Andrew George
Promoting the
Politics of Courage
I’m running a positive campaign to restore decency and honesty to our politics. To build a brighter future. To combat those who want us to become more inward-looking, backward-looking, more self-absorbed. I’ll build a campaign for an outward-looking, forward-looking and compassionate country.
We’ve been misled by a privileged clique who’ve irresponsibly played on fears to stoke prejudice. We must get beyond the Brexit chaos they’ve dragged our country into. We must restore the things that matter for the sake of our children’s future – our NHS, our schools and the very sustainability of our planet.
Come and join a growing campaign team. We’re determined to win this seat back this time, to make the difference, to build a brighter future.
Many people say “you politicians are all the same”. That statement has never been more untrue. The choice here is stark:
Andrew George - Standing up for Cornwall
National campaigner, local campaigner, MP.
Andrew describes his role - "Seeking out the silent voices. Standing up to bullies. Fighting for justice”
Liberal Democrats - Building a brighter future
South West Water (SWW) seems only to have built a reservoir of doubt and scepticism. Confidence in the company has been seeping away.
The private monopoly, which has set up by the Conservatives with legal backing to levy the highest water bills in the country, has finally drained the well of excuses they can use for poor performance.
This week they presented MPs with a plausible-sounding set of justifications for introducing the hosepipe ban. After all, we know there’s been an unprecedented period of dry weather, even after Biblical rainfall earlier this year.
However, SWW has chosen to abuse its risk-free monopoly status to invest in eye-watering salaries and bonuses for the top brass and generous shareholder dividends rather than in improving their services, the basic infrastructure, halting the millions of gallons leaking from their systems and building resilience in response to clear predictions of increased likelihood of the kind of drought conditions currently experienced.
I'll meet the new SWW CEO Keith Haslett later this week.
While our communities will no doubt soldier on, I'll explain (as I did to his predecessor) scepticism and criticism of the company has grown. We need to see a BIG change if the company wants to improve its standing with customers.
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Islanders must not be cut off this winter. Lifeline boat services to Scillonian off-islands are threatened following the folding of a key winter boating service.
I've already appealed to Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander MP, to step in to keep services running this winter while we seek a solution to provide a long-term sustainable solution. Off-islands (especially St Agnes and St Martins) will lose their lifeline service to the main island, St Marys in weeks. The service will not recommence till next March.
The last remaining winter boat service operator, St Agnes Boating, has experienced market failure. It has announced it can no longer operate during winter months. It had made the decision to close the company altogether, but has been persuaded to maintain a summer service by its staff during redundancy negotiations. This will leave off-islanders living on St Agnes and St Martins with no service, affecting children getting to secondary school, those needing transport to health appointments, to get to basic services and conduct normal life.
I've previously warned government ministers about the seriousness and vulnerability of lifeline transport services between Scillonian islands, including at a House of Commons debate on 17th March this year [link in chat below].
Islanders feared this would happen. I warned Ministers about the risk of market failure and spelled out the consequences. In other circumstances the government would step in. I wrote to the Transport Secretary again last month pointing out the unfairness; mainland bus services operate with subsidised £2 per journey bus fares in contrast to the £80 per journey cost for the Isles of Scilly equivalent during winter months. We feared this was unsustainable. Now the operator of this lifeline service to two of the islands has admitted he can no longer keep going.
I'm of course coordinating with the Council, which has been in discussion with officials in the Department for Transport about this crisis. i've also of course contacted the operating company, St Agnes Boating, run by Island Councillor, John Peacock.
I'll update on progress...
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Credit to St Agnes Boating for the photo
I really appreciate the new Fisheries Minister's visit to Newlyn this week. I know others will be cynical about our having to show around "the umpteenth Minster in as many years". However,I found Minister Stephen Morgan ( Office of Stephen Morgan MP ) didn't come with the kind of lazy preconceptions so often displayed in politics. I found him sincerely interested; keen to follow the science and the evidence. Which is exactly what we need, if we're to ensure a sustainable fishing industry; balancing marine conservation with the harvesting of an important, and sustainable source of healthy protein.
It was an early start too. Leaving home at 4.30am on my bike (I've again vowed to cycle as much as possible throughout the summer). Newlyn fish market has changed so much since I first took Ministers and shadow Ministers around the shout auctions in the early 1990s. It's very quiet now. Just the clicking of a keyboard and mouse in a side room while 45-55 anonymous bidders engage in the online clock auction.
I also remember coming back from a Select committee tour of fish markets in Scotland and Shetland 27 years ago to gleefully encourage Newlyn's then market operators to modernise and establish an electronic auction. After a long pregnant silence, I was nearly frogmarched off the premises! It took another couple of decades for the proposal to be accepted.
There's much on the agenda for the Minister. Cornwall and Scilly's fishing industries are well led. The Cornish Fish Producers Organisation (CFPO) is setting the pace for advances in science-based policy-making. But it still needs investment, better protection for low impact fishing methods within the 6-12 mile zone, and improvements in closer working relationships between scientists and the industry.
It's always telling that those who were so keen to use the fishing industry as the poster boys for divisive campaigns, like Brexit, are never to be seen when the hard work has to be done, including sorting out the mess they made of the fishing industry and the impediments they created to vital export markets.
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Cornwall must send a strong message to PM Andy Burnham. The only region for Cornwall is Cornwall, and we should be invited to take on the same offer of devolved powers as he says he'll offer to mayors.
He says he’ll hand more power to “Mayoral authorities”; including a share of nationally collected taxes and a promise to strengthen policy control over transport, home building, youth employment initiatives amongst other powers and principles of devolution.
That sounds fine to (I guess) the majority, but what does this mean for Cornwall and for Scilly? At present we’re not included. Nor are large swathes of the country, because they have not adopted a (directly elected) Mayoral devolved structure. Though Cornwall, rightly of course, should not cede the miniscule power it currently has to a Mayor and to places outside Cornwall, we have a strong case to be offered the same powers as he wants to hand to places like his favoured Manchester.
To combat this devolution apartheid, I’m urging my MP colleagues and the Council to again work together and make sure we send a very strong, clear message to the PM. Cornwall deserves the same offer of powers as combined Mayoral authorities, but we should not be forced to effectively destroy our greatest political asset – our unifying identity - to gain such powers and opportunities, especially where the seat of that power will sit somewhere else. Cornwall is a unique and special place.
The placeless government zone of the Southwest would be a Soviet-style construct. Effectively punishing Cornwall for properly refusing to accept this dreadful prospect is contrary to how devolution should work; ie on the principle of central government letting go of control, not imposing a central government fabrication and ignoring the will of the people.
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Sorting the crisis in Social Care is something successive governments have promised to deal with, but always sidestepped. So I welcome Andy Burnham’s proposed cross-party talks and his stated intention to grapple with the challenge of making sure our NHS and Social Care services operate more effectively.
Just last month, at our Health and Social Care Committee. I asked Baroness Louise Casey (who was commissioned by government last year to complete an Inquiry into Social Care) why she couldn’t just produce her report now, rather than wait till 2028, as planned. In all honesty, there’s no good reason other than (lack of) political will.
People harp on about the Andrew Dilnot Commission report back in 2014, but that was primarily about protecting inheritance. ! It didn’t really deal with standards, staffing, nor integration with the NHS.
In this excerpt from our exchange, Louise Casey refers to a person "in the room" who apparently ensured her Commission was required to report "BY" 2018. This refers to Minister Stephen Kinnock MP, who was in the room, but not in camera, and who gave evidence to us after this.
There’s much to do. I just hope Andy will see this through.