Paul Flynn - Read My Day

Train-crash coming

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab):

Following the right hon. Gentleman’s alleged answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), will he arrange a seminar for all Ministers to explain the precise meaning of the word “question”, the precise meaning of the word “answer”, and the need for a link between the two?

Mr Lansley:

I will not organise such a seminar because I think that that is understood by Ministers.

 

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Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab):

This week the British company Centrica withdrew, along with RWE and E.ON, from investments in nuclear power following its investment of £1 billion. That proves that nuclear electricity is now unaffordable unless the Government invest £20 billion of subsidy in a French company. Will the Secretary of State follow his commendable initiative on Greencoat UK by investing in what is Britain’s greatest unused source of power, which is tidal power—clean, green, British and eternal.

Vince Cable:

We are certainly promoting research on new generations of renewable energy, and the hon. Gentleman will be aware of the new centre in Glasgow established specifically to look at tidal and wave power. I do not recognise his figure of £20 billion of subsidy for the nuclear industry. I am sure we are not going there.

 

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Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab):

I agree with every word said by the hon. Members for Hove (Mike Weatherley) and for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood). We are in an extraordinary situation in relation to our nuclear policy, charging ahead to a certain financial train crash. Huge sums will be spent and Parliament is to be kept in ignorance of the details of what is going on. That must be changed. We have heard the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee say that her Committee has no responsibility until the contract has been signed. By then, it will be too late and we will have committed ourselves to a period of probably 30 years at least to pay an enormous cost to a company that is not British, that is in France and that is already subsidised. It is crazy.

We have seen the stampede of all the companies—E.ON, RWE and now Centrica—away from investing in nuclear power, and for very good reason: it is a financial basket case. I will not repeat the figures relating to the two new nuclear stations, in Finland and at Flamanville. They are the future, but one is four years late, and the other is six years late; one is €3 billion over budget, and the other is €5 billion over budget.

Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab):

My hon. Friend and I will never agree on nuclear power, but to set the record straight, there are nuclear power stations that were built on time and on budget in Taiwan and many other places by Hitachi with Japanese technology. My hon. Friend identifies one technology in one country.

Paul Flynn:

My hon. Friend, like my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), has a point of view. They have nuclear power stations and nuclear jobs in their constituencies, and naturally they have to fight for their constituents. One can understand the distortions of view that inevitably result from that.

The history of nuclear power has been a story of false dawns all my life. I can remember as a schoolboy going to an exhibition in Cardiff called “Atoms for Peace”. I remember ZETA, a fusion reactor that was going to produce electricity that was too cheap to warrant a meter. We had the steam-generating heavy water reactor, one of the worst civil investment decisions since the building of the pyramids—huge investment that produced nothing of value. Margaret Thatcher had plans to build 10 nuclear power stations, but only one was actually built. My party was seduced by the pied piper of nuclear power fairly recently.

Mark Tami:

Let me put it on record that I do not have a nuclear power station in my area. Is it not the logic of my hon. Friend’s argument that instead of building a great new green generation of stations, this country will import electricity from abroad, probably from French nuclear power stations?

Paul Flynn:

That is a very limited view of the history of the matter, which I will come to. As recently as 2007, however, my party took the view that nuclear was economically unattractive. That was in one of our manifestos. But an event took place in Downing street where there was a PowerPoint presentation to the then Prime Minister that said, “Mr Blair, there’s going to be a gap in our electricity supply because the advanced gas-cooled reactors are going to become obsolete and that will create a problem in a number of years that will have to be solved.” Within a year of the Labour Government changing their policy on nuclear power, having decided that what had been economically unattractive was okay, the life of the AGRs was lengthened and the gap had disappeared. The spin had taken place, and we were seduced into the view that nuclear was inevitable.

All parties, I believe, went into the last election with the promise that nuclear was acceptable if there were no subsidies, but where are we now? There are enormous subsidies. In 2008, I heard a debate in this House about the insurance costs for the Government of nuclear power. The most recent figure that we have for the cost of a nuclear accident is £200 billion for Chernobyl, and the taxpayer would have to pay that.

Martin Horwood:

I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman says, but I must correct him on one thing. He said that all the parties went into the last election supporting nuclear power. The Liberal Democrats did not—we were opposed.

Paul Flynn:

I am delighted to be reminded of that. However, I could spend the rest of my speech quoting what the Secretary of State and many other Liberal Democrat Members have said about this. Why has their position changed? As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, they were not in favour of nuclear power; I was suggesting that they went into the election promising no subsidies. The Secretary of State has been attracted by the red boxes or by other considerations, and he has had some kind of ministerial lobotomy whereby he can no longer see what is obvious—that nuclear power, which he never believed in until only two years ago, is a false trail.

