Beliefs and Issues
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My Beliefs
National Issues
My beliefs
- I believe in honesty, being straightforward and standing up for what I hold true and just. I believe in liberty and personal and social responsibility - there are lots of problems government can’t solve. Where they exist - we have to look at ourselves, our families and our communities and decide to make the change.
- I don't believe in the nanny state:
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- Local experts should be in charge - teachers should run schools, doctors hospitals;
- Businesses need to be liberated from Government bureaucracy and we need to promote an enterprise economy;
- Local communities should decide on planning and housing issues.
- I don't believe in spending more than we've earned or penalising those who've saved for their old age.
- I believe in opportunity for all – that means educational, training and employment opportunities throughout our lives; employers incentivised to support education and training and skills based education for those that want it.
- I believe in a welfare and tax system that incentivises and rewards hard work.
- I believe in a National Health Service that is clinically led and driven by a commitment to excellence in patient care and efficiency.
- I believe in safe and vibrant communities and addressing the pockets of social deprivation that are to be found in a country as rich as ours.
- I believe in respecting our armed forces and ensuring Britain’s prosperity, sovereignty and place in the world. I believe in our institutions, our history, culture and traditions.
- I believe in supporting the family and contributing to my community.
- I believe in restoring people’s faith in politics and ensuring that as a candidate, I am approachable, actively engage people and listen to their views.
Back to the topNational Issues
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The economy
The NHS
Education
Crime & Justice
Defence
Foreign Affairs
Europe
Immigration
Agriculture & Rural Affairs
Welfare & Tax
Pensions and our Aging Society
The Environment
The Economy
Keeping Trade Local Campaign
Visiting Honda with Robert Buckland, Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Swindon South
Sadly under Labour, Britain is stuck in the longest and deepest recession on record, and remains the only G20 country still in recession. We face the largest budget deficit of any major economy, and national debt is soaring to £1.5 trillion. One in five young people can’t find work.
As a lawyer I have worked with businesses of every size and understand only too well the problems they face.
A Conservative government will take three key steps to rebuild our broken economy:
Attending a Business Advice Day in Gloucester organised by the Federation of Small Businesses
- Tackling the credit crunch – to get banks lending again, we must implement a National Loan Guarantee Scheme to underwrite bank lending to businesses in order to save businesses and protect jobs.
- Sorting out the debt crisis - We borrowed far too much for far too long and saddled our children and grandchildren with unprecedented levels of debt. In order to get the £178 billion annual deficit under control, some tough choices will have to be made. For example, the Conservatives will freeze public sector pay for one year, except for the lowest paid - this will ensure that least 100,000 jobs are protected.
- Getting Britain working again - We need a plan for growth:
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- We will abolish all tax on jobs created by new companies for two years and cut the main rate of corporation tax to 25p and the small companies' rate to 20p (paid for by scrapping complex reliefs and allowances).
- We will transform the welfare system to get the long-term unemployed back to work and amalgamate Labour’s numerous piecemeal programmes into one comprehensive back-to-work programme.
- We will create a high skill economy by building a new generation of technical schools and creating 100,000 new apprenticeships.
Save the British Pub campaign
We need to do more to preserve this quintessential part of British life
As a Conservative, I strongly believe in an enterprise economy. In order to promote growth, we also need better transport infrastructure so that businesses can thrive and a bonfire of the red tape and bureaucracy that stifle business.
Finally, we need to rebuild our manufacturing base, ensure that our key industries are supported and continue to thrive and that the conditions are in place to ensure innovation and expansion in new industries like renewable technology.
The NHS
With Andrew Lansley MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Health
Outside The Great Western Hospital, Swindon
Campaigning to protect local health services
My father is a doctor and growing up, many dinner table conversations would revolve around the NHS. The NHS is an institution that we all rely on. It treats over one million patients every 36 hours and employs 1.3 million people. I would fight to cut NHS bureaucracy and ensure that money goes towards providing frontline patient care such as maternity services, A&E and cancer treatment. I support the maintenance of high quality district general hospitals and NHS services that provide local healthcare to our communities.
A Conservative Government will:
- Sustain NHS values - the NHS will continue to be free at the point of use, based on need not ability to pay;
- Move from targets to outcomes – turning high quality, frontline professionals into factory drones is no way to offer high quality care;
- Set the NHS free from the ministerial meddling that has resulted in money being diverted from patient care to wasteful bureaucracy – a vital part of this is the creation of an independent NHS Board to take responsibility for dividing up NHS funds;
- Provide the funding the NHS needs – real terms increases in spending and ringfenced in any cost-cutting budgetary review;
- Defend local services and scrap Labour’s plans to cut A&E and maternity services;
- Ensure greater accountability to patients so that the service becomes about delivering for patients and that patients have greater control and choice over who provides that care and where it is provided;
- Respect patients by building 45,000 more single rooms in the NHS over five years, almost doubling their current number;
- Reform the way drugs are priced so that all new treatments that are clinically effective are made available, ending the situation whereby cancer drugs that are routinely available in the rest of Europe are not provided in this country.
