The Coalition Government is having to make some very tough decisions to deal with the deficit inherited from the last Government. The debt crisis in Europe shows just how important it is that we stick to this deficit reduction plan so that we can improve market confidence and keep interest rates low.

 It is because the Government has taken credible action to deal with the deficit that we are able to continue to borrow money from international markets. Despite having a deficit the same size as Greece, Britain has been able to borrow at interest rates close to Germany’s. Abandoning the Government’s deficit plan could see our economy lose its AAA credit rating which ensures we are trusted to pay our debts. If the markets no longer had confidence in Britain, borrowing costs would rise, causing huge damage to the UK economy and risking our recovery. Ultimately if we continued to spend without restraint we would face the same problems we now see in countries like Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland.

 The Government is also taking a series of steps to help businesses to start and grow. Tax is being made more competitive by cutting corporation tax; credit flow is being helped by the £20bn National Loan Guarantee Scheme; and regulatory red tape is being cut to free up our entrepreneurs and wealth creators.

 All over the country, small businesses are driving forward economic growth through innovation and sheer hard work. I was delighted to hear from the Brentwood Brewing Company this week that it is planning a quarter of a million pounds  ‘Crowd Funding’ share issue to fund the building of its new brewery.  It is work like this which is so important to us all at the moment.

 I do appreciate that these are difficult times; that is why we are working to help business and encourage enterprise in every way that we can.

This summer UK ports and airports will be busier than ever, as visitors pour into Britain for the Olympic Games and Diamond Jubilee celebrations. This makes it vitally important to ensure our border is better protected than ever before.

The Government is currently taking firm action on immigration, with each of the main routes of entry into this country being reformed so net migration can be reduced to tens of thousands a year.  The UK Border Force is now a separate command within the Home Office under Chief Constable Brian Moore, with a clear focus on law enforcement.  

The first ever permanent cap on non-EU work migrants has now been in place for a year. The limit has not been reached in any month since the cap came into effect, so the numbers are falling while necessary skilled workers are allowed in.

The student visa system, the largest route of entry, has also been reformed. One hundred and sixteen licences to colleges have been revoked and another one hundred and seventy nine licenses suspended.

I receive many letters from constituents who are outraged foreign criminals can stay in the UK, and the Government is now improving immigration processes to enable deportation action to be started on foreign national prisoners 18 months before the end of their sentence, while four and a half thousand foreign criminals were removed last year.

Each month about a thousand 1,000 people who should be refused entry to the UK are stopped from even boarding a plane.  We now have advance sight of details of every passenger on non-EEA flights to the UK. This, combined with our strict visa regime, means that all non-EEA passengers arriving from outside Europe will have been checked once, and many twice, before they reach the UK.

The automatic link between coming here to work and staying here permanently has also been cut. Skilled temporary workers wanting to apply for settlement  have to be earning £35,000 per year or the going rate for their job, whichever is higher. New measures are also planned to reform family immigration. A new minimum income requirement will also be introduced, to stop people coming here to live off benefits. 

The Government inherited an immigration system which was in chaos. I am confident it is being brought back under control.

Friday 20th April 2012 by Ryan McCarthy, Brentwood Weekly News

ERIC Pickles MP always seemed destined for a career in politics.

The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government turns 60 tomorrow, April 20, and last week he celebrated 20 years as MP for Brentwood and Ongar.

As a 14-year-old living in Yorkshire, a bright career in politics seemed inevitable as one of his birthday gifts was a Leon Trotsky book on revolution.

He said: “I started reading it again about a year ago and it was impenetrable. God knows how I read it back then.”

The proud Tory was born into a Labour family. His great-grandfather was even one of the founder members of the Independent Labour Party.

Mr Pickles said: “The Russians invaded Czechoslovakia when I was growing up and I was so incensed with the feeble nature of the Labour Government’s response I wondered what was the most outrageous thing I could do to show my feelings.

"So I joined the Conservative Party.”

Mr Pickles, fresh from a visit to an assisted living home in Brentwood, was relaxed and chatty when we met.

