Nadine Dorries MP: The Chancellor must cancel August's 3p increase in fuel duty

A week ago I had the pleasure of chairing a Westminster Hall debate, on the issue of petrol and diesel pricing, which had been secured by the MP for Harlow, Robert Halfon. I wasn’t surprised to see the room fill with members from all sides of the House, even though it did present a challenge in a half hour debate. My office postbag had been bristling with constituents’ anger all week and I imagine ever other MP was experiencing the same level of feedback and voters have a right to be angry.

The fact is this: the cost of petrol is slowly creeping beyond the means of many working families creating a catch 22 situation. People use their cars to earn an income, either wholly or in rural areas like mine, for transportation to and from work. But when the cost of running a car makes the benefit of work negligible, what’s the point?

It is true that thanks to the action of the Chancellor, shortly after we came to power the cost of petrol is cheaper now than it would have been under Labour. However, the scheduled 3p rise in fuel duty is simply not acceptable. It is a tax upon a tax as duty is added on to the cost of petrol and then VAT is charged on top of the duty.  This is madness, and it a madness my constituents, who are already heavily taxed, are paying for.

When the price of crude oil goes up, the oil companies increase their price immediately, when the cost comes down no such immediate adjustment takes place.  When we are living through the tough economic times we are today, people are aware of this and it adds to the general unhappiness people feel when they are being taxed to the hilt and it seems as though the state is sucking every last penny out of the family purse.

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Bruce Anderson: The good and bad sides of Ken Clarke

"Fear no more the heat of the sun." We British have an uneasy relationship with high summer. Some years, it never appears. The next year, it redoubles its efforts. The cold beer runs out; the trains are late because the metal railway lines expand. Everyone complains about the lack of air conditioning. On the Mediterranean, the sun is welcomed by lithe bronzed figures. In London, there are undignified spectactles in public parks, as garments designed solely for private view are given full exposure, accompanied by flesh which is either banal beige or over-boiled lobster. We British are not designed to grace Apollo's chariot.

Except for Ken Clarke. There was a delightful photograph earler in the week. Ken was in the Pavilion at Trent Bridge, dressed for the East Midlands summer rather than the Cote d'Azure one. It is possible that he might have had a couple of pints. It is also true that the greatest of all games does not always keep its spectators in a state of constant excitement. Ken was photographed yawning. This was no demure, hand-over-the-mouth, apologetic yawn. With the mouth thrown wide open, it was a glorious, gaping yawn: a yawn an elephant might have envied. Ken was yawning for England.

In so many ways, he is a quintessentially English figure. One weekend in the early Nineties, when Mr Clarke was Chancellor, he invited his Chief Secretary, Jonathan Aitken, to Dorneywood, the Chancellor's country house. Sunday morning, approaching mid-day: somewhere in the British Empire, the sun must be over the yard-arm - time for a drink. "Fancy a pint, Jonathan?" said Ken. Gillian Clarke was on the case in a flash. "Ken, remember we've got twenty people coming for lunch. I want you boys back here at one o'clock, sharp". Assurances were given; the Ministers set off - to a surprisingly scruffy pub, where the Chancellor's arrival did not raise a stir. "Allo, Ken mate, what're you 'avin?" Two or three pints later, Ken looked at his watch. Jonathan prepared to drink up and leave. Ken: "There's another pub just down the road that's even more me". Jonathan: "Have we time?" Ken: "Course". Another few minutes, an even more unreconstructed pub, even less surprise at the distinguished regular's arrival. "Fancy a game o' darts, Ken?"

It was gone one when they took their leave, back to Dorneywood by forced march, to find twenty distinguished guests making awkward small-talk over thimble glasses of sherry. Ken went around greeting everyone, while trying to avoid a) burping beer at them b) his wife's eye. In an age of over-spun politicians, it is a heartening story. Like the Trent Bridge photo, it seems like a triumphant assertion of proper England against the shallowness and plasticity of metrosexual London.

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Andrew Lilico: Whether Scotland stays in the Union is not purely up to the Scots

One of the most commonly-repeated nostrums of the issue of whether / when there should be a referendum on Scottish independence is that the issue of whether Scotland should leave the Union is a matter for the Scots. But that's wrong, both in principle and in practice.

