Please see below my letter to Clive Jones, Leader of Wokingham Borough Council:

Dear Clive

I was most disappointed to read the Council’s Consultation document on refuse disposal. There are only two services which all householders and Council taxpayers use and rely on from the Council, the provision of roads and the weekly waste collection. One of the popular things about the services provided by Wokingham in recent years has been the continued provision of a weekly refuse service, combined with substantial recycling of many parts of domestic refuse. I think you would be wise to continue with a weekly waste collection.

What is the cost of providing wheelie bins for all and who pays? If these bins are made of plastic what is the environmental impact of their production?

It may be possible to provide additional recycling facilities, as we all agree the less we put to landfill the better. It is important  not to let large quantities of waste  build up by the side of people’s houses, given the way these can be disrupted by local animals or affected by wind and weather. I would urge you to think again, whilst seeing what more can be done to reuse, recycle or use for energy conversion more of the waste streams coming from our homes.

Will the Council act in accordance with public wishes on weekly collections in response to the consultation?

Yours sincerely

Rt Hon Sir John Redwood MP, DPhil FCSI

There was more uncertainty yesterday about the Financial Statement scheduled for 31 October. We had been told it was crucial to the markets to see early sight of the spending and tax proposals of the new team and to accompany it with Office of Budget responsibility forecasts. I was never that happy about holding it on Halloween, thinking of some of the obvious headlines and journalistic jokes that would invite. It is better it is done in a considered way with full buy in by the new Prime Minister as well as the fairly new Chancellor.  They are saying that they want the latest forecasts, and with the recent fall in gas prices there will be at least temporarily better news on the costs of the Energy package and inflation.

We are told this will be a Financial Statement, not a budget, yet it will have many of the characteristics of a budget. It will presumably have a set of tax proposals, full spending plans, and forecasts of budget outturns with borrowing figures for the next few years. It will be accompanied by OBR forecasts. The difference between a Statement and budget will not it seems be a matter of substance, but a matter of Parliamentary treatment. A budget is presented to the House by the Chancellor often in an hour long speech,  responded to immediately by the Leader of the Opposition with a speech and followed by  a five day debate on wide ranging economic , taxation and public spending matters. A Statement will be a much shorter  speech by the Chancellor followed by maybe two hours where many MPs can ask just one question each of the Chancellor, with the Shadow Chancellor able to ask several things in a short response.  The idea of announcing substantial spending plans by Statement was developed by Rishi during the pandemic to reflect the need for quick action, often agreed on a cross party basis.

The Financial Statement is clearly dominated by whatever figure the Office of Budget responsibility comes up with for the possible deficit or amount of borrowing in 2025. The government has allowed itself against my advice to have as its main economic control the need for state debt as a percentage of GDP to be falling in  three years time. The problem with this is twofold. The OBR has been wildly wrong on its next year forecasts at all three recent annual  budgets. No-one can come up with a realistic forecast of state borrowing three years out given all the likely  big changes to inflation, the costs of the energy package, interest rates and government policy. The second is the figure could send the wrong signal for policy changes now. Today inflation is near its peak and is widely expected by independent forecasters as well as by the Bank of England to fall away rapidly over the next two years. The new threat is to trigger a longer and deeper downturn to the economy as the higher interest rates and restricted credit have their impact. Tightening further into a downturn is usually a bad policy but a negative guess about borrowing levels in three years time could force just such an action.

The cruel paradox is this. Tightening too much now, whether by hiking taxes or cutting public services could create a recession. In a recession deficits rise and the state has to borrow more, not less. Tax revenues fall as people lose jobs, consumers spend less  and companies make less profit. State spending goes up as more people need benefits. It would not be a good idea to follow the wrong response to current economic conditions in pursuit of a lower number for three years time which no-one can accurately predict or deliver .

Rt Hon Sir John Redwood MP (Wokingham) (Con): I strongly support the Bill and congratulate the Minister on his presentation. I hope that the Government will urgently reform the energy directives and regulations that have made us cruelly import-dependent such that we now have to buy excessively expensive energy on the world market when we should drive for self-sufficiency.

Dean Russell, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. It is ultimately about ensuring that we are doing the right thing by people across the country. The truth is that the Bill is a framework, and this is not the time to debate the minutiae and the details as there will be plenty of opportunities for that in Committee, the future stages and statutory instruments. We should welcome the Bill’s framework, which is about taking back control for the country.

…

Rt Hon Sir John Redwood MP (Wokingham) (Con): I thank my right hon. Friend for all the great work that has been done on the draft legislation. Does he not find it an odd paradox, or contradiction, that many Opposition Members come to this place apparently to form laws but do not believe we can ever make a law that is good, and we need to rely on EU law in so many areas where I think we can actually do better?

