At this time of year I’ve often used this column to reflect on doom-laden prophesies about what to expect in the year ahead. After all, It’s that magnificent time when we can wallow in the short dark days and add to the gloom with blood-curdling predictions of disasters.
  A couple of weeks ago, notwithstanding that we are still wrestling with our current pandemic, Dr Jenny Harries, the head of our UK Health Security Agency  -what Stalinist mind thought up that nomenclature? – warned us that the next pandemic could be much worse.
Well, she could be right, but equally she could be spectacularly wrong: There is no scientific basis for her supposition. Whether her speculations were designed to be helpful, or simply to terrify us, is a matter for conjecture, but a number of people have been suggesting -from the outset- that our fears of the current pandemic were overblown. Personally, I was well ahead of Dr Harries: right at the start, I warned in the Commons that one day there may be a disease that will threaten our very survival; but that Covid certainly isn’t it – and that future generations will wonder at our collective acts of self-harm in our response to it.

For those of us who wallow in predictions of the dreadful prospects that the future holds, I recommend my favourite book of all time: The Coffee Table Book of Doom, which was published a few years ago by Art Lester and Steven Appleby. Here is a flavour from the advertising blurb:
“…with the apocalypse at hand, don’t fret about dying uninformed. The Coffee Table Book of Doom is a revelatory, brilliantly funny, superbly illustrated and erudite compendium of all the 27 doom-laden horsemen we need to worry about – personal doom, gender erosion, asteroid impact, pandemics, super storms, sexual ruin – and much more besides.”

I can’t speak for all 27 doom laden horsemen but surely we’ve had enough of pandemics and aren’t tired of the continued interference in our enterprises, personal choices, and our way of life from politicians who believe that they are best placed to make decisions on our behalf, rather that treating us as adults capable of assessing risks and acting sensibly?

 Anyway, there is still plenty to worry about: there is a volcano under a lake near Naples rumbling away and if it blows it will make Vesuvius look like a camp fire. The lava lake under Yellowstone Park could go at any moment, taking most of the USA with it…but then the volcanic cloud it might darken the skies, cool the planet and save us from climate change. Alternatively, it might reduce harvests to the extent that we all starve….

Every generation since we were expelled from the Garden of Eden has speculated that it might be the last, but we’re still here.

I recall some common sense from the Government’s Chief scientific officer, who said earlier this year that “we have to learn to live with Covid”. Well, whatever happened to that? 

The Government continues to be in thrall to scientific modellers with doomsday predictions.
The value of the output from any model -however robust its design- depends upon the assumptions that are fed into it. Some of the terrifying numbers from the modelling that we have seen in the last few days are the result of assumptions that take no account of the data that is coming out of South Africa -that the new variant, despite being more infectious, appears to be milder and consequent hospitalisations fewer and shorter. Many of the alarming numbers aren’t even the output of models at all, they are mere extrapolations: assuming that what has happened, will go on happening at the same rate, irrespective of experience that things rarely do so.

As I said in the Commons at the beginning of last week, this is all part of a ‘Ministry of Fear’ designed to ensure our compliance with instructions that compromise fundamental liberties, and indeed, condition us to demand even greater restraints on that liberty, so overawed are we by the present danger.

Part of this work of terrorising the population is undertaken with enthusiasm by the broadcast media, a job made so much easier by the twenty four hour news cycle which enables us to constantly receive the same bad news throughout the day from the moment that we wake up in the morning, hearing on the radio that we’d die horribly drowning in our own phlegm, repeated until the moment we go to bed.
What is astounding is that, as each new prediction is trotted out, no account is taken of the previous record of the source. Let’s take, for example, one of the media’s favourite modellers, Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London.
In 2001, Professor Ferguson predicted 150,000 human deaths from foot-and-mouth; but under 200 died. In 2002, he predicted up to 50,000 deaths from BSE; in the end, 177 died. In 2005, he said that 150 million people could be killed by bird flu; 282 died. In 2009, a Government estimate based on his advice said that a “reasonable worst-case scenario” for swine flu would lead to 65,000 British deaths; in the end, 457 people died. He predicted 85,000 Covid deaths in Sweden consequent on their policy of avoiding lockdown; in fact, 6,000 Swedes have died. In July this year he predicted that 100,000 daily cases was almost inevitable following our release from restrictions. It just didn’t happen.
Yet the broadcasters will quote the latest models as if they were the Gospel truth.

