8/2/2019 News Bulletin From Conor Burns MP #90

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Subject: NewsBulletinfromConorBurnsMP#90

Date: Friday,27April201208:43:32UnitedKingdomTime

From: ConorBurnsMP

To: news@localconservatives.com

In this edition:

Conor Burns MPs DiaryWebsite of the Week:Streets of BournemouthPhoto news:Oakmead College ofTechnologyConor in Parliament:Conor quizzes Chancelloron Eurozone recourse to

IMF bailout fundsConor pledges to savelives at bowel canceranniversary eventConor in Parliament:House of Lords ReformBillConor in the papers:MP claims GP is forcefor goodConor in the papers:Dorsets thin blue line

gets thinner: Focusingon Priority CrimesConor in the media:House of Lords ReformReport Due AmidDeepening Tory TensionsHow to contactConor Burns MP

Issue 90 Friday 27th April 2012

Since the past edition, Conor has:

Visited Rest Harrow retirement home to answer questions

from the residents.

Met with Superintendent Jane Newell at Bournemouth police

station.

Held a help and advice surgery in The Triangle for local

residents.

Spoken in the House of Commons asking the Chancellor toagree that more must be done by Eurozone countries before

they receive help from the IMF.

Attended an event at the House of Commons hosted by

easyJet Chief Executive Carolyn McCall OBE.

Had written evidence to the House of Lords Reform Bill

Joint Committee published objecting to the proposals.

Received written answers from questions put to the Treasury.

Submitted his nomination for The Mayor of Bournemouths

Diamond Jubilee Award.

Been quoted in the Huffington Post following an interview on

Radio 4 regarding House of Lords reform.Attended a meeting in Number 10 Downing Street with Prime

Minister David Cameron.

Website of the Week:

www.streets-of-bournemouth.org.ukThe website of Streets of BournemouthStreets of Bournemouth is a project between Bournemouth Borough

Council and Bournemouth University, funded by the Heritage LotteryFund. Developed with the help of over 140 volunteers, the websiteprovides a virtual museum for the Bournemouth community filled withmemories, stories, publications and photos. The website allows usersto search within 14 themes that reflect the history of Bournemouth anddownload information on them. An interactive timeline allows visitorsto see photos specific to any year in any decade from 1810, and userscan also use the feature that compares the present map ofBournemouth to Ordnance Survey maps as far back as 1870,amongst others.The website will continue to expand as users can upload their ownphotographs and other documents. This can be done on a home PC,

or in a library with dedicated Streets of Bournemouth computers andscanners and where library staff are on hand to help.

Photo news:

Oakmead College of Technology

Conor at Oakmead College of Technology, seeing first hand theirpractical skills training for pupils.

Conor in Parliament:

Conor quizzes Chancellor on Eurozone

recourse to IMF bailout funds

Monday 23rd April 2012

Click on the image above to watch Conors exchangewith the Chancellor in the House of Commons.

The text of the exchange was as follows:

Conor Burns (Bournemouth West, Conservative): Does my hon.Friend remember the warnings that many gave prior to the creation ofthe euro that without large regional subventions, the project wouldfail? Although he is correct in asserting that I told you so is not apolicy, it is, sadly, increasingly a fact. He has acknowledged thatGermany is doing more, but does he agree that it needs to do stillmore before eurozone countries have recourse to the IMF?George Osborne (Chancellor of the Exchequer, HM Treasury;Tatton, Conservative): I certainly agree that Germany and othercountries need to live with the consequences of the euro, and theGerman taxpayer is now having to provide many hundreds of billionsof euros to various funds.

My hon. Friend is right that many Conservative Members warned ofthe consequences of Britain joining the euro. I remember helping thethen Leader of the Opposition write a speech that he delivered atFontainebleau, which was immediately parodied by the thenGovernment, led by Tony Blair, and the then Chancellor, Mr Brown, asdeeply irresponsible. The then Conservative leader spelled out in thatspeech a lot of the consequences that have come to pass.

Conor pledges to save lives at bowel

cancer anniversary event

Conor Burns MP pledging to do all he can to save lives frombowel cancer in the House of Commons this week.