At one level, it's the kind of thing I might say myself. When I've said that, I meant to contrast the situation for Scotland with that for Wales. Scotland is a country within the Union. There was a union of Crowns, of which the Scottish crown was one, and a fusion of sovereigns. Scotland is a country within the United Kingdom. Wales is not a country at all under the British constitution. It is a region of England-and-Wales. There was no Act of Union of Wales. Wales was simply absorbed under the English crown as part of a process of absorption of Welsh-speaking regions that included Cumbria (probably in the 1050s), Cornwall (in the 1060s) and Wales (in the 1270s). Wales is no more a country than is Cornwall or Strathclyde. It's no more a "matter for the Welsh" whether Wales leaves the union than it is a matter for the Cornish or the East Anglians whether their regions depart, likewise. Those that happen to dwell on a piece of land at a moment of time do not become sovereign over it.

Scotland, on the other hand, is clearly a country. If it wants to leave the Union, that's up to the Scots to decide. But that does not mean it is a matter purely for the Scots, and it a great error to believe that it is. As the Greeks may shortly learn, in order to stay in a union with others, the others must want to stay in union with you.

The key threat to the Union is not that Scots will choose to leave it. It's that the English-and-Welsh will choose to leave the Scots. The Scots rarely offer any sense that their politicians comprehend this point. A recent example was offered by the absurd and arrogant presumption of the Scottish Nationalists that, after "independence" (a false notion, as I shall explain in a moment) Scotland would continue to be part of the Sterling area. As George Osborne quite properly pointed out, there is no guarantee of that at all. There is nothing the rest of the United Kingdom would be likely to want to do to prevent the Scots from using sterling, much as Montenegro uses the euro or Ecuador uses the dollar, but Montenegro is not a euro member. It has no voting presence on the ECB; its banks cannot access ECB last resort lending. Its use of the euro is purely one of piggy-backing.

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Jill Kirby: It's time to scrap the child poverty target, and replace it with broader measures

In the dying days of the last government, Labour laid a series of policy landmines, primed to explode under its successor in Downing Street. All were designed to portray potential Conservative opposition to these policies as heartless and/or out of touch with modern life. Prime examples were the introduction of the 50p tax rate, the Child Poverty Act (making the “abolition” of child poverty by 2020 a legally binding target) and the Equality Bill.

On 50p tax, unable to make a consistent or coherent case against increasing levels of taxation, the Chancellor has ended up with a 45p compromise that seems to please no-one. On the Equality Bill, the coalition ducked the opportunity to restrict its scope or limit its cost (to businesses and taxpayers), instead passing it into law within six months of taking office. And Labour's child poverty target, which stipulated that by 2020 no child would be living in a household with less than 60% of median income, met with no resistance from the Conservatives in opposition; it now provides a stick with which critics can beat the government at regular intervals. Those critics include not just the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which frequently provides calculations showing how far short of the target the government is falling, but also the coalition's own poverty adviser (and former Labour minister) Alan Milburn.

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Bruce Anderson: The Diamond Jubilee is a time for rejoicing and gratitude

"History is now and England". The Queen is now and history. The Jubilee is a time for celebration and merriment. It is also a moment for reflection, and for solemnity. Even those who regard themselves as monarchists often fail to do justice to the resonance and richness of that sacred creed. You will hear people say that a Monarchy saves us from having a superannuated politician as President. Others will add that it boosts the tourist industry. No doubt both are true; they are also beside the point. The Monarchy is not a convenient political arrangement, any more than it is a boost to the balance of payments. It is the ground of our political being. Monarchy is a form of secular transcendence.