My prejudice is that the latest scare won’t be anything like as bad forecast. We look to ministers to resist the measures being urged upon them which will damage society and the economy, but then, on the basis of past performance that expectation looks pretty shaky too. 

Any number of constituents have demanded my opinion on Downing Street parties. Well, as I wasn’t there, it seems reasonable to await the findings of the Cabinet Secretary, rather than rely on the assumptions of screaming headlines.  Where many of my correspondents are plain wrong however, is the conclusion they have jumped to in taking the view that the PM couldn’t not have known that a party was taking place in his house: Number 10 Downing Street isn’t a house, it is just a front door which gives access to a large suite of open plan offices and meeting rooms on three floors stretching all the way to the Cabinet Office and largely populated by career civil servants. The PM’s flat is in the rafters above Number 11 Downing Street. Having been in the flat a number of times under a former regime, I can attest that, once inside, it is perfectly possible not to have any idea of what is happening behind the front door of Number 10.

Given that everything in Government leaks, I am very suspicious that it has taken a year for the story to surface, but I’ll wait on the outcome of the investigation.

 

Having asked the Secretary of State on Monday 6^th December how many positive cases with the new variant were actually ill – to which the answer appeared to be ‘none’ – I was devastated by the absurd decision to implement ‘plan B’ only three days later. Of course, some patients with the new variant will end up in hospital. I will be disappointed, but I hope that the numbers are limited. I almost get the impression however, that some crazed control freaks will welcome hospitalisations as the opportunity to impose an even more restrictive measures on our lives.

 

Notwithstanding my opposition to the restrictions that have been imposed upon us, there are two bright spots. First, the requirement to isolate after contact with the new variant which was announced on Monday, has already been revoked  and replaced only by the need to take tests. So, at least we are spared another ‘pingdemic’.

Second, constituents have complained about the absurdity of requiring them to work from home, yet allowing social gatherings and parties to proceed unhindered. My response: Don’t complain about small mercies and don’t look a gift horse in the mouth! However absurd, enjoy the opportunities that we still have: Give the hospitality industry a boost – go out, eat out, there is plenty of capacity given the cancellations that have already started to happen.

 

Constituents often write to me to complain that our fundamental liberty of freedom of speech no longer endures. I don’t believe this perception is down to the statutory provisions that we have made in recent years to protect minorities. In fact these do no more in principle than the ancient common law prohibition against occasioning a breach of the peace: incitement has always been unlawful.
Rather, I put it down largely to the caustic nature of contemporary public discourse. Such is the fury with which unfashionable opinions are greeted, that those that hold them are terrified to express them. We appear to have lost the ability to disagree just because we believe that our opponents are wrong, now we need to denounce them as wicked as well.
Over the last couple of years a large number of academics, clinicians, and civil servants have contacted me to draw attention to concerns that they have about public policy within their areas of expertise. They have included professors and senior people at the very top of their professions. What has been remarkable is the extent to which they wish to remain anonymous. They believe that there is something serious that needs to be out in the public debate, but they are not willing to put their heads above the parapet and say it themselves. They fear the hostile reaction from their own colleagues and fellow professionals. They believe that they have lost their voice, but as a parliamentarian, I still have a voice, so they put their trust in me to give voice to their concerns.

Well, the fundamental guarantee that I do have an unrestrained voice is set out in the one written part of our largely unwritten constitution: The Bill of Rights 1689. 