Conor has pledged his support to save lives from bowel cancer atBowel Cancer UKs recent event in the Houses of Parliament.The event, hosted by fellow Conservative MP John Baron on behalf of

the charity which was marking its 25th Anniversary, saw the launch ofthe report 2025 Challenge: Saving and Improving Lives.

Over 100 guests were in attendance at the event including a host ofParliamentarians and supporters of Bowel Cancer UK, includingBowel Cancer UK CEO Deborah Alsina and ITV news presenter andBowel Cancer UK Ambassador Charlene White.Bowel cancer is the UKs second biggest cancer killer, and the overallfive-year survival rate of those diagnosed is just over 50%.

However, in the report, Bowel Cancer UK states that the Governmentcould cut deaths from bowel cancer by 60% by 2025 if it followed itsrecommendations.Bowel Cancer UK's ambition is also for an additional 2,500 peoplewith bowel cancer per year living for at least five years after diagnosisby 2025.Commenting after the event Conor Burns said, I fully support therecommendations made in this report and urge the Government toconsider them.

Bowel cancer is a significant killer and I will continue to work withBowel Cancer UK to promote the needs of patients and raiseawareness to the cause.

Conor in Parliament:

House of Lords Reform BillBelow is the written evidence submitted by Conor Burns MP tothe House of Lords Reform Bill Joint Committee:The program of reform for the House of Lords that is currently beingpursued by the government is one which will severely harm the abilityof this Parliament to work effectively. While reform is essential, itneeds to create a house which will complement, rather than compete

with, the work of the Commons in producing sound and robust laws.With this in mind these are some of the objections that I have to thecurrent government proposals concerning reform of the Upper House.Current proposals to create a new democratically elected 'senate'-style second chamber will give the Lords a mandate to challenge anyof the work of the Commons. In the longer term the politicalcomposition of the Lords may not necessarily reflect the more fluentmake-up of the Lower House. The natural conclusion of this is theadvent of behavioural issues between the houses, and so it is with thisin mind that I ask the committee to urgently review the followingpoints:

1. Problems created by election to the House of LordsThe vision of an elected second House would undoubtedly strengthenit to equal, if not surpass the legitimacy of the Commons. Having beenelected on a particular platform, new members of the Upper Housewould then possess the democratic mandate to pursue a particularideological or issue-based agenda. This could not only give them thepotential to frustrate the program of the government of the day, butlead to confrontation and political stalemate.In addition the prospect of election could deter otherwise experiencedand professional candidates from trying to become Members of thisprestigious revising body. The current House boasts a wealth of ex-cabinet members and key government figures whose indispensable

experience and unique insights enable them to astutely revise andscrutinise legislation. Were election to be a pre-requisite of office,there is little incentive for members retiring from government or otherpublic service duties to stand in another election.Moreover, the new provisions made for elected candidates coulddiscourage ex-MP's, civil servant and heads of business and industry.If at least 80% of its members will have to stand for election and theywill be paid c. 60,000 per year over a 15 year term, this will entail alikely income drop during the highest earning years of their lives inaddition to the expectation that they will take on a full-time job for thenext fifteen years. As a result of this it is highly likely that many of thebetter and more experienced candidates will be put off from applying.

Furthermore, election carries the risk of excluding independentcandidates if future members of the Upper House were to seek thepatronage of major parties to access the resources needed tocampaign for election. This could mean that membership of the Houseof Lords could become inaccessible for independents without greatpersonal wealth, women and minorities who have so far been typicallybetter represented in the Lords than in the Commons.

