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Letters from private individuals, and from waterway
businesses and local communities, to relevant arms of the Government are an
important part of any campaign.
Ideally you should should aim to write four letters. Each
of them should include some of the general points outlined below, but each
should also be targeted to the recipient.:
1. To your own MP
For contact details of your MP, go to
this web site.
This is the most important letter, as your own MP is the
only one with an obligation to reply to you.
Many MPs have responded favourably,
and the campaign has prompted a number of questions and debates in the Commons
(see here for details). A number of Early Day
Motions have been signed by over 200 MPs of all parties. The Liberal Democrats
formally supported our campaign by a resolution at their Spring Conference.
We need this to continue, so we need
to keep up the pressure on MPs. If you've already written to them, now's the
time for a second, or even a third, letter. We also want a change of emphasis
at this stage. Although the sources of the problem lie within DEFRA, it is very
clear that there can't be a solution without some extra money from central
resources, so we should now all be asking our MPs to press the Chancellor to
address our concerns.
- Use the various Parliamentary Questions and Adjournment
debates linked to from our In Parliament page to get some
ideas for questions to ask.
- Talk about the benefits given by specific waterways (if
there are any) with your MP's constituency, including regeneration, open space,
wildlife, industrial heritage.
- Use local examples
- Ask the MP to take the matter up on your behalf with
David Miliband (Environment Minister), Barry Gardiner (Waterways Minister) and
Gordon Brown (Chancellor of the Exchequer). If they do so, your MP will be
obliged to seek a response along with giving his or her own views on the
proposed cuts. Suggest to your MP that in doing so, they might like to use some
of the points listed below.
- Ask for their continued support by raising questions in
the House.
- Point out that the funding plans
for 2007-8, announced by DEFRA on 22 December perpetuate the post-cuts level of
funding for BW. There's useful information and comment on this on the
IWA web site, which also has a
press release which challenges him on the grounds that
these figures are at odds with his earlier statements.
2. to the Waterways Minister, Barry Gardiner
Barry Gardner MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Defra,
Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London SW1P 3JR
- Once again, make use of examples local to the
constituency.
- Talk about the threat to both direct and indirect
benefits given by the waterways such as education, community, economic uplift,
exercise, activity, leisure, heritage
- Mention to the economic, environmental and heritage value
of living waterways.
- Ask for an assurance that current threats of reduced
grant are false and that BW will be supported
- Ask why BW, waterways users and waterside communities,
should be penalised for mismanagement of the Rural Farm Payments scheme and the
cost of precautions against Avian Flu.
- Seek a timetable for implementation of the final
decisions
- Point out that nowadays the waterways are so well-used
and popular that a serious threat to them would be a vote-loser.
- Point out that the grant levels
announced for next year perpetuate the cuts which he said several times were
for one year only.
3. to the Environment Minister, David Miliband
The Rt Hon David Miliband MP, Secretary of State, Defra,
Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London SW1P 3JR
- Ask him to decide that reasonable grant levels to BW (at
least £60m yearly) will be maintained for the next three years.
- Suggest that making the waterways and their users foot
part of the bill for failings in an entirely different part of DEFRA is an
unfair penalty.
- Ask if the Government‘s current policy document
Waterways for Tomorrow is now defunct. Ask specific
questions about progress in implementing some specific recommendations in this
document.
4. to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown
The Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer, HM
Treasury 1 Horse Guards Road London SW1A 2HQ .
- Make some of the general points below, and those listed
for the Environment Secretary.
- Point out the unfairness in making the millions of
people who enjoy the waterways in one way or another pay a share of a financial
shortfall in a totally separate area of DEFRA
- Argue in particular than any part of this shortfall which
is caused by EU-imposed fines of witholding of grant by the EU is a penalty
imposed on the UK Government and should therefore be met from Government
central funds.
- Point out that the sums of money involved, while huge in
waterways terms, are tiny in Government terms.
General points that can (and some should) come into any of
these letters.
- the facts about the cuts as set out on the
What's the Problem page of this site.
- the pleasure of visiting waterways, whether by boat, on
foot or by cycle,
- the contribution to society made by a living waterways
system, including the thriving leisure economy they host and the burgeoning
shoots of a possible re-growth of waterborne freight as an
ecologically-friendlier mode of transport that will ease road congestion,
- how the cuts threaten the real progress that has been
made under the Government‘s Waterways for Tomorrow policy and
- an individual or local focus relevant to yourself as the
writer.
You might also like to make some of the same points in
letters to the national or local press. |