“that freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached in any court or place out of Parliament”
So, my privilege is that I cannot be taken to task for anything that I say in Parliament, this the fundamental guarantee of the rights of a free parliament…until now at any rate.

A new edition of the code of conduct for MPs has been published for consultation. It recommends that the scope of the Commissioner for Standards be extended to what takes place in the Commons, its division lobbies and in its parliamentary committees.  This will give a policing function over elected members to an official in a clear breach of the guarantee set down in the Bill of Rights.
This is compounded by the addition of a new principle of ‘respect’  to be added to the standards, which will require MPs to “demonstrate anti-discriminatory behaviours“ through the promotion of “inclusion and diversity” amongst others.
It may sound anodyne enough but it was differing interpretations of inclusion and diversity that has just driven a professor from her job at Sussex University. I have no doubt that this would have a further chilling effect on free speech, and it is a fundamental attack on democratic choice.

It is a cliché to say that the loss of 26 lives in the channel on a single day was an ‘accident waiting to happen’ but it was exactly that. There is no question that it was entirely foreseeable and a consequence of the relatively light touch of the French approach to the policing of their beaches.
It also puts into perspective the many emails that I have received from constituents demanding that our own Border Force abandon the ‘taxi service’ shepherding the dinghies to our shores when they reach our  territorial waters.
Our officers have received training on how to turn back the dinghies but the circumstances in which this is permissible are very limited and it is fraught with danger – they are the flimsiest of craft.
Just consider what the state of public opinion and overseas commentary would now be, had the loss of life occurred on a boat that we had turned back: we would be an international pariah.

Critics on the opposition benches in the Commons argue that the cross channel route would be rendered obsolete if only we would open up more lawful routes by which applicants for asylum can reach the UK.
 I do not believe it is fair to fault us on that score: The UK initiated a scheme for 20,000 vulnerable Syrians. We are about to initiate a similar scheme for 20,000 vulnerable Afghans, which is in addition to the 15,000 that we evacuated from Afghanistan in August – most of whom are still living in hotels and short-term accommodation as we try and find permanent dwellings for them across the UK.
In addition, we have set up a scheme in response to China’s repression in Hong Kong, which is projected to receive around 422,000 applications in its first four years. The scheme requires that applicants hold a British National Overseas passports which were issued to citizens following the handover of Hong Kong from the UK to China in 1997. Whilst the scheme allows applicants to bring adult children with them to the UK, nevertheless, many young people have had to flee alone, having been involved in the protests against the loss of liberty. They do not qualify themselves because they were not born when Hong Kong was handed over to China and they have left their qualifying parents behind, who wish to remain in Hong Kong. So, now there is an amendment before the Immigration and Borders bill to extend the scheme to these young people as well.

I share the desire of the constituents that we be compassionate to those whose circumstances are so much less fortunate than our own, but the political reality is that the desire to come to the UK for a better life is pretty well unlimited and inevitably has to be rationed.
As I have so often argued in this column, our most effective contribution is the one we make as the world’s second largest donor, in the form of our international development aid to alleviate the conditions in the places from which the occupants of the dinghies are fleeing.

I last wrote about channel crossing in this column on 27 July Channel Crossings (desmondswaynemp.com) since when, despite the lateness in the year the numbers just keep rising. Constituents write to me in frustration demanding action without specifying what action they have in mind. I sometimes ask what it is that they can suggest.

I never had much faith in the prospect of the French stopping the flow even though we are paying them to do so. They could if they had the will, but they have other priorities. I suppose we should be grateful for the 30% of crossing that we estimate that they are preventing.

Neither had I any faith in training provided to Border Force to enable them to turn boats back. Despite that training, they have proved most reluctant to do it. I can understand their reluctance, as would the public when the bodies of children start being washed ashore.

