Sir Desmond Swayne TD

Sir Desmond Swayne TD

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Age UK Cost of Living Email Campaign

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Thanks. The Government is fully committed to ensuring that older people can live with the dignity and respect they deserve. In April, the State Pension was increased by 10.1 per cent, in line with inflation. As a result, the full yearly amount of the basic State Pension will be over £3,050 higher, in cash terms, than in 2010.

Regarding your specific concerns, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is required by law to undertake an annual review of benefits and the State Pension. The outcome of this review will be announced in the year following the publication of the relevant indices by the Office for National Statistics, and the new rates will enter into force from April 2024.

Additionally, while your concerns about the eligibility requirements of the Cost of Living Payments are noted, the Government is providing substantial support for pensioners through the welfare system.

At the Autumn Statement 2022, the Government announced a substantial support package for the most vulnerable for 2023/24, including £300 Cost-of-Living Payments for pensioners; £150 for people on disability benefits; and £900 for people on means-tested benefits, including the 1.4 million pensioners currently in receipt of Pension Credit.

Alongside this, all households, including pensioner households, will benefit from the Government’s Energy Price Guarantee (EPG). This guarantee limits the amount consumers can be charged per unit of gas or electricity. The current price guarantee, set at £3,000, will support households until April 2024. Although energy prices are currently below the level at which EPG payments would be made, it will remain in force until the end of March 2024 to protect households from price spikes, putting in place a safety net for the most vulnerable.

Moreover, the Government is providing an additional £1 billion of funding to enable the extension of the Household Support Fund (HSF) this financial year, bringing total funding to £2.5 billion. Since its launch in October 2021, the HSF has issued early 26 million awards to those in need of support.

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Farmed Fish Email Campaign

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The Animal Welfare Act 2006 makes it an offence to cause unnecessary suffering to any protected animal, or to fail to provide for the welfare needs of an animal, including fish. Regulations also require that farmed fish are spared avoidable pain, distress or suffering during their killing and related operations.

Regulation 1099/2009 on the protection of animals at the time of killing requires that farmed fish are spared avoidable pain, distress or suffering during their killing and related operations but does not include any further requirements. The Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing (England) Regulations 2015 makes it an offence for any person engaged in the restraint, stunning or killing of an invertebrate to cause avoidable pain, distress or suffering.

As part of the Government’s Action Plan for Animal Welfare, Ministers have been considering improvements that could be made to the welfare of farmed fish at the time of killing and asked the Animal Welfare Committee for advice on the killing of farmed fish. The committee has updated its advice from 2014 and the Government will study their recommendations carefully to determine possible next steps, including those around the stunning of farming fish.

Finally, any allegations of welfare or health issues will be investigated by the Animal and Plant Health Agency and the Centre of Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas). Appropriate action is taken against anyone who breaks the law when examples of non-compliance are disclosed.

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Hamas, has it coming

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Until July 2016 I was the minister with responsibility for UK’s assistance to the Palestinians, much of which was channelled through United Nations agencies, some in collaboration with the EU, and some directly by our Department for International Development’s operations based in Jerusalem .
I regarded myself as a critical friend of Israel, but I kept that criticism between myself, our diplomats and the Israeli ministers and politicians with which I interacted.
At one meeting with the Israeli Deputy Prime Minister, who was also their chief negotiator with the Palestinian Authority, my criticism was sufficiently forceful to cause him to storm out in rage.
I had made a number of complaints: illegal settlements on Palestinian land in the West Bank of the Jordan; the unfair treatment of Palestinians; and the bulldozing of schools by the Israeli occupying authorities -built with funding from UK taxpayers.
My concern was that the proposal for a ‘two state’ solution to the conflict, with a Palestinian State co-existing peacefully alongside Israel (which was -and which remains- UK Government’s policy), was becoming increasingly untenable given the rate at which  Israeli settlements were expanding into the occupied Palestinian territory,  making it very difficult to include in any viable and geographically contiguous future Palestinian state.


