No dark thoughts interrupted two stunning visits in Birkenhead on Friday. There were other visits too which gave me huge pleasure, but they illustrated problems rather than the town's successes.  

After a good meeting on what I call the Market Renewal Programme, and the safeguarding of our budget in these precarious times, I went off to Faiveley Transport, a company with a beautiful setting in Morpeth Dock and gave a hint of what the site will be like once Peel Holdings gets fully underway.

In the old days it would have been said that Faiveley Transport makes parts for railway carriages. In fact in today's market they are at the top of the technology cusp adding real value to railway carriages most of what we now come to think is the most attractive feature of rail travel. The control of temperature, information about where the train is going, vehicle door systems, as well as the braking system.

Faiveley Transport is in for two major contracts resulting from the huge public investment in modernising our railway system. The first is helping to produce a new fleet of Intercity Express trains and the second working on carriages for the much-anticipated Thameslink service. If anyone wants a lesson in how international companies have replaced in many respects the role the nation state once had in determining orders and thereby livelihoods they need go no further than Morpeth Dock and talk to workers at Faiveley. The customer service after care part - which are mega orders in themselves - is where Faiveley Tranpsort UK comes in. 

Frank lends a hand at Faiveley Transport

Most of the employees I met at Faiveley were male. Here is one company moving against the trend in Birkenhead and elsewhere where employees can still earn good family wages. That is what is so missing now in poorer areas and it is for this group that is catered for by Jill Quayle and her hugely dedicated team at Tranmere Methodist.

The national figures on NEETs - not in education, employment or training - are appalling. Birkenhead's figures are even worse and both nationally and locally the totals are higher than when Labour came to power in 1997.

Jill's team works largely with young people excluded from school. Friday was the day on which certificates were handed out for success and success there was in abundance.

95% of last year's group are now back in employment, education or training. No other project has a success rate like this and no other project takes young people more difficult to bring up to the starting point in life.

Successful Members of Tranmere Community Project

The average cost of this success is £710 per young person. It puts New Deal and every other Government programme to shame. One of the things which, please God, will happen when public expenditure cuts start to get politicians focussing on objectives will be to shift part of the smaller budget into those areas which bring most success.

What shocks me to the core about the BBC expenses story is not the sums involved. Nor is it that people earning £250,000 a year still can find time in what we hope are very busy lives to record and reclaim the minutest of expenditure.

No, the real shock comes from charging up presents that they give to their friends and acquaintances. What does poor old Bruce Forsyth now feel about that bottle of Krug Champagne?

There might have been a passing pleasure that a "friend" sent him a £100 gift.

But the basis of a gift is surely to give something of your own. The best gifts come when people make things for you or give you their time.

The gift relationship has more recently been converted into presents. But at least one felt people were giving up income they may have spent on themselves to give to us.

Now poor old Bruce realises that this act of friendship to mark his 80th birthday was really nothing of the kind. Mark Thompson didn't put his hand into his own £647,000 salary, but charged it up to us license fee payers. So, Bruce, it is a very belated Happy 80th Birthday from all of us, and not, as you might have thought, from solely the BBC's Director General.

There is another side to the expenses saga. Although it won't be popular, I hope nevertheless it will be worth telling.

When I first came into the House thirty years ago, older Members told me to claim my allowances. They had been told by the then Chief Whip in the Wilson Government that pay was being frozen, but Members were expected to claim their enhanced allowances. And so the story was handed down as though it was some part of an apostolic succession.

Over the last three decades I cannot recall a time when MPs were given their pay increase in full. I am sure there were some occasions, but most governments have been too feeble to implement recommendations from the top salaries review body. No trade union would have put up with this behaviour. Nor would any professional body such as teachers or doctors.

Instead of implementing the recommendations in full, the Whips would go about spreading the weasel words about claiming the allowances in place of a full pay increase.

So that is the culture I came into and which has been massively strengthened over the years. All too many MPs have come forward once they were exposed by the Daily Telegraph and said their claims were within the rules or worse still blamed modestly paid staff in the Fees Office.

