Beneath the shrill discordant arpeggio in Westminster this week was a more harmonious tune, to me at least. I have had that rare experience of feeling that I’ve made a difference - and not just once but three times.
First, rivers. Last autumn I launched the Morgan’s Hill Rivers Group - named after the spot north of Devizes that is the hydrological dividing line, a three-way watershed, of southern England - to campaign for reforms to the regulation of water companies to reduce the discharge of sewage into our rivers. This week the Government published the new Strategic Policy Statement for Ofwat, which included most of what we asked for. A little more detail and a short video are here.
Second, ‘jabs for jobs’. I very reluctantly supported the mandatory vaccination of NHS workers last December on the basis of the Government’s argument that it would slow transmission of Covid-19 in our hospitals. The evidence by mid January was that it doesn’t, and I have been campaigning hard, in Parliament and privately to ministers, to scrap this rule before it came into force in early February. At the last minute, ministers agreed. My congratulations here.
Third, communities. 18 months ago, at the height of the first wave of Covid-19, I was asked by the Prime Minister to review how Government might build on the tremendous surge in neighbourliness we were seeing at the local level, and thereby create a more community-based, more sustainable and connected social settlement for the future. The report I wrote (here) made a wide range of suggestions - and finally, this week, the Government responded, accepting a good chunk of them. More here.
Other than that, in Parliament I spoke in the debate on the use of new dormant assets - money sitting unclaimed in old bank and insurance accounts, which can now be used for public purposes - and was pleased the Government is considering my and others’ recommendation that they create a great new endowment for local community groups (very short speech here). I sang the praises of Wiltshire College in a question to Education ministers (here). And I asked Treasury ministers to do more to help young people benefit from the Kickstart and other youth employment projects (here).
Thursday took me to Hermitage, just off the M4 in Berkshire, home to the 77th Brigade, the unit dedicated to what Churchill called ‘ungentlemanly warfare’. My hosts were a perfectly gentlemanlike and ladylike bunch, and I was hugely impressed with their professionalism and their attention to the ethics of the job (they even had a padre on hand to discuss the role of Just War theory in the ‘gray zone’ where war isn’t what it used to be). I was also inspired by the Staff Corps, a group of reservists otherwise employed at senior levels in business and other professions, who bring enormous resources of expertise, experience and networks to help UK Defence in all its tasks.
On Friday I had the great pleasure of a visit to Wiltshire Air Ambulance’s fantastic home in Semington. As I arrived a call had just come in and I saw the chopper ascend and swoop away to its destination in Bath - it took less than 12 minutes from the first call to paramedics arriving on the scene. The head of operations who showed me round was the first medic to reach the victims of the Novichok poisonings in Salisbury in 2018. This is an indescribably valuable service, funded almost entirely by charity. To support, please visit here.
I also spent time on Friday with the deputy leader of Wiltshire council, the portfolio holder for children and young people, the Police and Crime Commissioner, and Steve Dewar, a local youth worker, to discuss the provision of youth services in the county and how we can do more with the tight public budgets we have. The answer lies in mobilising communities themselves.
Thursday and Friday evenings I spent in a succession of pubs, holding organised meetings with local councillors and the public to discuss anything on their mind. The goings-on in Westminster were on most people’s minds, and I came away more clear than ever of the mountain my party has to climb to restore the public’s trust in the government.
77th Brigade were of course the Chindits of WW2 fame and folklore. They were led by the great warrior (and notorious naturist) Orde Wingate, who used to conduct meetings lying stark naked on his bed, combing his pubic hair with a toothbrush. The incredible stories of the Chindits’ operation behind enemy lines in Burma bear out their motto, ‘the boldest measures are the safest’.