The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government turns 60 tomorrow, April 20, and last week he celebrated 20 years as MP for Brentwood and Ongar.

He said he is now in his political prime and achieving things he set out to do when he started out on Bradford City Council in 1979.

He said: “I’m doing the things I used to dream about.

Mr Pickles spent more than a decade on Bradford Council before beginning to think about where his career would go.

He said he went to a Conservative Party conference in Scarborough in about 1989 when Margaret Thatcher “grabbed me with a vice-like grip” and took him to meet the party’s election candidates organiser.

He said: “She announced to him that I wanted to be an MP, much to my surprise.”

Mr Pickles could hardly defy the Prime Minister and made himself available for selection.

He put himself forward to represent Brentwood and when the party asked him for his weaknesses, instead of saying he works too hard, like other candidates had revealed, he simply said: “I’m fat and I like Westerns.”

Mr Pickles explains he can be blunt and is honest and frank when asked a question.

Despite being born and educated in the north, he said he considers Essex to be home.

“I’m a good decade away from retiring but I will spend my twilight years here,” he said.

“Career highlights have been the five elections I have won and the renewed faith and trust that shows.

“People in the Brentwood area are great, as they are honest and work terribly hard.”

Mr Pickles, a keen birdwatcher, said he was proud to be the Tory campaign manager who managed to get Edward Timpson elected at the historic Crewe and Nantwich by-election in May 2008, which saw a 17.6 per cent swing from Labour to the Conservatives.

He said he loves sitting with cabinet colleagues and debating the country’s future just as much as constituency work and trying to help solve the issues residents often come to him with.

In his rare moments outside of politics he enjoys the opera and has a passion for films. One day he would like to direct, but there is still plenty of work still to be done in politics, he says.

 Although Parliamentary business takes a break for a couple of weeks, my work in the Department of Communities and Local Government continues. It has been very busy in the last few months prior to the publication of the National Planning Policy Framework on 27^th March. This is a key part of our reforms to make the planning system less complex and more accessible, to protect the environment and to promote sustainable growth. My ambition is that the NPPF will make it much easier for communities to make sensible decisions with regards to growth.

 I was invited to talk about the NPPF and the Localism Act at a housing conference in Brentwood a couple of weeks ago, organised by the Brentwood Housing Trust. This local organisation has done much to provide affordable housing for Brentwood families, including encouraging landlords to make the space above High Street shops available for housing. Not only has this initiative provided much needed accommodation, but it has also brought a vibrancy to our High Street.

 I hope this vibrancy will be helped by the Portas Review of High Streets, which aims to help our town centres adapt to the needs of consumers. I love seeing the market stalls which come to Brentwood each month, and the traders who bring fresh fish and breads to the High Street. I want to see Brentwood welcome independent traders to enable a better mixing of shops, and make the town a destination venue. Crown Street already does this so well.

 The discussion at the conference led to how we can make Brentwood more welcoming. I put in my two penn’orth about the bollards which are the bane of my life. Bollards and fences around every street corner herd pedestrians like cattle along the pavements. We need to make our town feel like home, and localism is about making people feel happy about where they live, knowing their children and grandchildren will have a future here. Bollards don’t help.

I’ll be on Ongar on Thursday, opening a family fun day run by mums for the children in the area. I’m also hoping to pop in to see Zinc Arts’ new extension and have a long awaited catch up with the staff and users of this marvellous  local facility.

I’m also looking forward to having lunch with Cllr Jean McGinley, who is standing down from Brentwood Borough Council after a very successful term of office, which included an outstanding year as Mayor.

A couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to be invited to meet Age UK Essex, an organisation which provides support in the home to elderly people across Essex who need a bit of help in the home with cleaning and shopping. The group has just brought back the term ‘home help’ because it is best understood by all those who use the service.

I was very impressed by the dedication of all those I met, and especially by their rule that home helps never walk away from a home without seeing the client. On the day I visited a client had failed to answer the door, but could be seen lying on the floor. An ambulance was called, the family informed, and all was well.