Martin Horwood:

Obviously I cannot speak on behalf of the Secretary of State, but I remind the hon. Gentleman that when the national policy statement passed through this Chamber, not even Liberal Democrat Ministers voted for it. Under the terms of the coalition agreement—I think we might have had to strike a similar deal with his party—we abstained at that time.

Paul Flynn:

I have some hope that the Liberal Democrat party will return to the paths of virtue.

A few hours ago in this Chamber, I asked the Business Secretary a question in which I praised him for what he has done with Greencoat UK by investing money in wind power and urged him to do the same in relation to tidal power. Let me say a few words about tidal power, because it is ignored.

Zac Goldsmith:

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Paul Flynn:

I cannot do so any more because I have run out of injury time.

My constituency, like that of several other Members on the English side of the Bristol channel, is washed by an enormous cliff of water that travels up and down the estuary twice a day. There is immense power there that is unused and wasted. This can be tackled, but not by a barrage, which has so many difficulties and objections that it would be impractical. It is not necessary to build a brick wall across a tidal flow to get energy from it. Water wheels work very simply: the water flows and they tap the energy. The best way in which we could get that energy cheaply and cleanly is through a series of small machines in the water to tap the energy that could then be linked with a pump storage scheme, possibly in the valleys of south Wales. That would provide demand-responsive energy—base load energy—that was entirely predictable and did not alter like wind or any other sources. It would be available, clean, British—

Albert Owen:

It is expensive.

Paul Flynn:

My hon. Friend says that it is expensive, but it is very cheap. He should take a trip to La Rance in Brittany, where for more than 30 years there has been a tidal power station producing the cheapest electricity in France.

Thanks to the Public Accounts Committee, we now have a clear picture of the future. Let us look at the enormity of the sums involved. Professor Tom Burke, who was an adviser to a previous Government, has said:

“The scale of the proposed investment is very large. The contract will last for a very long time at a strike price of £100/MW and a 30 year contract like this would require a subsidy of £1 billion/year above today’s wholesale price for electricity. This would lead to a transfer of £30 billion to EDF”—

Électricité de France, a French company—from the pockets of British taxpayers. He continued:

“Should the whole of the 16GW of new nuclear anticipated by the Energy Minister be financed on similar terms it would cost householders and businesses £150 billion by 2050.”

Back in 2008, I tabled an early-day motion forecasting that any profits that might be made from nuclear power would be enjoyed by foreign companies. We have seen the stampede that is now going on with E.ON, RWE and Centrica, and that is all for business reasons. Any profits would be enjoyed in France, but the enormous cost would be paid by British taxpayers.

There are huge liabilities involved. We hear about £67.5 billion—an astonishing figure—for dealing with nuclear waste. The Flowers committee report said in 1976 that it was irresponsible to go on generating electricity from nuclear power without a solution to the waste problem.

David Morris:

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Paul Flynn:

I cannot give way any more.

The waste problem is continuing at a cost of £1.5 billion a year. We still do not have the solution and we are in the same position with the £67.5 billion. The answer used to be to dig a hole and bury it. Now, thanks to Cumbria council’s decision, quite rightly, not to build there is no hole.

 

 

Paul Flynn:

On energy security, after Fukushima, every single one of the 52 reactors in Japan closed down and Germany turned against nuclear power. If there is another accident—we have one every decade—would not the danger when the lights go out be the public’s reaction and a refusal to allow the generation of nuclear power in this country, just as happened in Japan after Fukushima?

Dr Coffey:

I believe that the public are reassured by the work of the Office for Nuclear Regulation, and Dr Weightman, a world-renowned specialist, went to Fukushima to help sort out some issues. I do not know exactly why Fukushima ended up as it did but, in addition to the tsunami, there were other issues definitely related to that. I think the situation in Germany is more of a political situation.

 

Paul Flynn:

Can we anticipate another principled stand by the Liberal Democrats, like the one they took on boundaries, to oppose any subsidy on nuclear power?

Simon Hughes:

The hon. Gentleman is being mischievous. He and I are on the same side in this argument, so he should love and care for his friends, and not seek to be rude. Indeed, the Welsh Labour party was desperately pleased that the new boundaries did not go through, so let us have a little less of the attack on us.

We havaul Flynn:

Does my right hon. Friend recall that Dr Weightman was expressly forbidden from considering the costs of Fukushima, which—it is quoted—could have been an extra £2 billion for one new reactor? Today’s debate has been about costs. Surely we cannot rely on Weightman for that.

