Category Archives: Government

Biotechnology, Britain, Economic, European Union, Government, Health, Science, Technology

Environment Secretary says GM farming would save the countryside…

The Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson MP, has controversially claimed that GM farming would save the countryside and cost less.

Mr Paterson says that Britain should lead the way in producing genetically-modified food because it would lower prices and free up the countryside.

A long standing advocate of GM technology, Mr Paterson claims its adoption in the UK could be as significant as the agricultural revolution.

He has pointed out that since 1996 there has been a hundred-fold increase in the use of GM crops around the world, with 17 million farmers in 28 countries now growing what critics have branded Frankenstein foods. Less than 0.1 per cent of this takes place in the EU.

According to Mr Paterson farmers wouldn’t grow these crops if they didn’t benefit from doing so. Governments wouldn’t license these technologies, he says, if they didn’t recognise the economic, environmental and public benefits. He also added that consumers wouldn’t buy these products if they didn’t think they were safe and cost-effective.

In a speech designed to appeal to traditionalists, he said that while the rest of the world is ploughing ahead and reaping the benefits of new technologies, Europe risks being left behind.

… The use of GM (technology) could be as transformative as the original agricultural revolution was. The UK should be at the forefront now, as it was then.

Mr Paterson says that GM farming can help feed people in poorer countries and inject missing vitamins into the diets of children in the UK. He also argued that using GM crops to improve yields will require less space, and will free up more greenfield land.

… If we use cultivated land more efficiently, we could free up space for biodiversity, nature and wilderness.

The Environment Secretary also promotes the view that GM crops can help combat the effects of Britain’s increasingly erratic climate.

In recent weeks, the Prime Minister, the Government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Mark Walport, and the Science Minister, David Willetts, have all voiced support for GM crops.

Mr Paterson intends to lead a campaign among European ministers to make Brussels lift many of its restrictions on the use of GM technology.

The Minister of State says that he is conscious of those who need reassurance on this matter. He highlighted the need for government, industry and the scientific community of having a duty to the British public to reassure them that GM is a ‘safe, proven and beneficial innovation.’

But despite the assurances, the Soil Association has warned:

… We need farming that helps poorer African and Asian farmers produce food – not farming that helps (GM producers) Bayer, Syngenta and Monsanto produce profits.

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Afghanistan, Britain, Government, Politics, United States

The United States and Britain hold peace talks with the Taliban…

The UK has announced it is set to join peace talks with the Taliban to bring an end to the 12-year conflict in Afghanistan that has cost more than 400 British lives.

Washington announced earlier this week that negotiations with the Taliban will begin as early as today in the Gulf state of Qatar.

David Cameron gave his backing to the peace plan and revealed that the UK has been ‘fully engaged’ in the process for some time.

A number of Conservative MPs warn the talks could lead to a sell-out that hands southern Afghanistan back to the militants who have killed 444 British servicemen since 2001. It has also emerged that Taliban fighters are likely to be released as a ‘confidence-building measure’ as part of the talks.

It is understood that British intelligence officers have been conducting secret negotiations with the Taliban for the past two years to help pave the way for the talks. Intelligence agents and diplomats are likely to join in if the initial exchanges suggest that a deal can be done.

Under the terms of the arrangement, the Taliban has vowed to break its links with Al-Qaeda terrorists in exchange for a role in running Afghanistan when Western combat troops withdraw at the end of next year.

The announcement was made immediately after NATO handed over control for combat operations to Afghan security forces in every region of the country.

The talks in the Qatari capital, Doha, where the Taliban has opened an office, may also include representatives of the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai.

While the US will have its first formal meeting with the Taliban in several years, it is expected that will be quickly followed up by a meeting between the Taliban and the High Peace Council – the structure that President Karzai has set up for talks of this nature.

The initial meeting with the Taliban is likely to be an ‘exchange of agendas’ in which both sides lay out what issues they want addressed. Prisoner exchanges will be one topic for discussion.

MI6 officers have been engaged on and off for more than two years in an attempt to get Afghans to talk to each other. The intelligence service believes this will lead to a positive outcome.

Mr Cameron has acknowledged that the talks would be ‘difficult’ for many people to accept, but he said we need to match the security response in Afghanistan with a political process to try and make sure that as many people as possible give up violence and join the political process.

The Prime Minister said that we should be very proud of what our Armed Forces have done because the proportion of terror plots against Britain emanating from Afghanistan has ‘radically reduced’ since 2001.

Conservative MP Bob Stewart, who commanded British Forces in Bosnia, has warned that the Taliban holds the ‘whip hand’ and negotiators need to ‘get the talks right’ or British service people would have ‘died in vain.’

