Putting The Boot In To The BPA on Their Turf

HO87

I'm not holding my breathe here but the more MP's are brought into this the better. There is every reason to believe that the BPA has been working hard on a damage-limitation exercise by claiming that they had warned the DfT that the figures were at best an estimate. Sadly, that isn't the way in which those figures are characterised in the DVLA prepared impact assessment and they were clearly given significant weight in the decision-making process.

I, personally, find it difficult to believe that all of this occurred without the contemporaneous involvement of the BPA. They had worked so closely with certain government departments in an effort to secure their position is it reasonable to believe that they were unaware of the use to which those figures were to be put and when they were to be used? When all is said and done the impact assessment in question was intended to achieve the very thing they were after in the shape of RK responsibility and, I'd suggest, it stretches credibility to the limit for the BPA to suggest they were unaware of it and weren't intimately involved in its preparation.

Being a cynic, one wonders whether the dressing up of these figures as the product of "informal discussions" between the DVLA and the BPA wasn't intended as a potential escape route, should the need arise? The author of the impact assessment obtained detailed, written evidence from the MoJ to attach to the document on another aspect and yet, strangely, didn't obtain detailed written evidence from the very body who were, in effect, making the request for legislative relief. You couldn't make it up.

I-LOV-MONEY

I have now e-mailed the link to the speech to my MP, Matthew Offord (Hendon), and my Assembly Member for Barnet and Camden, Andrew Dismore.

AltheHibby

I have had a reply today from the Chief Secretary to The Treasury (Danny Alexander). He has passed my comments on to Justine Greening and will write again when he receives a reply.

Also, while at a supermarket today I was able to put a note on 1 person's car and speak to another about why they shouldn't pay the tickets they found on their cars. Some days are just gooood. :-)