When I no longer enjoyed that ministerial responsibility, I went public with my criticism for the first time: I led a debate in Parliament on the illegal Israeli settlements in February 2017
Occupied Palestinian Territories: Israeli Settlements – Hansard – UK Parliament
Following the debate I was invited  to meetings with any number of Palestinian representatives. Basic ‘due diligence’ revealed that many of them were on the record with all sorts of blood-curdling statements about the destruction of Israel, and they had associations with terrorist organisations.
In this light it is important to see the conflict from the Israeli point of view: it is impossible to negotiate a settlement with opponents whose aim remains the obliteration of Israel. The horrific attack by Hamas from the Gaza strip which they control and govern is just the latest and worst in a long history of terrorism. The curtailment of civil rights in Israeli occupied Palestinian territories, of which I previously complained, is itself very largely a consequence of the security measures that have had to be taken to protect Israeli citizens from the terrorist threat.
Israel has endured, bombings and killings for so many years. This latest atrocity is the last straw. The Government of Israel must destroy the terrorist organisation that is Hamas, in order to prevent it from continuing its own quest to destroy Israel and all Israelis.

The action against Hamas now presents huge dangers to Israel itself, to the occupants of the Gaza strip , and to the stability of the whole region. Nevertheless, what other course is open to Israel?
It must protect itself from continued attacks
Equally, no peace process can proceed whilst armed terrorists are determined that there should be no peace until Israel is wiped from the map.

Pension Triple Lock Email Campaign

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 The Government is fully committed to ensuring that older people can live with the dignity and respect they deserve, and the State Pension is the foundation of state support for older people. The Triple Lock is Government policy and has been for a long time.

As happens each year, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is required by law to undertake an annual review of benefits and the State Pension. The outcome of that review will be announced in the autumn, following the publication of the relevant indices by the Office for National Statistics in October, and the new rates will take effect from April 2024.

In April, the State Pension saw its biggest ever rise, increasing by 10.1 per cent. The full yearly amount of the basic State Pension is over £3,050 higher, in cash terms, than in 2010. That’s £790 more than if it had been uprated by prices, and £945 more than if it had been uprated by earnings (since 2010).

The Government also provides additional support to older people, which includes the provision of free bus passes, free prescriptions, and Winter Fuel Payments, with Cold Weather Payments for those in receipt of Pension Credit.

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Smoking – what next?

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I won’t be voting to raise the age at which it is lawful to purchase tobacco.
I don’t subscribe to the view that it is proper for the state to direct us to do things that are good for us, or to abstain from things that are bad for us. Providing warnings or encouragement is one thing, but giving us orders is quite another.

A number of journalists have demanded to know how I can continue to support the Prime Minister as leader of my party when such a profound philosophical difference has emerged between us.
Well, first, the PM made it clear that any vote on this question would not be whipped, so the pressure is off; it is purely a matter of conscience.
Second, democracy is messy: There will always be substantial disagreements on matters of principle within our political parties, and more so in the UK. Our voting system ensures that, to have any chance of success, a party must have a broad base of support. Proportional voting systems on the continent however, enable their parties to maintain much narrower ideological purity and still secure representation. The consequence is that multiple parties have to forge a coalition after an election and negotiate a programme for government that was never put to the voters. The virtue of the UK system is that we make our coalitions before any election, in that each political party is itself a coalition which puts its manifesto to the judgement of the voters. Inevitably, our ‘broad church’ polity means that, though united on most issues, our political parties will have significant disagreement on others.

So, back to tobacco.
I don’t doubt that had we known the dangers of tobacco when Sir Walter Raleigh first introduced it to England in 1582 it might well have been banned, but it’s too late now.
The experience in USA of the Prohibition era from 1920 to 1933, where attempting to ban a widely consumed product, in that case alcohol, gave rise to a crime wave, violent gangsterism and widespread flouting of the law, is a warning of how this might play out.
It is one thing to demand that youngsters prove their age, but as the age threshold rises year by year, are we really going to ask the retailer to distinguish between one old man who is entitled to purchase a packet of cigarettes, and another old man, albeit one year younger, who isn’t?
Are we really going to make sure that someone, now aged fourteen, is prohibited thought-out his life from enjoying the luxury of a cigar on New Year’s Eve?
Is this really the business of government?

