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Chloe Smith, Member of Parliament for Norwich North, will today be visiting Business Revolution Enterprise Ltd's new work hub. The aim of the work hub is to provide a flexible workspace in a new generation of working where jobs often involve working from home and 'hot-desking'. Business Revolution also offers users access [...]

               On Monday 11th April we will hear or read the preliminary conclusions of the Vickers Report into banking. A lot is riding on a successful outcome to this important Inquiry.               Politically John Vickers has to say enough to persuade people he understands the anger many feel about the conduct [...]

I set off last Sunday afternoon for a three day visit to Washington and New York. My main purpose in going to Washington was to talk to people in the Obama administration and in Congress about the Balkans (the USA maintains a strong interest in countries like Bosnia & Herzegovina, [...]

                 First we are told that providing a new loan to Greece, or Ireland, or Portugal, creates a line in the sand, prevents the contagion spreading. As each sucessive loan demand showed, that did not work. The incoming tide of debt erased the lines. The contagion spread. The mixed metaphors [...]

As the first pilot schemes for getting claimants off Incapacity Benefit and into work have judged that 70% were fit for work, the real attitudes of the Tories towards unemployment is becoming painfully clear.   Their Work First model of active labour market policy is defined by increasingly punitive approaches to conditionality [...]

KEVIN Brennan MP, is urging businessmen and women in Cardiff West to come forward and demonstrate their entrepeneurial ideas in a bid to scoop a £50,000 prize.The competition is open to existing businesses as well as those who simply have a fantastic new idea and the winner will not [...]

Delyn MP and former Policing Minister David Hanson has expressed his concern at reports that 2,200...

Delyn MP and former Policing Minister David Hanson has expressed his concern at reports that 2,200 of the most experienced Police officers are to be lost due to the government’s huge frontloaded cuts to the police.   North Wales Police is one of many forces across the country that has been given [...]

               Readers will know I am against the UK lending any money to Euro member states in trouble. We kept out of the Euro thanks to some of us arguing that case. Some of us  forecast the likely problems and do not see why the UK should pick up any of [...]

Chloe Smith, MP for Norwich North, will be running the latest seminar in the series of her 'Next Generation' business seminars. Begun last year in collaboration with City College and Howes Percival LLP, these meetings bring together Norwich students, entrepreneurs and established local firms to discuss the skills and business [...]

This Budget does nothing to help families in North Wales who currently face real challenges and...

This Budget does nothing to help families in North Wales who currently face real challenges and from April will find a real cut in their incomes, nor does it help our businesses to grow.   Before yesterday’s Budget Labour called for a re-think to George reckless plan to cut our public [...]

But no more. Today's budget was a drama-drained drone of yesterday's press releases. In his day Gordon Brown was apocalyptic with a Heathcliff booming voice and contrived surprises. Nothing of any significance can be delivered in Osborne's squeaking falsetto. Today I had a choice. Attend my 24th budget speech or chair the [...]

Chloe Smith, Member of Parliament for Norwich North, today commended the Government's Budget with its plan to reform the economy to support jobs and growth, and to take steps to help families with the cost of living – including an immediate cut in fuel duty. Furthermore the Budget confirmed as part [...]

  Former pal and MP Gordon Prentice reports from Canada:  "Michael Thompson, an inventive councillor in Toronto, has claimed $300 expenses to cover the cost of a pastor  “blessing his workplace” at City Hall. His office is blessed at the start of every new Council term. Even Westminster’s most ingenious and resourceful [...]

                Reform have produced a sensible pamphlet entitled “Off balance” prior to the Budget. Unlike many commentaries about the last five years it agrees with this website that large errors made by Central Banks and Banking Regulators in leading western economies caused the violent boom and bust cycle. It was [...]

Chloe Smith and Simon Wright, Norwich North and South MPs, today call on the Chancellor to consider creating enterprise zones in Norwich in his Budget tomorrow. They write jointly to the Treasury with the backing of the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership; Norfolk Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Norfolk Institute of [...]

Delyn MP David Hanson has expressed is real concern at the latest rise in unemployment across the...

Delyn MP David Hanson has expressed is real concern at the latest rise in unemployment across the UK. UK unemployment rose by 27,000 in the three months to the end of January to 2.53 million, the highest since 1994. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the jobless rate was now [...]

              The government has a target to cut the administrative overhead by 30% over the life of this Parliament. This is a demanding target, but one that can be hit. It will be easiest to do so, if full use is made of people leaving public service to retire or [...]

  The Guardian listed me as one of the only four MPs who are opposed to the UN decision on the 'no-fly zone.' They have been misinformed. I have made no comment either way, publicly or privately. I feel conflicted about the decision but on balance I am in favour. This is [...]

Japan makes seven times as many cars as the UK.  China produces fifty seven times more steel than the UK. Neither China nor Japan have a carbon tax or price for carbon in their energy costs. The UK used to be the workshop of the world. It was famed for its ships [...]

As readers will know, when public spending is rising by £90 billion a year over five years, it is difficult to see why so many think the main adjustment to deal with our overspending is being made by the public sector. The truth is, that so far all the adjustment [...]