YOUR MP WRITES (From Worcester News)

YOUR MP WRITES

7:50am Thursday 6th March 2008

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The main business in the house recently has been the Treaty of Lisbon and the European Union (Amendment) Bill.
There have been motions to disagree with aspects of the Bill and then committee stages to dissect amendments in varying amounts of detail.
No Government backbench rebellions have been large enough to carry any of the amendments but I am writing this before deadline and the vital session yesterday which will debate the holding of a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon.
The amendment to which I added my name proposed a referendum asking two questions:
(a) “Should the United Kingdom retain its membership of the European Union?”
(b) “If it remains a member of the EU, should the UK approve the Lisbon Treaty?”
I thought these two questions would allow people who, I believe, wish to remain in Europe, but not be taken over by European rules to express their preferences.
It is being said that everyone who wants a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty wants to get out of Europe altogether, which is not the case.
However, I understand that this amendment has not been selected for debate which means that it has fallen before it has started.
I think the only amendment will be for a referendum with the question:
“Should the United Kingdom approve the Lisbon Treaty?”
I will vote for this amendment as everyone who has written to me has stated their support for a referendum as promised in party manifestos. I hope to express an independent view but I am not optimistic about being called.
l At a recent meeting with representatives of local GPs, they told me they were worried by the Government’s move towards contracting for GP services, thus leading to privatisation of sections of primary care.
The Government does not seem to understand that the true National Health Service must be provided by a nationally uniform group of providers in primary and secondary care, as we have now, without any motives of profit for themselves.
This is going to be a major battle to fight for the NHS that we have known and loved since 1948.
l We are approaching the end of patient forums as the official bodies to express users’ and the public’s views about health services to local health trusts.
The bodies to take over will be called Local Involvement Networks (LINks) (sic) and there is widespread concern that these are only vague ideas at the moment and that local authorities, whose responsibility it is to organise ‘host’ bodies for LINks, are not sufficiently prepared to have these replacement groups in place immediately. I am yet to be convinced that transitional arrangements are adequate.