MALVERN’S MP and Lib Dem parliamentary candidate have each reacted to this week's goings on in Parliament.

Beverley Nielsen says Boris Johnson “has little interest in healing the divisions that have riven our country since the referendum” - after the Prime Minister lost his first commons vote by 27 votes.

In the vote, the government was defeated by 328 votes to 301, with 21 Conservative MPs voted to take control of Wednesday’s parliamentary agenda.

Mrs Nielsen said: “Johnson is obsessed with the 17.4 million who voted to Leave. Given this, he’s trying to out-Brexit the Brexit Party in blatantly promoting a no-deal Brexit.

“He’s ignoring the government’s own advice about serious shortages of fuel, food price increases and shortages of vital medicines, with disruption at our ports impacting farmers’ and businesses’ integrated supply chains. "

THE Lib-Dem parliamentary candidate for West Worcestershire has slammed Boris Johnson for acting like a “bully” and says he is “taking away control” from the public.

Beverley Nielsen was reacting to the news that Parliament will be suspended, leaving groups opposing a no-deal Brexit with less time to prevent it.

She said: “Boris Johnson told us this is all about taking back control, but he’s taking control away from the very people we elected to represent us.

“He said it was about taking back control but he seems to be intent on handing control over to the USA.

“Given that it could take five years to complete a US trade deal and that the EU takes 44 per cent of our goods now with the US taking 19 per cent, we’d need to sell over twice as much to the US in order to make up the difference, something that will certainly take time.

Beverley Nielson, the recently adopted Liberal Democrat candidate for West Worcestershire, which includes Tenbury and the Teme Valley, has been visiting Tenbury ahead of what could be an early general election.

Ms Nielson is the portfolio holder for economic development and tourism on Malvern Hills District Council.

She is also a former West Midlands regional director of the Confederation of British Industry in the West Midlands.

Ms Neilson was also an unsuccessful candidate to be mayor of the West Midlands when she was beaten by the Conservative Andy Street.

Her role has involved meeting leaders of business and plans included coming to Tenbury to talk to business owners including Garry Thompson, who has just opened a chocolate factory behind his shop in the town.

Watch Beverley debate on Boris Johnson as PM below.

By Beverley Nielsen, Associate Professor at Birmingham City University’s IDEA Institute and Senior Fellow at BCU’s Centre for Brexit Studies, Liberal Democrat Councillor on Malvern Hills District Council and responsible for the Economic Development & Tourism Portfolio

How are you feeling at the end of your term as Leader?

I am not sure what the next stage of my career really is. I’m in California over the summer with my son and I’m looking forward to coming back feeling refreshed. I will of course still be MP for Twickenham.

I’m writing another book looking at the links between politicians and economics and taking a closer view of the figures who have made a big difference through these links including Alexander Hamilton (1) and Deng Xiaoping (2).

[(1) Alexander Hamilton (1755 – 1804), was renowned as one of the founding fathers of the United States of America, leading the way in interpreting and promoting the US Constitution, founding the nation’s financial system, the Federalist Party and the New York Post. As First Secretary of the Treasury, he was promoted the economic policies for George Washington‘s administration, setting up a national bank, enabling funding for state debt, establishing a system of tariffs and  trading relations with Great Britain.

(2) Deng, credited through economic policy reform with lifting more human beings out of poverty than any other human being, drew on a model of ‘state capitalism’ set within the framework of Communist party rule. Deng himself was pragmatic: a gradualist who believed in ‘crossing the river by feeling for the stones’, being interested in results rather than dogma or doctrine.]

What are your proudest achievements?

Most of the achievements I’m proudest of were achieved during the five years I spent serving as a Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills in the Coalition government. I was able to promote bank reform, the creation of new British Business Bank and Green Investment Bank as well as the Vickers reforms brought forward by the former Bank of England Chief Economist, Sir John Vickers. The Industrial Strategy was a success, in particular for the vehicle and aircraft sectors, currently being so dramatically undermined by Brexit, and I was proud to launch the Catapult network and I do continue to meet people in the network, in particular the National Automotive Innovation Centre at WMG, University of Warwick, which has achieved a successful funding formula working with business and the better ones like these are doing well.

I was disgusted with the sell-off of the Green Investment Bank. It was a very good institution and having invested £12bn in new green businesses it was sold off to the Australian asset stripper which will likely now disinvest in the UK.

Whilst my main achievements were during the Coalition, I’ve also been a turnaround specialist for the Liberal Democrats. I took over in 2007 on a temporary basis when the Party was at a low ebb and it was in much better shape when Nick Clegg took over. In these last few years the Party has also revived. We are now in much better position as Jo Swinson takes on the role of leadership. She is putting forward a fresh new face and getting good coverage as we fight to Stop Brexit.