Rt Hon Jacob Rees-Mogg MP: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who is wise, as always. But it is even odder than that, because there is this very strange view that laws that came in without any scrutiny at all—regulations of the EU that became our law automatically—cannot be removed without primary legislation. That is just bizarre.

The laws with which we are dealing came in under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act. Either they came in with minimum scrutiny but could not be amended or changed, or they came in with no scrutiny at all. I know that my hon. Friend Sir William Cash disagrees with me on this, but we are not using this procedure to repeal Acts of Parliament. Even though these measures have the effect of introducing EU law, an Act of Parliament has had full scrutiny in the House, and to be repealed it deserves full scrutiny to be taken away. That is the correct constitutional procedure.

I offer the new Prime Minister the same loyalty I showed to his two recent predecessors, and the same economic advice designed to see off inflation whilst avoiding a deep and prolonged recession. The first task Rishi needs to address is to bring together more of the MPs and members of the party behind the common endeavour  of greater prosperity and a better economic policy to avoid the inflationary money printing of the last year. The voluntary party that knocks on doors, delivers leaflets, finds Council candidates and helps pay the bills of party officials must be wooed and thanked. It is a pity they did not get a vote on another change of leader. It is a shame the very truncated timetable did not allow Rishi to set out in general terms how he plans to tackle the budget issues, balance necessary spending with affordable tax rates, and create a productivity revolution in industry and services. We need all these to go right if we are to see off recession, level up communities around the country, grow and produce  more of our own needs and bring the deficit down through the extra tax that comes from economic success.

Many members feel let down that their two choices for leader in recent leadership elections both fell prey to MP disagreements and to infighting within the Parliamentary party and government.  One of the main attractions of becoming a member is to play a role in selecting candidates for Councils, Police Commissioners, and MPs, with the best prize being a say in who should be leader and Prime Minister when we have a majority.  Each elected official is more accountable to party members because they have that say, requiring us all to listen to the grassroots as well as to our wider constituencies in our official capacities. I hope Rishi will reach out to the members and tell them how he plans to bring them into the big task of fulfilling our 2019 promises and seeing us through the inflation, energy crisis and the need to reverse the decline in many people’s spending power. He needs to speak to them to get their buy in to the project he now needs to set out.

The dilemma he faces is the same as his immediate predecessors in office. The problems to be overcome are the same. Whilst in some ways everything has changed because there is a new leader who will bring a new team to the tasks, in another way today  nothing has changed. It is the same party to lead, the same inflation to finally quell, the same recession to see off. We saw from Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng proposals to make the UK more competitive with some modest tax rate reductions, and a huge spending programme of support to tackle surging fuel bills. It was a pity they did  not frame these with the rest of the  spending plans, and allow us forecasts of the short term and longer term borrowing that might result. Of course they needed to be affordable ,but they also needed to avoid plunging us into deep recession.  When adjusting and developing these plans for growth the new team needs to avoid lurching to too restrictive a policy which could deepen and lengthen the downturn. This would increase overall borrowing rather than reduce it, as borrowing is very sensitive to the rate of growth. The extra pound of income earned from growth is taxed more highly and helps save on benefit bills as more people get work to meet the increased demand for goods and services.

The new team needs to ask why the Bank is keen to sell bonds it bought at high prices at large losses today. If they do so the Treasury has to send them money to pay the losses. There is no need to sell these bonds  now, and making losses on bonds  is not a good priority for spending. It needs to build on past government work to find ways for more of the people on  benefits to take some of the many jobs still available. It must always be worthwhile working. Those in work paying taxes expect people who can work  to do so  where there are jobs available rather than  being on  benefits.

The members responded well  to Liz Truss this summer because she was upbeat, promising us growth with lower tax rates. Her aim was to generate more revenue from the growth to pay for the healthcare and education we want. In his first speech as Prime Minister elect Rishi said he too wanted growth and lower taxes. That will warm more of the members to him. That requires delivery. He will get more unity from a bruised party if he shares its members aspirations and then manages to implement them. He also needs to tell them more of this vision and win their confidence.

Rt Hon Sir John Redwood MP (Wokingham) (Con): When will the Government and railway companies come forward with proposals for an improved pattern of services that attracts many more fare-paying passengers? We need to get the deficit down very quickly and the best way of doing so is by getting more people paying fares willingly.

Kevin Foster, Minister of State, Department for Transport: My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Clearly, demand patterns have changed dramatically during the pandemic. For example, a lot fewer people are commuting into London at 7 am to 9 am and then leaving between 5 pm and 7 pm, or they are doing that three or four days a week rather than five, so there is a need to look at how we can adapt. We are giving slightly more flexibility to some operating companies, and looking at how we use our ticketing and, in particular, our ticket pricing. The rail sale was a great way of getting a lot of people on to trains that might otherwise have been relatively quiet, producing new revenue to the railways. In addition, as I said in response to the SNP spokesperson, Lumo is targeting traffic that goes by air to get it on tracks.