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A small sample of Dr. Bob Spink's contributions to debate in Parliament in the last full week before the recess

What the Press often do not report:

Being Independent Bob, can raise the issues and change policy and law to really help people. He is not constrained by a political party whip.

Fairer social tariffs Bob's proudest moment this week was when he yet again helped change Government policy, this time to get fairer social tariffs to help low income people pay for heating and lighting. As an Independent Bob fights only for what is right; other MPs trust and listen to him in the House because he has no political agenda.

Bob has long campaigned, with motions and debates, to put vulnerable household's energy social tariffs onto a statutory footing. You may have seen his previous emails giving his speeches and motions on this issue. This week he saw success as Ed Milliband, the Secretary of State, announced. Bob does not claim he alone achieved this, but he did move the actual motions in the House and he got cross party support from MPs for the change. This shows the influence of an Independent MP who works hard and presses decent issues to help people.

Below is a small sample of Dr. Bob Spink's other contributions to debate in Parliament in the last full week before the recess.

Bob works at all levels, from the very top with the Prime Minister, to the grass roots helping individuals. He also did much work for his constituency, for instance on the Saving West Wood and Stop Canvey Flooding Campaigns, and he tabled many motions and questions. It is all on the record. This is why Bob remains the hardest working and one of the best value for money MPs in the House.

1 Climate Change: Bob: Combating increases in temperature and flooding & the Nuclear Power Plant timetable.

2 More Troops Killed, (Labour say they are properly equipped! Tories say: send yet more troops!): Bob says: Should we continue to sacrifice our young men and women in Afghanistan or are there better, safer, less expensive ways to achieve our objectives. And yes, equip them better.?

3 Protect Jotmans School Children (Sure Start Centre) Bob: Councillors yet again fail to consult and listen to residents.

4 Political Party funding abuses: Bob: We must have more transparency on the funding of political parties. Also I fought for criminal offences for MPs found guilty of financial misconduct as MPs should not be above the law... The Tories fought to stop this. This speaks volumes!

5 Strengthening Democracy Bob: We must make elections fairer and more secure, must not allow foreigners to buy political influence.

6 Care of Frail Elderly People Bob: We can not cut corners on care of the elderly or terminally ill people.

7 Bingo Tax Bob: We must not tax Bingo more than we do hard gambling in casinos. (Government agree to Bob's demand to look again at this tax. Another quiet but important success for Bob.)

8 Northern Ireland Bob: We must respect democracy, even on tough issues like abortion.

9 White paper Energy Bob: We must phase replacement of plant with safer cleaner plant to prevent climate change.

10 Helping Our Local Press Bob: They do a great job, our community would be much poorer without them.

…There was more!

Climate Change

Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Ind): We should congratulate the Prime Minister on his leadership on climate change. [He has been first to set international targets for carbon emissions reductions and more needs to be done, but, like it or not, he led the way internationally and we need to be honest and fair in politics.] Will he set out a timetable for new nuclear power plant in this country, so that we can start to meet our targets for carbon reduction?

The Prime Minister (Mr. Gordon Brown): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Some £20 billion will be invested in nuclear power over the next few years. We want to see nuclear power moving forward— [ Interruption. ] This is very interesting. The Opposition have spent a long time saying that they were hostile to nuclear power, but now I am asked, "When is the first planning application?" We will publish our planning statement on nuclear power in due course. It would be sensible in our country to have a cross-party consensus on the need for a balanced energy policy, and I hope that that will not long elude us.

Afghanistan War

Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Ind): Will the House be able to debate alternatives to military action to achieve the Afghan war objectives

i) more efficiently,

ii) with more safety and

iii) with less cost

The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Barbara Keeley): I have announced a general debate on Afghanistan. I am sure that it will be possible to touch on the points that the hon. Gentleman has raised during that debate.

Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Ind): No doubt the hon. Gentleman heard Prime Minister's questions today; did he notice that the Leader of the House refused to call the engagement a war, and twice called it a mission instead? Would he, like me, feel more comfort if there was a definite, well-planned exit strategy for this war? Does he agree that other NATO countries, particularly our European neighbours, are not sharing their part of the burden in front of the fire? …. Much more

Paul Flynn: We do not have wars any more; we rarely declare war, so the nomenclature that we use is misleading. But, certainly, by any standards, this is a war. We have always had an excessive share of the burden—quite unreasonably. We are not the policemen of the world, and our young men are not there to be slaughtered in order to correct every injustice that takes place in the world.