It is also a golden thread running through British constitutional history. For centuries, it was a focus of contention. In the Middle Ages, there were dynastic struggles, with regular attempts to dethrone and murder monarchs. There followed the conflicts of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Royalist versus Roundhead, Whigs versus Tories, Hanoverians versus Jacobites. For more than a hundred years, there were battles to decide who should rule, and with what powers. The Whigs won, which was just as well. There ensued a uniquely peaceful constitutional evolution, and a refutation of Luke's Gospel - it was possible to put new wine into old bottles. In periods of uncertainty, rapid change and global conflict, ancient forms could help to guide and stabilise the country. The result was the Crown in Parliament, which Enoch Powell saw as the greatest expression of English political genius. That phrase is easier to incant than to explain, but there is a role for incantation, as for ceremonies and allegiance. We cannot turn our history and our national life into desiccated quantifications. The Crown is romance, and as so often, romance is the highest form of realism.

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Bruce Anderson: No thoughtful Tory should be tempted by an EU referendum. We need to think our way out.

From 2005 onwards, David Cameron flirted with fantasy. He had seen the damage that rows about Europe had inflicted upon the Conservative Party and he wanted no repetition. The less Europe was discussed, the better it would be for his party's prospects. That was true, but irrelevant. Whatever plans leaders may have, Europe has a way of forcing itself on to the agenda. So Mr Cameron has no alternative. It must be confronted.

The latest agenda difficulty is the call for a referendum. When Nigel Farage and Peter Mandelson agree, every sane person's suspicions should be aroused. In his latest column, my colleague Paul Goodman has provided a superb analysis of Mr Farage's strategy. So where does Mandy fit in?

We can best answer that by considering what would happen if there were a referendum next year. All three party leaders would be on the same platform. So, probably, would Alex Salmond. They would all promise a degree of renegotiation, and Mr Cameron would mean it. They would also insist that it would not be in Britain's interests to withdraw. So it would be almost certain that the public would vote to stay in. That would consolidate Britain's membership of the EU - and undermine our bargaining position.

But it would have another dramatic effect. Labour and the Liberals would remain united: the Tories would split. UKIP would have MPs, and a position from which to mount further attacks on the Tory Party. As a result, the next election would almost certainly lead to a Lab/Lib government, entrenching the forces of Europhilia and ensuring that the Eurosceptics would be electorally weakened. There would be no hope in realigning Britain's relations with the EU in our national interest. That is why Lord Mandelson is attracted to a referendum. 

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Andrew Lilico: Why are companies sitting on their cash?

One of the current policy puzzles is why companies are sitting on large cash balances instead of investing them as the government hoped they would.  Indeed, some in the government appear now to hope to apply moral pressure on companies to invest, as if they were letting the side down by not investing.

Let us ponder a few reasons companies might prefer to hold cash.

1. Cash solves problems.  We all know from our personal lives that if emergencies arise, if things don't go as we had hoped, or if there are good surprises, problems are much easier to cope with - indeed, can sometimes be turned into pleasant adventures or new opportunities rather than unhappy episodes - if we have cash available.  The same is true for companies.  Things that might go wrong can be turned into things that go right, disasters can be averted, challenging situations survived without long-term damage, if a company has cash.  When the risk of problems is greater, the benefits of holding more cash increases.

This applies to small problems.  It also applies to big ones.  If the Eurozone were to collapse and/or there were to be widespread banking sector collapses, companies that can purchase with cash may have considerable advantages over, for example, those relying upon normal trade credit (thirty day invoicing etc.).  The collapse of trade credit was important to the collapse of a number of enterprises in late 2008 / early 2009.  Companies will not want to be in that situation themselves in the future.

2. Cash is better than available credit.  Problem-solving cash can sometimes be obtained at relatively little expense through available credit - the business equivalent of "slapping it on the credit card".  But if we fear that banks may withdraw credit availability, or that in order to secure credit we will have to agree to burdensome and invasive inspection (and curtailment) of our activities, or if we lack confidence that the bank itself will be able to provide credit in precisely those circumstances we when have most need of it (because the same economic conditions that would create our cash need would also create a cash shortage for the bank itself), we will rely less upon available credit and more upon brute cash.

