Common sense prevails at last

IT has taken 11 agonising months of legal challenges, judicial reviews, claim and counter-claim, but the correct decision has finally been made in the wake of the deeply-flawed process which threatened to end children’s heart surgery in Yorkshire.

In quashing the proposals that emerged from the now discredited review conducted by the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts, it could be argued that Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt chose the only option available to him.

Yet such has been the tortuous and, at times, shadowy nature of this saga that his welcome announcement could not have been taken for granted.

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Understandably, yesterday’s U-turn is being celebrated by all those who have fought so tirelessly to overturn the decision announced in July last year, which would have condemned young patients from this region to make long journeys to Newcastle, Birmingham or Liverpool for treatment.

The resolve of those campaigners has never wavered – even in the face of some shameful mud-slinging from a variety of sources – for the simple reason that the case for maintaining the unit, based at Leeds General Infirmary, is such a strong one.

Serving as it does 14 million people within a radius of two hours, it is staggering to many that its closure could even have been considered. It has led to claims of self-interest being levelled against those who advocated it, allegations which have been strenuously denied.

What cannot be denied, however, is that the review process itself was, in the words of a High Court judge, both unfair and unlawful. There is now the opportunity for this injustice to be righted, provided the Yorkshire unit is given a level playing field on which to set out its argument for staying open.

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Despite David Cameron reiterating that such complex surgery must in future be performed at fewer sites, the case for retaining the Yorkshire unit remains compelling. If this fresh review process is not to be greeted with yet more public scepticism then that must now be recognised in a consultation that is fair, transparent and accountable.

A watchdog stirs

THE persuasive argument for the privatisation of the energy industry was that it would open up the market to competition and thereby reduce the cost of electricity and gas to the consumer.

This has patently not happened. Today’s industry is dominated domestically by the so-called “Big Six” firms and an unofficial cartel which allows them to freeze out smaller competitors and maximise their profits.

Their hand has been strengthened by the historic weakness of Ofgem – the watchdog that has repeatedly failed to bare its teeth. Now, at long last, it has stirred from its torpor to mount a two-pronged attack aimed at breaking this stranglehold.

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The first step was to dictate that energy firms must simplify their tariffs to ensure customers are able to secure the best deal. A worthy move, but one undone by the fact that the new Tariff Comparison Rate is still too complex for many. A recent survey found just three in 10 people who used it were able to identify the cheapest deal.

Now it is seeking to force the Big Six suppliers – who both generate and buy energy – to sell the power they produce to smaller companies, as well as post prices at which they are going to buy and sell electricity up to two years in advance.

The hope is that it will give easier market access to smaller energy firms, who at present have to buy energy on the short-term “spot market”, leaving them unable to access cheaper long-term deals.

While this sounds like a step in the right direction, the question must be 
asked as to why, if it was so 
easy, it wasn’t done much sooner?

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Furthermore, the success of this strategy will depend on Ofgem’s ability to ensure the prices charged to the smaller providers are both fair and consistent, while at the same time taking a much tougher stance with those major suppliers which refuse to loosen their grip on the market – something the watchdog has frequently failed to do in the past.

Taken to task

THIS week, it is fair to say, has not been a good one for Google. First the internet giant was taken to task by David Cameron for not doing enough to rid the web of the sort of vile images of child abuse which were accessed by Mark Bridger, who was convicted last month of the murder of five-year-old April Jones.

Now the Committee of Public Accounts has published its damning report on the tax arrangements which mean the firm paid just £10m in UK taxes between 2006 and 2011, despite this country being a key market in an operation which yielded a turnover of some £11.5bn in that period.

The question is what can be done about this?

On the first issue, Google has sought to fend off criticism by pledging a relatively paltry £1m to the Internet Watch Foundation to remove sexual images of children from the net.

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On the second, the committee has called on the company to establish “a corporate structure that ensures Google pays tax where it generates profit”.

Google’s executives, one feels, will hardly be quaking in their boots.