Meetings can only be arranged by appointment and any letters to Paul are to be sent to his House of Commons address.

The office can be called on (01253) 473070. General enquiry emails can be sent to office@paulmaynard.co.uk, or specific constituency business emails can be sent to Paul’s Parliamentary address, paul.maynard.mp@parliament.uk.

Post should be addressed and sent to Paul’s Westminster office:

Paul Maynard MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A OAA

As ever, Paul’s contact details are available from the ‘contact Paul’ link at the top of each page.

Next Summer a new “Work Programme” will be introduced. It is important that the transition to this is smooth. The only major change to occur on this front is the decision to axe the Future Jobs Fund. The fund was axed due to its expensive nature at £6,500 per place and because most of the jobs created were largely in the public or voluntary sectors where there was little chance of continued employment after the funded first 6 months.

The new plan for 50,000 additional apprenticeships offers people a much better chance of ongoing job opportunities. Elements of the six month guarantee for young people under 25 are being maintained to make sure that they have a programme of activity once they have been unemployed for that period. The Work Programme will provide personalised help to people who find themselves out of work, based on need and not the benefit they claim. This will then address the very pressing issue of the 2 million people who find themselves on Incapacity Benefit. A mix of private and voluntary organisations will deliver this new Work Programme. The Work Programme will hopefully end some of the problems faced by people who in the unfortunate position of being unemployed.

This week, I wrote to Emma Warren, who is responsible for Tesco’s plans in Layton, to express local concerns about any future store and to invite Tesco to discuss the possibility of a voluntary agreement with the community regarding how it plans to trade.

9th August 2010

Dear Ms Warren,

RE: TESCO PLANNING APPLICATION NOs 10/0780, 10/0784, 10/0783 – WINDMILL PUBLIC HOUSE, BLACKPOOL

I write to you in my capacity as the MP for Blackpool North & Cleveleys with reference to the above application in my constituency. I understand that Tesco does not need planning permission to open the store on this site but would implore Tesco to undertake a voluntary agreement not to purposefully compete with the product mix of the established local shops in the nearby Layton District centre, such as the butchers, florists and greengrocer.

I would like to make it clear that I am not ‘anti-supermarket’, indeed I have seen some very successful examples of where supermarkets have assisted in reinvigorating an area. To this extent, I see no reason why a Tesco store, if it must be on this site, could not compliment the current retail mix and offering of the Layton area (which has very recently seen a significant amount of investment from the local council).

I would hope that the arrival of a Tesco shop on this site would not jeopardize the existence of existing shops and invite you, or any other Tesco representative, to speak with me about the possibility of seeking a voluntary agreement over the items that the shop will stock to best suit the needs of local people and retailers.

I look forward to hearing back from you soon.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Maynard MP

Commenting, Paul says, “This is good news for Blackpool and Cleveleys; both towns have many residents fighting cancer and any extra help in funding drugs will be very welcome. I am also pleased to see that doctors locally will be put in charge on how the money is spent in the best interests of local patients on specialists advice. This is localism in the NHS and trusting the clinician over the bureaucrat.”

The last Monday of Parliament may have had an end-of-term feel, but for the Transport Select Committee which I sit on, it was also our ‘opening’ session where we had the chance to cross-examine our new Secretary of State for Transport Philip Hammond. These ‘grillings’ are a good chance to try to understand how the minister is considering issues covering his entire department. Even in the two hours we had him for, we could barely skim the surface. Our chairman, Liverpool MP Louise Ellman, takes the lead in the questioning, and if one of the Committee members wants to leap in, we have to catch her eye. Louise did a good job of keeping everything moving along, and giving everyone a chance to have their say.

I focused my interventions on putting down markers for a continued policy debate. In particular, I wanted to consider how best to improve job prospects in the Northern economy by improving transport. So I asked about some of the policy work that had been done, and I also asked about which section of the High Speed Rail line he considered most ‘transformative’ in economic terms. Logically, this is the section that will run north of Birmingham, yet it is also the section that won’t be built till last. I also put a marker down about the funding of the concessionary bus grant, asking whether he thought the current system was working adequately. His reply that the Government are switching from lower-tier to upper-tier authorities as the prime funders is a welcome step, but we still need to address a fairer funding mechanism that reflects the needs towns which have a high visitor influx. I also asked about the future of Trust Ports – a question for which the shipping newspaper Lloyd’s List named me their ‘parliamentary hero of the day’. I’m not quite sure either the question or the response merited such an accolade!