Age UK Essex has five hundred workers offering cleaning and shopping support to more than three thousand people. There is a continuous need for more workers, with the minimum hours asked being two per week, with no maximum. As a result this appeals to mothers of young children who can fit in several hours work while the children are at pre-school or school. Male workers are also, I am told, very popular, despite some initial disbelief from clients that they can do housework!

 In the last few days the names of those who will carry the Olympic torch across Britain have been made public. Among those from Brentwood are John Wyndham and David Bland, who will carry the torch through Grays on 6th July, before it arrives in Brentwood itself to be carried by, among others,  local teenagers Leah Carter and Louise Jones, and Leslie Snellin from Abridge.

 Over a 70 day Torch Relay it is simply not possible to go everywhere, and the locations  directly on the route were selected after extensive UK-wide consultation with representatives from each Nation and Region over the last two years.  The Olympic Flame will come within 10 miles of 95% of people in the UK, Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey, travelling  through approximately 1,000 villages, towns and cities.

 An interactive map which reveals in detail the street level journey of the Olympic Flame can be seen at: www.london2012.com/olympictorchrelay.

 I hope as many people as possible from the Brentwood and Ongar constituency will be able to get out and line the route through the town to welcome the Flame and celebrate what is probably going to be a once-in-a-lifetime event.

 Already the children at Long Ridings Primary are thinking about what the Olympic Games will mean to them. I received a beautifully written letter from Jennifer last week, inviting me to see her year group’s self-written, home-made costumed, musical play about the Ancient Greek Olympics. Although I was unable to attend due to the Budget, I am reliably informed the play was brilliantly acted, full of fascinating facts, and with some of the best jokes ever told by eight year olds!

 I am delighted the Long Ridings’ youngsters are already getting into the Olympic spirit, and hope to see many of them and other local people lining the Olympic torch route through Brentwood and Ingrave on 6^th July.

Brentwood Housing Trust has done excellent work in making the most of local facilities and skills and considers itself to be an ideal example of localism in action. One of their finest achievements has been their work with High Street landlords to bring unused space above shops into use as flats and apartments, which provides much-needed affordable housing in Brentwood, and enables our High Street to maintain its vibrancy.

I spend a lot of my time in meetings in the Department for Communities and Local Government creating and implementing the Government’s policies on housing and localism, so it was refreshing to return to my own constituency and see such enthusiasm for these policies.

Localism gives local people far more freedom to make decisions on what is right for towns like Brentwood. Already,  Brentwood has received half a million pounds from the New Homes Bonus. The National Planning Policy Framework  will be out soon, which will make it much easier for local communities to make sensible decisions with regards to growth.

But localism does not just mean bricks and mortar and changes to the ways councils are able to plan. It includes the work so many people do already; people who do things because it’s the right thing to do to make their lives, and the lives of their neighbours, better. It’s the fund that’s set up to repair a vandalised war memorial. It’s the planting of a community garden. It’s the organisation of a team of volunteers who drive elderly people to hospital appointments.

All the reforms coming out of my Government Department, and being implemented so well in Brentwood, are trying to get power and local responsibility to a local level. But, in the words of Spiderman, ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. I am certain my constituents are up to the challenge.

 I’ve seen people in civil partnerships, and friends who have entered into them, and it has given them a degree of stability, and certainty, about their future.  I agree with the Prime Minister that society is made stronger by people’s commitment to one another. It’s made stronger when we make vows to each other and support each other. That is true whether the couple making the commitment is a man and a woman, a woman and a woman, or a man and a man.

This Government is rightly committed to advancing equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and has already taken action to do so: allowing those religious premises that wish to carry out civil partnerships to do so, erasing historic convictions for consensual gay sex, and putting pressure on other countries that violate the human rights of LGBT people.

The Government will be consulting on introducing civil marriage for same sex couples shortly and I would encourage all those living in the Brentwood and Ongar constituency with views for, or against, the idea to contribute to that consultation in due course.