Education
Campaigning against the closure of a college campus
Supporting local adult and community learning
As a school governor and mentor to young people, education is an area that I am passionate about. I attended state school and want to help ensure that everyone has access to a first class education. It is essential that schools should give the best possible opportunities for academically gifted children but also that no child should be left behind.
A Conservative government would ensure that primary school children are taught to read using the proven method of synthetic phonics. Head teachers and governors running good schools would be given more freedom to set the exams that will best equip children for the workplace and maintain discipline. We will reduce the micromanagement of teachers in the classroom and make the national curriculum less onerous and more flexible. Where there is sufficient demand, it will be easier for new schools to open, including new academies sponsored by outside bodies or parents.
Crime and Justice
With former Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis
Anti-social behaviour has risen. Here I am visiting a graffiti art project that incorporated the ideas of young people and made them proud of their environment
Out on patrol
There’s no denying the fact that crime and anti-social behaviour have risen dramatically in recent years. People feel increasingly worried about our streets, especially at night.
- Since Labour came to power, the level of violent crime in Britain has risen dramatically to almost 80%. Nearly 1.1 million violent crimes were recorded last year;
- Gun crime is up by more than 50% - a gun crime was committed every hour in England and Wales in 2007-8;
- There are over 400 serious knife crimes a week - fatal stabbings are up by a third;
- Robbery is up 27% under Labour;
- Criminal damage is up past 1 million offences - that's nearly 3000 incidents each day.
David Cameron has made mending the “broken society” one of the Conservative Party’s three pledges going into the general election. We need to address the causes of crime - family breakdown, drug abuse and binge drinking, benefit dependency and educational failure.
But also Labour’s top-down approach to fighting crime has failed. They have ignored the professional judgment of police officers and denied them the freedom to do their jobs. The first step for a Conservative government will be to cut the paperwork which ties police officers to their desks:
- We will scrap stop and search forms and cut bureaucracy to allow police officers to spend more of their time on the streets fighting crime.
- We will strengthen police powers of stop and search to enable officers to respond decisively to incidents or threats of serious crime.
Public accountability will be increased through measures like requiring all police forces to publish crime maps and hold quarterly beat meetings. We also need to ensure that local forces receive adequate funding.
The criminal justice system must be overhauled so that punishments fit the crime and act as a sufficient deterrent. A Conservative Government will scrap Labour’s policy of early release and introduce honesty in sentencing. We also need to have adequate space to house offenders.
Defence
Helping out before Remembrance Sunday
Discussing defence matters at Westminster with Dr Liam Fox MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
Every generation of my family has served in the armed forces and it is an area that I care deeply about. We talk much about British sovereignty. Defence of the realm is No 1. It is disgraceful that this government has sent our troops off to fight two wars on a peace time budget without the right support or equipment.
A Conservative Government will match resources with commitments by launching a Strategic Defence Review and introducing a US-style system of quadrennial defence reviews. We will streamline the procurement process to ensure the speedy delivery of equipment to the front line.
Supporting Armed Forces Day in Dudley, West Midlands
Most importantly, a Conservative Government will repair the broken Military Covenant, respect our Armed Forces, and ensure that forces' families and veterans are taken care of. We must end the scandal of squalid accommodation and ensure that service families get the healthcare and education that they deserve.
Visiting Alford Technology in Chippenham with Dr Liam Fox MP
I support the British armed forces in their campaign in Afghanistan, and believe that Britain should maintain a strong Navy and its nuclear deterrent.
Foreign Affairs
With William Hague MP, Shadow Foreign Secretary
Foreign policy should be based on whether a course of action secures our national interest. It is in our national interest to promote free trade, deliver development aid, work with other members of the UN Security Council to see that international law is respected and upheld and engage with the rest of the world.
I believe passionately in the transatlantic alliance. My first political memory is of a summit between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Their partnership was central in fighting the Cold War. Today, we face constant threats - none more so than the danger of extremism both at home and abroad and it is essential that we build links across Asia, Africa and the Middle East. As Britons, we must take advantage of our strong ties with Commonwealth countries. The UK must also build a strong relationship with countries and China and India with whom we have historic ties.
I hope I can use my background and interest in foreign affairs to contribute in this area.
Europe
Campaigning for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty
With Eric Pickles MP, Chairman of the Conservative Party and South West region MEPs and European Parliamentary Candidates
At the European Parliament in Brussels
Britain should be in Europe but not run by Europe. I support a Europe based on free trade, but am opposed to a federalist super-state and the further loss of British sovereignty.
I stood as a European Parliamentary Candidate because I was deeply worried about the ever greater transfer of powers to Europe and I wanted to fight to secure a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Sadly, the actions of Labour and the Liberal Democrats have ensured that the Lisbon treaty is now a fact, even though both parties promised a referendum at the last election. The Treaty lacks democratic legitimacy and a Conservative government will work hard to ensure that we repatriate some powers back to the UK. To prevent the fiasco over Lisbon to ever happen again, we will amend the 1972 European Communities Act so that any future EU Treaty that transfers powers from the United Kingdom to the European Union would be subject to a referendum of the British people.
A Conservative Government has vowed to never join the euro – something which I have long campaigned for.