Aside from rescuing us from ourselves, the principal argument for prohibition is the scale of cost that falls upon the NHS through treatments for smoking-related disease.
I accept that there is a logic to this. We have developed a system of socialised medicine where we share the cost of any individual ill-health among all tax-payers. It follows that anyone who recklessly endangers their health is a burden upon all the rest of us. Does it follow therefore, that we have the right to prevent them?
It may be logical, but it is the thin end of a very thick wedge. Its logic would soon extend to an absolute ban on smoking, and, so proceeding, to alcohol, and to any number of other products that food fascists have on their agendas

Tighter Firework Regulations Email Campaign

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The Government does not have any current plans to restrict the days when fireworks can be used, or make all fireworks silent, or reduce the maximum noise level of fireworks to 90 decibels. Ministers support the considerate use of fireworks, as well as any action taken to reduce the risks and disturbances to individuals, animals and property.

There is a noise level limit of 120 decibels on fireworks for home use, which helps to reduce disturbance to both animals and people. The Animal Welfare Act 2006 makes it an offence to cause unnecessary suffering to animals through the misuse of fireworks. Fireworks should not be set off near livestock or close to buildings that house livestock, or near to horses in fields. Anyone planning a firework display in rural areas should warn neighbouring farmers.

Further, retailers are restricted to only selling consumer fireworks during a limited period around specific seasonal celebrations, and retailers may only supply fireworks outside these periods if they obtain a licence from their local licensing authority. Fireworks used for professionally organised displays are only available for sale to people who have undertaken an accredited course of training in pyrotechnics. Enforcement powers exist for local authorities to take action when fireworks are unsafe, sold illegally or misused. Local authorities and the police also have powers to tackle anti-social behaviour caused by the misuse of fireworks.

Finally, the Government published a statutory Code of Practice for the Welfare of Dogs, which advises dog owners to avoid exercising with dogs during times when fireworks could be let off. The Government has worked with animal welfare groups in previous fireworks seasons to promote the safe and considerate use of fireworks.

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Commit to Action for Nature Email Campaign

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The Government has a legally binding target to halt the decline of nature by 2030, which requires action in our protected sites as vital wildlife havens. In its Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP), the Government restated the commitment to restore 75 per cent of protected sites to a favourable condition by 2042, while also setting an interim target to put us on the right path to achieving this goal by 31 January 2028.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) worked closely with Natural England in setting the interim targets in the EIP and consulted widely on the legally binding targets set out in 2022. Defra continues to work closely with Natural England to achieve both of these commitments.

Further, through the Sustainable Farming Incentive, farmers are paid for actions that support food production and improve farm productivity and resilience, while also protecting and improving the environment. This includes actions relating to soil health, hedgerow management, providing food and habitats for wildlife, and managing pests and nutrients.

When adopted at scale by farmers, these actions will make a significant contribution to the Government’s environment and climate targets, and support objectives to maintain food production and improve farm productivity. This includes the aim published in the EIP of between 65 and 80 per cent of landowners and farmers adopting nature-friendly farming on at least 10 to 15 per cent of their land by 2030.

Regarding green jobs, the UK has attracted around £120 billion investment in renewables since 2010 and is expected to attract a further £100 billion investment in net zero by 2030, supporting up to 480,000 jobs. The Government is providing investors with long-term certainty over policy and regulatory frameworks to unlock investment and create jobs in green industries such as hydrogen, carbon capture, offshore wind and nuclear.

Additionally, any decision to modify our tax regime is a matter for the Treasury and careful consideration will be given to any proposed amendments.

Finally, access to open spaces and nature is important for the health and wellbeing of our communities, and Ministers have set a new ambition that everyone should live within 15 minutes’ walk of a green or blue space. Through the £14.5m ‘Access for All’ programme, the Government has targeted measures to improve access to our protected landscapes and countryside. Defra is also working to complete the England Coast Path, which will be the longest waymarked and maintained coast walking route in the world. Ministers are also creating large-scale, publicly accessible woodlands near towns and cities.

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HS2

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A constituent wrote to complain that he couldn’t find my blog on HS2. That’s because I’ve never written one…yet.

The reality is that most MPs are generalists. Of course, some bring particular, knowledge, expertise and experience from a profession or previous walk of life that they’ve been involved in. Others will master a brief and become expert in an aspect of policy in which they’re particularly interested, or if they’ve been appointed to a specific bill’s standing committee or elected to serve on a select committee.
Not many of us are polymaths, so we are reliant on advice of experts and to temper that advice with our own prejudices and the weight of opinion of constituents, and most important of all, participating in the debate in Parliament -which is, after all, what we were elected to do.