Only the exceptional MP has replied that they were told to claim the allowances and that is what they had done. My expenses were put up on my website as soon as possible and I was the first MP to publish them and they have since been published again by the House of Commons.

Now we are into the next round of beating up MPs and humiliating them. The House passed a resolution that all our outside earnings should be published. And mine will be published here when they are sent to the authorities.

That has not stopped the Sunday Telegraph trying to jump the gun. They have sent a beguiling email asking us within a day to provide not only details of the earnings but how long we take in earning these sums.

Their enquiry to me and my reply are posted below. I am reluctant to disclose how long it takes me to write articles as I fear for the jobs of highly paid journalists once editors see how quickly copy can be put together.

But there is a bigger issue at stake. I think it is good that MPs have outside interests and earnings. It is crucially important that none of the earnings are ever used to influence votes here in the Commons. But the process of Government - making laws which affect real people's lives - is enhanced by having real people with a real spread of interests here in the House of Commons.

During my time here I have seen a big change in who becomes an MP. And the numbers who had lives before politics has gone down, and the numbers who have only had a political career, being researchers, or MP's assistants, or working by lobbying government, have significantly increased.

The result is a poorer House of Commons. I believe we should move to a system where those MPs without substantial outside earnings gain one rate of pay. There should be another option for those MPs who have substantial earnings outside the Commons.

I do not think it necessary to list what those earnings are. I think it is none of my business or the public's business.

We have no serious trade unionists in the House. There is an almost total lack of big businessmen, there are few entrepreneurs, there is no-one representing the big interests in the country - like women's organisations, sports clubs, centres of musical excellence, IT innovation and I could go on.

Why should any of these people ever think of coming in to the House of Commons, which is in danger of becoming so frightened of the media, asked to provide information you would never ask of your best friend and would be embarrassed to learn it of your neighbour?

I shall as resolutely as possible oppose moves that come to the Commons that are meant largely to acquiesce to unjustified media campaigns against politicians. The campaign against MP's earnings will make the House of Commons poorer, and better government, even more difficult to achieve.

The standard of MPs and governance will not increase as a result of these campaigns. That will come from MPs having the courage to take power back from the Government, to control our own timetable so that every measure opposed by the Government that affects our constituents' lives can be properly considered before being passed into law.

We won't raise our own moral by endlessly succumbing to the latest media hunting party. It will come when the public see at last that we are behaving as MPs traditionally have done down the centuries and that is to hold the Government to account.

Sunday Telegraph Enquiry - (to protect sensitive information about Sunday Telegraph employees, the following has been redacted).  

From: FIELD, Frank 

Sent: 25 June 2009 14:32
To:
Subject: RE: MP's second jobs survey - Sunday Telegraph

Dear ,

Thanks for your e-mail. In the spirit of the new rules which you cite, I will happily send you my return after I have sent it to the Registrar. My worry however is filling in the amount of time it takes me to write articles. For I fear that once the management of the Telegraph sees how quickly good copy can be purchased at such reasonable sums more jobs at the Telegraph may be at stake.

With best wishes,

Frank Field

From: [mailto:]
Sent: 24 June 2009 14:42
To: FIELD, Frank
Subject: MP's second jobs survey - Sunday Telegraph

Dear Frank Field

We are conducting a survey on MPs' second jobs for this weekend's Sunday Telegraph, ahead of the introduction of new rules due to come into effect on July 1.

According to the Register of Members' Interests, you have listed the following remunerated employment, office, profession or directorships:

Directorship: Medicash Health Benefits Ltd.