It is important to point out that there is absolutely no question of churches or of any other religious institution being forced to host ceremonies for same-sex marriage, or indeed civil partnerships. In fact, the consultation will consider only same sex-civil marriage and not religious marriage.

By giving young people the opportunity to get real work experience for up to eight weeks, while keeping their benefits, the Government has found that 50 per cent of 18-25 year olds move off those benefits within three months of completing a placement.

One of the great ironies of the campaign against the scheme was that, whilst the Government

is undoubtedly doing some difficult and controversial things in welfare reform, the work experience scheme is not one of them. It is a voluntary scheme that is extremely popular with those who take part.

Over the last week Chris Grayling has worked hard to demonstrate that the campaign against the scheme is being orchestrated by anti-capitalist demonstrators, with not a little help from some trades unions. He has also won the overwhelming support of commentators in the media.

Employers have told the Department for Work and Pensions very clearly they will refute any suggestion that unpaid work experience is a bad thing. The employers believe strongly in what is being done, although they want the Government to ease the conditionality regime for the scheme.

In reality very little use is made of sanctions on the scheme. Fewer than 1% of participants have faced penalties, normally for serious offences such as theft, racist language and abusive behaviour. However it has been agreed that people who sit down with their employer at any stage and say they want to leave may do so without penalty. The sanctions regime remains in place and those who commit serious breaches in their workplace will face penalties.

The Government is now working to build up the scheme. If you are an employer who can offer a placement then please contact me at www.ericpickles.com or your local JobCentre Plus manager.

This approach makes a real difference to unemployed young people, and every extra opportunity can help – particularly for those from the most deprived backgrounds who don’t have the necessary contacts to find their first piece of experience in the job market.

I do not believe it was ever the intention of Parliament when it passed the Local Government Act 1972 forty years ago to prohibit council prayers, which are a common-day practice that dates back many centuries. It is my view that this judgment was another example of the public sector marginalising faith by promoting an illiberal and intolerant secularism. Christianity continues to play an important part in the culture, heritage and fabric of our nation, especially given we have an Established Church, governed by The Queen.

In this country, we should respect those of other faiths, and those with none. The right to worship is a fundamental and hard-fought British liberty, and the fight for religious freedom in British history is deeply entwined with the political freedoms we take for granted.

While Parliament’s prayers are protected by the Bill of Rights, local councils have no such shield. I decided to fast-track the commencement of the general power of competence in the Localism Act 2011. The new general power of competence enables councils to do anything that an individual could do unless it is specifically prohibited by law.

These new flexibilities for councils include the freedom to hold prayers at the start of council meetings, should they wish. This power is also a major constitutional innovation in itself, opening the doors to greater innovation in local government and will help councils make savings through greater joint working and sharing of services.

By returning to local councils the discretion on whether they want a moment of religious reflection at the beginning of their meetings, I believe we are striking a blow for localism over centralism; for freedom to worship over intolerant secularism; for long-standing British liberties over modern-day political correctness; and for Parliamentary sovereignty over judicial activism.

Brentwood featured on the morning news at the weekend when I was outside the Town Hall to explain the ‘general power of competence’ I have given local councils a major new power that will allow town halls to continue to hold prayers. Local councils now have a power that should enable them to continue to include prayers as part of the formal business at council meetings, if they wish, and thereby maintain the common practice in council meetings across the country.

This responded to last week's High Court ruling against Bideford Town Council which judged that councils did not have the powers to hold prayers as part of formal business.

Last week I was immensely proud to see Brentwood’s Royal British Legion Youth Band playing beautifully as they marched across Horseguards Parade last Tuesday. The band was there to show how important community activities are to give young people focus and things to do outside school and home as Baroness Newlove  published details of her latest report, 'Building Safe, Active Communities: Strong foundations by local people'.

