I'm having to learn new ways!

Written by David Heath MP and published in Somerset Standard on Thu 3rd Jun 2010

I made a little bit of history last week. I became the first Liberal minister to speak in the House of Commons since Sir Archibald Sinclair on May 16th 1945. It may be a small footnote to history, but it's my own!

There are several things I'm having to learn to do differently. I am determined that being a Minister is not going to make me any the less effective as a constituency MP, but the way I do things has had to change. Up until now, if somebody came to me with a problem, then I would often stand up in Parliament and make a speech or ask a question to about it.

Now I am a member of the government, I don't have that freedom. However, I can write or speak to a ministerial colleague about whatever the matter is, with a higher chance of success in changing minds, so I hope I will manage to pursue matters in a perhaps less high profile but just as effective a way.

I'm also not allowed to sign what are known as EDMs. Given we get hundreds of letters each week asking me to do just that, it's a significant change .To any of my constituents poised to ask me to sign an EDM, please remember I can't. By all means write about important issues, but if your test of whether I am genuinely interested in the matter is my signature on an EDM, I'm sorry to disappoint you!