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Suffolk Trading Standards have a rather disturbing press release about people impersonating the air ambulance service:

Organisations claiming to represent the air ambulance service have targeted local residents in a campaign which is taking much needed funds away from the genuine life-saving charity, according to an investigation by Trading Standards.

Ben Gummer has decided to stick up for charging for road use.  To give him his due he is framing it in terms of the ridiculously high fuel duty bequeathed by Gordon Brown to pay for Bridge’s Labour councillors’ over market-rate public sector sinecures but this is still going to be a hard sell.

First off I’m a believer in road pricing, in theory.  It’s using the market mechanism to deal with a clear example of underpricing - rush hour road use.  I share this firm belief with other free market zealots, such as Red Ken Livingston.

However I dipped my toe into the water on this when the new coalition government set up their website for crowd sourced deficit cutting measures, which in turn would be rated by the public.  I made a number of suggestions, satisfying my inner policy wonk.  Most of the suggestions were actually quite well received, with particularly high praise for the idea of not imprisoning licence fee non payers and anything on foreign aid.  But there was one area where I was particularly unpopular, road pricing.

Wouldn’t it be a good idea, I suggested, to implement road pricing through number plate recognition where there was congestion before building a new road or widening or something like that.  In this way we could cut rush hour congestion while at the same time having a sound business case for any extra capacity – should it be needed.  I was particularly happy with this reasonable sounding suggestion.

The reaction was not so pleasing.  It was roundly panned.  Why should anyone pay any more tax for using the roads?  Surely the roads are more than adequately provided for out of the current fuel tax? 

So here are the problems with road charging:

1) It is highly unpopular.  No one believes that there will be a straight switch from fuel taxes to road charges.  Fuel tax is so remarkably easy to collect.  Downing Street managed to get one and a half million signatures against the measure last time.

2) There is an immense civil liberties question here.  Why would the police not want the information that would be provided by your road use account?  And if the police got it, what about the local education authority snooping on catchment areas, or some lone figure in the computer department at a County Council who wants to see where members of another party are canvassing.  How would our movements be kept private?

3)  How would the tracking be paid for?  The last attempt, put forward by the European Union, was essentially designed to finance the European Space Agency’s Galileo programme by using 30 satellites that were going to be sent up in order to support this.  This is as expensive as it sounds and it will take up a large share of the initial revenues for this programme.  It is also unnecesary as use of the already existing NASA satelite system would be considerably lower, and not need pan-European agreement.

Road pricing is a good idea, in principle.  Ben Gummer’s plan deserves support if it does replace money from the fuel duty, put to bed the civil liberties issues and it can get away from the pointless European Galileo programme.  The Euro and the rolling bailout should have taught us that just about anything that is designed in Brussels is going to turn out badly.

From the BBC:

A tyre fitter has been charged with manslaughter in connection with the death of a man following a fight outside a pub in Ipswich.

Simon Cowles, 20, of Star Lane, suffered a head injury outside the Smock pub, on Maidenhall Approach, on Sunday and later died in hospital.

Paul Dell, 44, of Neath Drive, Ipswich, was rearrested on Thursday and later charged with manslaughter.

He was remanded in custody to appear at Ipswich Magistrates’ Court on Saturday.

The Evening Star also has a piece on this.

I’m sorry that I didn’t post in time for Maundy Thursday and that I didn’t publicise the walk of witness.  I’ve also got very scant information on Good Friday services.

For fellow Catholics St Pancras (Tacket Street) will hold it’s Good Friday service at 3pm, the same time as St Mark’s (Hawthorn Drive).

Stoke Green Baptist church (Maidenhall Approach Halifax Road) have not put anything on their website, but I believe from previous years that this is also 3pm. 

For the Anglicans, Holy Trinity (Back Hamlet) is holding a “traditional service” at 2pm.  St Mary Stoke don’t have the service time on their calendar (although they still have the flag flying at half mast).

I will be better with the Easter Masses and communion services.

I usually have strong opinions on political matters, I even manage to have contradictory strong opinions on some – like the death penalty where being pro-life and anti big government competes against the sure knowledge that almost every anti death penatly campaigner rather approve of the death sentance as long as it applies to the law abiding working and lower middle class victims who don’t sign petitions for Amnesty International and not the criminals who half of them seem to marry in prison.

The Alternative Vote is one of these strange areas where I don’t have an opinion. I am a Tory – and I know most lefties are for this system because they think that it will lock the Tories out – but I also believe that first past the post has failed and is one of the key reasons why people are so disengaged with politics.

So AV has me stumped. It does mean that some people will have their votes counted but many of them will be the fourth or fifth choice. The idea that it will make politics more grown up is somewhat belied by the scenes from the Australian Parliament (where the truly awful winner won fewer votes than the loser).

David Owen and David Alton, two rare left wing politicians with a record of calling out nonsense, have both said that although they are strong supporters of PR they are against AV as a worsening of the system and something that will set back the cause for PR.

