Sarah's bulletin: 22 October 2010

Dear friends,

UK government spending review

The Chancellor on Wednesday announced £81 billion of spending cuts to be made over the next four years. These are difficult, but Labour left the nation's finances in a mess. With the largest budget deficit in Europe and no plan for tackling it, Britain faced huge economic risks. If we listened to Labour, the country's debt would be almost £100 billion higher by the end of the Parliament and we would be paying £4 billion more in debt interest alone by the time of the next election, a terrible waste of money going into the pockets of creditors.

The burden is spread fairly by protecting the key services that the most vulnerable in our society rely on. Social Care has been given a funding boost worth £2bn, the NHS and schools have been protected and the plan for social housing will deliver up to 150,000 new affordable homes. The Liberal Democrats have made sure that a £7 billion 'fairness premium' will be invested in disadvantaged youngsters, including 15 hours a week of free nursery education for the poorest 2-year-olds, ensuring they get off to a good start in life.

LibDems have also ensured the promotion of future growth by giving the go ahead to key transport projects. For the capital, Crossrail and the Tube upgrades that London so desperately needs will both go ahead with government funding. The government has understood that it cannot deprive London, the engine of Britain's economy, of the investment it needs simply to get to work every morning. These two projects will add billions to Britain's wealth in the long term. The Tube upgrade will include major anti-congestion work at some of London's busiest stations: Victoria, Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road and Bank (which I use a lot changing from the Northern Line from Angel, and it is dangerously overcrowded). London's extensive bus network has been protected too (although rail prices will rise by 3% above inflation - bad news for outer London) and the Barclays cycle hire area will be extended by 2012.

LibDems are also delivering on a Green Investment Bank that will kickstart green investment and generate jobs. Crossrail will contribute to lessening London's carbon footprint. Chris Huhne, Secretary of State for climate change and energy, also announced this week that half of new power capacity between now and 2025 will be renewables, and confirmed again there will be no government subsidy for nuclear.

There is in addition the LibDem victory in the decision not to replace Trident for at least 5 years. So as Simon Hughes said in the Guardian, reiterated (as a backhand compliment!) by the Daily Mail's 'LibDem bribes' piece, the spending review has LibDem footprints all over it.

European Parliament on another planet

I wish the same could be said of the votes in the European Parliament! In terms of budgetary responsibility, it has just not covered itself in glory this week, despite the efforts of LibDem MEPs, and I don't remember a time in my 11 years as an MEP when I was so fed up with the majority of my MEP colleagues in other groups (and even some in my own). I am used to criticising the other EU institutions but this time it was us who were tested, and failed. Three issues were the subject of votes:

1. Firstly there was the EU budget for 2011. ALDE group including LibDem MEPs voted to freeze the £115 million EU budget for next year at 2010 levels, but we lost the vote on Wednesday and the European Parliament as a whole endorsed a 6% budget increase, just as governments across Europe are having to make massive spending cuts. This was a complete own goal and gift to the Eurosceptics.

Labour MEPs were part of this 'outer space' fiscal logic, voting against the freeze and in favour of goodies such as £1.5 million for trade unions, more for the expensive EU earth observation programme, and more for EU information centres. EU spending can certainly be justified where, such as is the case with common research programs or joint embassies, money can be saved and more achieved by pooling efforts at European level. But in the first instance, and certainly in this of all years, any increases on particular items needed to be funded by savings elsewhere, not through an overall increase in the EU budget.

2. Next, a bid by reformers to take a step towards ending the Strasbourg 'travelling circus' and lessen the time, money and CO2 this wastes (I've got the T-shirt!) was thwarted by a last-minute procedural stitch-up. (This was particularly galling given the hassle many MEPs and staff had in getting to Strasbourg this week due to the general French strike: see coverage of my comments on EU Observer).

We can't end the Strasbourg farce - only the 27 governments can , in a treaty change - but in an initiative led by UK MEPs, an amendment had been put forward to at least change the European Parliament's diary for 2012 so as to go to Strasbourg only once in the month of September instead of twice (still sticking to the rule of 11 plenary sessions a year in Strasbourg, but with 2 craftily merged into one week).

No doubt sensing that they were about to lose, the centre-right European People's Party and the Socialists cooked up a last-minute procedural sabotage of the vote to get a postponement. While disappointing, this was as I said in the European Parliament Magazine, a sign that we are gaining momentum, and all the more reason to redouble our efforts!

3. Thirdly, a majority of MEPs - but not LibDems - voted for an EU law to make national employers and governments award 20 weeks maternity leave on full pay, a big jump on current EU law which specifies 14 weeks maternity leave without specifying the level of pay. I do understand the need to support families having children, but have 2 objections to this week's vote. The first is that, if the EU is going to legislate at all in this area, it should be relatively restrained in setting minimum standards and leave the rest to national legislation as there are big variations in national preferences. And second, it goes back to the context of severe fiscal pressures, with the cost to the UK reckoned at £2.5 billion a year.

French Roma database

MEPs quizzed European Commissioner for fundamental rights Viviane Reding on what she intends to do about allegations that French authorities have illegal ethnic databases of traveller communities, mostly Roma. The EU has already successfully forced France to change its immigration law to bring it into line with EU free movement rules about individual justification for deportation, not mass booting out. Reding said her lawyers are closely following the alleged ethnic database issue, and referred to a possible breach of data protection laws. She did not however refer to the possibility of race discrimination, preferring to wait and see what the French data protection authority finds. We need to press on this issue.

