Time for change
1st February 2005
Turning the clock back
Sadly, last week’s “Miserable Monday” forebodings on the outcome of the sitting hours vote turned out to be correct. The dinosaurs won with a majority of sixty seven. This means that when the House of Commons reconvenes after the General Election we will be sitting late on Tuesdays as well as Mondays.
This was the last straw for veteran Labour backbencher Helen Jackson. On Friday she announced that she was standing down from the Sheffield Constituency she has represented for almost twenty years because of the hours. I understand her despair. But, the electorate willing, I intend to stay on and fight this retrograde move. It is simply wrong for a retiring House of Commons to decide the hours for its successor.
That is why I will be pressing for another vote on the sitting hours as soon as the House reconvenes after the General Election. If all the modernisers are present on the day we should win it. Sadly, this was not the case last week. The dinosaur tendency in the whip’s office was exceptionally generous in their granting of absences to moderniser MPs and so we lost the vote. It is not enough to be right. You have to be better organised too.
Strengthening medicine
Ironically, the House of Commons sat very late on the first Monday after the sitting hours vote. Modernisers muttered under their breath as they trooped through the lobbies at eleven pm to get the Lord Chancellor’s Constitutional Reform Bill through.
Not that they were against it. It makes sense to increase, and secure, the independence the judiciary by establishing a Supreme Court outside of Parliament. It also makes sense to appoint judges through a Judicial Appointments Commission and make the Lord Chief Justice, not the Lord Chancellor, head of the judiciary.
But, as you can imagine, sense was the last thing the lawyers in the House of Commons were concerned about. Nor, to be fair, were they interested in sensationalism. For two long days they argued they debated the finer points of the Bill in a dry as dust fashion. But, in the end, it got through and the United Kingdom moved one step nearer to having an independent Judiciary.
Making their mark
Meanwhile, the people of Iraq were engaged in strengthening their own democracy. The Foreign Secretary allowed a little cautious optimism to creep into his statement to MPs on Monday afternoon. Turn-out in Iraq’s first multi-party elections in half a century had been better than expected. Despite the violence and the intimidation a good proportion of the country’s 14 million voters had come out to cast their votes for the eighty-four separate parties, and twenty-seven independent candidates, contesting it.
Once the votes are counted seats for the 275 member assembly will be allocated proportionately. Any party getting 1/275th of the total vote will be entitled to a seat and at least one-third of the new assembly’s members must be women. That is much better than the paltry 18% we currently have in the House of Commons.
But Iraq is a deeply divided nation. Sunni Arabs make up one fifth of its 25 million strong population. The Kurds account for another fifth and Shia Arabs for the remaining three fifths. The Sunnis were mainly opposed to the election whilst the Shia were mainly for it. But no party is believed to have enough support to command an outright majority in the assembly. The pundits are predicting a coalition government led by the Shia United Iraqi Alliance.
Whatever the eventual result, I hope that it marks the beginning of a new phase in Iraq’s troubled history. There is so much to be done. Unemployment is officially around 35% and oil production is still far below projected levels. True, the new currency is stable and public sector workers have seen their wages rise sharply. But these small, hopeful, signs are scarcely noticed in the midst of failing utilities and continuing violence in this war torn country.
Calling in
Hertfordshire has a very good and dedicated police force. They work long and hard to keep us safe and secure. But, over the past eighteen months, I have had a spate of complaints about their new call centre at Welwyn Garden City. Constituents have reported having to wait as long as ten minutes for emergency calls to be answered. They have also been less than satisfied with the response once they have got through.
However, Hertfordshire’s new Chief Constable, Frank Whiteley, appears to be getting things under control. He says that the problems were caused by the lack of properly trained staff and is busy recruiting, and teaching, new call handlers. I am glad to hear it. But there is something we can all do to help him. It is quite simple. Only use 999 for real emergencies.
Hertfordshire Constabulary receives over 1.3 million emergency calls a year. But, they estimate, only one third of these are actual emergencies. So, use 0845 3300 222 or 1438 757 000 for non-emergencies and keep the 999 lines free for the real ones.
Barbara Follett MP
