News from Strasbourg

The East of England's newest MEP, Vicky Ford has spoken out in three of the Parliament's debates that took place in this week in Strasbourg. The Parliament meets approximately once a month in Strasbourg and this is the main time MEPS join together a debating chamber - speaking time is strictly limited and MEPs have to bid for the opportunity to speak.

On Monday she warned against new taxes being implemented at a European level.

"There is a drive by some MEPs to use the financial crisis as an excuse to pass significant more power from the UK and other countries to the EU. I have no problem with asking banks to pay back the taxpayers for their bailouts - and would support Obama's proposed levy on banks as a globally co-ordinated move. But, the idea that the EU could start to extract its own taxes potentially on every UK citizen's pension fund, saving or investment is not acceptable. It is has always been sacrosanct that taxation is a national government decision and not subject to far removed decision makers in Brussels or Strasbourg".

On Wednesday, Vicky spoke out for UK citizens who have moved to Spain and found their dreams and livelihoods shattered when changes in planning laws have caused their homes to be bulldozed. She joined other Conservative MEPs Roger Helmer, Dan Hannan and Robert Atkins in a series of questions to the President of the European Council; the Presidency rotates every 6 months and is currently held by the Spanish. Vicky explained

"The procedures of the European Parliament are quite formal so it is sometimes difficult to get an issue a proper hearing. Whilst the Presidency is not strictly speaking meant to answer on domestic Spanish issues, some of us felt that this has been going on too long and just too far - people have lost their homes and their life savings, by asking a series of questions we certainly put the Spanish representatives on the spot. They got a clear message that UK MEPS are not prepared to let this issue fester out of the spotlight."

On Thursday Vicky was back again in a debate about investing in Low Carbon technologies. She supports new ideas for energy saving and diversification of energy for security reasons. She reminded the chamber that EU funds are taxpayers funds and pointed out that the East of England already has experience with using EU funds for investment and research.

"Companies and Universities across the East of England around Cambridge and elsewhere are often worldwide leaders in research. The EU has a phenomenal 50 billion euro budget for research. Some good projects have come out of the joint work that is done with other European countries and part funded from EU budgets. But there are also some very serious issues with bureaucracy, complexitiy (especially for smaller companies), inflexibility at adapting to new developments in science and some terrible stories about late payments from the EU to struggling businesses. Before the EU embarks on a new strategy for spending taxpayers money they could do with learning the lessons of the past."

Away from the main chamber, Vicky was also supporting moves to stop the "Strasbourg circus" which causes the Parliament to up-sticks each month from Brussels to Strasbourg at vast cost to the tax payer. In a debate on financial services and specifically financial derivatives she described her recent visit to Thomson Holiday's head quarters in Luton. They are the UK and Europe's leading holiday company which organises holidays for over 30 million people every year. She pointed out that they, like many other companies, need to manage foreign exchange and fluctuating commodity costs like airline fuel - She implored other MEPs to understand that new EU regulations on derivatives must make sure that it becomes impractical for companies to hedge their risks. The costs would be borne by the customers, whether on their holiday or at home.

For further information contact
Vicky Ford 07771 812 976
vicky.ford@europarl.europa.eu

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