Adrian Sanders

Liberal Democrats | Torbay

The lottery, our buses and being an MP

National lottery

At long last government has been embarrassed into acting on the unfairshare out of national lottery funds. Although the main beneficiaries will be the coalfield communities in the north who have done particularly badly, Torbay has been officially recognised as an area that has lost out.

Since the launch of the National Lottery Torbay has not received a fairshare of grant monies. By the time local people had spent over £52million on tickets, local organisations had received just £660,000 ingrants.

I have raised the issue on several occasions with Chris Smith theSecretary of State and with the individual lottery boards, includingvisits to their offices. Now help is at hand with a special governmentaction team whose task is to actively encourage organisations to bid for funds. Some of the rules on match funding have also been relaxed which should make it easier for groups to come up with ideas and for the Council to assist them.

Torbay's buses

When it's wet I quite often get the bus to Parliament from my flat. But there is a world of difference between the number 24 Pimlico to Hampstead service, via Whitehall, and the number 25 at home that links Torquay town centre with Chelston, Shiphay, the hospital and the Willows. In London there are alternatives if the bus isn't running. There's the tube or abundant taxis and the worst that can happen is you get wet on a 20 minute walk on the flat.

There's not much level terrain in Torbay. Around every corner there is a hill. There are no tube trains either. For many people in Torbay the bus is their lifeline, as many passengers told me when I shared their journey on the number 25.

I was in the company of Faith Luxton and Shirley Maldini, Chair andSecretary of the Chelston Tenants and Residents Association, and wetravelled all around the houses picking up shoppers, workers and peopleout for ride. But the one tale that brought home the importance of what the buses mean to people was the one we overheard at the Willows. While at the bus stop a lady asked the driver how she could get from Watcombe Park to the hospital for an 8am appointment. The answer was that it can't be done until after 9am. How can we persuade people out of their cars, let alone provide for the those without cars, when buses don't run when people need them?

Westminster

Moaning members of parliament complaining about Westminster life and how awful it is make for an unedifying spectacle. No one forced us to stand for election and we knew, or ought to have known, what we were in for if we succeeded.

Recently veteran Labour MP Gwyneth Dunwoody described life at Westminster as brutal for family life and that it destroys more people than it creates. She may be right but not every MP in a national assembly can represent a constituency on the doorstep of Parliament. It is inevitable that most members will have to put up with long periods of separation from their families and if they are doing their job properly recognise it is not a nine to five job.

I am not unsympathetic to the complaints of some MPs about the workingconditions of the House. It is a scandal that the House still maintains a shooting range but cannot find room for a crèche. There should also be proper facilities for nursing mothers. But it is the unnecessary anti-social hours that lie behind some of the complaints and it is the antics of a tiny group of MPs who are responsible for them. They alone keep the House up into the early hours and block private members legislation much to the frustration of their fellow MPs.

There is a difficulty of holding any government with a massive majority to account and properly scrutinising its legislation. But using that as an excuse to debate the motions that formally agree the timetable for debate, when it has already been agreed between the Government and Oppositon Whips, is both childish and pointless. All that happens is a small group of MPs practice their debating skills into the early hours, while the rest of us are kept up waiting for a vote the Government is bound to win. Such a practice is only justified when communications between the Whips have broken down. Then and only then should you use the rules in this way to show your disquiet by keeping Government side MPs and Ministers up all night.

The other practice of 'talking out' private members' bills also upsets MPs who stay up in London on a Friday to support a good cause only to find they could have spent the day in their constituencies. Often the same small group of MPs will keep the debate going until time runs out. It is a double whammy for supporters of a Bill because if they join in the debate they only lengthen it and help those trying to talk it out. A simple change in the rules would put a stop to this but as Private Members Bills are not Government business it would probably take a Private Members Bill to amend them. And then run the risk of being talked out!

Free MP in every packet...

An opinion poll conducted by the respected Henley Centre asked 'Whom Do We Trust?' 85 per cent said they trusted their GP, 84 per cent Kelloggs, 83 per cent Cadburys, 81 per cent Heinz and so on to the bottom where behind the church and the police MPs propped up the table on 28 percent. Now I can take being beaten by an Archbishop but imagine how it feels to learn that because of the job you do, you are trusted less than a corn flake.