Strong foundations have been laid down at the new Phoenix 98FM community radio studios at the Brentwood Centre where I spent a happy half hour on air last week. In six months the Leisure Trust, Brentwood Borough Council and Phoenix FM have worked together to enable the radio station to move from its tiny town centre studio base to far larger premises in two previously disused changing rooms. Phoenix presenters and volunteers have literally gone white haired as they’ve painted and glossed the new studio facilities. It is a great step forward for Phoenix and I am very proud of the work by so many people which has gone into bringing this move about. It’s a great listen too!

I was delighted to see the policy of allocating bags of grit to local communities so known slippery slopes and treacherous turns could be cleared and made safer. All credit must go to Brentwood Borough councillors of all parties who helped shovel, clear and grit pavements in their wards, and those of others. It is good to see local representatives working together as a team for the good of the borough.

I also recognise that the elderly in our community are often one of the most vulnerable groups in society and I am proud that the Government has taken decisive action to help these consumers this winter.  The new Warm Home Discount Scheme supports over two million homes, including over vulnerable pensioners, by providing a £120 discount on electricity bills.

In contrast to the Winter Fuel Payment, this scheme is targeted specifically at the fuel poor and it has been estimated that over four years it will be worth up to £1.1 billion, two-thirds more than the voluntary scheme it replaces. Ministers are maintaining the spending on Winter Fuel Payments outlined by the last administration and have also permanently increased the cold weather payment from £8.50 a week to £25 a week.

There’s also been Government investment in the rail infrastructure to help keep trains moving in snow and ice this winter, which is part of an industry spending programme to make sure the rail network is more resilient to severe weather.

I am certain that the Government will continue to monitor the transport situation and take the necessary action to ensure that the country’s transport systems are equipped to cope with adverse weather conditions.

Just last year I visited St Thomas’s Church in Brentwood town centre which had been seriously damaged by late night thieves audaciously driving a van up to the building and stripping rolls of lead from the roof. At the time the churchwardens told me the metal would have a scrap value of around £900, but will cost the church in the region of £8000 to bring in roofers to repair the damage.

Given the disruption and distress this criminal activity causes so many of my constituents, I am very supportive of the decision of the Home Secretary, Theresa May, to amend the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill to prohibit the use of cash to pay for scrap metal and to significantly increase the penalties available to the court to punish unscrupulous scrap metal details.

I am aware prohibiting cash from an entire sector is a bold step but cash transactions for scrap metal are often completed without any proof of personal identification or proof that the individual legitimately owns the goods being sold. Making these previously anonymous transactions traceable will dramatically improve the police and local authorities’ ability to enforce the current registration system.

Coupled with the metal theft taskforce the Government announced last November, I am confident this should have a significant and immediate impact on cutting metal theft across the country...and make the lives of commuters and vicars a little less stressful.

Councillor Nigel Clarke, one of three ward councillors for Brentwood West, had talked to me for some time about joining the Conservatives.  Nigel, who owns and runs a hairdressing salon in Crown Street, told me he was finding it increasingly difficult to work for the good of the residents of the ward as a member of the Liberal Democrat Group. After a lot of careful thought he realised his work to improve local services and facilities for both his residents and other local traders would be more effective if he joined the Conservative Group on Brentwood Borough Council.

I am, obviously, very pleased that Nigel has decided to join the Conservative Party and I look forward to him becoming a valued member of the team.

The busy Friday continued with a meeting at Brentwood Community Hospital with the Secretary of State for Health, the Rt. Hon. Andrew Lansley MP, who is a former Brentwood schoolboy. I invited my Cabinet colleague back to the town see the excellent work being done by Dr Andrew Hughes at the Haemotology Department at the hospital.

The visit was a great success; with Andrew expressing his admiration for the way the Haemotology clinic had been restructured with basic common sense in mind to make it run more efficiently for the patients who need to use it on a regular basis. The clinic now achieves better than national average results for both its outcomes and its cost effectiveness, and I was delighted to be able to bring this to the attention of the Health Secretary.

When the Coalition Government was formed almost two years ago, one of the first things which was set on track was the financial package for those affected. After many years of delays, I was delighted that within twenty months of the General Election I got my first email from a constituent saying he had received his first payment.