But the very well funded Yes To AV sent me something with Stephen Fry in it. A man who wanted to arrest the Pope when he came here. The stupid man’s idea of what an intelligent man sounds like. Just the sort of man who would be against the death penalty. Perhaps there are good arguments for first past the post after all.

I was alys vaguely aware that they found a mammoth on the Maidenhall Estate, but I did not realise that they were actually a rather important find when it came to the understanding of the evolution of large mammals and climate change during the ice age.

Ben Gummer forwarded to me a set of articles that Natural England sent to him about these excavations.  Part of the beauty of them is that many of them are from the 1920s and 1930s and so give a good flavour of what Belstead Avenue and Maidenhall Approach were like before the building..

One article by Nina Frances Layard in 1920 discusses Stoke like this:

The tunnel, which is 360 yards in length, was made by the then existing Eastern Union Railway Company.   The the North end is close to Ipswich Station the South can only be approached by a circuitous route, involving a journey “over Stoke,” as it is locally called.  A tortuous pathway threaded between allotments belonging to the Company’s men, led to the coveted spot, and arriving at length at the South end of the tunnel, I found the cutting beyond it thickly overrown, not only with grass, but with considerable briars, some of which had become trees of considerable size.  Here and there a foot or two of the earth was exposed, and five minutes’ search brought to light a stag’s horn as brittle as bread, the tip of which appeard protruding from the bank.

Some newer work makes clear that there is much more to be found as in 1975 they found that the bed extends about half a mile down (they say nearly a kilometer, but we don’t hold with Napoleonic measures on Bridge Ward News).

There was another excavation in 1948 by HEP Spencer (not a relation as far as I know) .

There are some more details in these links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Eastern_Main_Line#Stoke_tunnel

http://www.ipswich.gov.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=694&pageNumber=7

http://ipswich-lettering.org/EUR.html

I’m goi to put these documents into a better home, the Over Stoke History group.

More questions on immigration (see here for part 1 and part 2).  The entrepreneur’s visa is particularly troublesome as there does not seem to be much detail around it.  The lack of protection (or even thought about) whislteblowers is worrying.  If there were an off colour joke told then there would be whistleblower protection, but not if there were concerted abuse aiming to drive down the wages, rights and prospects of Britisih citizens amd foreign workers?  Sounds like an employers charter.

Now to Ben Gummer’s responses:

Questions on entrepreneur’s visas

9. What measures will there be to ensure that holders of the entrepreneur’s visa will be deported if they do not start a viable business in the required time?

I have not been able to find a satisfactory answer to this question and have therefore written to the immigration minister to ask for a response.

10. What will be the required time to show viability of the business and how will viability be measured?

Likewise, I am unable to provide an answer to this. I will write to you again once I have received a response from the minister.

Questions on the intra-company transfer system

11. How long will a person have to be working within a multinational company before they will be eligible to benefit from the intra-company transfer system?

Under the existing intra-company transfer system there are three different established routes each with different requirements. As I understand it, the system works as follows:

‘Established staff’ – this route is for established, skilled employees to be transferred to the UK branch of their organisation to fill a post that cannot be filled by a settled worker. They must have worked for the employer overseas for a minimum of twelve months before they can transfer to the UK. They can stay in the UK for a maximum of five years.

‘Graduate trainee’ – this route allows the transfer of recent graduate recruits to a UK branch of the organisation, for training purposes. They can transfer to the UK after three months of employment, and stay in the UK for a maximum of twelve months.

‘Skills transfer’ – this route allows the transfer of new recruits to a UK branch of the organisation to acquire the skills and knowledge that they will need overseas, or to impart their specialist skills or knowledge to the UK workforce. There is no minimum period that the worker must have worked for the employer for before they are eligible to transfer to the UK, but they can only stay in the UK for a maximum of six months.

12. Will this role have to be directly equivalent to the role that they are taking up in the UK?

The government has confirmed that the existing intra-company transfer rules will continue to apply. There is no specific requirement that a worker’s existing job will be directly equivalent to that which they will take up in the UK.

According to the home office, as far as eligibility is concerned, the following applies. Where a person is entering through an intra-company transfer for ‘established staff’, the job must be at a skill level which is equivalent to S/NVQ level three or above. The jobs taken by those entering in the ‘graduate’ and ‘skills transfer’ sub-categories must be classed as a “graduate occupation”, as per the relevant occupational code of practice. Intra-company transferees are not required to demonstrate a proficiency in English unless they are making an in-country application to extend their leave beyond three years. They are not entitled to public funds. Their dependants can join them and work in the UK.

13. Will there be a 100% ownership requirement for foreign firms where the people are working before they are eligible for the intra-company transfer system?

