The Romsey Advertiser 22 February 2008

Written by Sandra Gidley MP on Fri 22nd Feb 2008

Last week was recess and the week ended in slightly bizarre mode as I donned a "fat suit" as an experiment. The suit basically replicated me putting on 4 stone in weight at a stroke. I was a little alarmed that the suit had been constructed with so much detail because, before the clothing was added, the whole thing was rather too reminiscent of "Bubbles de Vere" from Little Britain. It was an interesting experiment but I was totally unprepared for feeling stiff and uncomfortable the next day and realised that the experience had been a bit like an overlong session on the weights machines at the gym.

On Sunday evening I attended the Community Songs of Praise event in North Baddesley - a pleasant affair and good to see people coming together.

On Monday it was back to Westminster but the parliamentary timetable had been thrown in to disarray by the decision to nationalise Northern Rock. This meant that legislation had to be introduced as a matter of urgency so, rather unusually, the house sat late on Tuesday evening and it was nearly midnight before we could all leave. This has also affected the timetable for discussion of the Lisbon Treaty which has not pleased all.

The decision about Northern Rock did not substantially affect Monday's main business which dealt with the remaining stages of the Health and Social Care Bill. One of the things I had been pushing for was for the Government to deal with the current anomaly which means that publicly funded residents of care homes are not covered by the Human Rights Act. This was initially resisted at this stage but the Minister has changed his mind and plans to amend the Bill in the House of Lords so that this can be dealt with. It's always good to work with people who actually listen to the arguments and are willing to change their position on an issue.

What was frustrating was that the debate clashed with the final Health Select Committee session on Modernising Medical Careers. We are looking into the fiasco over the new system of allocating training places to junior doctors. The clash meant that I was unable to hear what the Minister had to say on the matter so this was a little frustrating.

Thursday was almost entirely devoted to the Health Select Committee. In the morning we had another session in our dentistry inquiry and in the afternoon a debate on our recent report on the Electronic Patient Record.

Next week I've been lucky enough to secure a ten minute rule bill slot and will be doing something on personal debt. Watch this space.

Published with kind permission of the Romsey Advertiser