As well as this, by introducing the mechanism of election the DeputyPrime Minister appears to imply that currently the House of Lords isundemocratic. In fact, when it is examined, Peers are appointed onthe principle of double election, which is currently used by the threemain political parties. The Prime Minister is not elected to run thecountry by the citizenry, but rather by his party, and it is then thecountry who selects the party. By this same principle, when thecountry elects the party, the party appoints peers to the Other Place,representing the wishes of the electorate through a transparentdemocratic process.2. Problems in the changing function and powers of the House ofLords

In spite of the Draft Bill stating that the functions of the Upper Housewould remain the same, it is plainly inevitable that with a new mandateand strengthened consent, the new House would begin to challengethe Commons for supremacy and be entitled to functions from which it

had previously been excluded. For example, the Bill does not considerthe possibility that a Prime Minister could be drawn from this newHouse of Lords, with added legitimacy of proportional election and thefurther benefit of a 15 year term.Over time the House of Lords has constantly evolved from a chamberwhich provided a check on the executive by its power to rejectlegislation to one which can still act as a check on the executive butdoes so through the detailed consideration of legislation and itsscrutiny of administrative decisions by expert advice. The proposals inthe Draft Bill are designed to reverse this evolution as the addition of ademocratic mandate to the role of the new members will emboldenthem to reject legislation, block policy and ultimately frustrate theprogram of government in a way that previous reform of the house hasintended to stop.What's more, constituencies will interfere with the current balance andwork of the House since the idea of a representative House of Lords isat odds with its function of revision and scrutiny of legislation. If newmembers of the House are elected by constituencies then the primarywork of the new members will be to represent their constituents bycorresponding to them, taking up their cases and spending time intheir constituencies. This will then take away vast quantities ofvaluable time from the new peers that would otherwise be devoted tothe revision and scrutiny of legislation.The current proposals fail to take into account the constitutional

changes that will occur if the new House is given more power thoughelection. No consideration appears to have been given to how it is thatthe relationship between the two Houses will be altered if the secondchamber is given powers which make it more equal to the firstchamber. There is no clear consideration of how the status of the newchamber will be relevant to the current conventions and statutes thatgovern the relationship between the Lords and Commons. The Billerroneously imagines them as final, seemingly unaware that they reston a series of assumptions in the absence of anything as totemic as awritten constitution giving legitimacy to the Commons.3. Problems with the term length in the new House of Lords

The Draft Bill proposes that a single non-renewable term of 15 yearsbe the life-cycle of a working new member of the House of Lords. Thisis a seriously flawed concept as the idea of re-election is in place tomake parliament more accountable, following the assumption that anMP will want to be re-elected and will thus work hard to represent theirelectorate before all other business. The Draft Bill deters futuremembers from representing the people who elected them and indeedfrom working hard to review legislation full-time as the reform states.

4. Problems with the electoral process of the new House ofLords

The idea that voting in new members take place at the same time as ageneral elections, under a different electoral system, with staggered

terms will lead to voter fatigue, confusion and ultimately a Housewhose make-up does not reflect the position of the Government,causing further behavioural issues. Holding a vote for both membersof the Lords and the Commons on the same day, but using twodifferent systems will undoubtedly cause confusion among anelectorate who have already rejected a different voting system duringthis parliament.Moreover in a parliament which had two houses that have beenelected using two separate forms of voting could not be considered tofunction well. In fact, in spite of all of the Commons best historicalefforts to repeal powers from the Crown and the Lords, this newlegislation appears to offer them more power as new members who

are voted using the Single Transferrable Vote System (STV) wouldlogically be more democratically representative than the Commonsand therefore have supremacy and higher legitimacy which runs indirect contravention to the current balance and functions of the twohouses. The revising chamber having more power than the legislatingone is simply illogical.5. Problems with the salary and allowances in the new House ofLords

The current government proposals allocate the new members withconstituencies, staff, salaries and offices. This is an idea which willcause great expense to the taxpayer, with no clear indication of howmuch the total cost of this new chamber will be and where it is that the

money required for this project will come from. For example, based onthe current staffing budgets of MPs (115,000) and MEPs (222,000)coupled with the fact that the Draft Bill seeks to allocate constituenciestwice the size of current parliamentary ones, the assumption remainsthat staffing budgets for all 300 new members would be at least200,000 each.It is true that no one would 'invent' the House of Lords in its currentform, but we are fortunate enough that without anything a totemic as awritten constitution we are able to constantly evolve and develop allthe organs of government into a coordinated and integratedParliament.

