There was a row in the Commons this week about the consequences of ending bursaries for undergraduates studying to become nurses.
The Government ended the Bursary scheme in 2017, enabling nursing students to take a student loan just as a student studying for any other degree might be expected to.  The row was over the fact that in each of the two years since, applications for nursing degrees have fallen sharply (down 13% this year).

I think the anger is largely misplaced. It seemed to me that the real scandal was that so many applicants for nursing were being turned away because there was a shortage of places on courses.
The savings from abolishing the bursary are being used to fund 25% more training places.
So long as the number of well qualified applicants is still sufficient to fill all the places available, including the extra 25%, (and they remain more than sufficient) then the number of nurses will increase, irrespective of the reduction in total number of applicants.

There may also be another benefit: One of the strategic mistakes made by government in the nineteen nineties was to accept the Royal College of Nursing’s  agenda for a ‘degree-only’ nursing profession, and to abolish the status of the State Enrolled Nurse. This mistake accentuated the move to ‘high tech’ nursing and denied to the profession nurses whose primary role was just caring for patients rather than curing them. Sometimes anxious and vulnerable patients need not only to be ‘treated’ but to be spent time with, to be fed, or even just to have someone hold their hand.
The introduction of an entry to the profession through an apprenticeship -which is part of the new scheme- may, I hope, go some way to getting the balance right

Constituents have  sent me a whole stack of cards asking me to back legislation to legalise assisted suicide.
The Commons last debated this in the autumn of 2015 and the proposal was defeated by 330 votes to 118, which I thought was sufficiently overwhelming to settle the issue for quite a few years, but apparently not.

Attempting suicide used to be unlawful until 1961, since when we have the right to end our own lives if we choose.  Someone else doing it for you however, remains a serious criminal offence.

I entirely understand the dreadful dilemma of those with terminal degenerative conditions who want to continue to live whilst there is some quality to life, but want the reassurance that, when the pain and indignity becomes unbearable, someone will be able to able to end it for them, if by then they have lost the capability of doing it for themselves.

My concern however, is that if a convenient and accepted procedure and process becomes established for ending life, it will be a very short step from ‘choice’ to ‘expectation’.  I fear that as elderly and vulnerable people become a greater burden to the healthcare system, their own finances, and their families, there will ever so subtle, and not so subtle expressions of expectation that they will do ‘the decent thing’.

Clearly, going to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland to end one’s life is an expense and inconvenience that anyone, especially the terminally ill, would want to avoid. Given the awesome finality of what they are planning however, is it really too much to expect of them?

Following the Lords raising two fingers to BREXIT with their amendments requiring us to remain within key elements of the EU (with attendant costs and obligations); hijacking the negotiations to Parliament; and now interfering with our departure date; my inbox is overflowing with outraged demands for the reform of the House of Lords.

I do not think this is the remedy. The problem is not the Lords, but the Commons. The Lords are trying it on because they know that the arithmetic is very tight in the Commons, so given their lordships’ distaste for BREXIT, they think it’s worth a try.
Were the position in the Commons robustly in support of the Government’s BREXIT policy, the Lords would not be bothering.

The Problem in the Commons is a direct consequence of the election last year. The PM, with a majority of only 15, didn’t think it was enough to get BREXIT through Parliament, so she asked the people for a stronger mandate, but they chose not to give her one. And that is why their Lordships believe that they have leave to gum-up the process and the negotiations.

In ordinary circumstances the Lords is just a revising chamber and the overwhelming majority of those legislative revisions are accepted by the Commons. If it really comes to a crunch in a row between the two houses at which neither is prepared to blink first, then ultimately all the Lords can do is delay, until the Commons forces the matter through under the provisions of the 1911 Parliament Act.

My email correspondents demand however, that the Lords become more democratic, by which they mean elected, as is the Senate in the USA, so that it will reflect the popular will.
The greatest obstacle to any such plan, and I have seen two crash in my time, is the House of Commons. Were the Lords to be elected in some way, then that democratic legitimacy would soon enough lead to the demands for real power beyond their current status as a mere revising chamber. That power could only come from the Commons: and we have no intention of giving it up.
As a parliamentary representative of the New Forest, the last thing I would welcome would be some peer on my turf purporting to represent the very same people as I do.
Given this hornets’ nest, there is little appetite in any government for investing the time and energy to try and resolve it with a reform that will command sufficient support in both houses to get it through.