What do you consider the most important thing for the Liberal Democrats to achieve at present outside of stopping Brexit?

We must now consolidate our position as one of big players politically. YouGov polls today (24^thJuly) put us second only to the Tories and ahead of Labour, with the Brexit Party falling back to fourth place. We seem to have settled into a stable position as one of four main parties. The big task is to build on that and to go into any future General Election as a major party in our own right.

What lessons do you take from the Coalition years?

Being in a coalition under present voting system is bad for any party and I don’t see any appetite for this without electoral reform. There isn’t any appetite for this in the country either, in spite of the widespread consciousness of the failings of government. It is a complete and utter mess at present with a minority ruling for the majority. But we still must continue to make the case for reform.

Is another storm brewing for the UK and for us globally?

Yes, I think another storm is brewing. I noted the comment by Andrew Neil that the US is embarking on massive deficit financing at the peak of a boom, a bit like Peron did in Argentina. We are looking at a likely crash landing. There are plenty of signals with the trade war and our own economy in decline. We have had two and maybe three quarters of falling output. But it’s a strange recession with full employment. Wages have been flexible, too flexible most likely, and people have kept their jobs.

As Boris Johnson becomes PM could you have foreseen politics where it is today from 2009 after the Global Financial Crisis?

Boris has different personalities and we have to see what he does. We need to look to see what route he will follow. The Tories have to neutralise the Brexit Party as the right wing vote is split if not. If they do get together with them then it’s good news for the Liberal Democrats. I’d be very surprised in Nigel Farage becomes US ambassador for example, despite having been mentioned in a recent speech by Sajid Javid. I think it will be more of a passive understanding in doing the Brexit Party’s dirty work so there’s no need for them to continue. The intention will be to do to the Brexit Party what they did to UKIP.

There is a bigger danger for the Tories in the Shire seats that even if they get together with the Brexit Party then they lose the support of the moderate Tories. I think this will happen all over the country.

The pollster, Prof Sir John Curtice, says the UK population divides roughly into the social liberals and social conservatives – do you agree with these two broad splits in our population and are they linked to our views on Brexit?

Yes, broadly I agree with Prof Curtice. I think the point he’s trying to make is that we now have the politics of identity rather than a straight left- right split.

What do you say to young people who voted by over 70% to Remain in the EU?

They have been betrayed by the Labour Party, that much is very clear. The Brexit Party vote is heavily driven by age and the left-behind as well, but the biggest determinant is age. The older generation have shafted the young. Now we are getting an angry younger generation, betrayed on Brexit, let down on housing and let down on environmental issues and Labour Party is no longer of any value to them.

The Greens are still in single figures in the polls. If they look at the potential for winning seats in Parliament, it’s hard to see where the Greens go, whereas we have the potential to win large numbers of MPs in any future general election and of making a real difference.

What message of hope could we give to young people now?

You have been betrayed over Brexit and should get behind the one party which is fully committed to remaining in the EU and fully alert to your concerns about the environment and housing.

This is the time for councils to be building truly affordable housing.  There are a lot of councils building houses and even this wretched government is giving them the freedom to borrow. Councils like Liberal controlled Eastleigh and others of all parties are building where there is land. South Shropshire has done quite a bit of social housing. As far as private housing is concerned why don’t councils CPO some land to take this agenda forward.

As a Party we’ve got the basic elements in place. The fact that Jo Swinson has been elected as a young woman with young children is plainly something relevant that she’s bringing, together with her experience, to this role and to the image of the Party. It’s the right image for this generation.

What do you think about the tuition fee situation now?

I have been promoting the idea of Lifetime Learning Accounts as a personal proposal and there is a Lifetime Learning Commission looking to explain how this could work on a more modest scale.

In terms of Further and Higher Education (HE) we tried to narrow the disparity in funding between the two when I was in government and the mechanism we came up with was tuition fees. We tried to promote fees for Further Education (FE), but it did not work. There is a disparity in the funding which needs tackling (3). The Augur report, which acknowledged this, made a commitment to narrow the gap. Apprenticeships were doing well, we were getting them up and running but the government screwed up really badly with the Apprenticeship Levy with apprenticeships down by a quarter in 2017/18 to just over 375k, with an annual target for 3m apprenticeships having been set by government by 2020. Whilst 25% of big firms are able to fund apprenticeships in their supply chain and SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) pay only 5% towards these with government paying the rest, the accreditation of tailored courses has been taking too long.  There is also no real organisational capacity to organise the supply chain and SME activity. People are now getting used to it but there has been a lot of wasted time.

