The illegal arrival of 40,000 people, almost all of them young men, on our shores so far this year rightly outrages the country. I have met with ministers and asked a series of questions in Parliament about this in recent days, which you can see, with ministers’ responses, here, here and here. Put bluntly, stopping this scandal is an imperative for the Government, and the necessary precondition for the humane and generous refugee system that we need.
Politics this week will presumably be dominated by Thursday’s ‘take two’ mini-budget, when Jeremy Hunt attempts to set a credible course through the economic storm we’re in. The world is experiencing an eight-fold rise in worldwide energy costs following the invasion of Ukraine, but that doesn’t mean the government can’t make it better (or worse) for people. As we have been warned, taxes will rise and spending will fall, but the most important thing is to set a trajectory towards a balanced budget and convince the public, and the markets, that we are on a path to growth.
I hope Jeremy doesn’t overlook the rural economy. As I set out in a speech in Parliament this week, Wiltshire is the ideal of the old-new economy that we want: in parts local, sustainable and slow, but also dynamic, entrepreneurial and high-tech. Indeed (as I facetiously pointed out) we have been a commercial mecca for 6,000 years, with artefacts in burial sites showing evidence of neolithic (pre-Brexit) continental trading; it’s no surprise that today we have some of the most cutting-edge firms in the world, creating technological miracles in agriculture, defence and cyber most of all.
To realise Wiltshire’s potential we badly need better broadband, better rural transport, more skills and more affordable housing. You can see my speech here, including as I ran out of time at the end a garbled tribute to Poulton Technologies, who designed a high-tech system for repairing deep sea pipes right here on the Marlborough Downs but tragically, owing to a lack of local factory space, are making the things in Saudi Arabia.
I don’t think the objectives of economic growth and environmental stewardship are in fundamental conflict, though they certainly create tensions. I felt this at a meeting organised by Dr Nick Maurice and Rachel Rosedale of the Quakers, held at a packed St Peter’s Church in Marlborough on Thursday night. A gentleman in a white coat with a badge on it reading ‘I’m a scientist’, stood behind me for most of the meeting holding up a placard accusing me of environmental desecration; others at the meeting also insisted that we should simply do whatever ‘the science’, that omniscient divinity, says needs doing to save the planet. I suggested that ‘the science’ told us to spend £400 billion mitigating the effects of Covid-19, and as a result we simply can’t stop the economy in order to eliminate carbon emissions immediately. Nevertheless, I was impressed by the seriousness and expertise of the audience (which included a man who, after I had cast doubt on heat pumps, explained he was the boss of the Heat Pump Federation and told me I was wrong, which I may have been). I share the general dismay at the state of our rivers, the devastation that 20th century agriculture wrought on the biodiversity of farmland, and the terrible consequences of the changing climate in the developing world, and I undertook to represent their views to ministers.
This week the Boundary Commission reported back with the next round of its proposals for the future shape of Parliamentary constituencies. There are some improvements to the plan - notably their decision not to split Devizes town among three constituencies as originally intended - but overall it retains the significant downside, in my view, of chopping our current constituency into pieces. If it goes ahead I will have to choose whether to apply for one of two new constituencies (‘East Wiltshire’ or ‘Devizes and Melksham’). You can see the proposed new boundaries here. There is still a month in which we can make representations to the Commission, and I will once again make the case for keeping Devizes with the rest of ‘East Wiltshire’ (a name I don’t like either, though the Boundary Commission rejected my suggestion of ‘Vale of Pewsey’). The Association Chairman and I will write to Party members shortly explaining the plan for forming new Associations and choosing parliamentary candidates in anticipation of the final decision on the boundaries, which comes next year.
30,000 soldiers - more than a third of the British Army - are based here in Wiltshire, many of them recently returned from Germany. I had a very productive meeting this week with Colonel Gary McDade, Army Commander South West, in Jellalabad Barracks in Tidworth, discussing the welfare of soldiers and, crucially, their families. These days the Army likes its people to settle in one place rather than move around every few years, and the emphasis is now on integrating with the civilian population ‘outside the wire’. Crucial to forces’ families wellbeing are having decent amenities, from broadband (not good at the Trenchard Lines camp near Upavon, I learned) to shops (we still need more at Tidworth; much envious comparison with Catterick, in the Yorkshire constituency of one R Sunak).
One military-civilian facility we can confidently boast of is the racecourse on MOD land at Larkhill, which was briefly threatened with closure last week and then instantly - before I could even make representations myself - saved by the intervention of no less than Ben Wallace, Defence Secretary. As a source told the Countryside Alliance, Ben ‘recognises that as custodian of the largest land holdings in the UK, the MOD has a duty to not only use the land to ensure our forces are best prepared but also that the local communities who have farmed or used the land for centuries are supported.’ Just so.
Today, of course, is Remembrance Sunday, and this morning I joined a large crowd in Devizes to watch the procession of soldiers, Scouts, Guides, and assorted uniformed groups, with a gang of British Legion bikers bringing up the rear on mopeds, converge on St John’s Church for a service, and then the laying of wreaths at the war memorial. (I always think, on this spot, of 12 July 1643 when Parliamentary forces set up a cannon at the end of Morris Lane and battered the Church, which was occupied by Royalists, across the space now occupied by the war memorial. There is much history here.)
The ceremony today was, as ever, deeply moving; it was also highly touching to watch the stiff young soldiers, ramrod straight with their regimental standards, and then the little children proudly marching along behind with their half-size standards wobbling aloft. And then the Last Post, trumpeted as ever in Devizes by Councillor Kelvin Nash, rose in the sunlight over the silent crowd.
