LAST week I mentioned the well-meaning petition for a radiotherapy unit in Kidderminster and my impending meeting with Primary Care Trust chiefs.

Even with maximum pressure from everyone in our area, this suggestion is a non-starter. Such a unit, of which you can only have one to serve several hundred thousand patients, should be within easy reach of most of the population it serves and also on a site with full back-up facilities.

As I hope most people know I will fight for the restoration of the basic acute hospital services that we lost in 2000. The severity of the losses we experienced has not been repeated anywhere else in England since our stand. The mistakes have been recognised but it is a far cry to the restoration of all that was lost seven years ago.

The approach of little-by-little is the only possible one and is achieving results.

I was delighted to visit the home of Mr and Mrs Laskey in Queensway, Bewdley, last Friday with the Mayor and Mayoress and a representative of the Red Cross to hand over a share of the magnificent sum of £18,000 collected by the Mayor's Flood Appeal to which the Red Cross contributed generously.

It was especially good to see how the severe damage has been repaired and salutary to see one example of how badly a home several feet above the lowest level on the estate was affected by the irresistible torrent coming down from the Trimpley hills after exceptional rainfall.

It underlines the necessity, which the relevant agencies have recognised, of clearing culverts, sewers and surface water drains. On the All Party Parliamentary Floods Group we will be looking at other preventive measures including the use of water permeable paving materials, the construction of high capacity soakaways and work to protect vulnerable areas.

The first of the Christmas festivities to which I was invited was a delightful party in Mr Speaker's official residence with carol singing led by boys from Westminster Abbey choir.

There were only a few MPs there to mingle with other guests as the party was for door keepers, maintenance staff, office, library and clerical staff and ladies from the catering department who look after us all the time.

Everyone was thrilled to have the opportunity to see inside the magnificent residence and to look at portraits of speakers through the ages and to view the ornate ivories, elaborate silver ware and the impressive banqueting table with the huge double bed in the next room so, in the old days, the Speaker did not have to stagger far from table to bed.

I hope that the current, teetotal Mr Speaker has a slightly more homely bedroom to use. The party ratified the perception of Mr Speaker as a man of the people determined to include all those who work hard behind the scenes to serve the House of Commons.

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

12:17pm Wednesday 12th December 2007

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