Brash’s Quango Crusade: A Case of Missing the Forest for the Trees....

Why Brash’s Quango-Busting Zeal Should Start with Hartlepool’s £121,000 Taxpayer Drain.....

1st April 2025

Hartlepool’s Labour MP, Jonathan Brash, recently took to the airwaves on GB News, puffing out his chest and declaring war on quangos—those quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations that have long been a convenient punching bag for politicians looking to score some political points with a frustrated public.

With a stern look and a rehearsed soundbite, Brash argued that these unelected bodies are out of touch, bloated with bureaucracy, and ripe for the chopping block. It’s a bold stance, one that might even resonate with the average local taxpayer tired of seeing their hard-earned money vanish into the black hole of government inefficiency.

But here’s the kick in the spuds: whist Brash is busy tilting at national windmills, he’s conveniently ignoring the quango-shaped elephant in his own backyard—Healthwatch Hartlepool.

Healthwatch Hartlepool is run by a now former Labour Council Leader of Hartlepool Borough Council

For all his talk of abolishing quangos, Brash seems remarkably silent about the local outfit that repeatedly siphons thousands of pounds of funds from Hartlepool taxpayers with seemingly little to show for it.

Former Labour Council Leader Christopher Ackers Belcher is the CEO of Healthwatch Hartlepool, a charity he specifically set up to claim the council funding...

Take Healthwatch Hartlepool, for instance, a so-called “independent” watchdog tasked with amplifying the voice of residents in health and social care matters. Sounds noble, right? Except when you peel back the curtain, it’s less a champion of the people and more a cushy gig for a select few—ironically, one propped up by Hartlepool Borough Council and run by none other than a former Labour council leader Christopher Ackers Belcher. Funny how that works isn't it !

Note how much of the funding received to the 'charity' from Hartlepool Borough Council goes towards 'Staffing Costs'...

Let’s talk numbers. Healthwatch Hartlepool receives a hefty chunk of its funding directly from Hartlepool Borough Council, which in turn comes from the pockets of local taxpayers. In recent years, this figure has hovered around £121,000 annually—a tidy sum for a town where every penny counts. Now, you’d expect that kind of cash to deliver at least some tangible results: robust reports, meaningful community engagement, or at least some evidence that the organisation is holding health services to account.

But dig into their output, and it’s a very different story. Annual reports are thin on substance, community outreach feels more like box-ticking than genuine advocacy, and the bulk of that £121,000 seems to vanish into salaries and operational costs, leaving precious little for actual work that benefits Hartlepool’s residents.

Here’s where it gets galling. The leadership of Healthwatch Hartlepool once had ties to the very Labour establishment Brash represents. A former Labour council leader steering the ship raises eyebrows—less an independent watchdog, more a cosy extension of the local political Gravy Train machine. It’s a classic case of the fox guarding the henhouse, with taxpayer money funnelled into an organisation that appears to prioritise self-preservation over public service. If Brash was actually serious about his quango-busting credentials, then why isn’t he starting here, in his own constituency, where the hypocrisy is as thick as the fog rolling off the North Sea into the Headland ?

Instead, Brash’s GB News appearance feels once again like political theatre—grand pronouncements about national quangos like the Sentencing Council or NHS England, bodies far removed from the day-to-day struggles of Hartlepool folk. It’s easy to rail against distant bureaucracies; it’s much harder to confront the ones you can see from your own office window. Healthwatch Hartlepool’s £121,000-a-year lifeline could be redirected to council frontline services—more NHS appointments, better social care, or even flood defences, which Brash himself has recently championed. Yet, the MP seems content to let this local quango chug along, propping up salaries of his former comrades whilst delivering very questionable value to the local tax payer.

The irony isn’t lost on anyone paying attention. Brash’s party has long positioned itself as the defender of working people, yet here we are, watching former Labour-linked figures oversee a system that drains the ballsack of public funds with seemingly minimal accountability. If Brash truly believes quangos are a blight on democracy, as he claimed on GB News recently, then Healthwatch Hartlepool should actually be first on his hit list. Abolishing it wouldn’t just save taxpayers £121,000 a year—it’d send a signal that he’s actually willing to clean house locally before grandstanding nationally.

Until then, Brash’s quango crusade really does ring hollow. It’s all well and good to flex your reformist muscles on TV, but if you’re not willing to tackle the waste and cronyism on your own patch, you just end up being another politician peddling hot air.

Hartlepool deserves better than a quango that’s little more than a jobs program for the well-connected—and it deserves an MP who’ll put his money where his mouth is.

So, Jonathan, next time you’re on GB News, how about a word on Healthwatch Hartlepool?

Or is that quango just a bit too close to home?