Regular column for PensionsWeek, a publication owned by Pearson. (Up to £5,000)

Occasional articles for:

Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph. (Up to £5,000)

Times and Sunday Times. (Up to £5,000)

Mail and Mail on Sunday. (Up to £5,000)

Guardian and Observer. (Up to £5,000)

The Spectator. (Up to £5,000)

The Independent. (Up to £5,000)

Occasional appearances on BBC Radio 4 . (Up to £5,000)

In the spirit of the new rules, could you please tell us:

1 a) the precise amount you earned in the 2008-09 financial year from each of the above interests?

b.) the nature of the work carried out in return for that payment?

c.) the number of hours worked during the period to which the payment relates?

d.) the name and address of the person, organisation or company making the payment - except where it would be "contrary to any legal or established professional duty of privacy or confidentiality"? If you are withholding details under this exemption, please can you state the reason why?

2. a.) Could you also please tell us, from July 1, what outside remunerated employment will you continue to undertake? - if same as above, please state.

b.) what precise amount you expect to earn from each of these interests in the 2009-10 financial year?

c.) the nature of the work carried out in return for the payment?

d.) the number of hours you plan to work?

e.) the name and address of the person, organisation or company making the payment - except where it would be "contrary to any legal or established professional duty of privacy or confidentiality". If you are withholding details under this exemption, please can you state the reason why.

We would be most grateful if you could reply to this message by lunchtime on Thursday June 25th. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call on the numbers below.

Yours sincerely,

and ,

The Sunday Telegraph

020 7, 0797 or 0779

Congratulations to John Bercow on his election as Speaker. It is a great office to hold at any time. It is now a crucial one in helping to salvage the good name that should be associated with politics.

Two things trouble me, however. The new Speaker made much about how honourable the vast majority of Members of Parliament are. That is not how the public sees us, I'm afraid.

In one sense that doesn't matter too much. The allowance system is to be reformed by the Kelly Commission. Our past expenses are also to be subjected to an audit by a new independent body which will cost the taxpayer another £600,000 each year. They will presumably treat the Speaker equally with the rest of us. What will they make of flipping a main home? And where does it leave the standing of those Members who have already repaid money back to the Fees Office.

More troubling was the Speaker's acceptance speech. Prime Ministers and Speakers are never more powerful than at the point of election. Any reforming Speaker is going to face huge resistance here in the Commons.

That is why I was disappointed that the acceptance speech was not mainly devoted to outlining the changes the Speaker intended to bring in immediately.

Shouldn't notice have been given that his Speakership depended on establishing a Business Committee of the House which had total control over how it spends its time? No other reforms come near to touching this one for importance.

Shouldn't the Speaker have let it be known, even in the gentlest tones, that he had nailed his Speakership to this reform? Likewise wasn't this an opportunity to say that the appointment of the Grand Committee's Chair on Thursday ought be selected by secret ballot, and that he would receive nominations on the Committee's membership directly from Members. He could then pass on his recommendation on the Committee's membership to the Committee of Selection.

What was wonderful about yesterday's proceedings was that the Speaker will thoroughly enjoy his role, this is an attribute not to be under valued. We need somebody who combines the serious intent of a reformer with a character that believes no matter how difficult the decisions that now face us, we should make them with good humour and believing the best in our opponents' motives.

The Labour leadership question is at the moment settled. The Labour side is beginning to recharge its political batteries. One would expect by this weekend for the focus to return to the Speakership race.

This Speakership will differ from others in that the holder of this office will need to help rebuild trust amongst voters in the parliamentary system. The Speaker therefore needs to have a reach into the world outside parliament. But a Speaker must also, at the same time, command support amongst all the parties here at Westminster, including their own.

While I have received a large amount of support from the public, the lack of support from colleagues in my own party is at the moment a significant weakness. Unless that support is forthcoming I will not be a candidate in the election, though it may be that the Labour block may begin to break up over the next week.

It is important that our election of Speaker is seen to be one that is not driven by party advantage. If that is how the public perceives it to be then the next Speaker will be broken-backed when it comes to helping rebuild the trust in our Parliamentary system.

Because I believe the next Speaker has to be different from other recent Speakers, and that the Speakership could play a pivotal role in negotiating a new contract between the House and the government, and the House and the electorate, I will continue to put up material on my website on how I would like the new Speakership to take shape.