Caroline Flint:

I was talking about safety, but I will come to costs later. It was absolutely right for the Government to commission that report. Regardless of that report, however, I believe we should always be vigilant and not complacent. I feel assured that we in the UK can be justly proud of the regulatory system, the way it operates and our safety record.

Ed Davey

The key point is that we recognise that CFDs significantly reduce risks to developers and incentivises investment in low carbon. It is right that new nuclear power will be entitled to benefit from Energy Bill measures such as contracts for difference and investment contracts.

Paul Flynn:

In secret, without the House knowing.

Mr Davey:

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, who is heckling from a sedentary position, because he is very informed on this subject, even though I disagree with him.

Paul Flynn:

I have a simple question. Is the Secretary of State able to provide an assurance that there will be no subsidies to nuclear power without the full knowledge and consent of this House?

Mr Davey:

I am trying to explain our policy on no subsidy, but the hon. Gentleman interrupted me. If he will listen, the position is being put on the record in a way that I have never had a chance to do before.

Our aim is for a broadly standardised approach to contracts for difference that will allow for comparability between technologies and the introduction of competition for CFDs. I do not think that what is needed is a line-by-line comparison of the terms of each contract. That is not what our policy says or requires. In fact, there are likely to be variations in CFD designs between one technology and another, and perhaps also between different projects within the same technology. What is important is that the terms agreed deliver a similar result across technologies and projects, and that they result in a proper allocation of risk. In addition, each contract will need to deliver value for money for the consumer and be compatible with state-aid rules. A contract with a nuclear developer that does those things would be compatible with our no-subsidy policy.

 

Nuclear Collapse?

 

Three nuclear crises: a crisis of waste costs of £68bn, a crisis of waste dumping - the only site rejected, a crisis of building - Centrica exits. Yesterday I tabled the following EDMs:

 

Early day motion 1031

NUCLEAR BUILD

That this House is alarmed at the delays and cost-overruns of new nuclear power stations; notes that the Olkiluoto station in Finland that promised to start generating in 2009 at a cost of 6.4 billion euro will not be ready until after 2014 at a cost of 8.5 billion euro; further notes that the Flamanville station will not be ready until 2016 with costs having soared from 3.3 to 8 billion euro; believes that plans for British nuclear stations are near collapse with the withdrawal of the British firm Centrica from the Hinkley project after its investment of 1 billion; and urges Government investment in alternative energy sources.

 

Early day motion 1032

NUCLEAR WASTE

That this House recalls the warning of the Flowers report in 1976 that it was irresponsible to use nuclear power without a solution for waste disposal; is surprised that a staggering 68 billion has been spent to guard UK nuclear waste and that Cumbria Council has rejected the only waste repository that has been proposed; and believes it is still irresponsible to create more nuclear waste without a solution for disposal.

 

Early day motion 1033

NUCLEAR FINANCE

That this House recalls the repeated Government assurances that no subsidies would be paid to new nuclear stations; notes the estimate of former government adviser Professor Tom Burke that a taxpayer subsidy of up to 30 billion of taxpayers' money will be demanded in addition to the unique taxpayer subsidy of insurance covering the vast liabilities of nuclear accidents beyond the 200 billion cost of Chernobyl; and insists that Parliament must have full transparency of all taxpayer liabilities before any commitments are made to nuclear subsidies.

 

 

This week in the Commons:

 

Nuclear non-answer

Paul Flynn (Newport West)(Lab): On a point of order, Mr Speaker. It was a great shock this morning to hear for the first time that the cost of maintaining nuclear waste in this country is an astonishing £67.5 billion. Last Thursday, I asked a question about another possible subsidy of £30 billion, but the Minister mysteriously concentrated on my attitude to the monarchy in his reply and did not mention the cost. Have you had any approach, Mr Speaker, from that Minister or any other Minister in the Department of Energy and Climate Change, to explain how in a time of austerity we can spend tens of billions of pounds on one energy source?

Mr Speaker: The short answer is that I have received no such indication that a Minister is planning to come to the House to speak on those matters. The hon. Gentleman may wish to pursue his interests further in subsequent questions, in so far as he thinks he has not already done so to his satisfaction, and that of others, through the ruse of an attempted point of order.

 

Suffering in Syria

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab): The right hon. Lady deserves gratitude for her statement and for her work in relieving suffering in Syria. Is she concerned about reports that the most merciless slaughter of women and children has been carried out by the al-Nusra Front, which is linked to al-Qaeda? Given that that group is part of the opposition, will she do all she can to ensure that the al-Nusra Front does not receive arms, comfort or support from us?

