Quote of the day 10th May 2017
Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria
Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Comments
Lets take the latest policy, free hospital parking, paid for by a tax on Private health insurance premiums.
I mean thats fantastic that. Now lets think it though, so we wack on a tax to private medical insurance premiums, meaning more people are more likely to say, sod it i will use the NHS, which I am paying for anyway for most things, so right away we increase NHS car parking space by introducing new patients. but that means there is more demand on parking spaces, and less people paying the tax to fund free parking, which means the NHS hospital loses out on the money raised from the car park, and has to rely on the tax which is falling.
Also we note that Tesco in whitehaven has free parking, but how many of the people parked there are actually in tesco? I used to use Morrisons car park when ever i was going to the doctors on Catherine street. sure if i needed one then i would buy my prescription from the pharmacy in morrisons, but you see the point. free parking attracts people, not always users of the hospital.
Why cant politicians see through what might sound good and think through their ideas first?
I think that all those of us who have occasion to visit the hospital would love to see lower parking charges, or none, but you are absolutely right, Jim about what a nonsense it is to suggest paying for that by triple-charging private patients (who already pay twice.)