What a frustrating week!

Written by David Heath MP and published in Western Gazette on Thu 10th Jul 2008

I am feeling extremely let down this week, for a variety of reasons.

Firstly, I despair over the vote in the House of Commons last week about MPs' expenses. How one hundred and forty Labour Party colleagues, and a further twenty Conservatives (no Liberal Democrats, thank goodness) can persuade themselves that it would be better to reject some very tentative moves towards better regulation defeats me. Do these people never see themselves as others do? Do they really think it so outrageous to provide receipts, or submit themselves to audit, when spending public money. Do they really think the so-called "John Lewis List" to enable them to but household goods needs to be preserved at, literally, all costs? It is genuinely disgraceful, and shameful.

Then I have been let down again by Transport Minister Tom Harris. He was due, for the second time of asking, to come down to visit me this Wednesday so that I could show him the difficulties with the A303. I was going to drive him down the road between Ilchester and Sparkford to demonstrate the need for the safety improvements we've been arguing for over many years, and then ask him to meet some local representatives in Wincanton to talk about the road surfacing. He was last due to come earlier in the year, and cried off when his whips told him he had to be in Westminster. Now he's done the same again.

Tom Harris is a minister I quite like. He has a refreshing honesty about him which sometimes gets him into trouble. But I'm going to go off him pretty quickly if he keeps on promising to come to Somerset to look at our roads and fails to come every time. I'm not quite sure what is so urgent on Wednesday to require his presence, but I guess I'll have to ask him down to Somerset yet again.

Talking about roads, I had a letter from a constituent last week chiding me for not having succeeded in getting the "back" road to Pen Selwood, near Wincanton, repaired. I suspect he thinks I have quietly forgotten about it. The fact is I have a file about an inch thick of letters I have written on the subject, but there is a real problem, which is that the road in question is in Wiltshire. Not in my constituency, not in my county, and, unfortunately for residents of Pen Selwood, the road goes to the village but doesn't serve anywhere on the Wiltshire side of the border. It's frustrating, but not surprising, therefore that the Wiltshire authorities don't see it as a priority and, frankly, refuse to do anything about it.

My problem is that I have no leverage to try to get things done as I might perhaps in Somerset. I've even written a couple of times to my parliamentary neighbour for the Westbury constituency, but he doesn't seem disposed to help either. I will keep on nagging them, but I'm getting very upset that until now nobody seems to be listening. And meanwhile, a road to nowhere as far as Wiltshire County Council are concerned, but an important access road for people in Pen Selwood, is getting worse and worse. There are rumours that they may now have marked it up for repair, so maybe I am finally getting through. But it's been a, literally, uphill battle.

Meanwhile, in Westminster I find myself in the unusual position of sticking up for the taxman. Or at least the local version. Nobody, if they're honest, or perhaps even more so if they're not, is very keen on their dealings with the Inland Revenue, or her Majesty's Revenue & Customs as we must now learn to call them. But as many small businessmen and women will attest, it's an awful lot easier to deal properly with one's tax affairs if you can contact someone locally, perhaps see them face to face, and talk through any problems you may have. That was one of the great advantages of having local tax offices. So of course the government now want to close them.

Again, this is a policy which is being applied across the whole country, not only in our area, but I think it is a short-sighted one. Quite apart from the effects on those who work in the local offices, I think the result will be a worsened service. If the plans go ahead, the offices in Frome, Yeovil, Bridgwater and Weston super Mare will close. The alternative, Bristol, is inaccessible, inconvenient, and unlikely to provide a personal level of care for clients. It's also very environmentally unacceptable to force people to drive long distances into highly congested areas rather than providing a local service.

This is another example of the ever-increasing trend towards a faceless society, where it is impossible to ever deal with someone identifiable and accessible. I find it particularly concerning that all the agencies of the state, and the financial institutions, seem to want to withdraw from rural or semi-rural areas into the great cities, or worse still a remote call-centre, perhaps not even in this country. It's alienating and unnecessary.

As it happens, I've been asked to give a talk in Somerton this Saturday about issues affecting rural areas, and of course Somerset in particular. It's part of the ever more impressive Somerton Festival, of which my talk is probably the least impressive bit. However, do come along if you're interested; how we provide "liveability" in areas outside towns is becoming a more and more important issue, I think, and I'd welcome other people's views.