November 29, 2007

12:07pm Wednesday 28th November 2007

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Sadly the 'Brown Bounce' has burst. I was pleased when Mr Brown became PM as I hoped that openness and honesty would be a feature of his administration.

Things started well and I remember an opposition amendment to a Bill, with my name attached, being accepted that I was sure would have been rejected in the Blair era.

Also we had an Opposition motion on parliamentary approval for participation in armed conflict that removed the Royal Prerogative' that enabled the PM alone to take this decision. As always with Opposition motions it was amended by the Government but, to my amazement, the amendment effectively said the same thing.

I doubt if Mr Blair would have given up this power so willingly.

Then we had the foot and mouth outbreak and the terrorism threat both effectively handled.

After that things began to go downhill with the debacle of the election that never was, the discoveries at the Home Office, leakage of personal details about child benefits from HM Revenue and Customs and now further revelations about donations to the Labour Party.

I believe Mr Brown could have taken credit for honesty after his apparent dithering over the election if he had admitted what we all knew, that with the opinion polls going against him he would have been stupid to call the election.

Likewise his obvious answer over the Home Office revelations and questions about when he knew of these should have been the straight admission that he had only just learnt of them because if you have a Secretary of State that you have appointed and trust you do not expect her to run to you with every problem before attempting to sort it out.

Regretfully confidence and trust are now at an all-time low and it is going to take time and inspirational efforts to restore these.

I have attended briefings about the changes to capital gains tax - potentially bad for small businesses and some individuals; abortion - to put the views of the wide range of Roman Catholic opinion on this issue; NHS dentistry before the Health Committee's inquiry into the effects of the new dental contract and about local health affairs with the Strategic Health Authority.

The Health Select Committee meeting last week coincided with the revelation in the Health Service Journal that the NHS, after years of deficits, is heading for a £1.8 billion surplus this year.

I told the NHS chief executive of the impossibility of explaining to local cancer patients why they cannot get some drugs that are available elsewhere when there is spare money in the NHS. He replied that "the kind of decisions that you have described can now be taken wholly on clinical grounds, not on the basis of whether we have the resource."

I hope to take advantage of this situation.

If readers wish to write to Dr Taylor, they should address correspondence to his consituency office at 137 Franche Road, Kidderminster DY11 5AP.

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