I’ve always had a healthy scepticism for large public sector infrastructure projects. The great age of the railway, though enabled by parliamentary legislation, was financed by private enterprise which carried both the risks and the rewards.
Nevertheless, HS2 with its huge implications for taxpayers, was given thorough parliamentary scrutiny. The Act that enabled it broke precedent by spanning two different parliaments (the members of the special standing committee, to ensure continuity, had to be from ‘safe’ seats which were unlikely to change hands in the election dividing the parliaments).
The Bill was subject to the hybrid procedure because it disproportionately affected so many different private interests. That procedure places a very significant additional burden on the MPs sitting on the committee, giving them a quasi-judicial role.  Various interest groups, represented by parliamentary counsel (specialist barristers) present evidence from witnesses and cross examine the witnesses of other interest groups. The MPs sit as both judge and jury, they can intervene to cross-examine witnesses themselves, as a trial judge might.
The snag is that, like a juror, an MP nominated to such a committee has to present for every session of what, in the case of HS2, was a marathon.

Though I had my doubts, I was never a partisan. I was prepared to accept the judgement of the standing committee that had examined all the evidence in such detail. Those MPs who were most vehement in their opposition clearly had a particular axe to grind: they were disproportionately those colleagues whose constituencies in the Chilterns, and elsewhere, were going to be dug up.
I was to some extent reassured by the pedigree of the protagonists. Philip Hammond, formerly the MP for Runnymede and Weighbridge, was the Secretary of State for Transport who gave the green light to the project, he also became one of our most conservative and parsimonious of chancellors of the Exchequer.

I always thought that halving journey times was a complete red herring. The case was always, in my estimate, built on the huge shortage of rail capacity on the routes north of London, where no new railway had been built for over 100 years. The question was one of ‘if we are going to build the new rail capacity that is needed, would we build an ‘old one’ or one using the latest cutting-edge technology?

We went for the latest technology, and that is largely responsible for the exponential rise in costs.
We have a duty to review the decisions we made in the light of the detrimental impact that these costs have on other important national priorities. It is always difficult to admit a mistake, particularly such a costly one, but it may be better than compounding the mistake by ploughing on.
I will await the outcome of the PM’s review before deliberating further.

“Please help UK shoppers make choices they can trust” Email Campaign

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The Government wants to make it easier for the consumer to purchase food that aligns with their values, by improving transparency and providing the industry with a level playing field to promote such products. The majority of consumers value high standards of animal welfare but this is not always fully reflected in what they purchase.

The Government ran a call for evidence in 2021 to gather data on the impacts of different types of labelling reforms for animal welfare. Over 1,600 responses were received and the evidence suggested that there is public appetite for improved welfare labelling. However, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) does not consider the time is right to consult on proposals to reform labelling for animal welfare.

Ministers intend to continue working with industry to explore how we can harness the market to improve food information for consumers and raise animal welfare standards. As part of this, Defra will continue to gather evidence on the impacts of wide range of market interventions, as well as how they would align with wider labelling proposals such as eco-labelling.

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Save the Great British Holiday Email Campaign

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Holiday lets contribute to the economy, create jobs, and support tourism.  The Government backs small businesses, including responsible short-term holiday letting, which brings significant investment to local communities. At the same time, it is important to acknowledge the impact that large numbers of holiday lets concentrated in an area can have on local communities.

The Government’s proposed planning changes would see the introduction of a new national use class and, simultaneously, the introduction of a new permitted development right. The new permitted development right would provide flexibility where short-term lets are not a local issue and allow for this flexibility to be removed where there is a local concern. Any Article 4 direction to remove the permitted development right must be evidence based and should apply to the smallest geographical area possible, and could therefore be focused on those areas or streets that see the highest numbers of short-term lets, or individual properties.

As set out in the consultation document, when the use class comes into effect existing properties would fall into the short-term let use class where they met the definition or remain as C3 dwellinghouse. Any re-classification is not considered development and so property owners should not need to apply for planning permission where they meet the definition of short-term let. They would be classified as such and would not require planning permission.

As you may know, the Government has also consulted on plans for a short-term lets registration scheme. A registration scheme is important. Crucially, it will provide information to help local authorities enforce health and safety regulations and apply and enforce the planning changes.

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