4th November 2005

A LONG-SERVING Labour MP gave me a tip the other day. "When you're showing children round the Houses of Parliament," he said: "Tell them it's a very old and impressive building, and that it belongs to them."

He's absolutely right, and not just for children either. One of parliament's best traditions is that everyone, young or old, has a right to come in and meet their MP in person. Last week Breakthrough Breast Cancer did just that, as part of the charity's campaign to make the new wonder-drug Herceptin more widely available on the NHS. Weston General Hospital is already using it, but nonetheless I met Breakthrough's local representative from Weston – Linda Larter, who's also clerk to the town council – along with many other MPs doing the same thing. And it worked, because later that day the Government announced it would look into ways of making the drug more widely available on the NHS.

Then a few days later we had a petition about further education colleges getting less money than school sixth forms for teaching the same courses. I'm a governor of Weston College, so I was incredibly proud that we signed up more names on the petition than any other college in the country. Jenny Gribble, who's studying at the college, was asked to present the petition at 10 Downing Street, and then spoke brilliantly in front of a room full of MPs and educationalists in the House of Commons.

And the following day, 16 local people came to Westminster as part of a national campaign for developing nations to be allowed to export more of their goods to Britain without trade barriers getting in the way, or middle-men gouging them.

So the next time you hear that parliament is getting disconnected from the voters, don't forget it belongs to you.