I also managed to appear in Alasdair Stewart’s blog, unwittingly, when he saw me in ITV’s studios:

“Inside I meet Paul Maynard, the new Tory MP for Blackpool North. They make a wonderful, tooth-cracking confection there but he was on hand for the Granada show not mine. He has cerebral palsy and I am a patron of Scope, the relevant charity. I quietly thrill to the fact that this brave and able man not only won Blackpool N but brings the experience and potential of triumph of CP into the House. I hope he thrives and trust DC sees the merit of making my hope a reality.” (http://blog.itv.com/news/author/alastairstewart/)

Hope that’s not a Kiss of Death!

I had plenty more meetings still in the diary last week, as we were expecting Parliament to run through until the Thursday, so although Parliament rose on the Tuesday, I hung around a couple more days tying up loose ends.

Friday was the usual mix of constituency surgeries – some worthwhile progress being made at the moment with a few individuals, frustration in other cases – and meetings. I spent the morning at BAE Systems in Warton – a major local employer – not just on a tour but also having some quite detailed discussions about export markets, and met with the union representatives also. If a key theme emerged, it was the importance of maintaining the skills base on the Fylde. If orders don’t come in, whether from the UK or abroad, then the skills base diminishes, and our sovereign capability as a nation is lost, since you can’t just create it again out of thin air.

The transport theme fed through to this week as I spent an hour meeting with the Poulton & Wyre Railway Society who are seeking to reopen the line to Fleetwood for passenger and freight services. They are very close to turning their dream into reality, and have a serious, business-minded approach which does them credit, and they have my full support. We discussed how changes to bodies like the NWDA will affect what they do, and we agreed to keep in touch with me helping out wherever I can.

I also had a ‘lively’ meeting with some of the mothers from Blackpool Tiggers, which caters for autistic children on the Fylde Coast. The difficulties so many of them have to go through, and the traumas, have to be heard to be believed. Autism is a complex condition, little understood by many, and not fully understood even by the experts. I’ve already spoken a bit in Parliament about the condition, and I will keep on doing so.

So what is the upshot of my first few weeks in Parliament? A lot done, a lot to do. But oh, wasn’t that the Labour Party’s slogan at the 2005 election? Oops.

The UK’s budget deficit this year will top 11% of GDP compared to the 6% deficit when the country went bankrupt in 1976. If we don’t act on this problem now, then within five years Britain will be paying out £70 billion per year on debt interest alone. This figure is more than we spend on education, policing and defence. The current debt interest is £42 billion which is more than is currently spent annually on defence. This means we owe £15,010 for every man, woman and child in the country, which is more than £32,457 for every person that is currently in employment. On top of this every household will have to pay £1,839 a year just to cover the interest. These damning statistics prove the theory that all Labour Governments end in economic failure.

It is now up to the Coalition Government to clean up Britain’s economic problems. While one party created the mess, our two parties have come together to deal with it.

Paul kicks off his first brunch meet at the award-winning Briardene Hotel in Cleveleys on Saturday 24th, 11am till 1pm, and there are a number of places still available.

Tickets are £10 and include a full English breakfast, toast and tea, with plenty of time to socialise with Paul and like-minded guests. Tickets are in aid of Paul’s campaign fund.

To book, simply RSVP to simon@wesham.com.

For more information about the Briardene Hotel, visit their website.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Regards,
Paul
Paul Maynard MP
Blackpool North & Cleveleys

As I am sure you are aware, we have had some confusion over the future of Blackpool’s BSF programme. Sadly, the bulk of the projects have been cancelled because of the tight fiscal constraints we are working under. Three projects in Blackpool, however, remain under consideration because they had progressed further in legal and financial terms. Two of these are in my constituency – St Mary’s College and the smaller Mountford Centre scheme in Bispham.

