Paddy Tipping seeks to end exploitation of sick coal miners

Paddy Tipping MP spoke at length in a recent Westminster Hall debate on Coal Health Claims.

It would appear that claims handling organisations, including trade unions are taking significant proportions of compensation claims. As Paddy says:

They are cowboys: they are making false claims, raising false expectations, taking money out of people's pockets who cannot afford it, and on many occasions leaving people in debt. Enough is enough.

He also highlights the suspect connections between some solicitors and these organisations, and criticised the Law Society for not exercising more control.

Finally he defended Capita IRISC over claim handling problems - instead highlighting DTI under-estimates of the number of potential claimants.

Paddy Tipping backs Gedling colliery development

Map of Gelding Colliery
Recently in the Commons, Paddy Tipping MP enquired:

Will the Deputy Prime Minister visit the Gedling borough area again in the next couple of months, to look at the excellent work that English Partnerships is doing at the former Gedling colliery site? It has made £2 million available for regeneration there. On his visit, will he also press the Tory-controlled Gedling borough council to get its finger out and grant planning permission there?

John Prescott replied:

I will leave it to my hon. Friend to give such very direct advice, but English Partnerships is certainly playing a major role in the coalfield communities. Many of them have been transformed, and given hope where there was only despair after the massive closure of the pits and the communities by the previous Administration. It is a delight to visit those areas now to see that they are providing, in some cases, more jobs than were involved in the pits themselves. New ideas and innovations, very much led by English Partnerships, have brought the public and private sectors together. The Glasshoughton site is now a ski instruction area, which employs more people than were involved in the mine. The chief ski instructor is an ex-miner, which is good.

I don't know much about the Gedling colliery proposals, but given the pressure on Nottingham's green belt (eg Top Wighay), it seems a good place for a bit of infill. It would appear that somewhere in the order of 1000 homes are proposed.
There's no information on the the English Partnerships website about it. But some quick digging on the Gedling council site reveals some concern over provision of school places, and pressure on local roads (which are certainly at capacity in the mornings).

Well done, Adam Price MP

Adam Price is not the MP for my constituency, but if he was I would be glad to vote for him. Today he was forced to leave the Commons chamber, because he said that Blair "misled" the house. In Commons protocol, it is not permissible to accuse another MP of lying, even if the truth is staring you in the face. Paddy Tipping MP doesn't think that Blair lied - in response to a letter from me, he wrote "I don't believe that Parliament was misled but I have no doubt that serious mistakes took place"

The dictionary defines mislead as transitive verb : to lead into a mistaken action or belief : to cause to have a false impression

On the 10 April 2002, Blair told the Commons:

"there is no doubt at all that the development of weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein poses a severe threat not just to the region, but to the wider world. […] He is a threat to his own people and to the region and, if allowed to develop these weapons, a threat to us also."

Not only was Blair completely wrong, and therefore the statement was false and misleading, but intelligence assessments in March 2002 said:

"Intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missile programmes is sporadic and patchy. [...] From the evidence available to us, we believe Iraq retains some production equipment, and some small stocks of CW agent precursors, and may have hidden small quantities of agents and weapons."

So, not only was it incorrect to say Iraq had WMDs, but intelligence assessments at the time merely stated that he might have had small quantities of WMDs. They also concluded that he was unlikely to be a threat, even to his neighbours, unless attacked. If Blair had read the intelligence assessments then he lied, if he didn't then he was implausibly negligent. Which is it?

Here's another nice summary of what Blair had to say on Iraq from the BBC. Misleading statement after misleading statement is indeed compelling evidence that he is a deliberate liar

Nottinghamshire police row

Paddy Tipping's question regarding Nottinghamshire police funding to Hazel Blears was no doubt related to Nottinghamshire Police being bottom in performance tables.

Now Nottinghamshire police chief, Stephen Green, has sparked off a heated political row after this interview given to the Sunday Telegraph. Quotes include:

• "We are in a long-standing crisis situation with major crime and it won't go away overnight."
  
• "I want to increase the number of operational cops by reducing the numbers doing back-office jobs. It's frustrating to know that I could make better use of the money I've got, but I'm constrained from doing it because officer numbers is a political football. All the parties have the same fixation."
  
• "We are now routinely going out to 'foreign' forces to get additional officers."
  

Following this, the Guardian quotes Graham Allen MP, Nottingham North that the Telegraph placed Steve Green under "extreme duress", by blackmailing him into giving the interview by threatening to run articles on current covert investigations. This is a pretty extraordinary allegation, which the Telegraph has categorically denied, and it will be very interesting to see how this develops.

Graham Allen also said "The remarks are either very naive or very foolish", and other politicians have joined the attack. John Clarke, the chairman of the Nottinghamshire police authority, said: "I am horrified by this article. It was the wrong move by Steve Green."

Steve Green's complaints that Government funding restrictions were forcing him to waste police officers in civilian administrative roles have subsequently been supported by three other chief constables. Looks like it is a genuine problem caused by over-constraining targets. Perhaps they are also naive and/or foolish.

I would suggest that if the Government wish to regain the public trust after so sorely abusing it over Iraq, they could do a lot better than shooting the messenger and trying to cover up negative consequences of its own policies. Trust is built by taking responsibility, not trying to spin and weasel your way out of situations.

Nottinghamshire Bus Services

Paddy Tipping recently received a
Written Answer regarding Nottinghamshire bus services from Tony McNulty, which revealed that government funding had been 5.43 million. To put this in perspective that works out as about £1.80 per year for each of the 750,000 people in Nottinghamshire. Given that a typical car or bus user is likely to be spending hundreds of pounds annually on transport, this is totally insignificant. Whether you are in favour or not of public transport, you have to question the purpose of funding at such a trivial level.

I live outside Nottingham, so I have the problem that the buses are very infrequent and relatively expensive. Consequently I don't really use them. This Department rural bus subsidy study found that the median cost of continued (those that weren't axed) rural bus services in 2000-2001 was £2.83 per mile. On that reckoning the cost of running a bus from my village to the Nottingham City centre would be at least £30. With generally a handful of passengers on each, they are obviously not very economic. It is possible that if the service was better, passengers would increase, and it would become economic, but it would require every bus to be almost full. Sadly I can't see that happening outside the city, even if the service was free to users.

He also received a Written Answer from Charlotte Atkins, Transport, regarding the potential extension of the Nottingham Express Transit system, a new tram system. The Department is currently evaluating the proposals.

Paddy campaigns to keep coal mine open

Paddy Tipping quizzed Mike O'Brien (Minister for Energy) over two potential pit closures, specifically about the potential for government pressure to keep them open to be put on the owner UK Coal. Mike O'Brien was upbeat about current discussions bearing fruit, but this news item is less optimistic

BBC reports planned closure of Welbeck colliery