The crossings, which are uncomfortable, dangerous and very expensive, will only be deterred when the probability of swift deportation makes the endeavour uneconomic. Currently the barriers to deportation make it a near certainty that those who are successful in making the crossing will get to stay.

The Immigration and Borders Bill, currently going through Parliament, is designed to address the barriers to deportation and remove the possibility of endless appeals -so recently exploited by our latest suicide bomber.
It does still leave however, the problem of to where we can deport our failed asylum cases to. I spent some time as a minister trying to persuade foreign governments to adopt a more helpful attitude to taking back their own citizens, but without much success.

The bill will make it an imprisonable offence to enter the UK unlawfully, which will include crossing the channel in a dingy, but I am sceptical that we will fill our prisons with migrants. Even were we to, we would still face the difficulties of deportation once sentences have been served.

The real hope that I see in the Bill is its enabling provisions that will empower the Government to set up off-shore processing centres. The prospect of being swiftly removed to an overseas processing facility for an indefinite period will be a powerful disincentive to undertaking the expensive and dangerous crossing.
This is the solution that has worked effectively for Australia. We must not imagine however, that implementation will be swift or straightforward. It will certainly be controversial and there will be plenty of voices that will denounce the policy as inhumane.  It will also prove expensive: Any country that is prepared to host our off-shore processing will want to be richly rewarded.

Despite these difficulties, I see no alternative than to persevere. Our current problem is bound to get worse. Potential migrants watching from so many less eligible countries have seen the social media output from those that have successfully made the crossing, which will encourage them to follow.
The relative ease with which it turns it turns out that the Channel can be crossed has opened a new migration route. It is vital that we close it off before climate change and instability generates a so much greater flow of migrants.

Unsurprisingly, I’ve had quite a few emails demanding that MPs should be prohibited from taking second jobs. We rarely apply such a restriction to anyone else in society, so I’m not yet persuaded that it should apply to MPs.  The argument for making such an exclusive arrangement for MPs would not necessarily be that they won’t give enough time an attention to their ‘proper job’ because that might apply to anyone with a second job. Rather, a more persuasive reason for excluding MPs from the possibility of ‘moonlighting’ would be that their other remunerated interests might unduly influence them when legislating. The way to deal with this possibility is to require full disclosure and to outlaw advocacy and lobbying. This is exactly what the current rules do. Of course, there will always be scope for some tightening up, but as we’ve seen recently, the penalty for breaking the existing rules can be devastating.

A hundred or so MPs are on the Government payroll: In addition to their duties as MPs they have very demanding jobs as ministers  -for which they are quite properly paid.  In my opinion they are not paid nearly enough for the hours that they work and the responsibilities that they carry. It seems to me absurd that we pay the Prime Minister only £79,000 (in addition to the £82,000 we pay him for being an MP) which compares very unfavourably with senior roles in industry and the public services.

Given that we accept that MPs can have second jobs as ministers, it would be rather unfair to exclude the possibility of additional earning for extra responsibilities for MPs who are not ministers. That is why we don’t. On the contrary, MPs who are selected to chair legislative standing committees, select committees, or the Commons itself as Speaker and deputy speakers are paid for it.
If we accept that MPs, in addition to their responsibility to represent their constituents, have time to carry out these functions and be paid for them. Why should they not also do so by carrying on -in moderation- their former professions as nurses, doctors, dentists, lawyers, accountants, or whatever?
In Parliament we have all of the above, and we are better off for it. We are better informed by having professionals who are still up to date in their fields with their finger on the pulse with what is happening in industry, business and the NHS.

I think it would be a great shame if we were to become a class of professional politicians increasingly detached from the experience and expertise of life outside Parliament.
As for independence of mind, as a whip, I always found it much more difficult to lean on MPs for whom their political career was not the ‘be-all and end-all’ and who had other professional interests to fall back on.