Justine Greening: I hope that I can provide the hon. Gentleman with that reassurance. We have been careful to ensure that the humanitarian agencies with which we work that offer support within Syria go through the appropriate due diligence to ensure that they are working with non-extremist groups. That is one of the complex factors that have made delivering support within Syria even more challenging. As he is aware, the opposition have been quite fragmented, so humanitarian agencies have had to assess whether they can work with individual groups on a case-by-case basis.

 

Council housing pioneers

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab): Does the right hon. Gentleman know that Newport council, and Leicester council on which our friend the late David Taylor served, were selling council houses in a fair, sustainable way for more than a decade before the dawn of Thatcherism? Does he acknowledge his debt to those pioneering Labour authorities?

Mr Pickles: That interesting view no doubt has some weight in a parallel universe. No doubt the hon. Gentleman will support the Government’s push to increase the sale of council houses to their tenants. I look forward, for the first time ever, to hands across the Chamber.

 

Criminal complacency

10. Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD): What recent estimate he has made of the proportion of prisoners (a) entering and (b) leaving prison with an addiction to a class A drug. [141249]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mrs Helen Grant): A survey of 1,435 prisoners sentenced to between one month and four years in 2005 and 2006 showed that 45% of prisoners reported having taken a class A drug in the four weeks before custody. No recent estimate has been made of the proportion of prisoners leaving prison with an addiction to a class A drug.

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab): I am provoked by the very complacent answers that we have had. All the Government are offering is warm words on this. They say they have no recent evidence, but we all know from our own experience that not one single prison in the whole of Britain is free of illegal drugs. If the Government have no evidence of people going in as shoplifters and coming out as heroin addicts, the rest of society does have it. Should not the Government adopt a policy that
is at least robust and realistic and look at the traffic between prison officers and prisoners on drugs?

Mrs Grant: As I made clear, we are looking carefully at the excellent report by the Home Affairs Committee. However, we genuinely believe that our transforming rehabilitation plans will provide much better continuity of care and help to get prisoners off drugs in the long term.

 

PMQs

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab): The Prime Minister’s career probably peaked when he was a Back-Bench member of the Home Affairs Committee in 2005. Will he revive his progressive courage of that time when he looks at the report from the all-party parliamentary group on drug misuse on the awful problems of new drugs that are on the market but not controlled in any way?

The Prime Minister: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s view of my career trajectory. I will not ask him about his—perhaps we can agree about it afterwards. I learned some important lessons from the Home Affairs Committee report I worked on, including on the priority we give in tackling drugs to
education and treatment. Those are the two key arms of what needs to be done. However, I do not believe we should be legalising drugs that are currently illegal. On current legal highs and problems relating to substances such as khat, which was mentioned in a previous question, we need to look carefully at the evidence on what will work best.

 

 

Preposterous buffoon

Today in Parliament.

Nuclear Power Stations

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab):

What recent assessment he has made of the potential construction of new nuclear power stations.[140465]

The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Mr John Hayes):

The Government are firmly committed to ensure the conditions are right for investment in new nuclear power, and welcome plans for around 16 GW of new nuclear power in the UK. It is up to energy companies to construct, operate and decommission nuclear power stations. It will be for Government and the independent regulators to ensure safety and security and to maximise the benefit. The future is bright and safe: the future is nuclear.

Paul Flynn:

Professor Tom Burke, a former Government adviser, said on Tuesday that the Government are planning in secret to spend up to £30 billion in subsidy to new nuclear. New nuclear is in trouble in Finland and in France—years late and billions over budget. Are the Government going to break their promise to have no nuclear subsidies, and if they are going to break that promise, can the Minister guarantee that there will be full transparency and opportunities for Parliament to discuss, debate and vote against it?

Mr Hayes:

I have no secrets from this House. Of course the Government are going to be transparent about the process. Of course the Government are going to ensure taxpayer value for money. The hon. Gentleman has a history of being against Trident, which is about our future. He has a history of being against the monarchy, which is also about our future. We knew that he wanted to ban the bomb and ban the monarchy; we now know that he wants to ban the future.

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab):

In 1976, the Flowers commission said that it would be irresponsible to proceed with generating electricity from nuclear power without a policy on the disposal of waste. The policy then was to dig a hole and bury the waste in it. The policy now is to do the same thing, but we no longer have a hole since Cumbria county council turned down the planning permission yesterday. Will this preposterous buffoon of a Minister of State try to answer one question and say whether it is still irresponsible to proceed without a solution to deal with the waste?

