Saturday 27 November 2010

Supplies to the Army in Afghanistan

I received a very heart felt email from a constituent this week who had just been told by a mother of one of our troops serving in Afghanistan that her son was emailing her and asking her to send him food, such as dried noodles and boil in the bag rice meals because he is hungry a lot of the time, as are his colleagues. Apparently, there is also a shortage of toothpaste and toiletries for males and females.

 
I thought the whole business of supplies had been sorted out and "our boys and girls on the front line were getting everything they needed." Will write to Dr Liam Fox and find out what is happening as there has always been a niggling doubt concerning what troops should be getting and what they actually receive. 

Failure of the Sustainable Livestock Bill

Prior to the debate I was contacted by a number of groups and people who had also contacted the Lib.Dem MPs for Yardley and Solihull seeking their support for the Bill which contained a number of elements which had been supported by the Lib.Dems in the past.  Furthermore, I was told that approaches to Caroline Spelman, who is a Minister at DEFRA, had been sympathetically received and I drove down from Birmingham on the Friday morning to vote for the Bill.

Unfortunately, the Government opposed the Bill, with the support of their Coalition partners, and neither of the two local Lib.Dem MPs, Lorely Burt and John Hemming, supported the Bill. 

I very much regret the fact that the sensible and progressive proposals which were embodied in the Sustainable Livestock Bill were not allowed to be given a Second Reading so that they could at least be debated in Committee and I particularly regret the fact that in the same week when the Lib.Dem Party announced it was reneging on its pre-election promise to oppose any increase in tuition fees that they also joined with the Conservatives in blocking the Sustainable Livestock Bill.

Tax Avoidance and the Cabinet

HMRC and the Government should be making concerted efforts to stop tax avoidance but in view of the fact that a recent documentary highlighted the fact that prominent members of the Coalition Government were themselves using highly tax efficient tax havens for their own personal wealth I have no confidence that there is going to be political pressure from the current Government on HMRC to put more efforts into seeking out those who are deliberately avoiding paying any tax.

Cutbacks to the West Midlands Police Service

The proposed cut backs in the Police service are not only going to impact massively on local communities who are going to see less Police officers around but they are also going affect Police morale.  Cutting over 2000 jobs in the West Midlands is not going to be achieved just by cutting ‘back office staff’ but is going to impact on the number of ‘bobbies on the beat’ which is exactly what the general public want to see because this more than anything else gives them reassurance.  In any event the Police forces were only urged, not too long ago, to use civilians to do ‘back office jobs’ in order to release Police officers to do the work that they should be doing and if there are now going to be big cut backs in the ‘back office staff’ then these jobs are going to have to be done by serving officers and this will further reduce the number that are visible on the streets.