As I understand it, the government has no plans to amend the existing policy, which is as follows. There will not be a 100% ownership requirement for foreign firms before they are eligible to sponsor intra-company transfer. There are, however, strict rules governing which companies are eligible for intra-company transfer, requiring proof of common ownership between the company in the UK and the parent company outside it. The UK Border Agency has strict definitions of common ownership:

•     1 entity controls the composition of the other entity’s board; or

•     1 entity is in a position to cast, or control the casting of, more than half the maximum number of votes that might be cast at a general meeting of the other entity; or

•     1 entity holds more than half the issued share capital of the other entity (excluding any part of that issued share capital that carries no right to participate beyond a specified amount in a distribution of either profits or capital); or

•     both entities have a common parent entity that itself or through other entities meets 1 of the requirements of the first 3 bullet points above in relation to both entities that are the subject of the intra company transfer; or

•     1 entity is related to the other entity as both entities are party to a joint venture agreement; or

•     1 entity is related to the other entity in that 1 entity is party to a joint venture agreement and the other entity is the entity formed by that joint venture agreement; or

•     1 entity is related to the other entity by agreement that would constitute a joint venture agreement other than for the fact that joint venture agreements are not permitted in the country of operation or 1 of the entities is not permitted to enter into joint ventures in the country of operation; or

•     1 entity is related to the other entity in that 1 entity is party to an agreement that would constitute a joint venture agreement other than for the fact that joint venture agreements are not permitted in the country of operation or that entity is not permitted to enter into joint ventures in the country of operation and the other entity is the entity formed by that agreement; or

•     where both entities are either accountancy or law firms, 1 entity is related to the other entity by agreement which allows both entities to use a trademark which is registered or established under the laws of the UK and the jurisdiction of the other entity’s country of operation; or

•     where both entities are either accountancy or law firms, 1 entity is related to the other entity by agreement which allows both entities to operate under the same name in the UK and in the jurisdiction of the other entity’s country of operation;

•     in the case of unincorporated associations, the UKBA may also consider the receiving entity to be a linked company if it is a registered company and its articles of association with the sending entity indicate a relationship of control (for example, one member has the power to appoint the other’s trustees).

14. Will there be protection for whistleblowers in companies where abuses of the intra-company transfer system have been noted and penalties for employers who are found guilty of abusing the intra-company transfers?

I have looked into this in detail. As I see it, there are no such provisions relating to whistleblowing. However, the government is confident that by tightening up the salary requirement for intra-company transfers, they will reduce substantially the scope for companies to abuse the system.

15. What penalties will be levied on companies that abuse the intra-company transfer system and who will judge that the visas have been abused?

I am assured by the government that under the points-based system for immigration, any employer who wishes to recruit a non-European Economic Area worker must first apply to the UK Border Agency to obtain a licence to sponsor migrants under the relevant tier, and be put on the UKBA’s resister of sponsors. There are certain duties and compliance obligations which they must meet in order to obtain a licence. Those who are found not to be complying may be downgraded or removed from the register of companies. Licensed sponsors are then allocated a specified number of Certificates of Sponsorship (depending on the business case they have put to the UKBA), which they must then assign to the prospective employees. Having received an offer of work or study and a Certificate of Sponsorship from an approved sponsor, the individual must then apply for the appropriate visa in order to enter the UK.

16. What safeguards will there be to ensure that companies that apply for the visas will not have any redundancy programmes before or after visas have been issued?

I have written to the minister to ask him for his assurances that this has been taken into consideration.

17. Will there be a requirement to advertise the jobs first in the UK and to demonstrate that the job can’t be filled?

According to the government, employers are responsible for ensuring that those they bring in through intra-company transfers are not replacing a resident worker.

I have written to the minister to ask for further details on this point.

That was the Riverside View of  Kevin Algar to the latest leaflet, when he came around to help with the delivery (Wherstead Road today – and it’s been a long time since I’ve been so happy to have some rain).  It’s true, all of the stories first appeared on this blog – although some have been heavily edited.

There has been an attack of brown water in the Belstead Avenue area and the “surrounding streets”. It is due to a fire hydrant being used in the area about an hour ago and disturbing the sediment and putting some iron in the water. Anglian Water have said that the water is safe to use. It should all be back clear the morning.

If you want to contact Anglian Water their telephone number is 08457 145 145 and the website is https://www.anglianwater.co.uk/household/water-quality/self-diagnosis/index.aspx

So Labour managed to hold the seat when they are the only opposition party, and not enough Tories switched to the Liberals to help them gain the seat. Both Labour and Liberals can be a bit relieved, although you’d have to be on drugs to think that this was a great result for either party.

The Conservatives are going to be saying that they didn’t try and they shouldn’t be worried by the squeeze.

Really? The Tories (which held a large slice of this seat until the 1990s) got 12.8%. UKIP got 5.6%. That’s almost half the Tory vote.

UKIP have had a string of little noticed good results in byelections in the last few years. They almost took enough Tory votes to let the Lib Dems snatch Bromley, they beat the Tories in Hartlepool and they trounced the Greens in Norwich North where the Greens were given a lot of prominence by the media.

At a time of coalition with an opposition that seems to be sinking into economic illiteracy the respectable right may score a byelection surprise in this parliament.