Productivity in the public sector fell by well over three percentage points between 1997 and 2007. This finding, published by the Office of National Statistics is the starting point of the new politics that will dominate the next ten to fifteen years.

Most politicians are still singing from the same old hymn sheet which is now irrelevant. The theme music has been an ever expanding public budget.

It was obvious this time last year that Britain faced a major budgetary crisis. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research estimate that by 2012 public expenditure even after taking into account the changes the Government have announced for after the election will come in at 48% of GDP. By then the Government estimates the economy will be again booming, but the tax revenue from this booming economy will come in at 'only' 38% of GDP.

How are the public accounts to be balanced? That is the big central question which needs to come centre stage if the debt market is to be convinced that Britain is worth lending to.

The ONS report is the most useful of pointers to the politics of the new era. Not only has the central assumption of social democracy - that increasing gains can come from increasing public expenditure - been tested to the point of destruction, but the new politics needs to pick up the debate from this very point.

Each of the major public budgets must be set the task of winning those non-existent productivity gains that should have been forthcoming as undreamt of sums money were allowed to slosh around the public sector. New skills will be required for the new politics.

The key people that have to be promoted in the public sector are those whose eyes are firmly on the new agenda of delivering more for less. Job security can only come if public sector workers embrace change to deliver those productivity gains which have failed to materialise since 1997.

Politicians too will need new skills. Move one is to tear up the old hymn sheets. Move two is to write the new music. The idea that one is a good Minister because one successfully defends ones budget against attack has to become old hat.

Ministers should only be promoted because they start delivering more services with a smaller budget.

Labour supporters claiming that the European results were not a catastrophe for the party can only do so by inventing a new meaning for the word catastrophe. Whether one looks at them on a national, regional or local level the picture is pitiful.

The results reflect the collapse of support for the Government in the country. They also ring a clear verdict on the EU.

Take the Wirral results, which cover four Labour Westminster constituencies. The Tories romped home with almost 21,000 votes. Labour was in a poor second place with 16,000.

In Wirral there is considerable resentment against the current EU. It may be that all of these natural voters deserted their natural party to support one of the clearer anti-European tickets, but I doubt it.

Even so the two parties standing in the election who hold the strongest views against our present relationship with Europe far out stretched the Labour vote, and almost toppled the Tory vote.

The BNP came in with 4,666 votes and UKIP's vote totalled more than 13,000.

Don't let anyone kid themselves that this was an unimportant election where voters felt they could make a clear protest vote. Unless something changes significantly on a national level these results would be reproduced at a general election.

Labour cannot win with the present Prime Minister. I was one of the seven who would not support his coronation after Tony Blair was shoehorned out of Number 10. But even I didn't think a Brown administration would be as inept as this one.

The Brownites are attempting to terrorise Labour MPs into inaction. If they succeed then we deserve our fate.

It is simply absurd to argue, as does No. 10, that the next leader must call an immediate general election. A new leader, when being invited by the Queen to form a government, should inform the Monarch that he or she intends to return in April of next year to call for a General Election on May 6.

The new Prime Minister would make that a part of a message brought back from the Palace.

Similarly, the failure to deal with immigration and Europe is poisoning our political system. I have set out in the Balanced Migration campaign how we should counter positively the BNP. Similarly, we need to cut loose European politics from our domestic politics. Voters have no party to represent their worries on this score, only the BNP with their evil interests.

Part of the great political reform programme to be generated from the Commons will entail a head-to-head with Government. The aim, as I have said before, is not the Romantic one of trying to move back to the 1860s when MPs made and unmade Governments and were seen as great initiators of legislation. That was the age when only 3% of males had the vote.

Responsible government - in the sense of governments being held to account by voters - necessarily entails party Government. Trying to go back to a pre-party age will drive the reform programme into a cul-de-sac.