Mr Speaker:

Order. I think the hon. Gentleman should withdraw the expression “preposterous buffoon”—[Interruption.] Order. The hon. Gentleman has a very wide vocabulary and should use an alternative expression.

Paul Flynn:

I will pull those words and refer instead to this Minister 'who has failed to answer any question today and has demonstrated his incompetence'.

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab):

On 10 January, the Foreign Secretary gave me what he described as a “broad assurance” that there would be a vote in the House on the deployment of soldiers abroad, following the precedent of 2003. The Leader of the House rested his refusal to allow that on the narrow point that we are not in conflict in Mali. We have up to 400 troops there; many of them are armed, and if they are attacked, they will use those arms. That sounds very much like conflict to me.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Jim Murphy that the country is now weary and wary of avoidable wars, is it not important for us to debate the issue, so that the House can establish what precisely is the terrorist threat to Britain from Tuareg nationalists?

Mr Lansley:

I am sure that the House would not wish to repeat what I said earlier—which I think was perfectly understandable in the circumstances—but I might add that our actions have been in response to what were, in effect, urgent and emergency requests from, in the first instance, the French authorities, with the support of the Malian authorities. That engages, to an extent, the question of this being an emergency. However, we will constantly keep in mind the question of whether it is appropriate, under the convention, which we respect and to which we will adhere, to present the issue to the House for debate.

 

Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con):

S4C has played a very major part in enabling me to learn to speak Welsh. When I was elected to the National Assembly in 1999, I was not able to speak Welsh at all. I would not have been able to appear on “Dau o’r Bae” tomorrow or “Pawb a’i Farn” next week.

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab):

What a loss to the nation!

Glyn Davies:

It would have been, indeed. Nor would I have been able to do a half-hour programme tomorrow with Dewi Llwyd, “Rhaglen Dewi Llwyd”, based really on my birthday. That is coinciding with the debate about the birthday of S4C.

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab):

In 1973, the concept of a fourth channel seemed an impossible, impractical dream. That year’s report, “Television in Wales”, which became Labour party policy in Wales at the 1974 election, called for such a fourth channel. The writing of that report was fascinating, because it went into areas that were unknown—certainly, to me—at the time, including that so much was going on in minority languages throughout the world. As my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) has said, there was an inability to understand how it could be made to work.

One thing that I discovered in compiling the report was that the Inuit word for television is “the shaking tent”. Before Eskimos saw television for the first time, they had an ancient practice of going into a tent and starting an oil lamp burning so that, when the tent was shaken outside, they could interpret the shadows on the screen. Given the quality of television at the time—fog with knobs on—they thought it was another version of the shaking tent. It also came out that, for example in Canada, Ottawa had a station broadcasting in 30 languages, none of which were Canadian or Eskimo ones.

The point I want to make—we have to nail down the history that we can remember—is that, although Willie Whitelaw has been praised, he was not one of the heroes of the process. He was the one who turned the channel idea down. I had a minute, protozoan moment in that history, in that I was the acting chairman of the Broadcasting Council for Wales at that time. I served in that post for a record time that I am certain will never be equalled—15 minutes. I went into the first meeting and resigned after the minutes had been read, as a protest against the cancellation of a fourth channel, although that did not have a great effect on the history of the matter.

What did have an effect, and it was an almighty one, was, as we have heard, Dafydd Iwan and the young people who sacrificed so much and went to jail. I can remember a young man on “Disc a Dawn” called Huw Jones—I cannot think what has happened to him—but many people worked to build up the feeling that there was a great injustice.

The event that changed the situation, after the idea had been emphatically rejected by the Conservative party, was the lucky one that Margaret Thatcher had been reading about Irish history—she was deeply ignorant of it at the time—and was struck to find out that, following the Easter riots and the shooting of Irish nationalists, the interest in Irish nationalism had multiplied enormously. When Ireland had its martyrs, what was a tiny fringe group suddenly became the majority of the nation. She saw a film on television of Gwynfor Evans in the Sophia gardens in Cardiff with a crowd chanting, “Gwynfor, Gwynfor.” She calculated that if he carried out his fast and died, Wales would have a martyr around which a movement would develop. She rightly saw that that would happen—I am certain he was a man who would have stuck to his fast, if the channel had not arrived—but the Government had to find a pretext, because they could not possibly give into pressure or blackmail. There was therefore this little pantomime in which three of the great and the good in Wales visited Mrs Thatcher to persuade her that it was a good idea and that she was wrong to reject it. That was the naissance of the fourth channel, S4C.