Immigration and Integration
Campaigning on social cohesion issues with Baroness Warsi, Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action
Labour has failed to control Britain's borders and presided over an explosion in our population without any idea who has come in, where they have gone and what they are doing here:
- The UK’s population is estimated to rise to 71.6 million by 2033;
- 577,000 people came to Britain in 2007 - and net migration was 237,000;
- The population has risen 1.8 million since 1997 thanks to immigration alone - There were 25,800 asylum applications in the 12 months to September 2008, a rise of 15% on the year before;
- As a result, 65,000 new homes are needed each year and there is huge pressure on our public services.
Migrant workers are vital to certain sections of the UK economy. But immigration must be properly controlled and its impact on the economy, public services and social cohesion taken into account.
We also need to ensure that those who do come are properly integrated into British society. Learning English is essential. A Conservative government would reduce government spending on translation services and multi-lingual websites and invest the money in English language training. We will also deport foreign clerics who preach hatred and support terrorism and ban the organisations that support them.
Agriculture & Rural Affairs
Supporting the Countryside Alliance
The countryside offers much in terms of leisure and we should do everything to protect the quality of rural life
Campaigning to promote locally sourced food with Mark Coote, Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Cheltenham
After 11 years of Labour, many rural communities are struggling. Rural livelihoods are difficult – farmers and small businesses suffer from excessive regulation and there are few jobs and training opportunities for young people. Communities suffer from poor transport infrastructure and a lack of affordable housing. Moreover, services such as schools, post offices and health care facilities are under threat. Rural England has lost one fifth of its rural post office network.
A Conservative Government will breathe new life into the countryside with a series of measures, including:
- Shifting decision-making away from central government to local communities;
- Increasing access to public services, by encouraging small rural schools and protecting family doctor services
- Fighting rural poverty by creating opportunity, with less regulation on rural businesses, more power to local people to tackle the shortage of affordable homes and a better integrated transport system.
Rural communities need a thriving farming industry but Britain’s farmers have endured a tough decade, faced with animal diseases, excessive regulation and rising fuel prices. I support reform of the EU Common Agricultural Policy. I want to see it simplified with the removal of unnecessary cross-compliance measures. There is too much regulation - 2,281 pieces of EU legislation cover agriculture and then on top of that, DEFRA officials gold-plate EU legislation. This has to stop. I support the transfer of funds (or “modulation” in Europe speak) from direct payments to support for environmental stewardship and rural development schemes but this should be compulsory so that there is a level playing field across Europe. We should also seek a fairer distribution of rural development funding for the UK. Currently, we receive 2.5% of funding despite having 9% of agricultural land. This will help farmers diversify. We must press for an improved border control regime especially meat from third countries – this will minimize the risk of foot and mouth, avian flu, etc. We should promote labelling to inform customers that our food is produced to high standards and that there are geographic indicators. This will make it easier for consumers to Buy British. Finally, we must address the issue of food security. Land is going out of production throughout the EU and we must be able to switch land back into production if we have a global shortage.
There has been a 42% increase in bovine TB between 2007 and 2008, and over 200,000 cattle have been slaughtered since 1997 at a cost of £700 million. We need an urgent cull of badgers. Any developed vaccines will not treat diseased badgers and as bovine TB spreads, it will cause great suffering to these animals and lead to the destruction of even more cattle. Broadband services also need to be improved. Living in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, I understand these issues only too well.
Welfare and Tax
As a Conservative, I have a fundamental belief in low taxation. In a recession, cuts in public spending must be prioritised over tax rises - however, frontline public services such as the NHS must be protected.
We need a welfare and tax system that incentivises and rewards hard work.
Pensions and our Aging Society
Our senior citizens have contributed to the economy and our society all their lives and they continue to do so. We must treat them with dignity and respect. In this photo, I am delighted to be buying knitted gifts at a fair that helped raise a lot of money for the local church.
Visiting Shopmobility and listening to the concerns of its users
Pensioners have seen almost no real increase in their income in the last five years and yet face increased bills such as Council Tax and fuel. I support a rise in the basic state pension and the restoration of the link between the pension and earnings.
Pensioners must be treated with greater dignity and respect. As we face an aging population, the traditional models of care for the elderly no longer apply. Older people that I have spoken to want to continue living in their own homes as long as possible but they need our support to do that. We also need to build more sheltered accommodation.I also believe that given our aging population, it is really important that people are encouraged to save for their retirement. We must restore the public’s trust in the UK pension saving system.
The environment
At the CEPSA Oil Refinery on the Spanish border with Gibraltar - this has been the source of much pollution
The UK must take a lead in combating climate change and reducing carbon emissions. I believe in a balanced energy mix. A priority must be the development of renewable and low carbon energy sources. I support expanding offshore wind and marine power but do not believe in littering the British countryside with wind turbines. Nuclear power has a role to play if it is economically viable and does not leave taxpayers liable for their running, decommissioning or waste.
We must also improve our energy security and reduce our reliance on imported gas supplies.
Within the home, there is much that can be done to improve home energy efficiency. We must also work towards zero waste and provide incentives to recycle, encourage sustainable water management and take action to help our wildlife.