The aim of the Commons must be to ensure that the Government's programme is better prepared and, to use that horrible phrase, "fit for purpose". There will always be emergencies to which a Government must react. But outside this narrow area all legislative proposals should start with the publication of a green paper which:

• Explains why the measure is necessary.
• Justifies why the new measures cannot be achieved under existing legislation.
• Sets out the reasons why Ministers believe the option they are proposing is the right one.
• Analyses the costs, benefits and risks of the different options that have been considered.
• Lists the discussions that have already taken place and the timetable for further discussion.
• Invites the relevant select committee to help shape the main parts of the Bill.
• Gives a timetable when the Commons might expect a Bill.

There is nothing revolutionary here. Much of this was agreed by the House in 1997 following the Scott report, but never implemented.

The House also needs to establish a Committee of equal weight to the Public Accounts Committee which would be concerned exclusively with the Government budget, its size and the main headings of expenditure. This new Committee is urgently needed for reasons I have explained elsewhere. This reform is urgent if the Commons is to play its role in helping the Government shift, over the short to medium term, the record levels of debt it needs to market.

One of the other necessary reforms I have already mentioned in the establishment of a Business Committee which sanctions the Commons' timetable. This Committee would be responsible for ensuring that all Government measures are properly debated and amended by the weight of argument. But it would also be responsible for delivering back to Government its Bills on an agreed timetable.

The Business Committee would also be responsible for ensuring that Select Committee reports are properly debated soon after publication. It would also timetable space for Select Committees to introduce legislation resulting from their reports.

But the overall aim of the Committee should not be more, but less legislation, and of course better legislation.

We are only 8 days into a 34-day contest for the Speakership. Already two characteristics stand out.

The first is the lack of declared candidates. Sensibly the potential aspirants to the Speaker's chair are seeing what support they have. The successful candidate needs to have good support across all three main parties.

A second characteristic is how the reform agenda is developing or, rather, how the party leaderships are responding to rapidly changing events.

There appears to be a growing agreement that the Commons needs more control over its own timetable. The leaderships are offering more time for backbencher measures and, perhaps, a secret ballot for select committee membership and chairmanships. Nick Clegg is proving to be the most radical on this issue.

What is not being conceded yet is for all Commons' activities to be controlled by the Commons itself.

This is crucial for a healthy realignment of power between Commons and Government. Governments have a right to get their mandated election programmes through. How else can they be held accountable by voters at an election? No, or less whipping, as the Commons considers the details of a Bill, would be a good move.

But what of measures that have never been presented to the electorate? Given the volume and importance of the swathes of European legislation, how can the Commons get real and devote what perhaps might be one or two days a week, to debating, deliberating, changing, and if need be, rejecting European legislation?

Reforms on this front are all issues that, in normal times, could be considered by a Speaker's Conference. But, given the mire we are in, the next Speaker needs to develop his or her role in becoming the voice of the House, not only in the media, but in extending the reform agenda and enabling MPs fully to make such a programme their own.

In the past Speaker's Conferences have considered a single aspect of reform and have had small membership. A 21st Century Speaker's Conference could divide itself into a number of working parties each considering part of the emerging reform agenda. It will be the new Speaker's task to bring these working party reports into a coherent reform programme.

Such a Speaker's Conference could involve all those backbench MPs willing to play a role in one or more aspects of developing a truly revolutionary change in how politics operates in this country. Such an agenda would cover the following.

• How voters select candidates - should this be by open primaries or are other, better, methods available to candidates to be more representative in their views of the constituents who return them?

• How would this reform on open primaries reflect how MPs are elected? Much of the debate now is how to make MPs in safe seats more accountable to voters by changing the voting system. Would open primaries change this aspect of the debate?

• Voters are increasingly footloose with respect to party loyalty. Will this willingness to vote for third party candidates give such groups a fairer representation? Or are new measures necessary? To what extent should the Boundary Commission be asked to take into account third party representation when drawing up new boundaries?

