E-mail from David Lidington MP
Posted by David Lidington, MP for Aylesbury, at 17:31, Wed 24 January 2007:
I hope you had a relaxing Christmas and have enjoyed the beginning of 2007. I am writing to update you on my work as your MP.
Last week, I visited Northern Ireland in my role as Shadow Secretary of State and attended an extremely interesting conference on criminal justice. I then flew on to Scotland to visit the Scottish Parliament. I also looked around the new Gaelic Language School in Glasgow, where it was useful to discuss the Scottish experience of Gaelic language legislation now that the Government has published proposals to make statutory provision for the Irish language in Northern Ireland. I am hoping to go to Wales in the near future to learn about the treatment of Welsh as an official minority language.
In Aylesbury, I visited Quarrendon School earlier in the month and was delighted to see and hear the progress that has been made over the last year. Mr Johnson, the Headteacher, was rightly recognised by OFSTED for his leadership when the school came off special measures last November, and I hope that the school will continue its recent improvement.
I also met members of the Committee that runs Molins Sports and Social Club, a sports ground and social club based in Monks Risborough. The club’s future is under threat after Molins plc, which claims to own the land, asked them to leave by April so that the plot could be sold for development. It seems to me that the move is wildly premature because the company would have to gain planning permission for change of use before selling the land for housing and permission is very unlikely to be granted as it is on the Green Belt and in the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. I have written to the Chairman of Molins to ask whether a more sensible solution can be found.
This week, I am debating an Order that tries to toughen up anti-fly-tipping legislation in Northern Ireland. On Friday, I will be back in Bucks, speaking at The Misbourne School’s citizenship assembly in Great Missenden and then addressing the Chilterns Woodland Conference about the contribution that woodlands can make to the generation of heat and electricity. New technology means that wood-fuelled heating systems can match the efficiency of gas or oil-fired burners. In the afternoon, I have been invited to talk to the Sixth Form at Aylesbury High and will go straight from there to my constituency advice surgery, where I try to help residents with their problems.
For more information on my work as an MP, please visit www.davidlidington.co.uk. If you would like to tell me what you think about local issues, please feel free to complete the short polls at www.telldavid.com. I have just written one on post offices in the light of the Government’s consultation on closing up to 2,500 branches, and would be very grateful for your feedback.
Please do use the HearFromYourMP website to post your comments on my work or thoughts, as I am always grateful for comments from local residents.
David Lidington
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