Letter From Europe: Giles Chichester Conservative MEP member of european parliament for South West England and Gibraltar: Conservative MEP for Devon and Cornwall, including Exeter and Plymouth

Giles Chichester Conservative MEP for South West England and Gibraltar

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LETTER FROM EUROPE
October 2011

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GILES CHICHESTER CONSERVATIVE MEP
for the South West of England
and Gibraltar

Weasel words
I daresay many of you are familiar with the banks’ weasel words which amount to “in order to improve our services we are going to reduce them”. I put their attempt to phase out cheques in this category. I have recently received a booklet from the City of London Corporation entitled ‘An indispensable industry’ all about financial services in the UK which contains a table listing the UK payments market in 2010. I am so fascinated by this that I am challenging my secretary to replicate it here.

Method of payment	Number of transactions	Value of transactions
Cash	20.4bn	£262bn
Debit card	6.5bn	£288bn
Direct debit	3.2bn	£948bn
Credit card	2bn	£128bn
Cheque	1.1bn	£1,077bn
Of which personal cheques	620m	£243bn
Of which business cheques	493m	£834bn

Source: Payments Council

Points to ponder
I draw a number of conclusions. First is that news of the demise of cash in the electronic age is much exaggerated. Second it is clear far too many people have accepted direct debits as an insidious way to lose control over one’s account. Third is that debit cards are well short of overtaking cash for small transactions and this may be because they take disproportionately more time if my experience waiting in queues while someone uses one (it could be a credit card but it’s the same point) is any indicator. Fourth I am surprised at the low level of credit card transactions and their value relative to the other methods when we are regularly told how indebted we are. But finally the number of cheques used and the value of transactions shows how important a medium of exchange they remain, especially to business which did surprise me.

Energy issues
Statistics can sometimes conceal the facts and sometimes speak volumes. I have been directly concerned with energy issues since being first elected in 1994. Our priorities have ranged from the need for an efficient, competitive market (subtext lowest possible prices) through sustainability (subtext giving up using coal, oil, gas and peat to create a low carbon economy to save the world from global warming) to security of supply (subtext keeping the lights on when we want them). The latter two priorities almost certainly mean higher energy bills, much higher in the case of pursuing environmental policies like expensive renewables.

Population growth
Energy is essential to our standard of living and our quality of life. Yet we are using up our planetary resources at an accelerating rate driven by rising standards of living and population growth. My father was born in 1901 when the world population was in the region of 1.5billion reaching 2bn in 1927 and now in 2011 we expect the figure to reach 7billion and anticipate it passing 9billion by 2050. (Source: UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division 2004 report) This is the real source of so many of the resource challenges we face yet discussion of population growth is almost non-existent. Even if we build as many nuclear power stations as I would like to see, even if we could achieve the 20% target for energy efficiency gains and even if renewables could deliver all that their proponents claim, we will still need more energy. How long will our planetary resources last in the face of this seemingly inexorable population growth? The implications seem rather obvious don’t they?

PS I will come back to IVF treatment, abortion and adoption as well as animal welfare versus child welfare charities on another occasion as other points to ponder.

Promoted and Published by Giles Chichester MEP, Longridge, West Hill, Ottery St Mary, Devon EX11 1UX

Tel: 01404 851106 Fax 01404 850752 Email: giles@gileschichestermep.org.uk www.gileschichestermep.org.uk

Lobbying Contacts Report October 2011

Date of contact	Name of lobbyist(s)	Organisation/company	Client(s) - if applicable	Context
03/10/2011	Andrew Hargreaves	EADS Defence		Party Conference (General discussion)
03/10/2011	Erica Zimmer	Sainsbury's		Party Conference (Corporate Social Responsibility activities, interaction with MEPs and possible visits)
03/10/2011	Charles Anglin	Renewable UK		Party Conference (Support mechanisms for industry)
03/10/2011	Ben Cook	Optical Confederation		Party Conference (Campaign for sight tests for drivers every 10 years or 5 years for over 65's)
03/10/2011	Simon James	Electricity Supply Board (Ireland)		Party Conference (Energy issues)
03/10/2011	Jane Gordon	Honda		Party Conference (Japan Free Trade issues, possible visits)
04/10/2011	Barry King	ConocoPhillips		Party Conference Business Day (Energy)
04/10/2011	Ray Taylor	Pricewaterhouse Coopers		Party Conference Business Day (Accounting standards)
04/10/2011	Susannah Gill	Betfair		Party Conference Business Day (Gambling, Gibraltar)
04/10/2011	Ben Townsend	Japan Tobacco International		Party Conference Business Day (Tobacco Products Directive)
04/10/2011	Clare MacNamara	BT		Party Conference Business Day (Broadband)
04/10/2011	Dirk Vennix	ABB		Party Conference Business Day (Telecoms issues)
04/10/2011	Paul Emery	Zurich		Party Conference Business Day (Corporate Social Responsibility)
04/10/2011	Ian Firth	Assoc. of British Independent Retailers		Party Conference Business Day (Payment systems)
04/10/2011	Claire Thwaites	Apple		Party Conference Business Day (Cloud computing)
04/10/2011	Lauren Knott	Intercontinental Hotels Group		Party Conference Business Day (Hotels)
04/10/2011	Keith Black	Regatta Ltd		Party Conference Business Day (SME finance)
04/10/2011	Richard Rumbelow	Everything Everywhere Ltd		Party Conference Business Day (Roaming)
04/10/2011	Rebecca Foreman, Chris Parker	Microsoft		Party Conference Business Day (Cloud computing and internet security)
04/10/2011	Emmeline Owens	Santander		Party Conference Business Day (Former EP Assistant)
04/10/2011	Chris McLaughlin	Inmarsat		Party Conference Business Day (Radio Spectrum Policy Programme)
04/10/2011	Paul Morris	Vodafone		Party Conference Business Day (Roaming)
04/10/2011	Nick Bish	ALMR		Party Conference Business Day (Retailing)
04/10/2011	Sara Randall Johnson	Flybe		Party Conference Business Day (General conversation)
04/10/2011	Nick Collier	Thomson Reuters		Party Conference Business Day (Data protection)
05/10/2011	Rob Wainwright	EUROPOL		ENISA issues
13/10/2011	Frank Simorjay, Cornelia Kutterer	Microsoft		Cyber security, Security Intelligence Report
17/10/2011	Jean-Jacques Sahel, Agata Nowacka	Skype		Open internet and Net Neutrality
17/10/2011	Karin Metzlaff	European Plant Science Org		Biotechnics and sustainable agriculture
17/10/2011	Natasha Thomas, Sharon Bowen	Intermediary Outsourcer's Group, Capita		EU VAT Review
25/10/2011	Randall Bowie	EURIMA (European Insulation), Rockwool		Energy Efficiency Directive
26/10/2011	Bertrand Deprez, Rodophle Seyrig	Schneider Electric		Energy Efficiency Directive