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Jill Kirby: NICE is wrong to say that older women and lesbian couples should get IVF on the NHS

As Europe waits to see if the euro is about to unravel, and as the UK government struggles to agree on any radical action to energise its own fragile economy, there is an air of unreality in the political news cycle. In a contest for the most out-of-touch proposal, the Prime Minister's offer to give every parent free government-backed advice on bringing up baby was surely last week's winner. Yesterday's recommendation from the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), to increase the availability of free fertility treatment on the NHS, looks like a strong contender for this week's list of foolish ways for spending money we don't have.

NICE has published new draft guidelines on the use and availability of fertility treatments, including in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), updating its 2004 guidelines to ensure compliance with equalities legislation. IVF is currently available on the NHS for women aged 23-39 (although provision varies widely between health trusts, as to conditions attached and the number of treatment cycles offered.). NICE is now recommending that IVF should also be free to older women, aged 40-42, and advises that women should be entitled to treatment after just two years of trying to conceive naturally, rather than waiting for three years as at present.

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Andrew Lilico: A six-point alternative to yet more bank bailouts

All over Europe, bank bailouts, which never stopped from 2007 on (we just stopped talking about them so loud or re-branded them "sovereign debt bailouts"), have started accelerating again.  Recent days have seen discussion or enaction of bailouts in Ireland, Spain, France, Cyprus and Greece.  Today senior ministers of a number of Eurozone members are apparently set to demand an EU-wide guarantee on all deposits.  If matters in the Eurozone get out of hand, there could yet be discussions of more bailouts of the big British banks.

I have opposed this bailouts strategy since it began.  In my view it has been the most expensive folly since the age of the pyramids.  Sometimes, though, a strategy that is a bad idea can trap policymakers - so even if they should not have started down the path, once they have begun they have no choice but to see it through to the end.  That is not the case with the bailouts.  They can abandon this failed and destructive scheme at any time.  They could even withdraw from what has already been done, but they certainly do not have to do yet more bailouts as banks come under further pressure now.

If not yet more bailouts, what instead?  Just give up and let matters take their course - laissez-faire?  By no means!  Here is my six-point plan for dealing with the banks.

1. No recapitalisation; no government loans or guarantees of loans to bust banks; no extension of deposit guarantees beyond what is already in legislation.  The strategy was immoral and destructive from the beginning.  Furthermore, a number of states simply cannot afford to bail out their banks.  Recent days have seen the absurd suggestion that Spain should bail out its banks and then, because that would bankrupt the Spanish state, Spain should appeal to the Eurozone for financial assistance.  Bailing out its banks risks leaving Spain in the same situation Ireland found itself a couple of years ago, in which an essentially solvent sovereign bankrupts itself entirely gratuitously to spare those that foolishly lent money to bust banks from the fruits of their folly.  The bailouts are the main reason Greece is likely to leave the euro.  Their further extension would risk causing the total distintegration of the euro.  This wicked and destructive folly must end, before it drags even prudent peoples, strong economies and noble projects into its web of misery.
2. Suspend formulaic capital adequacy ratio requirements.  Rules saying banks must hold this or that percentage of capital are intended to limit the risk that financial crises occur.  Once financial crises are in play, such rules are at best irrelevant (for markets may require higher ratios) and at worst highly counter-productive.  There are two key ways they can be counterproductive.  First, they can put institutions that would survive market turmoil into unnecessary regulatorily-induced distress.  Second, they can drive the system as a whole to deleverage even faster than the market requires, causing money supply growth to collapse, inducing deflationary debt spirals.  Regulatory capital adequacy assessments, under these conditions, need to be entirely bespoke and conducted by central banks in intimate and ongoing relationship with the institutions they regulate.
3. Depositor liquidity insurance.  Depositors do not run on banks because they have a rational fear of losing their money.  Typical recovery rates for depositors, even in epic insolvencies such as the US bank runs of the 1930s, are in excess of 80 per cent.  Depositors run on banks because they fear losing access to their money.  Deposit guarantees only "work" in the sense that the larger they are, the more likely depositors believe it to be that governments will bail banks out (and evidence suggests they are right to believe that).  What needs to be guaranteed is that depositors (including small and medium-sized business depositors) can continue to use their funds.  There are two key elements to that.  First, governments must stand willing to take control of payments systems (through special administration procedures similar to those applying to water, electricity, airports and so on), so that ATMs, credit cards in shops, and the like keep working.  Second, governments should allow depositors to withdraw up to 80 per cent of their deposits, as normal, but formally these would be loans from the government.  (I suggest the creation of a Deposit Access Fund, paid for out of newly printed money.  Liquidated asset monies would simply be returned to the Deposit Access Fund, to be withdrawn from circulation in due course.)  In the event that liquidation of banks did not yield enough money to cover monies withdrawn, the relevant depositors would owe the government a tax liability, to be recovered through PAYE systems.
4. Depositor preference.  If banks are liquidated, depositors should rank ahead of bondholders.
5. Debt-equity swaps.  If banks have significantly inadequate capital or are insolvent but viable trading entities, they should fall into the hands of their bondholders - just as any other business falls into the hands of its creditors if it goes bust.  That means the bondholders should own it - their debts should be converted into equity stakes in the bank.  That would recapitalise almost all banks without government recapitalisation schemes or liquidation.  The Basel Committee, the European Commission, and the UK government all agree that debt-equity swaps are how the authorities should response to future banking crises.  If that's the way to do it next time (and it is), why not do it that way this time?
6. Solvent institutions should be lent monies by the central bank.  Central bank provision of liquidity to solvent institutions, at a penal rate, is not a bailout.  It is what central banks exist for in a fractional reserve banking system.

