MPs’ Round-Up

MPs’ round-up The Autumn Budget was a big disappointment

The Autumn Budget and Spending Review was a great disappointment. Chancellor Rishi Sunak, while still asserting his Thatcherite credentials delivered a Budget which flew in the face of so many real Conservative principles. By his actions, he showed that he was adapting the approach of St Augustine along the lines ‘Dear God, please make me a Thatcherite but not yet’! Although I strongly opposed the massive increase in Corporate Tax announced in the spring as an unaffordable burden on private enterprise, I took some comfort from the suggestion then that if the public finances improved, the Corporation Tax rises might not need to be implemented from 2023. While the Chancellor confirmed that the public finances have, indeed, improved dramatically in the last six months, instead of using that additional income to reverse previous tax rise announcements, he decided to spend it on further inflationary increases in public expenditure. On a positive note, one supply-side reform in the Budget which should be particularly helpful is the reduction in the rate at which Universal Credit is withdrawn if recipients decide to work longer hours. I have been arguing strongly on behalf of care home proprietors and managers of the need to reward and incentivise those who choose to work longer hours. An additional eight per cent should prove attractive. If it is not sufficient, however, the Government will need to go further because at a time when the economy is facing a shortage of labour, the benefit system should not be a barrier to work. n The Government has been slow to respond to my call for the decriminalisation of nonpayment of the TV licence fee. I am asking the Government why it has opposed my Private Member’s Bill to make a modest start by exempting those aged over 75. There are other areas where the Government’s words are not reflected in a willingness to change the law. Its avowed support for the protection of Green Belt land against development needs to be enshrined in law which my Green Belt Protection Bill will achieve. Another example of a seeming reluctance to deliver on policy commitments is evident in the continuing scandal of public sector exit payments which continue to run out of control, despite the Government having promised action as long ago as 2015 to cap such payments at £95,000. But there is good news in respect of my Vaccine Damage Payments Bill which seems to have been the catalyst for the transfer of responsibility for vaccine damage payments to the Department of Health. I continue to receive the most harrowing evidence of damage caused by Covid-19 vaccines, some of which I presented in a dossier to the new Vaccines Minister.

Christchurch & East Dorset: Chris Chope

Service reminder Ringwood Road work starts

The Avon Valley Churches Act of Rembrance is at the Memorial Gates, entrance to Riverside Park, Ringwood Road, Fordingbridge, at 10.10am on Sunday, November 14, and is followed by a Procession to the Rembrance Sunday service at St Mary’s Church, Church Street at 10.50am. The service will include two minutes’ silence at 11.00am. Representatives of uniformed organisations are welcome to bring standards and flags, and everyone, of all ages is most welcome as they gather to remember those who have died in the great wars of the past century, and to remember those who are still prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country. On Thursday, November 11, at 11.00am at the Stuckton Road Cemetery, there is a short commemoration, with the reading out of the names of servicemen and women buried there and the two minutes’ silence. All are welcome. For more details contact: Office@ AvonValleyChurches.org.uk or 01425 653163. Six months of roadworks to build Phase 1 of the new sustainable travel route linking Ferndown and Wimborne with Poole town centre were set to start this week. Dorset council says Ringwood Road – which is used by 19,000 vehicles every day, including HGVs – will see a new 3.2km cycle and walking route with bus-stop improvements between Longham miniroundabouts and Tricketts Cross roundabout. Improvements will include the removal of the redundant speed camera near Clifton Gardens and the widening of the existing island near Woodland Avenue to provide a safe crossing point and access into Holmwood Park development. Six bus stop locations along the route will be upgraded, with improvements to accessibility. As will the pedestrian footway and crossing point at St Just Close. However, a number of pavements and walkways will be altered to become a shared space for both cyclists and walkers, said the council. The existing footway on the western side of Ringwood Road will be upgraded to provide a three-metrewide shared use path for walking and cycling between Pompeys Lane and Longacre Drive. And the footpath at the Church Road junction linking to Brabourne Avenue will be widened to a footway and cycle route. Meanwhile, the junctions at side roads on the west side of Ringwood Road will be revised, giving more priority to people walking and cycling, said the council. Phase II will be even longer, at nine months and scheduled to start in May 2022, although the council has admitted it’s still being designed and Phase III is still under public consultation. The work will take place in 400 metre sections, with 30mph speed limits in place.