[(3)around £7bn per annum in FE to cover 4m students and over £8bn a year government funding in HE to cover over 2m students]

Does a fairer UK means greater devolved powers to the region?

Yes it does, but we need to be careful. I am a big supporter of Heseltine’s review (‘No Stone Unturned’). I have concerns about turning over Further Education and Apprenticeships to a devolved system as you may well end up with different standards all over the country. With transport it makes sense to have regional transport plans. But fragmentation of training is a danger. With health there is a familiar dilemma – we do tend to have more initiatives but there is the danger of postcodes lotteries. Overall I am in favour of devolution but it can lead to many different outcomes.

Does a No-Deal Brexit mean breaking up the UK?

Not immediately.  It will certainly bring more and more pressures to bear on Northern Ireland.  The Nationalists majority and sympathetic Unionists may go for a united Ireland. When the Scots see the mess Brexit will make as Britain breaks away from Europe, they will probably think again about breaking away from the UK.

What would the impact of a No-Deal Brexit be on manufacturing and regions like the Midlands as the home of UK automotive and an aerospace cluster of global significance?

It would be disastrous for the West Midlands but I think a No-Deal Brexit is still very unlikely. A lot of this is hot air to cover the extreme wing of the Tory Party. Brexit itself will be very damaging.

What is the likelihood of a general election this Autumn?

I don’t see the chances of an Autumn election much above 30%. I think Spring is much more likely if Boris Johnson keeps control; if he loses control we may have election forced on us.

After the Storm – do you think we have dealt with fundamentals of capitalism and will the Industrial Strategy sort out our productivity shortcomings in the UK?

There are still a lot of problems. The banking system is a lot more stable. But there are still a lot of issues that we need to address regarding capitalism and corporate governance.  The environmental agenda needs to be less about talk and more about action. But we still do not have many alternative models that work.

How best to decarbonise capitalism and does this lead to more ethical capitalism?

Yes, decarbonising capitalism can be stimulated but we do need to be a bit careful and wary of moving too far ahead of the public. The kind of thing governments can do is to implement Carbon Taxes and tougher regulations. A segment of the public is ahead of the politicians, but this has not so far a big driver.

Looking internationally and the rise in international migrants from 170m in 2000 to 260m worldwide in 2019, are our global institutions working?

Key bodies like the World Trade Organisation and the World Bank have lost authority but it is essential that this is rebuilt and retained otherwise our global rules-based order disintegrates. This is one of the reasons why remaining in EU is so important and we have to show this can work and to stay in it. Managing globalisation, having rules and showing they can be enforced for the benefit of large numbers of countries is vital.  But we shouldn’t get too despondent as in most parts of Europe the nationalists have not made too much progress and are in a minority. There has been damage in the UK and US, but we are not yet back to the situation of the 1930s.

Do you have any thoughts for us in Malvern Hills where we are promoting ourselves for our trailblazer 5G testbed (the first in the country), our sensors and cyber security leadership?

In terms of the smart economy, I am not a technologist so I won’t try to make observations, but what you are describing is precisely what the Catapult network was trying to do. I think we may well need a Catapult to deal with 5G technologies. If that were to be agreed with the resources required, it would help to bridge the gap from testbed to commercial viability and I could see this being a potential for a place like Malvern located between GCHQ and Birmingham.

Reprinted with permission - Centre for Brexit Studies

Pictured: Illustration; Parry People Mover retro-styled tramway system with no overhead wires, drawing on zero carbon bio-methane flywheel hybrid powertrain, set in context of Malvern Hills.

115 Councils across the UK have so far declared a climate emergency and amongst these 71 have set a carbon neutral target of 2030. Amongst these Worcester City Council recently pledged to make the city carbon neutral by 2030. Malvern Hills District Council is calling for greater collaboration and more resources from central government to support local action for this issue at its meeting 23rd July. 

However, these pledges are made at a time when residents continue to complain about drastic cuts to public transport services, being often wholly reliant on cars with diesel and petrol engines. Many elderly residents have to rely on taxis when trying to get to the shops or vital health appointments due to the lack of public transport available.

Cllr Beverley Nielsen states: “There is no plan at present to use low carbon and zero carbon alternatives giving our residents real choices in Malvern and our other urban centres. I am pleased to be involved in early discussions with key partners about this problem. Promoting electric vehicle use, including smaller electric buses, installing charging points, planning for a tramway that could help to provide thousands of residents and visitors with sustainable transport alternatives.”

