FOLLOWING the Government's defeat on the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill last week, the whips have been hyperactive.

The Health Committee, as a part of its inquiry into NHS charges, visited Cardiff yesterday to learn about the attempts in Wales to abolish prescription charges.

Although I expected at least eight of the committee to take part, to my amazement only I and the chairman were allowed to go! No Government MP is now allowed off the premises unless he is paired with somebody from the opposition.

For this visit I, beholden to no whip, was paired with Kevin Barron, the Labour chairman of the Health Committee. Interestingly, another Labour MP wishing to be away for half term asked if I was going to be away with a view to pairing with me. I was unable to help him as next week we expect the diluted Education Bill, the undiluted Identity Cards Bill and the Health Bill - which now contains so many new clauses, amendments and amendments of amendments - that it is going to require maximum intelligence to work out how to vote.

The crucial vote will not be whipped so MPs have to make up their own mind which way to vote. It could be, being cynical, that the point of all the amendments is to confuse so that normally whipped MPs, when they actually have to think, find themselves in the wrong lobby on the crucial vote.

Of course, I plan to be in the House all week and to work out the appropriate lobby for each division.

I remember in the last parliament the free vote on House of Lords reform where one very reasonable motion was lost by three votes and what I thought was an even more reasonable motion and sure to be passed, was lost by about 70 votes.

Readers may remember my comments about the Health Committee's report on obesity in 2004.

One of the committee's hopes was that by not blaming the food industry out of hand for being more interested in profits than healthy eating, we might bring them round to our side.

There is evidence that this is happening. Major suppliers of convenience foods and drinks like McDonalds, Coca Cola and Pepsico are trying to emphasise healthy eating and to improve the make-up of their products to reduce particularly salt, sugar and saturated fat content.

The Health Committee recommended clearer labelling and this week a consortium of food and drink companies is introducing a simplified, front-of-packet labelling system which will concentrate on salt, sugar and saturated fat content, the components of our diet that it is vital to control in the fight against obesity and ill health.

I hope these front-of-packet labels will be much more useful to most of us than the mass of information in tiny print and several languages that has been lost on the back of packets until now.