So, given the current state of affairs, reform of the Lords, or the empty threat of it, is no solution to the wrecking amendments to the EU withdrawal bill that are currently being passed there.
The only remedy is to overturn the amendments when they return to the Commons.
Will there be a majority in the Commons to do so?

It’s just too soon to tell.

Following the Government defeat in the Lords on the customs union, we debated it in the Commons. The outcome was not conclusive (that has yet to come), but nevertheless the debate was instructive: the customs union’s advocates egged each other on; intervening in each other’s speeches to agree that they clearly saw the customs union and the single market as being one, and were opposed to leaving either, which begged the question ‘what then is the point of leaving the EU at all?’
At which point they cheered one another to the rafters.

So, at least they are transparent and hardly bother to cloak their intentions. We can all see where this is going…and yet these were the same members who lined up in the Article 50 debate to announce that, notwithstanding having campaigned to remain, they now accepted the will of the voters.
…Really?

Meanwhile the Lords moved on to the issue of a “meaningful vote” to follow the conclusion of the negotiations with the EU.
By ‘meaningful vote’ they mean not just having the ability to accept or reject the agreement reached, so that that, were Parliament to reject the agreement, then we won’t just leave the EU next March without any agreement and revert to World Trade Organisation rules.
On the contrary, they mean to give Parliament the power to determine exactly what happens next. This will include delaying, deferring, or cancelling our departure. In effect, the meaningful vote is to be even more meaningful than the referendum of June 2016 –and that is really what this is all about.

Of course, I can entirely understand the desire of elected representatives wishing to determine, or at the very least to influence the outcome of the negotiation process in what is, after all, a parliamentary democracy. The problem is that the very presence of a parliamentary meaningful vote at the end of the process fundamentally undermines our negotiating stance: it invites the EU to offer such poor terms with the confidence that Parliament will be bound to reject them.
Already there have been a number of meetings in Brussels between parliamentary opponents of BREXIT and the EU with the object of co-ordinating just such an outcome.

A well-funded campaign has begun, and which will continue for the rest of the year, with the object of persuading us all that we made a terrible mistake and that either we, or our Parliament must undo it.
Given the arguments that we heard about the customs union and the internal market in Parliament last week, it is clear that no agreement reached with the EU will ever be good enough to persuade the hard core of remainers to accept it.

As I have warned before in this column, their strategy is one of ‘demoralise and delay, in order to defeat’.
The question is whether we, as voters, have the stamina and the will to continue to demand that our decision be honoured.

There should be no surprise that the House of Lords has been doing its worst to neuter the Government’s EU Withdrawal Bill: I remind readers that I reported in this column on the 6^th March 2017, my debate with Lord Butler, the former Cabinet Secretary, and Lord Lester one of our leading lawyers, before a City of London audience, when they argued against the motion that ‘the UK is leaving the EU’ and made it clear in their speeches that their Lordship’s House would do everything to stop it.

The Key question is however, what will the Commons do?
And the key issue upon which that question will focus is the EU customs union. The Lords have already amended the Withdrawal Bill to require the UK to remain within the customs union.
Will the Commons follow their lead?

Of course, to do so would be extraordinary given that 80% of us voted less than a year ago for political parties committed explicitly to leave the customs union (whatever they have decided subsequently).
Desire to stay is bizarre: it would require us to hand over the conduct of our trade policy to EU officials without any influence over their decision making, their priorities, or any ability to hold them to account for their conduct of it.
Any trade deals negotiated between the EU and other third countries would require us to open our markets on the terms negotiated but without reciprocal concessions for us.
It is the daftest of policies. Why on earth would anyone contemplate it?
The answer is simple: it is at least one way of scuppering BREXIT.

The customs union is the essential core of the EU. It was there from the foundation and long predates the internal market. If you like, think of it as the walls of Mordor, it protects the fortress from trade from the rest of the world with a common external tariff. Or think of it as the “one ring to rule them all…and in the darkness bind them” as It holds the EU together in one mercantilist relationship against free trade with the world.

Remaining within it would be a betrayal of ‘taking back control’ and all that we voted for in the referendum, but there is no arguing with its adherents. It is the nearest thing to a religious belief. To accept the will of the people would, for them, be like denying the existence of their god.

Do not despair, the battle is not lost yet, but it will be very tight indeed.
If we were to lose it however, who would be to blame?
Don’t blame the Lords, they have no power if overawed by the Commons.
So blame the Commons, but remember that it was the voters who determined its current composition less than a year ago.

