Home Information Packs

Published November 24, 2009 General Leave a Comment
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I was delighted to note this morning that Grant Shapps the Conservative Shadow Minister in charge of our housing policy has announced that he plans to suspend the use of Home Information Packs -often referred to as HIP’s- within weeks if a Conservative Government is elected.

For those who don’t know I should say that HIP’s are a new idea introduced by Labour. basically the idea is that when someone is selling their home they have to prepare or more typically pay someone else to prepare a Home information Pack for them before they can sell their house. The Home Information Pack contains details about the owners right to sell the property – the title deeds – local search enquiries, replies to enquiries from the purchaser’s solicitors and an energy performance certificate giving details about how energy efficient the property is. The only new bit is the energy performance certificate and these will have to be retained even if HIP’s are scrapped because I understand they are required under European Legislation. The logic is that if the Seller had all this information ready it would speed up the conveyancing process. Now for over 25 years I worked in a Solicitors office where most of fee income came from conveyancing. My wife has personally handled literally thousands of conveyancing transactions and if she thought that these packs would help the clients she would be the first to say so. The fact is they do not. Typically they cost a couple of hundred pounds to put together and they do not solve any of the delays in the conveyancing process. For example if there is some vital document missing that document still has to be found or insurance obtained with the resulting delay that entails.
I can usually tell that a policy is right when by the number of submissions I receive on each side of the argument. In this case I receive complaints about all those making money out of this new Labour piece of added bureaucracy but no complaints from the clients!
If the compulsory element is scrapped then clients will be free to choose if they want one.

The Queen’s Speech

Published November 18, 2009 Politics 4 Comments
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Political events today have been dominated by the State Opening of Parliament and the Queen’s Speech. This is when the Monarch opens the new session of Parliament and sets out the measures which the Government of the day propose to introduce and try and have passed by Parliament. Although it is called the Queen’s Speech the speech is in fact written by the Government of the day so today’s Queen’s Speech was written by Gordon Brown and the Labour Government.

I was up early this morning as I had to be in the studios of BBC Manchester to give a live interview on the Alan Beswick’s Breakfast Show on Radio Manchester.
My view was that, from the advance leaks, the Queen’s Speech looked as though it would be more about what was good for the Labour Party than what was good for the Country.

Some of the proposed measures appear simply bizarre. For example it appears Labour plan to introduce a Bill that would give a legal right to a good education to every pupil. This raises a number of interesting points. Firstly, it seems to me that this is a terrible indictment of Labour’s education policy over the past 12 years. They appear to be admitting that many pupils are simply not getting the education they deserve. Secondly, what does a parent do if they feel their child has not received a good education? What will the process be? What redress will a parent and a child have? Thirdly, for every right there has to be an obligation. So, how will it be decided whether the obligation has been met or not. Fourthly, what sanctions will there be if it is decided that the obligation has not been met.

It all looks like a bonanza for litigation lawyers. This measure simply has not been thought through. The Conservatives proposals for education are for radical reform to allow any suitably qualified organisation to open up new schools. A new pupil premium would mean schools would receive more money for taking pupils from the most disadvantaged areas. Discipline in schools would be improved by giving Headteachers the final say on exclusions.

Finally and incredibly, despite the problem of M.P.’s expenses being so high profile in recent months there is no mention of any Bill to bring into law the proposals of the Kelly report designed to clean up the expenses system.

CeeCee 20 months birthday!

Published November 16, 2009 General , Local Organisations 1 Comment
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Today CeeCee is 20 months old so as I have not mentioned his exploits for a while I thought I would update regular readers and devote a post to him.

The main development is that he is currently excluded from his training classes as a result of, shall we say, an incident where he bit one of the smaller dogs!! I was not there at the time but I am informed that the two dogs had been happily training together side by side for most of the evening until out of the blue CeeCee decide to ‘have a go’. He now has to attend one to one classes on his own! I have to say that the training school – the Elton Dog Club now Wagga Wuffins -where we go are excellent and have really helped us enormously in dealing with him. Elton Dog Club became Wagga Wuffins when they moved to their own premises in Britannia Mill Samuel Street in Bury where they have 4000 square feet of purpose built indoor training and activity arena. They really are superb facilities and the knowledge and expertise of the principal trainer Jane Ardern is first class.