Shark finning

I have signed up to a call for a stronger EU ban on shark finning, the practice of slicing off a shark's fin and then discarding the carcass at sea. This disgraceful practice is driven by the high demand for shark fin soup - considered a delicacy in some parts of the world - but must be stopped and effective EU action is way overdue.

"Made in... "

The European Parliament this week also approved a five-year pilot scheme requiring shoes, clothes, leather, furniture, ceramics and high-tech steel products made outside the EU to have a "Made in…" label. It sounds great and I do support an origin labelling scheme in principle in order to provide extra information for consumers. But I am wary of the extra red tape, added cost and possible protectionist bent of the measure, so a pilot project is the right way forward.

Tougher rules for hedge funds

EU governments finally agreed with MEPs on measures to toughen the regulation of hedge funds this week. London has about 450 hedge funds (about 80% of the EU total) which together manage a staggering £250 billion of assets, and even the funds themselves agree that they need more regulation. The proposal will importantly include non-European hedge funds getting an "EU passport" to operate across the EU, which is important for London as so many US and other foreign funds are based here so was fought for by the UK government against French resistance. My LibDem colleague Sharon Bowles MEP, chair of the EP Economic and Monetary Affairs committee, has put a huge amount of work into making the directive workable for both the City and the financial services industry in all EU countries.

Increased European Parliament power in international negotiations

MEPs this week approved an agreement between the European Commission and the Parliament to improve the relationship between the two institutions: there will be more high-level meetings between Commissioners and Parliament leaders, and MEPs will be able to contribute more to international negotiations with improved access to meetings and previously confidential information. EU governments have unhelpfully threatened to take MEPs to court over this increase in the European Parliament's power, I'll be interested to see how far they get! But if we MEPs want to treated as serious players, we need to act responsibly too.

Data transfers to the US

MEPs on Monday questioned the European Commission about how many countries have agreed bilateral 'Memoranda of Understanding' with the US on transfers of personal data for counterterrorism. The problem with these is that they may not comply with EU data protection rules and may cut across or undermine carefully negotiated multilateral EU-US agreements regarding for example, limits on transfer and use of air passenger information. The Commission has assured us that it has made sure - or rather, is trying to make sure - the US does not include air passenger data in its bilateral agreements with member states, but we need to keep up the campaign on this.

First ever Anti-Slavery day, fight against human trafficking

Monday was the UK's first-ever anti-slavery day, which I hope made people a bit more aware of the plight of the thousands of modern-day slaves who are smuggled into the UK every year to work, for example, in the sex trade or as domestic servants. I marked the occasion by expressing my hope that the UK government will keep up its 200-year-old record of leading the way against human exploitation dating back to the Slave Trade Act of 1807 and opt in to the EU anti-trafficking directive. The EU law will strengthen our own anti-trafficking legislation and good practice, and help to put trafficking gangs behind bars.

Read the coverage I got for this important issue in the Croydon Guardian (here and here) and in the Sutton Guardian here.

New 'Ludford' fair trial language rights signed into law

I was proud to attend this week the official "signing" ceremony of the fair trial language rights legislation I helped to draft earlier this year - the EU equivalent of 'royal assent' whereby the President of the European Parliament and a representative from the (in this case Belgian) Council presidency officially sign the law into being. I was proud not just because of the hard work we put in to improve the law, but also because this is the first piece of EU criminal justice legislation to have been negotiated under equal ('co-decision) European Parliament and government powers, negotiations which I as 'rapporteur' for the Parliament led.

Food from cloned animals and their offspring

Remember all the outrage and confusion during August/September about milk and meat from the offspring of cloned cows entering the food chain? Well, the Commission has now come out in favour of a temporary ban on food from cloned animals for animal welfare reasons, but not from the offspring of cloned animals. This has already caused much unhappiness in the Parliament, which wants to see the latter banned as well, and we will probably try and insist on such a ban when the legislation comes before us next year.

Cuban, Cambodian and Chinese dissidents given recognition they deserve

Yesterday the European Parliament debated the threats to democracy and human rights in Cambodia, including the case of Sam Rainsy, a Cambodian MP, leader of the opposition and staunch defender of human rights and democracy in his country. His party is linked to Liberal International, whose prize for freedom he won in 2006. He has recently been sentenced (in absentia) to 10 years in prison for the ridiculous crimes of "disinformation" and "altering public documents". I had the pleasure of meeting Sam and his wife, Saumura Tioulong (pictured) on a visit there in 2008, and am writing to Jeremy Browne MP at the Foreign Office about this latest sentence and pressure to improve the situation in Cambodia.

The European Parliament yesterday awarded its Sakharov human rights prize to Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas. Farinas has been on more than 20 hunger strikes and spent 11 years in prison during his campaign for democracy in Cuba - he only ceased his latest hunger strike when the Cuban government recently announced it was going to release 52 political prisoners.

And Liu Xiaobo, one of the leaders of the human rights struggle in China who is currently in jail, was earlier this month awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison last year for having drafted 'Charter 08' calling for multi-party democracy and respect for human rights in China.

We must keep doing all we can to trumpet the causes of these exceedingly brave people and to keep up the pressure for their release or acquittal.

Best regards,

Sarah Ludford