• Increasing voter power over the selection of candidates would impact on the whipping system. Successful candidates, while still coming in on party labels, would feel more independent than candidates chosen by small and often declining party memberships. What other measures are necessary to strike a more mature balance between being able to hold a government accountable for its programme and treating MPs as mature specimens of the human race? David Cameron is moving on this issue.

• To what extent would open primaries serve as an effective recall measure on poorly performing MPs? Is mid-term recall necessary and, if so, how can MPs representing unpopular views, and who make our national debates more representative by sticking to their line, be protected against intolerant pressure groups who could wield power way beyond their true influence? Gordon Brown is right to stress the dangers of reform here.
  

There are still 26 days left in debating what sort of Speaker we need in the next parliament. What could be one of those once a century flowering of debate on parliamentary reform looks as though it is going to take off, thank goodness. Hence my delight in seeing a rolling reform programme. Let's hope much of what is proposed here may look old hat by the time MPs choose the next occupant of the Speaker's chair. I am sure in 26 days time my blog entries will show just such a progression.

My next entry will be on how the Government needs to clean up its act.

One wag reported, on hearing the news of the death of Metternich, "Now what did he mean by that?" The actions and sayings of Alan Johnson will likewise be analysed. So what did he mean by raising the question of electoral reform?

Here was a cry for traditional British politics to re-emerge. What Cabinet Government was like is still within living memory of older voters. It was not uncommon then for major figures in a political party to engage voters in a wider debate.

Alan is right in insisting that the reform of Parliament has to go beyond electing a new Speaker. The new Speaker could have a key role in driving through a new contract between the Commons and the voter but also, as Alan suggests a new contract between the Commons and government.

This is the central issue of the Speakership election. But is Alan right to back the Jenkins proposals? Again what is so good about Speaker Martin's delayed resignation is that the country now has perhaps a unique opportunity to debate not that tired old phrase "constitutional reform" but to remake our democracy.

We must move to a system where minority parties are better represented in Parliament. But is any reform which contains a list system, however modified, going to satisfy an electorate fed up to the teeth at what is sees as a conveyor belt of party hacks being thrown at it?

For that is a key aspect of the Jenkins proposals. An element of proportionality will be brought into the system by "electing" members from a list system dominated - yes you've got it - by the party caucus.

We surely do not want more of that. One of the tasks of reform is to lessen the grip parties have in a way which doesn't destroy a party system delivering responsible government i.e. a Government that is able to be held to account.

I have long advocated the French system. This keeps the constituency link so that every Member of Parliament knows that the buck stops with them. But it does ensure that every MP is elected by 50% plus one of the voters.

On the first Sunday of an election those representatives passing that margin are declared elected. On the following Sunday French voters turn up to decide between the top two candidates from the previous week when neither had passed the 50% plus one barrier. This system is capable of delivering not only authority to the MP, but better representation for minority parties. Take my Birkenhead result in 1979.

On our first part of the post system, I gained 49% of the poll, the Tories were second, the Liberals third. Under the French system I would have probably won with Liberal Votes switching to me.

But suppose the Liberals had come a good second and I was still a good way from gaining the support of the majority of voters. I am not so sure in those circumstances that the Conservative voters, not to mention a whole chunk of Labour voters, would not have moved on the second ballot to elect a Liberal Member. The closer the parties are in votes, i.e. the further any candidate is from gaining 50% plus one of the votes, the greater the "upset" is likely to be.

The other system I have advocated is open primaries. I believe in Birkenhead the law should allow the local Labour party to put me up with other Labour candidates in a primary and allow all voters, Tories and Liberals, to select the candidate who will in all likelihood the next Member of Parliament.

Not only would such a system prevent the wasted vote syndrome that there is in the safest seats. But it would likely result in a large number of such seats seeing the successful candidate from the primary being elected in a General Election unopposed. The fight could have already taken place in the primary.

Why not let parties hold such primaries should they want to? A small change in the electoral law would give a green light to greater voter choice of their representative.

For more information please see my Policy Exchange pamphlet "Life Support".