That is a matter for great celebration. Looking back on those 40 years, we remember that on the Labour party’s approach—there were many others—there was unanimity in Wales. It meant a great deal to non-Welsh speakers, too, although for other reasons, to get a fourth channel. Great meetings were held, including one in the city hall in Cardiff, at which everyone agreed that the channel would be a great thing.

At the time, we did not envisage that it would be possible for the channel to create many of its own programmes. It was thought that, to fit with the amount of money that was likely to be available, the only way would be to dub or subtitle programmes and so on. With all the pessimism about people watching subtitled programmes, it is interesting to see the current fascination with “Borgen”. Subtitles do not matter. An audience can be got for a programme if the quality is there.

This is a moment of great celebration. The work of S4C was beyond anyone’s expectation then, and from decade to decade its glorious success has continued. If the Catholic Church saved the Breton language and the chapel saved the Welsh language in the past, it is S4C that has maintained and enriched the life of the Welsh-language world. Congratulations to all concerned. I think that the parties in this House will be united in ensuring that these 30 years will be followed by a glittering future for yr hen iaith.

 

 

BBC Radio Four suckered by Lobbyists

 

Thin end-but no wedge

Dispiriting to hear poor journalism from a Radio Four religious programme that I respect. 

Broadcast from 7.00 to 8.00 on Sunday the programme intelligently reviews religious hot issues. Today they slipped from their high standards. Regular readers to this blog will be familiar with the story of money-no-object mass lobbying to protect the profits of Hale's Exclusive Brethren's business empire. There is a great story to be revealed here. It's one of mass deception by a successful cult who oppress their own followers. Only the Mail on Sunday has exposed the dreadful truth of good people living in constant fear of losing their homes, jobs and families. A few parliamentarians of both houses are determined to reveal the truth and help the victims of the cult.

The trap that Radio 4 fell into this morning was a familiar one. They absorbed a pre-conceived view fed to them by gullible MPs and lobbyists. They could not escape from the myth that a small vulnerable Christian Group was being victimised and persecuted by (believe it or not) the Charity Commission. Fear mongers increased their constituency of outrage by claiming that refusal of charity status to EB was the 'thin edge of the wedge.' 'Others would suffer', they claimed.

This is preposterous piffle. Hale's EB is unique among religious groups, including the dozen other Plymouth Brethren groups, for their excessive emphasis on 'separation'. That is why the Charity Commission denied them charity status on the grounds of no proven public benefit. Only one of the 1176 groups that applied last year was refused.  That was Hale's EB. They are the thin end of a non-existent wedge. 

Radio Four today did a poor job by:-

* Failing to define Hale's Exclusive Brethren by referring to them by the misleading, virtually meaningless, name of 'Plymouth Brethren'. No other group of PB practise separation in the way the EB do.

* Ignoring the serious allegations against EB that may prove that they are a cult that abuses its own flock.

* Not mentioning the unprecedented lobbying and legal campaign funded by £1.5 million that has put great pressure on MPs and peers.

* Disregarding the Janus character of EB as a religious cult and an international business federation. One family 'shut up" by EB last year for buying a £300 laptop instead of the Hale's EB's £1,600 laptop that is disabled to prevent access to all but EB websites.

 

Parliament must resist EB's self-serving lobbying and reach its own decision free of pressure. Many MPs have already been persuaded by false information. Radio Four today this morning gave new currency to myths.

 

News 

Article

'I was raped by leader of Exclusive Brethren': Shock testimony from man who alleges he was abused as child by 'Big Jim' Taylor rocks church's claim to charitable status

By MARK NICOL All By This Author - 27/01/2013 00:35:28

Alan Robertson, 50, pictured left, a mechanic from Cumnock, Ayrshire, Scotland, will relive his experiences at the hands of James Taylor Jr, pictured right, when he gives evidence at a legal hearing.

News 

Article

'Witch-hunt' as exclusive school at centre of cruelty claims shuts its doors

By MARK NICOL All By This Author - 27/01/2013 01:26:08

A spokesman for Wilton Park School in Wilton, Wiltshire, said the Exclusive Brethren centre closed due to a breakdown of trust between staff and pupils.

News 

Article

Probe into strict Christian sect school that 'shut up' girl pupil for 37 days... for making Facebook page

By MARK NICOL All By This Author - 20/01/2013 01:35:42

Wilton Park School, near Salisbury, Wiltshire, is being investigated over allegations of child cruelty after a teacher handed over a dossier of alleged abuses.