However, I find that the proposals of the Draft Bill, when closelyexamined, lend themselves to the creation of a fractured,confrontational and unbalanced parliament that is not in the interestsof the electorate or indeed the wider democratic community. I urgeyou to consider the points made above.

Conor in the papers:

MP claims GP is force for goodBournemouth Echo

Saturday 21

st

April 2012An MP has insisted the presence of theFormula One Grand Prix in Bahraintomorrow could strengthen the hand of pro-democracy activists.Bournemouth West MP Conor Burns, chairman of the All-PartyParliamentary Group on Bahrain, said the controversial event wouldmean an influx of international journalists to scrutinise the countryshuman rights record.

Conor in the papers:Dorsets thin blue line gets thinner:

Focusing on Priority CrimesBournemouth Echo

Wednesday 25th April 2012SNT Officers have been asked to spendless time on quality of l ife issues.These include problems where the police may be asked to help butthey are not responsible like dog fouling or overgrown hedges.

Chief Superintendent Martin Hiles said: We believe the communityand other agencies can lead on these issues.Our policing core responsibilities are about protecting life andproperty, maintaining the peace, preventing crime and bringingoffenders to justice.Officers will deal more with crime but there are concerns that will leadto them getting sucked into office work rather than being in public.

A member of one Dorset residents group told the Echo: Weve beentold the PCSOs and PC will be used to tackle antisocial behaviour byspecific families.The result will be less police on the beat and our neighbourhoodpolicing being cut back.PC Will Martindale, speaking at the April meeting of BoscombeChamber of Trade, said officers would be spending less time at publicmeetings.Thats the harsh reality of it, he said. We are going to be focusingmore on priority crimes.Bournemouth West MP Conor Burns said: Issues like rubbish mightnot be core policing issues but quality of life is still very important.

Dealing with funding problemsDorset Police received 169 per resident in 2010/11 compared to anEngland and Wales average of 189.The force said for each of the past nine years it has been either theworst or second worst funded per resident.Chief Constable Martin Baker said in a letter earlier this year cutsmean it must save 18million from a budget of 120million between2010/2011 and 2014/2015.

The force has cut 284 police and civilian staff so far with a further 274expected by 2014/15.Bournemouth West MP Conor Burns has started lobbying on behalf ofDorset MPs for a change in the police funding formula.

Conor in the media:

House of Lords Reform Report Due Amid

Deepening Tory Tensions

Chris Wimpress, The Huffington Post UKMonday 23rd April 2012The joint committee on House of Lordsreform will publish its long-awaitedreport today, a document which will set the tone for what's becomingan increasingly factious coalition issue.Up to 100 Tory MPs - including some ministerial aides and evenCabinet ministers - are thought to be deeply hostile to Nick Clegg'splans for reforming the Lords.The draft Bill published by the government would see a gradual

change from the largely appointed Lords to a largely elected chamber.Every five years about a quarter of the appointed Lords would beremoved and replaced with elected members, who would serve a longfifteen-year term. They wouldn't be allowed to stand again.These new peers would have super-constituencies, and there wouldbe about 300 of them. By 2030 the upper chamber would consist of80% elected peers, and 20% would still be appointed. The Church ofEngland Bishops would keep twelve of their seats.The biggest complaint is that the government's plan for the Lords failsto enshrine the supremacy of the House of Commons, even thoughministers insist this is exactly what they are doing. Although the

Committee's report is under a strict curfew until 10 o'clock this morningthey are likely to challenge the government's plan to retain theParliament Act - the piece of law which allows the Commons toeventually over-ride the Lords on any piece of legislation theunelected house seeks to block.Ministers believe there is no need to change this Act - which hasexisted in some form for 101 years - arguing that it would perform the

job perfectly well even if the Lords were elected. The committeemembers have repeatedly questioned how a piece of law designed toclamp down on the powers of an unelected chamber could work whendealing with an elected one.

