17 FEBRUARY 2005


Walking to the Division Lobbies in the House of Commons last week with a senior Labour back bencher I was discussing the vote ahead and to my surprise he thought the vote was a waste of time as there was little chance that the Government would get all its planned Bills through before the expected General Election in May. This surprised me as my feeling was that a Government with a large majority could do almost anything including rushing through a vast amount of legislation in a minimum of time. However we will wait to see if my friend was correct.

There were several important votes in the last week before the half term recess. 
I voted_

• with the Liberal Democrats against the Identity Cards Bill; 

• with the Tories against the Second Reading of the European Union Bill and 

• with the Government on some of the amendments to the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill. 

As I considered there were more good points than bad in this Bill I was prepared to vote in favour of the Third Reading but no division was called. At a meeting in London with members of the Police Federation my attention was drawn to amendments the Federation will be pressing at the Bill's passage through the House of Lords.

My reasons for voting as I did were because people who have written to me about the ID Card Bill have all been strongly against the imposition of ID Cards. 
The Tory motion declining to read the EU Bill a second time supported the holding of the necessary referendum on the Constitution for Europe but was against the Bill because it "provides for the implementation into UK law of that Constitution for Europe; it enshrines the primacy of European Law….." and " transfers further powers to the European Union institutions" and "further diminishes the sovereignty of the United Kingdom."

I added my name to a Tory Private Member's Bill which aims to clarify the degree of force a householder can use to protect his family and property against an intruder. This has been dubbed by the Government as an opportunist political Bill before the election. This disregards the fact that as well as Tories, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Independent and Ulster Unionist MPs sponsored the Bill. The Bill passed its second reading by 130 votes to 4 but the Government had not even bothered to whip their Members to attend knowing that a Private Member's Bill can never become law without Government support!

As an Independent I value the immense privilege of making up my own mind how to vote and therefore I rely on letters, conversations, advice I seek and my own views on the rights and wrongs when an issue is particularly contentious. So to me feed back is important on issues like ID cards and Europe.

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