News 

Article

Australian doctor prescribed teenager, 18, drug to help him 'cure' his homosexuality

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER All By This Author - 05/09/2012 19:19:43

Mark Craddock, 75, from Sydney has been banned from working as a doctor after he prescribed drug to treat prostate cancer. Both Dr Craddock and patient were members of Exclusive Brethren sect.

Inquiry into Exclusive Brethren needed

 

The Exclusive Brethren (EB) cult may be regretting their campaign for charity status. They have spent £500,000 on face-to-face contacts targeted on all MPs and peers. They have used all the tricks of the lobbyists trade to create a myth of victimhood. 'Us today, all religions tomorrow' is their favourite deception which has irritated many parliamentarians. 

There is no threat to any other religious group. Baroness Berridge asked how many religious organisations had successfully applied to the Charity Commission for charity status in the past year.  The answer was 1,175, with just one – the Brethren – turned down for public benefit reasons.

A Tory MP has advised EB not to issue a rebuttal to the Baroness's speech because it would give her wise words greater currency. Debate is denied while the frantic lobbying is permitted. Truth should be buried by fiction in the MP's opinion. 

In the interest of open debate, the wise words of the Baroness should be widely disseminated.

Conservative peer Baroness Berridge used a Lords debate on the role of religion in UK society to defend the Charity Commission’s decision to refuse charitable status to the Exclusive Brethren and dismiss concerns that it represents the ‘thin end of the wedge’.

The Baroness, a former director of the Conservative Christian Fellowship, even called for a Church-led inquiry into the Brethren – a “theological and psychological inquiry perhaps chaired by a former Archbishop”.

And she announced she would be hosting an event in Parliament for former Exclusive Brethren who had been expelled or escaped from the clutches of the organisation, so that MPs could hear for themselves how it operates.

'Doctrine of separation' 

She explained that she has family in the Brethren herself, so knows how they work: “They hold to the doctrine of separation, so exclusives cannot live in semi-detached houses, as they share a party wall with non-Brethren.

"They cannot eat with non-Brethren, cannot have friends with non-Brethren; they have no TV, radio, cafes, restaurants, etc. They can attend only Brethren schools and they now work only for Brethren businesses. Attending university is banned.”

She went onto give an example of a member of the Exclusive Brethren who was recently spotted going to a pub by another Brethren brother. The Church leadership took his wife and children out of his family home and forbade them from seeing him, and stopped the Brethren from doing any business with him. He has now left the Brethren, but his parents are still in, and they won’t see him.

Baroness Berridge said: “If this is Christianity, it is not as we have ever known it before. I commend the Charity Commission on seeking to deal with this Christian sect, but many who would give evidence to the First-Tier Tribunal fear the implications for families still in the Brethren. The charity Commission must ensure that victims can give evidence and tell their stories anonymously.”

Charity status of other religions 'not at risk'

She added that none of the major Church denominations are at all concerned that their own charitable status is under threat. The Commission has been quite clear that its decision on the Brethren turns on the doctrines and practices of the Brethren, she said.

“Groups about whom there is credible evidence that they harm health, split families and send no one to university can exist in a liberal society, but whether they should be charities is very much open to doubt,” she added.

“The religion and public benefit guidance needs to be clarified, but we also need clarity on the outer limits of what is acceptable behaviour for all religious groups.”

The Baroness had earlier posted a question asking how many religious organisations had successfully applied to the Commission for charity status in the past year.  The answer was 1,175, with just one – the Brethren – turned down for public benefit reasons.

 

Why should taxpayers subsidise nukes?

"Nuclear operators should bear €25 billion cost of making Europe's reactors safer"

Energy − 25-01-2013 - 12:32

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/content/20130121STO05427/html/Nuclear-operators-should-bear-%E2%82%AC25-billion-cost-of-making-EU-reactors-safer

Nuclear operators, not taxpayers, should cover the costs of necessary safety upgrades as well as pay for everything they are liable for in the event of a nuclear accident, according to a resolution approved by the EP's energy committee on 24 January. Improving Europe's nuclear power plants so that they can withstand a natural disaster is estimated to cost up to €25 billion.

 

Threat to the public

 

Nuclear energy accidents, whether caused by human error or an earthquake, pose a severe risk to public health. The consequences from the explosion in the Chernobyl plant in 1986, the world's worst nuclear disaster, are still being felt today as discussed in the EuroparlTV video above.

The aftermath of Fukushima

 

After the Fukushima accident in Japan in March 2011, 145 reactors in 15 EU member states were tested to assess whether nuclear power plants here could withstand a natural disasters. The checks showed that nearly all nuclear power plants need safety improvements.

