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The election seems a long time ago...

Posted by Martin Horwood, MP for Cheltenham, at 10:06, Fri 30 July 2010:

Hi, and thanks for following me on HearFromYourMP. I'm sorry I'm such an intermittent user but life is still rather hectic.

The election result seems a long time ago now. I was obviously very pleased to be re-elected with more than 50% of the vote in Cheltenham, the highest Liberal share of the vote since 1910! The national result posed an obvious dilemma. As Nick Clegg promised during the election campaign, we negotiated on the basis of our key policy priorities - a greener economy, the cash boost of a pupil premium aimed at schools with the least well-off kids, taking those earning less than £10,000 out of income tax and reforming the creaking British constitution. Many of us thought that Labour were perhaps our more natural allies for a coalition government but three things stood in the way of a deal with them: first, between us we hadn't won enough seats to command a parliamentary majority and would have had to cobble together a coalition involving very small parties which would have been pretty unstable; second, when we did talk to them Labour were clearly happier to go into opposition than to budge on some of the green and civil liberties issues that had disillusioned so many people with their government and wouldn't even agree to take the poorest out of income tax; third - and most surprisingly - the Tories proved they were willing to budge on a wide range of issues and agreed to an impressive green agenda, a suite of constitutional reforms, the pupil premium and progressively moving towards taking all those earning £10,000 or less out of income tax.

Several months on and we have already seen many LibDem priorities starting to emerge - more than 800,000 of the lowest earners have been removed from income tax, a plan for a referendum on an alternative voting system has been pencilled in for next May, a Green Investment Bank is going to be set up to promote a low carbon economy, Regional Spatial Strategies have been abolished making it easier to defend local countryside from overdevelopment and the detention of the innocent children of immigrants behind bars has been stopped. Even some Tory ministers have turned out to be unexpectedly liberal in practice - with Ken Clarke finally challenging the wisdom of locking up ever larger numbers of people in prisons that have become 'colleges of crime', Iain Duncan Smith today announcing the radical simplification of the insanely complex and demoralising benefits system and even the Minsitry of Defence agreeing are being told to include the Trident nuclear missile system in their core budget which will place a major question mark over the cost-effectiveness of this cold war technology.

But there are worries. The cuts in public spending loom over every budget except the NHS and overseas development and there will be more really painful decisions like curtailing the Building Schools for the Future programme. I did vote for a Labour amendment to the Academies Bill which tried to strengthen the safeguards over admissions, funding and social cohesion even though LibDem amendments had already been accepted which went some way towards achieving this. I've also signed an early day motion questioning the changes in civil service compensation schemes just when they are going to be needed most. And if we are to cut the benefits budget as well as simplify the system, we need to make absolutely sure that the vulnerable people who really need and deserve support aren't hurt.

I have taken up a new role, chairing the LibDem committee on transport. I will act as a 'critical friend' to the government on transport issues, stressing the need for transport policies that help us meet our environmental objectives and support communities and vulnerable individuals. This is going to be tough with transport facing similar cuts to all other departments but we took the decision to go into government in the full knowledge that the catastrophic state of public finances that we inherited would not make it an easy ride.

But I'm committed to fighting Cheltenham's corner in parliament and arguing for progressive, green, Lib Dem values in government. As always, if you want to raise any issues with me or come to visit me in Parliament or in Cheltenham, do get in touch. My email address is martin@martinhorwood.net and my phone number is 01242 224889.

Thanks again for following me.

All the best for the summer Martin