Romsey Advertiser 18 January 2008

Written by Sandra Gidley MP on Fri 18th Jan 2008

From a news point of view it has been a rather quiet week as most of my time has been spent in, or preparing for, the committee stage of the Health and Social Care Bill. This has completely monopolized my time since I left the constituency office on Monday afternoon.

The work involves almost line by line scrutiny of the legislation in question and tabling amendments to improve the bill and to tease out Government thinking. Even then there are those who would say that we never get it right but believe me - we do try! In between the deskbound stuff there have been a host of meetings and phone calls but they have nearly all been in connection with the Health and Social Care Bill.

Progress has been slow and I never cease to be amazed at the capacity for some of my colleagues to use 20 words where 2 will do and then claim about lack of time. The Government Whip finally put his foot down and told us quietly that the session would continue until we reached the end of a certain clause. We made much better progress after that but still did not finish until past 8 in the evening.

The one spot of variety in the week is that I have been invited to speak at a livery dinner at the Society of Apothecaries. I have had to bone up on the history of the Society of Apothecaries which was something I was entirely unfamiliar with. The venue is Apothecaries Hall which has been home to the Society since 1632. I always enjoy my visits there as it is a stunning building, steeped in history but unusually I am getting a little worried about the speech as it is not the familiar territory that one might think.

I was also less than amused to discover that I had neglected to bring my posh shoes. One of the problems of living in two places is that things are never where you think they might be. I have a dilemma on my hands - do squander valuable time shopping for a new pair of shoes or do I wear my boots and hope that nobody notices.

At a more strategic level the whips have been sounding out opinion on the question of a referendum on the European Treaty. I have a slight problem with the party line as we stood on a manifesto commitment to a referendum and I think it is important that politicians keep their promises. I remain to be convinced that the new treaty is sufficiently different for us to change our view. I have been trying to read more widely on the subject but when it comes to Europe most people write from a firmly entrenched view and it is difficult to find balanced and constructive writing on the subject.

So, the New Year so far has involved a lot of reading and immersion in detail. Not exciting but that is the nature of the job at the moment. Understandably, I am looking forward to a little light relief at the RAODS panto on Saturday.

Published with kind permission of the Romsey Advertiser