 It seems to me that the greater danger is not that we are too open to undue influence, but rather that we would excluding from our deliberations people of great knowledge and ability, who might command significantly greater remuneration elsewhere. In short, the danger is mediocrity.
Of course the solution to that one,  would be to pay MPs so much more. My political antenna tell me that this would be deeply unpopular. So, be careful what you wish for.

All that talk of a ‘gentler politics’ that that followed the death of Sir David Amess didn’t last very long. The resolution to ‘disagree honourably’ without imputing the basest of motives to those with whom we disagreed, certainly didn’t survive Wednesday’s debate. The name-calling and gesticulating was vile, and I’m very sad to say that some of my correspondence has been little better.

The parliamentary disciplinary system has the three parts: an investigation by the Commissioner; the scrutiny of her report by the Select Committee: and a debate by the Commons on the Committee’s findings and recommended sanction. The Process is owned by the Commons and its members have every right to explore and question the report, to reject or amend its recommendations.
Nevertheless, Wednesday was the first time we’ve actually done so. What was different this time?
The difference was that this was the first time that the defendant has vigorously denied the charges. On all the other occasions in recent years the accused has confessed, apologised and begged for mercy. The system appeared shocked, even affronted, that the accused might resist: there seemed something rather sinister when the Committee Chairman broke parliamentary convention and addresses Mr Patterson directly at the end of the debate : “this could have been very different if you had come to us and said ‘I am sorry, I was trying to do the right thing but I got it wrong’…”
He appeared to be unable to comprehend that the accused believed that he had done nothing wrong at all and that, on the contrary, he had acted entirely properly and in the public interest.

Now, the inquisitorial method adopted by the Commissioner and the Committee may well be satisfactory for the uncontested confessions that we had hitherto experienced, but where the interpretation of the facts is so vigorously contested, a more rigorous process, where witnesses are cross-examined, would be appropriate. The Standing Orders provide for the Commissioner and the Committee to adopt such a procedure. They chose not to, but no explanation was had as to why they had not done so. In my opinion it was therefore proper for the Commons to consider whether the accused had been given a fair hearing.

The Committee acts to a large extent as a jury. Jurors have to attend the whole of a trial, they may not absent themselves when attendance is inconvenient. As I pointed out in the debate on Wednesday, when Commons special standing committees sit on private bills hearing evidence they must attend the entire proceeding. In this case however, Mr Paterson’s ‘jury’ adopted another approach: at the three formal sessions on their report, different members were present, barely 50% of them attended all three meetings. Four of the eleven members who sat for the final meeting had not even attended the session in which Mr Paterson was heard by the Committee.

I signed the amendment which left the Committee’s recommendation unresolved until a further review has examined the process. Had I been presented with the report, to accept or reject it, as would have been the case next week had Mr Paterson not resigned, I would have voted it down.
Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum

There are a number of highly politically partisan websites that pass themselves off as objective sources of news.
So, when I was informed that I had voted to pump raw sewage into our rivers, it was certainly news to me. On the contrary, I voted through six pages of measures to stop raw sewage going into our watercourses.
As a regular swimmer throughout the year in rivers and off our beaches, I have every incentive to end the pollution of our waters.

The Government has already made the water companies spend £3 billion to reduce their discharges. Now, with the Environment Bill and the Government’s strategic policy statement which, for the very first time by any Government, directs the regulator to ensure that water companies tackle sewage discharges.

I will consider any new amendment to the Environment Bill that will expedite the removal of  sewage from our waters and I await with interest whatever the Lords are now about to send back to the Commons.
Nevertheless, I stand by what I said after last week’s debate:
I believe that the Environment Bill demonstrates an absolute commitment by the Government to tackling sewage discharges. It introduces an entire new chapter to the Water Industry Act 1991, which places a statutory requirement on the Government to produce a plan to reduce the discharges from storm overflows before 1 September 2022, and commits it to taking action and reporting on progress to Parliament. The Government will also be required to produce a report on the actions that would be needed to eliminate discharges from storm overflows completely  in England, and their costs and benefits, before 1 September 2022.

