Coronavirus and Jobs
Today’s jobs figures show more of the impact coronavirus is having, which is why the government will continue to protect, create and support jobs while levelling up the entire country. |
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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
"The Financial Times reports that the UK Government is planning to unveil a significant economic stimulus package in July 2020. As part of the preparation process, the country's Local Enterprise Partnerships and Mayoral Combined Authorities have been asked to submit lists of "shovel ready" capital projects by Thursday 18th June 2020."
https://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/18646652.debate-controversial-new-coal-mine-continues-ahead-key-decision/
"Copeland Council elected mayor Mike Starkie has been a vocal backer of the project and wrote to Boris Johnson this week to ask the Prime Minister to ensure it will go ahead.
Mr Starkie said: “The WCM project satisfies all of the criteria you have set out in your desire to support ‘shovel-ready’ projects and does not need any Government grant or subsidy.
“I do hope you can help to make sure it can now proceed without any further blockage or delay.”
So he still has all three of his wishes left. However, what he thinks he was doing writing to the Prime Minister asking him to interfere in a quasi-judicial process that was delegated back to the County by the Secretary of State as recently as 1 November 2019, I for one don't know. Still, he's not the only elected representative to want to subvert due process on this matter, as a review of the timings involved in the cancellation of next week's planned Development Control meeting has made clear enough to anyone who understands that agenda and reports are required to be published at least 7 days before the scheduled date of a meeting.
I bet Mr Starkie didn't anticipate that the blockage and delay he feared would actually come from the Council officers and members themselves.
Equally, since as Mike Starkie points out in the article you linked to, this is not a project which requires any government subsidy, it is not the sort of scheme which the government was inviting council leaders and metro mayors to write in and ask for help with.
By the way, Mike Starkie is a single authority mayor, not a combined authority or "metro" mayor: in Cumbria it would be the LEP which would have submitted a list of schemes. I will try to find out what they put in.
In the terms of your original question I doubt very much whether any aspect of the government's plan for jobs relating to Cumbria will be "relying on promises" from West Cumbria Mining.
Did the law not make me jointly liable in terms of any libel action which results from anything you post here, I might find it interesting to invite you to specify who exactly you are accusing of what action to "subvert due process." However, as any answer to that question might well be actionable and if so I would have to remove it to avoid becoming liable myself, it would look silly to risk asking for a comment and then deleting the reply to my question.
Far be it from me to defend the actions of the present leadership of the council, but I would be careful of jumping to any such conclusion.
I have not heard why the meeting has been postponed and as I say will ask, but if for example the answer was that the necessary report was not ready, or was clearly not going to be ready, in time for publication the required five working days before any meeting on 20th August, then the decision to cancel the meeting would be about acting within due process, not subverting it.
It is not in the least surprising that the report would take longer than had been expected to prepare given the large number of submissions received just before the deadline which, although most of them came from people who don't live or work anywhere remotely near the proposed mine, all had to be read, assessed and considered.
I have not had a reply to the questions on the subject which I asked two weeks ago, which I find mildly concerning, but I suspect it is not not due to anything more sinister than people being very busy and lots of people on holiday in August. I have chased again.
I suspect you may be putting two and two together and making seventy-four.
The senior planning officer had provided a reply to my initial question but it did not immediately reach me, which was indeed apparently because a colleague was on leave.
When I kicked off about this yesterday evening I received a reply first thing this morning.