Over the longer-term there are many other regulatory changes required in the banking sector, which I have discussed many times before.  But the above six-point plan constitutes a realistic and viable alternative to more bailouts.  This is the direction we should go.

Stephan Shakespeare: Why David Cameron is still the most likely person to be Prime Minister after the next election

I wonder if there's ever been a government which didn't suffer from mid-term blues? The hard thing is working out whether the recent steep decline in the coalition's polling numbers is merely a dip or a lasting trend. There's no certain test, but one can check the full range of trackers to see if the drop in general popularity is reflected by a change in underlying assessments. The nation won't cheer a Prime Minister in recessionary times, but does it really believe there's a better alternative?

The picture is mixed. For a long time after the approval ratings turned negative, people continued to rate Cameron's job performance as better than Milliband's (both being heavily negative) and saw him as the best PM; they continued to prefer Osborne to Balls, and on the economy trusted the Conservatives more than Labour. Now? Cameron's job rating has slipped below Milliband's (though the recent local election effect is fading a little), but he is still preferred as PM; the Cameron/Osborne combo is still rated considably higher than Miliband/Balls; while on which party is most trusted on the economy, the Conservatives and the Labour are tied.

Interestingly, although the conventional voting intention question gives Labour a double figure lead, when asked if people would rather see a Cameron-led Conservative government after the next election or a Miliband-led Labour government, Labour's lead halves. This suggests Miliband, though improving, is still a drag on Labour's approval ratings.

My view is that Cameron is still the most likely person to be Prime Minister after the next election, though he is obviously very vulnerable, and it's very hard to predict the dynamics of coalition. For example, when YouGov asks people for whom thry could best say "The kind of society it wants is broadly the kind of society I want", Consevative plus LibDem outperforms Labour - but can Clegg and Cameron convince the public there is sufficient overlap between them - that it's really a shared vision, and not a sterile compromise for power? (Check out YouGov's figures on party image here and for the full range of trackers go here.)

While the Conservatives are more seen as being led by people of real ability than Labour, voters are more likely to think Labour's 'heart is in the right place' by a margin of two-to-one. This sets up a clear division. It's understandable that Tories should try to be better loved, but it's a waste of effort. This, I think, is worth highlighting: Conservatives beat Labour by a whopping margin if 50% to 10% on being 'willing to take tough and unpopular decisions'. This could be a very valuable perception if at election time people still feel as insecure as they do now. Remember, we are nowhere near half-way through the cuts; if the government sticks to its plans, there's a great swell of anger still to come. No-one will feel cuddly towards the Tories, no matter how hard they try to rebrand; the only positive for the Conservatives is if they are credited with being smart and competent: level-headed as well as hard-hearted. Giving up that reputation in return for being seen as more likeable could be a great mistake