It must be Christmas
7th December 2004
The giving season
It is December and Westminster is officially in festive mode. A giant Christmas tree glitters in New Palace Yard, the tearoom is covered in holly and the queues in the gift shops get longer each day. Now, at last, all that gunpowder mustard and Speaker’s whisky will be sold as MPs play Santa to their staff and volunteers.
The Chancellor is in a pretty giving mood too. Last Thursday he presented his Pre-Budget statement to the Commons and it was full of goodies. However, this was probably due to the pre-election, rather than pre-Christmas, situation.
But I was particularly pleased by the emphasis he placed on childcare. My eldest daughter is now forty but I can still remember the sheer terror I felt when my precarious childcare arrangements fell through. Or when the school holidays loomed. Or, even worse, when a child fell ill.
In those days I had to work. We could not manage without my salary. That is why I sometimes sent my children to school when they really should have stayed at home in bed. I will never forget the guilt I felt. But I had no choice.
That is why I am so glad that the Chancellor is putting money into schemes that will give today’s mothers the choice I lacked. This is not about making them go back to work. It is about enabling them to do so if they want to and supporting them if they have to.
Spaced out
Immediately after the Chancellor’s pre-Christmas feast I found myself in the far less generous confines of European Scrutiny Committee A. This, as its name suggests, is where Community-based rules and regulations are examined before they become part of British law.
The item under discussion was the European version of the American’s Geographic Positioning Satellite (GPS) system. Known as Galileo, this will be made up of twenty-six satellites placed around the earth at equal intervals. It will be more accurate than GPS and help to meet the huge demand for positioning information by business, science, the rescue services and the police. It will not be used for military purposes.
But, best of all, Galileo’s satellites will be built in Stevenage. On Gunnels Wood Road. That is if the British government puts in the money that allows it to join the consortium of European countries behind its construction. I, and many other MPs, are arguing for it.
However, others cannot see why the world needs another satellite positioning system. They know that GPS is aging. They also know that it is solely owned and operated by the United States and that sections are occasionally taken off line to meet that country’s military requirements. They also know that 30% of the companies involved in Galileo are British and that we stand to gain far more from the project than we have put into it.
But, they argue, would it not be cheaper, and simpler, if Europe just helped the United States upgrade GPS. It might be but we would not be equal partners. The United States would retain control and, more importantly, they would only let their companies tender for the contracts. That is why Europe is building its own – in Stevenage.
Fitting it in
Later that evening I, too, was in Stevenage. At Shephall Green School listening to the County Council make its case for merging it, and three other schools into one, very large, Primary School.
The parents were tense, upset and dead against it. The County’s officers were tense, upset and all for it. The facilitator was professionally calm, inclusive and impartial. The only relaxed person in the room was the Leader of Hertfordshire County Council, Robert Ellis, who snoozed peacefully as the merits of federated governing bodies were discussed.
The day before the Speaker had called me at the end of business in the House of Commons to present the petition calling on the County Council to re-run its review and consultation on Primary provision in Stevenage. It had 11,000 signatures and was so big that I could not fit into the green bag that hangs behind the Speaker’s chair.
Rather like the three-form-of-entry primary school, I thought as I handed the petition to the black-clad doorkeeper. Just too big for Stevenage.
Barbara Follett MP