The list of things CeeCee has damaged around the house grows weekly – sometimes almost daily! The list includes television remote control, coffee table, dining room table, yesterday a pair of curtains became the latest casualty as he pulled at one of the curtains during one of his favourite games of tugger. 99% of the time he quietly poddles [not sure that is in the OED but if not it ought to be!] around and provided we keep an eye on him all is well. The trouble is the other 1% the mad moment, the unguarded minutes ( or even seconds) when he senses an opportunity for mischief.

Having said all that we wouldn’t be without him!

Swing Night

Published November 16, 2009 Local Organisations Leave a Comment
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On Saturday evening Sue and I attended a Swing Night at the Parish Hall in Tottington. Not my era of music but the band appropriately enough called the Nostalgia Swing Band were excellent – as were the pie and peas and the Bank Top Brewery’s real ale!

Great game!

Published November 15, 2009 General Leave a Comment
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Bury 3 Notts County 3. Whilst the focus of the National press may have been on the game involving the England team playing Brazil in the Middle East Bury were entertaining high flying Notts County who are now owned by a collection of Middle Eastern investors and whose Director of Football is none other than the former England Team Manager Sven-Goran Eriksson.

Grey skies and heavy rain had left the pitch fairly sticky to say the least and I think it is a credit to both teams that they were able to serve up such an entertaining game. As viewers across the Country to the last night’s BBC League highlights show will have seen Bury were denied another goal when on loan debutant Danny Nardiello’s goal bound shot came to a halt in the goal mouth mud only inches from crossing the line.

I was glad I decided to brave the weather and go down to watch the game. Looking at my future diary I fear I may not be able to get to too many more games before Christmas – in fact there are only three home games left before Christmas! I urge any Shakers fans who have not been down to Gigg Lane recently to try and see the team because if yesterday’s game is anything to go by they will not be disappointed.

Bolton North East Supper Club

Published November 14, 2009 General Leave a Comment
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David with Brook Newmark MP and Deborah Dunleavy

Last night Susan and I attended the Bolton North East Conservatives’ Supper Club that is run ny my colleague Deborah Dunleavy the Prospective M.P. for that Constituency.

The dinner was held at The Last Drop and the guest speaker was Brooks Newmark the Member of Parliament for Braintree in Essex. Brooks is currently one of the Opposition Whips team. Before entering Parliament he worked on Wall Street for a period and was then involved in private equity businesses. He has tremendous knowledge of how the City and finance operates. In his speech he spoke of how much Government debt is ‘off balance sheet’ in other words it exists but Gordon Brown doesn’t count it.

RNLI Quiz Night

Published November 12, 2009 General , Local Organisations , Political Leave a Comment
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Last night Sue and I attended a Quiz night in aid of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution at Bury Sports Club. Over 80 people attended and I understand that well over £300 was raised.

Today apart from dealing with my own casework I have had a General Election planning meeting. It is now almost certain that there will not be a General Election this year which means we now know that the election must be in the first five months and three days of 2010. My experience of having fought three previous General Elections just serves to reinforce the importance of good advance planning because there is always more tasks to do than there are hours in a day!

Never forgotten

Published November 8, 2009 General Leave a Comment
Battlefields Tour 057

One of the World War One Cemeteries I visited last month.

This morning I attended the Parade and Civic Remembrance Service at Bury Parish Church.

Later today I will be on duty as Church Warden at the Parade through Tottington and the service of Remembrance at the War Memorial. This evening I will attend the service of Evensong and the Roll Call of the Fallen at St. Anne’s.

At a time when every week more of our brave troops are losing their lives in the war in Afghanistan it is vitally important that we never forget all those who have given the ultimate sacrifice.

Ahead of Kelly

Published November 7, 2009 Political Leave a Comment
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I was interested to read the Kelly Report on the new rules for Members of Parliament expenses which was published this week. I note that many of the pledges that the Conservatives had made and that I had made personally have been included as recommendations in the report. For example the Communications Allowance which Labour introduced provides every M.P. with £10,000 of taxpayers money every year to spend on leaflets! I had already promised never to claim any of this Allowance and David Cameron had pledged that an incoming Conservative Government would abolish the Allowance.

Whatever M.P.’s decide to do with the recommendations in this report it provides a good basis on which to start to rebuild trust in our political system.

Our N.H.S. Priorities

Published November 6, 2009 Political 2 Comments
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David Cameron M.P. Leader of the Conservative Party referred to Andrew Lansley’s visit to Bury in his speech about the N.H.S. on Monday.
The full text of David’s speech can be found here

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