The House - and the horse.

Written by David Heath MP and published in Western Gazette on Fri 20th Nov 2009

The Queen's speech marks the official opening of the parliamentary session,amid all the pomp and ceremony that several hundred years of tradition can muster. Although I am sure that Her Majesty on occasions winces at the stuff she is expected to read out (written, of course, by the government of the day), nevertheless the whole occasion has a certain charm and a great deal of circumstance. And the symbolic shutting of the door of the House of Commons in the face of Black Rod, representing the refusal of the elected house to accept the whim of any unconstitutional monarch, still has resonance.

But the purpose of the Queen's speech is to set out the government's legislative programme. And there is one thing of which we can be absolutely sure, which is that we are required to have a general election within the next six months, which means that few if any of the measures contained in the speech will ever become law. So what on earth is the point of it? Aren't we just wasting our time?

The answer is, of course, yes. Ministers know perfectly well that what they propose over the next few weeks won't get onto the statute book. What we have instead is a series of glorified press releases, where they hope that opposition parties can be portrayed as being on the "wrong" side of some fatuous argument or other, content in the knowledge that they can posture in any way they like without ever having to carry what they say through into law. It is the start of a six month long election campaign.

Parliament has to consider what is before it, and that is decided by the government. But how much better it would be if the list of tawdry bills wee torn up, and we spent the remaining few months of this disastrous Parliament trying to repair the damage by genuine and radical reforms to the way we do our business. That way after the election we could start with a more effective system, one where the abuses have been corrected, parliament can do its job of scrutinising the government more effectively, and for the first time elected members could have a proper handle on the spending of public money and the signing of treaties and waging of war. It isn't going to happen, but it ought to.

Instead, we shall go through the motions doing very little that is of value for months to come. If that is the case, then I repeat my view that it would be better to have a general election as soon as possible.. Of course, if we had a rational system the term of each parliament would be fixed, as it is for every other democratic body in the country,. Why should the prime minister of the day choose, or for that matter, delay the date for their own convenience? I brought forward a bill to provide for fixed term parliaments a year or so ago. Needless to say, it made no progress, because it's not in the interests of the majority. But isn't that exactly what's wrong?

On an entirely different matter, if you had an activity in which over four million people in the country regularly participated, which employed a further two hundred and seventy thousand, and which attracted over six million spectators, wouldn't you want to nurture and support it? Those figures are the numbers who enjoy horse riding each year, the number who work across the equine sector, and the number who attend horse-racing events. And they will all be affected if a government proposal which amounts to a tax on horses goes ahead.

Here in Somerset we are home to some of the finest racing stables in the country, and I have attended Wincanton races when I can (which, sadly, is not very often nowadays) for as long as I remember. It's an important industry in the area. But it is recreational riding that I want to concentrate on, which we ought to be encouraging by, for instance, developing our system of bridleways in the county.

But as everyone knows, keeping a horse is not a cheap hobby, and anything that needlessly increases those costs should be resisted. I have repeatedly tried to change the law on absolute liability as it applies to horses, for instance, because of the effect it has on insurance premiums, particularly for livery stables and riding schools. But the government have now come up with a new idea which will impose, effectively, a direct tax on horse ownership.

The suggestion is included in a consultation document issued by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) on the control of animal diseases. The paper proposes setting up a new independent body to ensure the health of the animal population, separate from the ministry's responsibilities. And it suggests that the costs of this new body should be shared by each and every animal owner by means of an annual levy.

The proposals beg all sorts of questions. Is it sensible to be setting up yet another quango? Can the estimated administrative costs of setting up the new body, said to be £14.3 million, possibly be justified? And what sort of arithmetic makes it a good idea to spend £2.3 million every year in the cost of collecting a levy of just £4.3 million? How, in any case, did the department come to the view that the horse sector should pay 20% of the total costs, apportioned between every horse owner? 

I think we need some answers, but until they are forthcoming, and a clear need for this new bureaucracy explained, I think we should resist what appears to be simply another tax on riders.