The Equitable Life Payment Scheme is now making high volumes of payments to policyholders. Thousands of policyholders will receive payment from the Scheme in the coming months, with more than ten thousand payments being made within the last week.

Mark Hoban, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, is aware the timetable of payments to With-Profist Annuitants is an area that concerns many constituents across the country. However payments to these people have started, and thousands have already received their first payment from the Scheme.

Eligible policyholders who have not received payment yet do not need to do anything – the Scheme has policyholders’ details from Equitable Life and the Prudential and will contact all eligible individual policyholders it can by June 2012 at the latest.

I have put a copy of the latest Frequently Asked Questions about Equitable Life on my website, www.ericpickles.com, which may be helpful to those who still have queries about the Payment Scheme.

A number of people, including some pub landlords and landladies, have written to me recently about their concerns about the business practices of large pub companies, and a backbench Parliamentary debate about the subject this week.

I have always believed the pub plays a crucial role in community life, both as a source of enterprise and as a vehicle for community action, and I am dismayed at the current rate of closure  in my constituency and further afield.

In spite of the recent reforms within the industry, the Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee report into Pub Companies identified a number of longstanding problems which need to be addressed.

The Government is strongly committed to taking action to tackle these problems. I know the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has carefully considered both the Committee’s reports and the Office of Fair Trading’s enquiries, which concluded there was not a competition problem in the sector.

In light of this, the Government has decided a non-legislative approach will best serve consumers and protect the interests of tenant lessee landlords. This should bring certainty to the industry by avoiding a lengthy and unpredictable legislative timetable, unlocking investment in pubs and thus contributing to growth.

The package agreed with the industry will make the Industry Framework Code legally binding and allow lessees to pursue grievances through the courts, as well as through a new Arbitration Service. This will be modelled on and set up under the umbrella of the Pubs Independent Rent Review Scheme and should effectively act as the Code Adjudicator.

There will be a three-yearly reaccreditation process for company codes, supported by spot checks, to ensure that pub companies are genuinely compliant. The Industry Framework Code is also being strengthened on a range of important issues, including rent transparency, to address concerns about “Fully Repairing and Insuring” leases. I am confident this package will help protect lessees and help those family brewers who used a “traditional tenancy” model.

I really hope these measures will help so many popular and well used pubs stay open and be part of their communities for many years to come.

I always enjoy being invited into schools to talk about my work as a Member of Parliament, and was delighted to receive an invitation to come to St Peter’s School in South Weald to talk to a group of ‘gifted and talented’ children from five primary schools across Brentwood about debating in the House of Commons.

The children, whom I assumed were gifted and talented in the art of arguing and negotiating (as most primary school age children are...especially when it comes to pocket money and sweet rations) had prepared lists of questions for me to answer.

 Question Number One was “Do you like David Cameron?” which was an easy enough start. Yes, of course I do, I told them, he’s my boss! The children then asked if I always agreed with the Prime Minister. They were surprised when I said no, and I often argue with him. But I explained the concept of collective responsibility which means once a decision has been made by the Prime Minister and the Cabinet I back it wholeheartedly.

I was also pleased the children asked me about my favourite debate. This year has been a busy one for me in the House of Commons because I have, in my role as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, seen through the debates on the Localism Act which was signed into law last month by Her Majesty, The Queen.. I have been planning for years the contents of the Act, which marks the beginning of an historic shift of power from Whitehall to every community to take back control of their lives.

I left the children with my list of great Parliamentary debaters, which includes Michael Heseltine, Michael Foot, Michael Gove and Jack Straw, and my list of Do’s and Don’ts of Debating: don’t lie; do keep it short and sweet; do try to speak without a script; don’t be aggressive or personal.

I think the children enjoyed the hour I spent with them; I left them happily debating whether it was time for playtime yet!

After what has been an extraordinarily warm autumn, the winter chill has now descended and the first frosts of the season have lead to picturesque patterns on windows, and the early morning sound of car windscreen scraping.