10.13 pm (Note the time. Bob worked from 7am to 00.30am next day and was back in his office at 7.30 the same morning)

Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Ind): On 3 June, I formally objected to the location of a Sure Start centre at Jotmans hall school in Benfleet after residents told me of their anger at a hare-brained scheme being secretly pushed through and their disbelief at the failure of councillors to inform or consult them or to control properly the council's policies on such important matters, or even to be honest and transparent with them. I was not surprised, therefore, when I received a petition signed by many extremely decent people, each of whom care deeply about their community and environment and the safety of children at that school The petitioners are local residents who pay the council and councillors to protect them, not harm them.

The petition states:

The Petition of John Hogarth, parents of Jotmans Hall school, local residents and others,

Declares that the proposed development of a Sure Start centre at Jotmans Hall school in Benfleet should be rejected because building the centre at that school would bring unacceptable problems including: compromising security for young children and the school buildings, including late at night and at weekends; destroying valuable green belt land and playing fields; wasting a vast amount of public money; increasing parking problems for school users and residents; and imposing highway safety dangers; further declares that the councils are pushing ahead with this plan because if they switch to other much more appropriate sites, they could lose their £500,000 budget for the project and that this demonstrates a cavalier approach by the councils to the management of public funds.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to encourage Essex county council and the Castle Point borough council to consider this objection and Petition and to reject the Jotmans Hall site and to co-operate together in investigating more suitable sites, and to do this with public transparency and to undertake fully public consultation on any sites which are thought may be suitable.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.

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Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Ind): I am not at all surprised that the Conservative Party oppose the Bill. I want to see it come on to the statute book as soon as possible so that we can get more transparency on the funding of political parties and of elections in particular. I know that this Bill will cause problems for the Conservative party because it currently abuses the system. It acts in a way that the public perceive as totally improper in funding campaigns with tens of thousands of pounds even before the starting point of the election is reached. That is an abuse of the system. I want to see that stopped, and that is why I will be supporting the Government.

Mr. Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con): Did the hon. Gentleman also think that it was an abuse when the incumbent Government decided to add £10,000 on top of already generous allowances so that Labour MPs in particular, who have the majority here— [ Interruption. ]

Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal): Order.

Mr. Stuart: So that Labour MPs in particular, who have the majority in this House, were able to spend public money promoting themselves to the electorate.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The motion under discussion is the carry-over motion. Can we please keep to that motion in the time that is available?

Bob Spink: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I shall abide by your wishes and not be distracted away from the motion that we are discussing. However, I am astounded that the Conservative party, of all parties, should seek to raise today, in this debate, the question of the abuse of Members' allowances. What brass neck they have. [Almost all Tory MPs use that allowance for the benefit of their constituents, including the Hon Gentleman, so how he can complain beats me.]

I want to see the Bill brought forward and that is why I will be supporting the carry-over motion, although I want to see levels of reporting reduced to lower sums so that we have even greater transparency. I also want to see even greater restrictions on spending on elections. I do not want to see this country going down

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Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Ind): I am sympathetic to the sentiments that the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) expressed a moment ago. Notwithstanding reasonable Government concerns about the practicalities and enforceability of Lords amendments 11 and 12, does the Secretary of State share the public concern, as well as that in the House, about the need to restrict the definition of "permissible donors", and to exclude people from abroad who do not participate properly and fully in our tax system? We could thus exclude people such as Lord Ashcroft, who has bankrolled the Conservative party for many years. That abuse of the electoral system must be stopped, and stopped quickly.

Mr. Straw: I understand the hon. Gentleman's argument. Part of what concerned Lord Bach, other colleagues and I was ensuring some consistency between the regime for donations and that for more general participation in our system…..

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Bob Spink: Has the Justice Secretary considered making that one year requirement more onerous, by requiring registration for tax purposes to have taken place, say, in the previous three or five years?

Mr. Straw: We have not, and I think that there would be objections to that from the Conservatives. There is the category of resident, ordinarily resident and domiciled, but people may have been domiciled here but resident abroad, and may then have returned. I understand what the other place was driving at and what this place is driving at, but we have to ensure that the regime that we put in place is proportionate….

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Mr. Straw: Yes, I think you are correct. Otherwise, it would be very easy to evade the limit.

Bob Spink: I recall that when we debated the Bill a few months ago, I argued that even £500 was too liberal and too high a limit for reporting. Surely the Secretary of State cannot now be arguing that £7,500 is the right level or that it is an amount that volunteers might give to the party without having a personal agenda of seeking to influence policy or buy elections.