Monday
There was a great deal of confusion in particular over the status of St Mary’s in particular. Sitting in the Chamber on Monday to hear the Education Secretary Michael Gove’s statement, I was quite certain that St Mary’s was a sample project that would be under review. I was pleased it had not been cancelled – and determined to make sure we did all we could so it got approval. So imagine my surprise when it crops up on a list as ‘unaffected’ and therefore going ahead. I called the school head Stephen Tierney to confirm – and we agreed it almost sounded too good to be true.

Wednesday
Which it was. By Wednesday, reports were circulating of errors in the list. Most of Wednesday was spent by me on the phone to councillors, headteachers, council officers and ministers’ offices trying to establish the facts of the matter. Eventually we had confirmation that St Mary’s was still under review – as we had originally expected. Whilst it is easy to try to dissect the administrative errors, I’m now focusing on doing all I can to get St Mary’s given the go ahead. Part of the programme for St Mary’s includes diocesan funding for a new Christ the King Catholic Primary which serves the Grange Park estate – a deprived area which was the site of our 2007 Conference Social Action Project. Should the project fall, so will diocesan funding for the primary school.

I would therefore emphasise the transformative nature of St Mary’s plans. The benefits are not restricted only to Catholics in Blackpool at all – all secondary schools will benefit from a ‘ripple effect’, thereby making up for some of their disappointment at the remainder of Blackpool’s BSF programme being cancelled.

To make sure we were all heading in the right direction, I made time to see Stephen Tierney at St Mary’s, and after Education Questions in the House I will be heading over to the Department for Education to hand over the letters to Michael Gove from the headmaster and the Bishop of Lancaster, along with my own.

The issues with St Mary’s are a good example of the dilemma facing MPs. At the same time as the confusion, there was a Westminster Hall debate on autism and mental health which I had hoped to speak in, given a number of constituents had approached me on the issue. As an MP, you have to make choices about your diary continually as there are always five things going on at once. I prefer to think about the difference my involvement can make to something, and apportion my time accordingly. Given the impact of St Mary’s across Blackpool, it wasn’t a difficult decision to put that first. A letter to the Minister on autism will be going out this week too!

All of this occurred alongside a very late night sitting until about 2.30am thanks to Labour MPs debating past the point of no return the Budget provisions. Free speech is important, I agree, but listening to what they had to say in the early hours, I was struck by the fact they didn’t have very much to say at all. Good debates on important issues are one thing, but playing childish games to deny us sleep is quite another! It seemed impossible to find a taxi, so I ended up getting the firstTube train back for a shower and change before managing another long day immediately afterwards.

Thursday
Lots of time was taken up with St Mary’s, but not all of it! The All-Party Group on Muscular Dystrophy had a worthwhile session looking at whether specialised commissioning for neuro-muscular conditions (which cover a broad spectrum, including motor neurone disease) are actually achieving what they set out to. I had a quick drop in on the All-Party Isle of Man Group since we are so close geographically – and Blackpool airport is such a key link.

I attended a fascinating briefing with Professor Steve Fothergill (of the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research) who has been doing research estimating the number of jobs reliant upon tourism in the “Greater Blackpool” area – something which has never been done before apparently. He did it by assessing just how many jobs over and above what you would normally expect in a town with no discernible tourist trade. In “Greater Blackpool”’s case (his designation, not mine), it amounted to 19,400 jobs year-round (i.e. not just seasonal). Across the country as a whole, seaside tourism employs more people than aviation or pharmaceuticals – important comparisons to cite when raising the profile of the issue. However, many questions still remain unanswered about the trends within all these statistics, as Prof. Fothergill himself admitted.

Thursday night/ Friday/ Saturday
Finally, Thursday night and Friday in the constituency saw me drop by the Cleveleys Park Junior Chess Club at the Methodist Church, a meeting with Helen France to discuss some of the thematic issues that frequently crop up, a visit to meet Gazette editor David Helliwell, a surgery at the City Learning Centre, the opening of an Art Exhibition at the Votive Shrine with the Historic Chapels Trust, and a visit to the East Pines Gala in Anchorsholme on Saturday in between catching up on emails. I think I had a few hours off on Sunday where I didn’t do any work!

Regards,
Paul
Paul Maynard MP
Conservative
Blackpool North & Cleveleys