Another recommendation which could be in the report is a call for anational referendum before the changes to the Lords can come intoforce. This is expected in part because of a leak of an early draft of thereport before Easter, which was said to contain the referendumdemand.Labour have put their weight behind this idea, saying suchconstitutional change shouldn't happen without the public beingconsulted. The coalition have dismissed this, pointing out that all threemain parties went into the 2010 general election calling for at leastpart of the Lords to be elected.Tory Ministers are said to be openly questioning the merits of Lordsreform around the Cabinet table. Sunday papers reported thatheavyweights like Michael Gove and Philip Hammond are uneasy.Further down the food chain there are Tory Parliamentary PrivateSecretaries - ministerial assistants who don't get paid for their effortsbut must always vote for the government or resign - have been openlycritical.Tory MP Conor Burns - who is PPS to the Northern Ireland Secretary -was open in his dissent on Friday, telling BBC Radio 4: "My viewhasnt changed from the view I expressed in the House of Commonsto the Deputy Prime Minister that I am in favour, broadly, of the statusquo."Burns is one of dozens of Tory MPs who believe a vote in the

Commons on this matter should be free, and not whipped by thegovernment. Previous Lords reform votes have always been free, andBurns told Radio 4: "If the Deputy Prime Minister is right, that there isa majority in the House of Commons, across Parliament, acrossparties, then it will go through."Burns' statement suggests there is little that ministers can do toappease some Tories, even if they agree to further concessions.These were hinted at in reports on Sunday, suggesting Nick Cleggmight agree to the new Lords having 450 members, rather than the300 he originally envisaged.There is a gamble for David Cameron in all of this. Abandon Lords

reform and the Lib Dems could easily threaten to block other bits ofthe coalition agreement, including the Tories' cherished plan to reducethe number of MPs by 50 and shake up the boundaries to lessenLabour's inbuilt electoral majority. Lib Dem MP Lord Oakeshottrecently made this threat on the Sunday Politics programme on BBCOne.Nick Clegg was at great pains to deny this would happen on Friday,when the coaliton tensions about this rose to the surface. But whatelse have the Lib Dems really got on the Tories as leveage? Somepeople in Nick Clegg's party are starting to think that their pollnumbers are just wrong. They continue to languish in single digits innational opinion polls - and have by all accounts been taken over by

UKIP.But every time there is a by-election for either a council seat or forParliament, they actually do much better than the polls suggest. Thenotion that the Lib Dems are stuck in the coalition because to trigger ageneral election would cause wipeout is starting to look quite shaky.With the AV referendum out of the way and many of the things that theLib Dems wanted already passed into law, the reasons for them tostay in coalition -other than the threat of wipeout at the ballot box - arefewer in number than a year ago.But on the other hand if David Cameron presses ahead with Lordsreform he risks a mutiny among his own backbenchers, and even if he

can control that, could find that the Lords will get so aggravated thatthey won't just start delaying the law to abolish them, they could startbeing difficult over every other piece of legislation the governmentsends their way.

All this for a reform which the public clearly doesn't care aboutwhatsoever. Sure, if you ask them whether the Lords should beelected they mostly agree that it should. But how many letters do MPsactually get from people urging them to do something about it? Veryfew indeed. The third and final risk for Cameron is that he is seen tobe distracted by Westminster intrigue about the Lords, at at time whenthe public are severely underwhelmed by his management of theeconomy and the NHS.It's those two things, after all, that most analysts expect to be thebiggest issues at the next general election. Not who sits on the redbenches in Parliament.

Three ways to contact Conor Burns MP:

By Phone: 020 7219 7021

By email: conor.burns.mp@parliament.uk

By post: Conor Burns MPHouse of Commons

London SW1A 0AA

www.conorburns.com

More news from Conor Burns MP, Conservative Member ofParliament for Bournemouth West, coming soonPlease forward this email on to anyone you think may be interested. Ifyou have had this email forwarded to you and would like to be addedto the mailing list, please send an email to:news@localconservatives.com with JOIN in the subject heading.To unsubscribe from this list, please return an e-mail tonews@localconservatives.com with "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the subjectheading.

www.conorburns.com

Promoted by Andrew Morgan on behalf of Conor Burns, both of 135 Hankinson Road, Bournemouth, BH9 1HR

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