COLUMN - Political View with Edward Argar MP
The recent Budget was, in many ways, deeply underwhelming.
Chancellor John Healey delivered his first budget on October 28 announcing he wanted to give ‘breathing space’ for households and businesses from immediate cost-of-living pressures.
But instead of taking the opportunity to tackle the big challenges facing our economy and the public finances, like reforming welfare, addressing the huge tax burden on people and businesses, or properly funding our nation's defence, on all these issues the Chancellor effectively kicked the can down the road.
He preferred to do a number of small things, introducing some limited short-term relief on energy bills, but failing to come up with a long-term plan on the really big issue that are dominating the public finances.
After listening to the Budget, many were left thinking 'is that it?'.
The government's approach to defence is simply not good enough to meet the very real threats we face today, and yet again the government failed to use the Budget to meaningfully support our farming and rural communities.
At a time we needed a Chancellor willing to take the tough, but necessary, decisions, we sadly saw them postponed yet again.
More locally, we have seen a government U-turn actually generate some positive news - the decision to scrap its original decision on Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) and to start again means that, at least for now, the Leicester city land-grab has been stopped.
Communities like Syston, Thurmaston, Queniborough, and Barkby, among others, will at least for now be saved from being forced into an expanded Leicester City Council against their wishes.
I, alongside local residents and councillors, have campaigned against the city expansion from day one, so I welcome the government finally listening, but they need to go further and scrap the expansion plans once and for all.
More broadly though, the government's approach to LGR has been a complete mess - our local councils, who have worked hard on their LGR plans, and who have invested time, effort, and money in them, deserve clarity on what the future holds, and the government must provide that as swiftly as possible.
Finally, I have recently made representations to Melton Borough Council on two large solar farm applications, at Brentingby and near Freeby, setting out my concerns, and those of local residents, at the significant impact these applications, alongside a number of others, would cumulatively have on large parts of our local rural landscape, and farmland, if all were approved.
Regrettably, our local councillors have very limited powers to reject solar farm applications - that’s not their fault, as government policy in many ways ties their hands - but I did nonetheless believe it was important I reflected local concerns in my representations.
Any country, in seeking to achieve greater energy security, should have a range of different sources of energy feeding into its energy grid, including renewables, however my concern locally lies in that cumulative impact in a particular area, and the loss of productive farmland and a rural landscape to the panels.