The difficulty with the previous Lord’s amendment, which I voted against in the Commons, is that it put the cart before the horse: we don’t yet have a clear idea of the costs, or a plan yet for ending discharges, but the amendment wanted to outlaw the discharges before we know how to do it.

We rely on  Victorian designed sewers that combine, in one system, all the water from our lavatories together with the water that runs off out streets when it rains. As the population has grown exponentially we’ve had to invest in expanding the capacity to treat the waste from so many more lavatories. Equally, we’ve paved over so much more of our land surfaces so that more rain enters the sewers rather than being absorbed by the ground. More importantly however, whilst we get pretty well the same amount of rain as before, the changing climate is delivering it in much more intensive bursts with which the system has not the capacity to cope, resulting in the untreated emergency discharges into our rivers

Currently the Storm Overflows Task Force is charged with finding out the extent of what needs to be done. Estimates of the costs vary widely by £ hundreds of billions. Before we fix a date and outlaw the discharges we need to know the scope of the work, the amount that will need to be invested and the impact it will have on our bills (the polluter pays!).
 Were we to outlaw storm discharges before can realistically be delivered, we’ll have rain water and sewage backing up in the system to flood our lavatories, streets and gardens.

For some months  I have been anticipating how analyses of the way that the Government handled the Covid-19 pandemic would focus on the common prejudice that, if only we had locked-down the country sooner and harder so many lives would have been saved.  Without giving sufficient weight to the huge lasting economic and social damage that lock-downs cause.
I was not surprised therefore, when accounts in the media trumpeted the findings of the joint report by the Commons Health and Science & Technology committees and their criticism of exactly that failure to lock down swiftly enough.
Well, nothing is ever quite as bad as first reported. I have now read the report for myself and it is much more nuanced than was evident in the news broadcasts.
It is clear from the report that the policy of choice ought to have been not to lock-down at all, but instead, to follow the example of those jurisdictions that avoided lock-downs because, having earlier experience of the SARS infection, they had developed sophisticated and efficient systems to trace all the contacts of infected persons and isolate them.
The parliamentary committee’s criticism is more focussed on our failure over the longer term to have developed such systems because we really only ever planned for a severe flu epidemic.
When it comes to the analysis of the position last autumn, when there were also demands for swifter and more extensive lock-downs, the report actually supports the Government having resisted those demands.

The usual suspects are now demanding, once again, that the life and livelihood of the nation be restricted to accommodate the needs of the NHS. I find this surprising because Covid-19 hospital occupancy is lower now than it was a month ago.  We are told to be alarmed at the current  50,000 infections per day, -when following the removal of restrictions in July- we were told to expect 100,000 cases per day and still hold our nerve.
In any event, in most cohorts the figures are relatively flat, the growth is largely accounted for by five to twelve-year-olds, who are the most able to shake it off like a common cold.

A principal cause of the pressure that the NHS is under is the rise in what used to be common respiratory and viral infections which are of now increased severity precisely because we have lost so much of our natural immunity by restricting social interaction. The more we see social and economic restrictions as the answer to reducing Covid-19 infections, the more we will generate problems from the loss of our ability to resist other common viruses that put elderly and vulnerable people into hospital, let alone the growing problems for mental health.

Living with the Covid-19 virus means treating it in the way that we treat other endemic diseases. We live with flu which, on a typical winter’s day will carry off 250 souls, but we don’t obsess about it and publish daily statistics.

Over the last 18 months the Lock-down policy has enjoyed high levels of public support, indeed pollsters were telling us that the public would welcome even severer restrictions. Now however, the situation has changed significantly and the public are much more alive to the long-term damaging costs of restricting economic and social life. Hopefully this may act as a constraint on the willingness of ministers to submit to the noisy lobby demanding a return to restrictions.