News

I was delighted to join Shadow minsiter for business & enterprise, Mark Prisk MP, and several other PPCs from the region on a tour of Diageo's facilities last week.

Diageo produces many of the world's leading alcoholic drink brands including Guinness, Bailey's, Smirnoff and Bushmills whiskey.

We learnt about the innovation and research taking place right here in our region, and also about the plans Diageo has for new products and expansion.

Robert Halfon, the PPC for Harlow, was delighted to learn that the technology that stopped whiskey and cream congealing that enables Bailey's to exist (one of Diageo's most popular products) was invented in his own constituency.  I am stood next to the machine that produced the very fist Bailey's in one of the accompanying pictures.  How technology has advanced! 

You may also be wondering what we are doing with nose pegs on in another picture:  we were given the opportunity to go into the 'tasting' room, and the nose pegs are used to help 'tasters' (lucky people) differentiate smells and tastes - but alas we were only testing sugar bean sweets not the latest alcoholic offerings on our visit.  I look forward to a return visit!

Luton's absent Labour MP, Margaret Moran, has escaped with a £4,000 slap on the wrist for her expense abuses.  This relatively small amount compared to the total expense claims we have all heard about (including the infamous £22,500 dry rot claim) may surprise many people.

It would appear that while Ms Moran pushed the spirit of the rules to the absolute limit, she actually only broke the rules and therefore is under a procedural obligation (as opposed to a moral one) to repay for the four items listed below, only, totalling £4,059.86. 

Ms Moran has already repaid £6,000 and her official balance is therefore zero.  But she has made public statements agreeing to repay the entire dry rot claim -  under pressure from the public and in the light of her constituents anger in particular.  She therefore still has about £20,500 to repay.   I will give the lady credit for going some way to making amends, but will only be happy when I see she has repaid the full amount she has promised to repay. 

David Cameron is taking a firm line. He has said all MP's identified in the report should pay the money back and called on those who refuse to pay to have their salaries and pensions docked.  He has told Conservative MP's who may be temtped to go against the findings that they will not be able to stand as Conservative MP's at the forthcoming general election.

 Here is the extract from the Legg Report.

Soaring council tax under Labour leads to bailiffs and court actions in Luton 

Nigel Huddleston expressed his anger and concern  this week at new figures which have revealed the soaring use of court orders and bailiffs to collect council tax. Council tax bills have more than doubled across the country under Labour. In Luton, bills have risen by 123% since 1997 thanks to Labour Ministers.

New statistics show that 1.4 million households had bailiffs knocking at their door for unpaid council tax last year – up nearly 70 per cent since 1997. Another 1,517 people were made bankrupt by the courts for their council tax debts. 

Nigel Huddleston said: “An astonishing 22,458 cases in Luton were referred to bailiffs for council tax arrears last year and 9 bankruptcy orders were obtained for council tax.  This figure represents one of the highest number of cases per head of population in the entire country.  This is a terrible state of affairs and speaks volumes about both central Labour government and local Labour government incompetence!”

Whitehall guidance issued by John Prescott in 2004 encourages the use of bailiffs by town halls. It even recommends that in-house town hall bailiffs remove the official council branding from their bailiff demands.

New official figures also reveal that that a record 3.1 million households are now in severe council tax difficulties and face liability orders for unpaid council tax.  47,465 of these are in Bedfordshire.  Liability orders allow councils to seize money from wage packets/benefits or commence bailiff proceedings.

Conservatives have pledged to work with councils to freeze council tax bills in England and provide additional central funding to keep bills down for the next two years. Scotland has already benefited from a council tax freeze, making bills almost £300 a year less on a comparable home north of the border. Labour Ministers have ruled out introducing such a policy in England.

Nigel Huddleston added:
“Thanks to Gordon Brown doubling council tax bills, a record number of families in Luton and across the country are struggling to make ends meet. More people now face the threat of menacing bailiffs knocking at their door. This is a crisis of Labour’s own making.

It is right that councils should chase after non-payment of bills, but they can and should do so in a less menacing manner.  If the Council had spent the money more wisely and kept the bills down then many local people would not be in such financial difficulties, unable to pay the bills in the first place.

The fact that Labour Ministers have blocked a council tax freeze for England shows how out of touch Gordon Brown is with the plight of hard-working families and pensioners. Only a Conservative Government will work with Luton Council to help fund a council tax freeze and bring real help to low and middle income families. Only Conservatives can deliver the change our country needs.”

The first video contains footage of the march and the second one of the speeches on Caddington Green.

The third is a picture gallery from the entire morning.

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The shamelessness of our current (though still absent) MP, Margaret Moran continues.

She is currently fighting a race discrimination case over three staff she sacked last year - around the height of the expenses scandal.  She has time and energy to make statements and fight a court case, but not to find time for her constituent's apparently.

She was never the most visible or responsive of MPs but the absence of her staff probably helps explain why so many people have struggled to get any response or help form her office for so long.  Meanwhile, the one person in her parliamentary office who was endeavouring to hold the fort in Ms Moran's absence has - unsurprisingly - left for another job. 

Not having an MP or a working office for nearly a year is disgraceful.  That the Luton Labour party and even the new Labour candidate for Luton South fail to criticise Moran for this is outrageous.  She should have resigned 8 months ago and let someone else do the job properly rather than consciously desert her constituents while being happy to take the salary and accrue the pension rights while waiting to pocket the £30K plus resettlement grant.  Ms Moran may have forgotten about Luton but we have not fogotten or forgiven her.

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