Mr. Straw: We are seeking to deal with the issue of proportionality. My view is that setting the minimum limit at £7,500 will deal with the issues that were of concern, as it turned out, to Members on almost all sides in the other place, without imposing an unnecessarily stringent burden on individual parties that is difficult to enforce. The lower the limit, the greater would be the likelihood of administrative headaches for parties, and the greater the risk of potentially damaging mistakes. That is where I am coming from on this issue.

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Mr. Prentice: We take what the hon. Gentleman says with a shovelful of salt because in an earlier intervention he referred to the communications allowance and, from memory, I think that he said that Labour Members voted themselves that allowance. In 2007-08, 158 Conservative Members claimed that allowance, and the shadow Cabinet collectively claimed a total of £185,000 through it.

….Bob Spink: I am very grateful for that advice, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) on having done democracy a fantastic service with his long-standing campaign that he is now winning. In the end, right will out. The hon. Gentleman has been fighting to secure our democracy and remove the abuses of party political and election funding. We see those on the Conservative Front Bench squirming, trying to stop the amendment being made, and we all know why: they want to continue the abuses. They want to continue to allow Lord Ashcroft and others who live abroad to abuse the system and fund political parties unfairly and in an unbalanced manner.

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Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Ind): What recent discussions he has had with bingo operators on the effects on them of the taxation regime for bingo clubs.

The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Sarah McCarthy-Fry): We have had continued dialogue with the bingo industry both before and since the Budget on the impact of the tax regime. I last met the industry just two weeks ago, and that dialogue will of course continue.

Bob Spink: I thank the Minister for her answer. She and the whole House understand the social importance of bingo to our communities, and that the business of bingo is a caring and a good business. Will the Government keep the taxation of bingo under review in future Budgets, to ensure that it is taxed fairly given its social function?

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: The hon. Gentleman is an advocate for all his constituents who have written to him. I know from letters that I have received that many hon. Members have received correspondence from their constituents about the importance of bingo. Of course we will continue the dialogue with the industry, and these things are always kept under review in the pre-Budget report and the Budget.

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Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Ind): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the nearer to the people the decision is taken, the purer the democracy? People's views should be respected. The vast majority of people in Northern Ireland want to protect the unborn child and are absolutely right in holding that passionate view…. And more

Martin Salter: I have great affection for the hon. Gentleman, but his argument blows apart if localism is taken down to its purist level, because the local decision of the individual woman herself is the one that we are defending.

Bob Spink: As a GP, does the hon. Gentleman share my utter revulsion at the number of late-term abortions due to supposed deformities—the child might be beautiful, but have a hare-lip or something else perfectly treatable? That is why people get terribly wound up.

Dr. McDonnell: The hon. Gentleman is right. Some of us face a conundrum. For 30 years I have worked with women in stress—I might be unique in the Chamber in that sense—and I have dealt with them sympathetically, humanely and compassionately. However, there is a difficulty, to which I have yet to hear an answer.

We spend millions struggling to save babies of 22-week gestation, and putting them in incubators, and quite often those lives are preserved, even if they are not of a high quality—that is another issue—but we throw 24-week gestation babies in a bucket to die.

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Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Ind): Has the hon. Gentleman considered using his communication allowance—since he is talking about political engagement—in a proper, appropriate way to help his local newspapers and his constituents? For instance, he could take a full-page ad to promote take-up for Warm Front before winter comes around or he could promote the take-up of the pensioners' credit, because two in five of our pensioners do not take it and lose £1,470 as a result. So he could use his communication allowance positively to help his community, and that would not do his local newspapers any harm, either.

Mark Williams: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for those suggestions, some of which I shall take back to Wales with me and some I am using already. For example, adverts for my surgeries appear regularly in the local papers. Those surgeries are costly, but an important principle is involved none the less. I will mention that in connection with local authorities and other public agencies in a little while.

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Economic Inactivity

Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Ind): What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the level of economic inactivity in Wales.

The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Peter Hain): I have regular discussions with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. We will not let short-term job losses turn into long-term unemployment, nor will we allow communities to be scarred by worklessness for a generation once again.

Bob Spink: The Secretary of State is right to mention long-term unemployment, because Wales was disproportionately affected by the loss of traditional industries, which took place as long ago as the '80s. Certain regions of Wales are still suffering from that, so will he redouble his efforts with the Welsh Assembly to ensure that further education is funded and that there are no cuts? That is the way forward.

Mr. Hain: Yes indeed. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: ……. Much more.

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Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Ind): Will the autumn national policy statement on nuclear set out detailed time scales for the programme of the building of new nuclear plant and its coming on stream, and of the decommissioning of the old Magnox stations?

Edward Miliband: The national policy statement will certainly set out the details of new nuclear. That will be the focus of the statement……