If we did lose that vote, whatever advisers in in Number 10 may do, or however few ministers resign, I will certainly be one of those shedding tears into my beer.

Irrespective of the action taken against Syria, whether it was the right thing to do, or the wrong thing to do, either way, ought Parliament to have voted first?

Giving the decision to Parliament is no guarantee as to the wisdom of the outcome. Exceptionally, we gave the decision whether to invade Iraq to Parliament, and look how that turned out.
I say ‘exceptionally’ because giving Parliament a vote on military action is a recent innovation.
Of all the military conflicts in which we have been involved (and there are a couple of hundred since 1800), Parliament voted on three: For the Iraq war; against attacking Assad in Syria, and in favour of air strikes against Daesh in Syria; and all of these in the last two decades.

It is an innovation of which I disapprove and I am glad that it now appears to have been abandoned.

The Government is accountable to Parliament for its decisions and the conduct of military operations, but it is not obliged to ask for Parliament’s prior permission.

The job of Parliament is to make the law, and government ministers must abide by that law, just as everyone else has to.
If Parliament wants to have a veto on military operations then it must pass a law to that effect. It is nonsense to have parliamentarians complaining about not being consulted first, when they make no legislative proposals to require it in future.

Ought Parliament to legislate to give itself decision making powers over military operations?
I believe it would be folly for us to do so.
It would make us the most unreliable of allies, and unable to give assurances with respect to military plans.
It would rob us of the most important of military advantages: the ability to use surprise and to take the initiative. This weakness alone, would invite an enemy to seize the initiative in the knowledge of our likely parliamentary procrastination.
In seeking to persuade Parliament to authorise military action, governments would be tempted to share intelligence with it. This would be extremely dangerous: Intelligence is vital, but its value lies in its very secrecy; it is important that an enemy does not know what we know, and what we do not know. If they discover what we know it is a short step to figuring out how we know it, so enabling them to take preventive measures.

Of course, those who would support the principle of prior parliamentary approval for military operations would be likely to try ameliorate these difficulties by making provision for emergency action by Government when there is simply no time to wait for a Parliamentary process. Herein lies perhaps the greatest danger: Governments potentially taking precipitate action in order to justify avoiding a difficult and possibly prolonged parliamentary proceeding, even for the best of motives.

Let Government deliberate on the basis of intelligence, military and legal advice, that is what Ministers are for.
If they get it wrong, they are accountable to Parliament for their decisions. Accordingly, if Parliament wants to, it can sack the Government.

My second reaction to the news of the arrest last week of pensioner Richard Osborne-Brooks, was of dismay at the prospect of a deluge of quite properly outraged emails that I knew I would receive because of it.
How on earth could an elderly man be arrested for defending himself when being robbed in his own home, even if that defence ended with the death of his robber?
That outrage was only set to multiply as more information emerged, that his assailant had a formidable criminal record involving the targeting vulnerable pensioners.
I was naturally relieved, when Mr Osborne-Brooks was released without charge.

My first, reaction however, at hearing the news was one of total bemusement. It was early in the morning when I first heard the newscast: was I dreaming it?
Surely it couldn’t be happening, because I remembered that we had fixed the problem: after years of effort didn’t we change the law to protect the likes of Mr Osborne-Brooks?
The Answer is yes.
For years in opposition we attempted to get two private members’ bills through and failed, but we managed get the law changed under the coalition government in 2013. That change that we secured enabled anyone finding a burglar in their home to defend themselves, and to be protected from prosecution if they killed or injured the intruder, unless it can be proved that wholly disproportionate force was used.
So how come Mr Osborne-Brooks was even arrested?
Clearly, he shouldn’t have been.

Imagine yourself, disturbing a burglar in the dead of night. You hear a noise downstairs, you go to investigate, in the kitchen someone leaps out at you, it’s dark, you can’t see if your attacker is armed, but instinctively you grab the bread knife and take a lunge at him. Unfortunately, your attacker is killed, and subsequently discovered to have been unarmed after all. Have you committed an offence?
I do not believe that a public prosecutor would go to the expense of proceedings, because there would be no reasonable prospect of a jury being persuaded to convict.
If however, your burglar fled and you chased him down the garden path and you stabbed him in the back as he tried to get away. Well, then there might be more of an argument as to whether wholly disproportionate force had been used, a day in court therefore would not be an unreasonable expectation.

