UK. Onshore wind is the quickest, cheapest way to bring additional generation onto the grid. It is not universally popular, so there is merit in the idea of incentivising local communities to accept it. Meanwhile, new nuclear plants take decades to build. It may take a decade alone to figure out how to finance them. Whereas onshore wind turbines pay back the investment in six to seven years. We could put them up now, and take them down again once the nuclear plants are built. Along with backing more onshore wind, Labour would insulate 19million homes in a decade to reduce our energy consumption. Real action, now, rather than an abdication of both responsibility and opportunity. l Speaking of abdication of responsibility – what of the migration processing deal with Rwanda? Yes, we have a problem with asylum seekers and economic migrants crossing the Channel illegally and unsafely. Rather than work more closely with the French to police the beaches and clamp down on the dingy peddlers, we’ve decided to outsource the problem to Rwanda and the Royal Navy. This is the reality of British foreign policy today. Unable to co-operate with our closest neighbour. Openly mocked by Russia. Devoid of any moral credibility. Is this any wonder when we are led by someone who, after having lied to Parliament and eventually accepted that he broke the law, remains in office? The argument from Tory MPs that he cannot be removed because of the war in Ukraine is a ghastly misappropriation of that country’s suffering. Someone who obeys the law at home would have more authority in tackling breaches of international law. Britain changed Prime Minister during the First and Second World Wars and four times during the Afghan war. Johnson is not doing a good job at home nor abroad, and war should not be used as a shameful excuse to leave him in office. I’m sure, however, we’ll see that excuse from our local MPs.

Dorset Labour GREG WILLIAMS

Parliament: The ancient and modern

Parliament can be a place of modernity and development using the latest technology, as when President Zelensky ‘Zoomed’ in to the Chamber of the House of Commons to deliver a speech in March. But it is also a place of tradition and ancient customs, as well as strange terms and phrases. In May Parliament will be Prorogued, which means the current session of Parliament comes to an end. Before that happens, a very traditional ceremony will be held in the House of Lords, with important people like the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Serjeant at Arms doffing their caps at each other. Once the official ceremony has been completed, Members of the House of Commons leave the Chamber, and return to their constituencies. A few days later the State Opening of Parliament is held. We don’t know yet whether the Queen will read the Queen’s Speech, or whether it will be a representative on her behalf - possibly the Prince of Wales, who accompanied her last year. One of my colleagues from the Whips’ Office will be required to go to Buckingham Palace before the Queen arrives in Parliament. He will then be kept ‘hostage’ under guard, until the Queen returns safely back from Parliament. This tradition has been kept since the time of Charles 1, to ensure the monarch does not come to any harm while attending Parliament. Parliament will also be searched before she arrives – not only by expert sniffer dogs and police, but also ceremonially by Yeoman of the Guard who will search the cellars in case of a modernday Guy Fawkes hiding below. The Queen’s Speech is read in the House of Lords – and there will be a limited number of Members of Parliament sitting in the gallery and the rest of us will be crowded in to stand in ‘at the bar’ of the Chamber. The speech is written by the Government and details the Bills we will be bringing forward in the coming year. Later that day, the MPs return to the House of Commons where we will debate the Queen’s Speech. These debates usually last for several days and will be on a variety of issues which have been outlined in the speech. At the end of the debates, a vote on the speech and its contents will be held. Whereas Queen Victoria did not attend any State Openings after the death of Prince Albert, Queen Elizabeth has only missed two State Openings of Parliament, in 1959 and 1963 when she was pregnant. This is, of course, a very special year for the Queen, with her Jubilee celebrations coming up in June and I know that if at all possible she will want to give the speech this year. Please get in touch if you need help and support, including if you have family or friends fleeing Ukraine. I am continuing to have surgeries across the constituency. You can contact me via michael. tomlinson.mp@parliament.uk or call 01202 624216.

Mid Dorset & North Poole MICHAEL TOMLINSON MP