Cllr Nielsen has supported the designers and operators of the Stourbridge Shuttle over the last three years (pictured below) and says: “The railcar in operation in Stourbridge was funded by private investors who put around £1m into this. The operator, Premetro Operations Ltd, have transported 5m people over last 10 years, shuttling them between the Stourbridge bus station and mainline rail station. With a 99.7% reliability track record it is one of the most reliable rail services in the country. It uses an ultra-low carbon, low-cost powertrain drawing on a hybrid 2.3l propane engine and flywheel.

“This has improved air quality and connectivity and is a ready-made solution which can be rolled out to more communities. The picture above envisages a retro-styled tramway system that could be used to transport thousands of people to the Three Counties Showground (from Great Malvern station, for example), at present only accessible by car and coach. 

“Moving away from our overdependence on fossil-fuel based car and bus systems is proving challenging in Worcestershire. Organisations based in the County have been bringing together plans, most recently AtoB in Malvern 2040 and High Street Malvern. We need to see more imagination, a can-do attitude and a great deal more ambition for our residents in terms of sustainable transport options.”

Roger Sutton, Chairman, High Street Malvern (HSM) stated: “HSM is very supportive of all efforts to agree policies tackling climate change and a reduction in pollution. Locally our councils have the opportunity to take a lead for the area in promoting electric vehicles – both private and public – and addressing the problems of town centre diesel fumes to improve air quality and the experience for our residents and visitors”.

Pictured: Class 139 Parry People Mover Railcar in operation in Stourbridge for the past 10 years moving 5m passengers with 99.7% reliability, drawing on propane–flywheel ultra-low carbon powertrain.

‘Malvern’s Marvellous Trees’ launches four new Routes to enjoy leafy promenades around Malvern

8^th July 2019

Mike Goodfellow-Smith (past chair of Malvern Community Forest) launched ‘Malvern’s Marvellous Trees’ as a charity (awaiting registration) in 2018 having moved to Malvern from Leeds in 2012. 

Having moved with his wife, Julia to Barnard’s Green, Mike observed the mature trees along Avenue Road being ‘topped’ to allow double decker buses to move up and down and noticed that several spaces had appeared along the avenue where the trees had died and had not been replaced with younger saplings.

His interest rapidly expanded from Avenue Road to the whole town and luckily for him he found out about the ‘Great Malvern Route to the Hills’ at a time when they were able to provide some seed investment through Heritage Lottery Fund to help Mike develop new routes around our town enabling residents and visitors to view Malvern’s Marvellous Trees.

Through this investment Mike was able to bring together a growing band of volunteers sharing his passion for our trees. Together they helped create four new routes to walk around our town whilst learning about and enjoying Malvern’s leafy promenades. Supported with superb tree photography by Jan Sedlacek.

Speaking about Malvern’s Marvellous Trees four new guides Mike stated:

“It’s fantastic to be able to launch our four new guides highlighting the tremendous variety of species we have here in Malvern. What people don’t realise is that right in the heart of Malvern we have the country’s finest urban arboretum. Planted in the 1800s by a group of town visionaries and architects they bequeathed to us something beautiful for every single one of us to enjoy every single day.”

Mike is now concerned that we are able to pay it forward for coming generations by displaying the same generosity of vision as our town forebears.

Beverley Nielsen, Councillor for Malvern Priory, which houses the main body of Malvern’s arboretum and who is also Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for West Worcestershire stated:

“I am so keen to help raise the profile of this work by Mike and his colleagues at Malvern’s Marvellous Trees in highlighting Malvern’s position in hosting the country’s finest classical Urban Arboretum. I know everyone who lives here is very conscious of our beautiful place and in Malvern Hills District Council it has, and will remain, a focus for development. If we are able to offer an additional destination to the 550,000 visitors to Westonbirt Arboretum each year this could assist in drawing vital visitor numbers into our Town to appreciate our wider visitor offerings.”

“I would like to see Malvern Hills aiming to be the smartest and greenest place in England, building on our wonderful heritage by drawing on the smart people living here to develop our own living legacy for generations to come. As the old Greek saying goes, ‘A society grows great when people plant trees whose shade they will never sit in.’ It is this spirit we need to capture and build on for the future.”

Pictured: Mike Goodfellow-Smith, founder of charity, Malvern’s Marvellous Trees, with Cllr Beverley Nielsen, Prospective Parliamentary Candidate West Worcestershire, in front of the Cedar of Lebanon, Malvern Priory, launching four new tree-lined routes and highlighting Malvern as the country’s finest Urban Arboretum.