For many the cold weather is a source of concern given the rising energy prices and the cost of keeping warm at home. I am aware fuel poverty  is a reality for many people in the Brentwood and Ongar constituency, and the Government is taking real action to tackle the causes, and not just the symptoms of this problem.

As part of the Autumn Statement the Treasury committed £200 million for a special time-limited 'introductory' offer to boost the early take up of the Green Deal, the Government's flagship energy efficiency programme. The Energy Company Obligation (ECO), part of the Green Deal, will provide £1.3 billion each year for low income households and those in hard to heat properties. This year the Warm Front programme will help over 90,000 people with boiler repairs, new central heating systems and insulation work.

The Government is currently consulting on the Green Deal and the Energy Company Obligation and you are invited to submit your thoughts on the Department of Energy and Climate Change website at: www.decc.gov.uk.

In addition to this, the Warm Home Discount Scheme is supporting up to 2 million homes, including over 600,000 vulnerable pensioners, by providing a £120 discount on electricity bills. In contrast to the Winter Fuel Payment, this scheme is targeted specifically at the fuel poor and it has been estimated that over four years it will be worth up to £1.1 billion, two-thirds more than the voluntary scheme it replaces.

Spending on Winter Fuel Payments outlined by the last administration is being maintained and the cold weather payment has also been permanently increased £8.50 a week to £25 a week.

If you are affected by fuel poverty, or are aware of anyone who is struggling to heat their homes, more information may be found at www.directgov.uk.

The Government is committed to urgent and meaningful reform of the coroner system, to ensure inquests are timely, efficient and effective, and bereaved families are provided with the information and support they need throughout this terribly difficult and emotional process.

Over recent months the Government has listened to, and reflected on, the concerns raised across Parliament, by families and other groups including the Royal British Legion, that a single figure needs to be responsible for the coroner system. I am sure you will be pleased to hear that the Government has taken the decision to implement the Office of the Chief Coroner. 

Everyone is agreed that the priority is to raise the standards of coroners’ inquiries and inquests to ensure that bereaved families are satisfied with the whole process. That is why the Government is giving the Chief Coroner the range of powers envisaged under Part 1 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, including delivering immediate reforms such as facilitating easier movement of cases between coroner jurisdictions. The Chief Coroner will also be responsible for the direction of coroners, the monitoring of service personnel inquests, coroner training and an annual report laid before Parliament.

The Government is, however, repealing Section 40 of the Act – on inquest appeals – and it will retain the existing system of redress under which decisions could still be contested by way of judicial review or by application under the authority of the Attorney General to the High Court.  The extended appeals system was by far the most expensive element of the original Chief Coroner role proposal. This decision should therefore enable the Government us to meet the concerns of those who believe that such an appointment is needed to provide leadership for urgent coronial reforms, while remaining affordable to the taxpayer.

This month I have taken part in the Department of Communities and Local Government’s Social Action Week which aims to encourage people to help out local groups who need assistance, and to offer motivation to young people.

I spent a very happy couple of hours in the St Francis Hospice shop on Brentwood High Street, meeting volunteers and helping on the till. It too me back to my childhood days, whenI used to help my father in his shop. I certainly feel very comfortable standing behind a counter surveying the displays of goods and counting out change!

I also visited Brentwood County High School to talk to a group of Year seven children and sixth formers about how individual acts of defiance against evil can make a difference.

The night before my visit I had been in London with the Slovakian Prime Minister and Sir Nicholas Winton who, in 1938, organised the evacuation of six hundred and sixty nine Jewish children from the then Czechoslovakia just before the outbreak of the second World War.

Sir Nicholas had no money, no structure, no contacts; he just did it because he saw these children had no other chance of a future. Human beings are capable of enormous cruelty, cynicism, deception and neglect, but are also capable of intense acts of kindness, forgiveness and redemption.

I told the children that what Sir Nicholas Winton did in 1938 showed how individual actions of defiance against evil can make a difference. I hope they never come across such evil as seen during the Holocaust, but will have the confidence to stand up for what they believe and make a difference in the future.