Ultimately, whatever the words in the law say, we have to rely on the good sense and judgement of 12 jurors.

I have had several emails from constituents who have worked themselves into quite a state over the takeover of the engineering firm GKN by Melrose. Some of my correspondents have got the wrong end of the stick, likening it to the takeover of Cadbury by Kraft back in 2010, they appear not to have spotted that Melrose is a UK enterprise just as much as is GKN.

I have not been able to get excited about it. GKN has been a great British enterprise with an illustrious history, but with respect to the takeover bid, I think it had it coming.
For the last few years the performance at GKN has been less than impressive. The impression was of a company coasting, event slacking, and senior management lacking focus and energy.
Melrose, on the other hand, has performed formidably and has a record of refocusing enterprises on their core business and sharpening the management. As for the fear that parts of the business will be sold off, there is nothing unusual about that, it can often be the sensible thing to do, and apparently GKN was planning to do that itself anyway

One great British enterprise bought-up by another successful British enterprise, is not a great headline, that is why it has been dressed up with all that pejorative stuff about ‘asset-strippers’ and ‘greedy city hedge funds’.
My perspective different: it’s one of free markets exercising a discipline that keeps companies and their managements on their toes, performing at the top of their game.

Just suppose however, that Melrose had been a foreign-owned undertaking. Would my attitude be different?
It would not. I believe in free trade and the free movement of capital, from which we prosper more than most: In the UK we own more overseas assets per head of population than almost any other country in the world. The profits from which flow back into UK coffers. It is something we have been doing for generations. As the greatest of ‘offenders’ we are hardly in a position to complain when somebody else buys-up something British.

I felt that all the angst about Cadbury was rather misplaced. Traditional British chocolate manufacturer, still informed by the social values of its Quaker founders, swallowed-up by multinational giant. Not quite!
Remember, whilst Cadbury was indeed once a traditional Quaker confectioner, it had itself become a voracious and acquisitive predator, it was after all actually Cadbury-Schweppes.

If companies want to fund their expansion and investment in one of the most effective ways available, raising the capital by selling shares, then we must accept that shareholders have a right to realise their own investment and sell the shares when, and to whom they choose. To seek to interfere with that right will drive capital from our shores and kill the goose that is laying the golden eggs.

I have received a number of angry emails criticising ‘Brexit betrayal’.
Two issues in particular have got their goat: the decision to award the contract for the blue passport to a French company, and the EU transition agreement which will see the UK remain within the Common Fisheries Policy for a further 21 months.

First, the passports.
I regret that the best bid did not come from a UK company, but I disagree profoundly with my  correspondents who say the contract should have been awarded to a poorer bid just because it came from a UK producer.
I would no more criticise a neighbour who bought a foreign car because it best suited his needs and his pocket, than I would the Home Office for selecting the best offer, even though it came from France.
One of the reasons I campaigned for Brexit is because I believe that we are an outward-looking nation that benefits from free trade.
I don’t want to live in an inward-looking island that favours its own producers even though better deals could be had by its consumers elsewhere.
It is international competition that will keep our producers striving to be the most innovative and competitive.
The moment we follow President Trump down his blind alley of ‘America First’ shielding our producers from competition, we will be on the road to ruin.

Now, for the fish.
I was angry at the news that we would not be leaving the Common Fisheries Policy on 29 March next year at the same time as we leave the EU, but I had to reflect on why I was so emotional about it.
After all, the fishing industry is a tiny proportion of our economy: to put it bluntly, we have bigger fish to fry.
What is more, having campaigned to leave the EU and its Common Fisheries Policy for 45 years, how much difference will a further 21 months make?
Well, here are the answers.
The fishing industry is tiny because it was sacrificed when we joined the Common Market in 1973. There was no Common Fisheries Policy before we joined; they saw us coming, and created a policy to plunder our waters. It was considered as a price worth paying by the government of Edward Heath.
Second, there is something deeply symbolic about regaining control of our territorial waters as a great maritime nation, and to put it off is to put in doubt our will to ‘take back control’.
Which brings us to the issue of only a further 21 months.
Given past experience, such is our mistrust of our partners that we suspect that 21 month window will offer them the opportunity to alter arrangements with other coastal states like Norway and Iceland, that will bind and constrain us well beyond the 21 months.
Also, because in the past access to our waters has been offered up as a bargaining chip to secure greater economic prizes, the concession of a further 21 months is seen as a worrying sign that the habit may persist.
Only time will tell.