General Khodaidad of Afghanistan, the former counter-narcotics minister, said the country’s armed forces would need to be able to prevent the return of Taliban control in the south, including Helmand province where British troops have been fighting.

Khodaidad says that the Afghan National Army will not be able to control Afghanistan for the long term. Like others he believes that some parts of Afghanistan will fall into the hands of the Taliban.

The military have always been clear that there needs to be a political solution. The irony now is that the country is not just handed back to the Taliban, the very regime which was toppled by the West in 2001.

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Banking, Britain, Economic, Finance, Government

Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards…

The Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards has said that bosses of failed banks should face jail or lose the right to claim bonuses for up to ten years for ‘reckless misconduct’.

The new criminal offence would make sure that top executives paid for their ‘shocking and widespread malpractice’, according to a report by the commission which makes a number of recommendations on banking standards to the government.

Not a single British banker has been sent to prison since the financial crash began in 2007, but the proposed legislation seeks tougher disciplinary measures against errant bankers.

As well as prison terms, bankers could face heavy fines and bans from the financial services industry, as well as curbs on bonuses and the threat of pensions being cancelled.

Commission chairman Andrew Tyrie MP said:

… Under our recommendations, senior bankers who seriously damage their banks or put taxpayers’ money at risk can expect to be fined, banned from the industry, or, in the worst cases, go to jail. That has not been the case up to now.

In its 527-page report, the commission found that ‘deep lapses in standards have been commonplace’. Mr Tyrie highlights that it is not just bankers that need to change. The actions of regulators and governments have contributed to the decline in standards, too, he says.

The commission of MPs and peers calls for a sweeping overhaul of top pay, with city regulators given new powers to cancel pension rights and payoffs for the bosses of bailed-out banks.

It also wants watchdogs to be able to force banks to defer bonus payments for up to a decade, in order to prevent bosses reaping large rewards for risky, short-term strategies that subsequently lead to losses.

According to Mr Tyrie the rewards for fleeting, often illusory success have been huge, while the penalties for failure have been much smaller, or non-existent.

However, the director general of the CBI, John Cridland, said:

… There are tough criminal sanctions in the UK for those who engage in fraudulent behaviour. Enforcing those must come before the introduction of new sanctions.

The findings of the parliamentary commission, set up last summer in the wake of the LIBOR scandal, are not binding, but the Government is being urged to implement its recommendations ‘in full’. The proposals have been handed to ministers.

The reforms will aim to prevent a repeat of the bailouts and scandals such as the LIBOR rate-rigging, where some bankers have walked away with large payoffs and pensions.

But bankers will not be targeted retrospectively. The disgraced banker, Fred Goodwin, who left the Royal Bank of Scotland in ruins but is still receiving a pension of £342,000 a year for life, will be unaffected.

Nor will any legislation ensnare former HBOS chief James Crosby, who will collect £406,000 of his £580,000-a-year retirement deal.

Under current rules, senior bankers have been able to evade punishment by claiming they were not responsible for collapses and that they had not committed deliberate fraud, with the onus on financial authorities to prove wrongdoing.

In the proposed regime, though, senior managers could be held individually accountable and would have to show they took ‘all reasonable steps’ to avoid a failure.

Mr Tyrie said that a lack of personal responsibility has been commonplace throughout the industry, and added:

… Senior figures have continued to shelter behind an accountability firewall.

The commission also wants a new licensing system to stop traders involved in setting LIBOR rates and prevent area managers who oversee the sale of financial products from slipping through the net.

The report also recommends that City watchdogs should be able to force badly-behaved banks to sign a formal agreement to improve their culture and standards.

The commission – whose members include the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and former Chancellor Lord Lawson – also demands the dismantling of UK Financial Investments (UKFI), the body that is supposed to manage taxpayers’ holdings in RBS and Lloyds at arms’ length from ministers.

It said the Government, which denies forcing the recent resignation of RBS boss Stephen Hester, has interfered in the running of the two banks and that UKFI is seen as a ‘fig leaf’ for ‘the reality of direct government control’.

Ministers must also make an immediate commitment to analyse whether RBS should be split up into a ‘good bank’, that could lend more to small firms and personal customers, and a ‘bad bank’ to dump its toxic assets, the commission said.

A study of high street lenders by competition watchdogs and an independent panel of experts to look at measures to help bank customers were also part of the recommendations.

Lord Oakeshott, a former LibDem Treasury spokesman, said:

… We must stop the subterfuge of UKFI and put the Treasury on the spot to make the banks we own, lend. RBS, our biggest business bank, has failed the nation that rescued it at £1,500 for every taxpayer. It must be broken up with new management and tough net lending targets for the good bank so small business can grow again.

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