 

Insurance and liability

 

The energy committee also called for new proposals on nuclear insurance and liability to be put forward by the end of 2013. The European Commission plans to present a report on the implementation of stress test recommendations by member states in June 2014.

 

Next steps

 

MEPs will debate nuclear safety in plenary on 6 February and they will vote on the resolution on 7 February.

 

Nuclear energy in EU (2013)

Newport Cuts Hell

 

Like probably all Newportonians, I want to see Pill Mill continue in its work, Gwent Schools Music to be generously funded, and all libraries, schools, and social centres to remain open. Yes, and free parking. I also loathe the idea of closing any residential homes for the elderly.

Several people have tweeted questions to me that are impossible to answer in 140 characters. The battle against cuts to essential services is one for MPs in Parliament. I am asked to support campaigns against specific cuts in Newport. By opposing CUT A you would appear to neglect CUT B or CUT C.  That is not a choice that MPs can make.

The councillors have the full information that I cannot possibly have. They have the awful task of making the choices where the cuts should fall. I do not envy them. But it would not help if I interfered. They have their job and I have mine. It's the same with the AMs. They are responsible for the NHS and Education in Wales. Not me. When I was deputy leader of the council in Newport I had other responsibilities and the councillors would not have found intervention by the then MP helpful.

Of course, I am in contact with the councillors. But we all respect the sensible rule that the cobbler should stick to his last.

It's impossible to avoid all cuts. £8million has to be cut this year, more next year. It's a heartbreaking task for the Council who cannot duck their responsibilities. Indulging in the blame game or striking postures will not produce answers. I was a member of Newport and Gwent Councils from 1972 to 1982. Never in that period had the councils the duty to slash spending on a scale anywhere near the level that Newport face now.

MPs have no power or influence over these choices. The Council have this unenviable task. They are
consulting widely. Some decisions are better than others but cuts are unavoidable. The Tories in their four years borrowed £25million for work on roads and £15 million on Tredegar House. Constant negativity is always destructive. There can be no universal happy endings.

The only way to find fair solutions is through practical cooperation, mutual respect and a mature
willingness to compromise on the best solutions.

 

Beware warmongering PMs

 Lead letter in tonight's Evening Standard

Miraculously austerity has disappeared. Uncounted £billions have been found to let the Prime Minister strut and posture on the world stage as a war leader. 10 years ago Blair's rhetoric, similar to the PM's now, bamboozled and bullied MPs to vote to join Bush's Iraq War.

 

Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have racked up massive costs in blood and treasure. 620 UK soldiers have died and old rotten governments have been replaced with new rotten governments.

 

Margaret Thatcher's popularity soared with the Falklands war. Is Cameron using vain glorious rhetoric to risk lives to boost his personal popularity?

The prime lesson of Iraq and Afghanistan is that we cannot win over hearts and minds with drones and bullets. Beware warmongering PMs.

 

Paul Flynn MP

 

PM struts and postures

New Tweets

• Miraculously austerity disappears. Uncounted £billions are found to let PM strut and posture on the world stage as a war leader. https://twitter.com/Paulflynnmp/status/293577204049260545

  
  

• Margaret Thatcher's popularity soared with the Falklands war. Is Cameron using vain glorious rhetoric to risk lives to boost his personal popularity? https://twitter.com/Paulflynnmp/status/293574037299400707

  
  

• 620 UK soldiers died in the Iraq and Afghan wars that replaced rotten governments with new rotten governments. Beware warmongering PMs. https://twitter.com/Paulflynnmp/status/293573146185965568

  
  

• 10 years ago Blair's rhetoric, similar to the PM's now, bamboozled and bullied MPs to vote to join Bush's Iraq War. 179 UK soldiers died. https://twitter.com/Paulflynnmp/status/293573146185965568

  
  

  
  

When drones and bullets fail

Today in parliament

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab):

Even while contemplating this frightening future of perpetual war, will the Prime Minister contrast the successful results of our involvement in Kosovo and Sierra Leone with the results in Iraq and Afghanistan, where 620 British soldiers have died? Is not the prime lesson of Iraq and Afghanistan that we cannot win over hearts and minds with drones and bullets?

The Prime Minister:

I think the hon. Gentleman draws a slightly unfair comparison about some of the engagements that, after all, a Labour Government got us into. In Kosovo and Sierra Leone, we were not dealing with the massive ideological problem of a twisted Islamic ideology that sees the murder of innocent people as not just possible but necessary. That, I think, is one of the differences with what we have been dealing with in Afghanistan and that point bears making.