Liberal Democrats MP for Wells and Mendip Hills since (elected).
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Entries on this tracker
405
Each filed under the party they sat for that day
Register entries
0
As currently published
| Party | Office | Area | Period | Began | Ended | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lib Dem | MP | Wells and Mendip Hills | – present | elected | — | Party history |
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Can I ask the Minister how many accidents there have been involving community minibuses in the last two or three years, please? If he does not know, might he be able to write to me with that information? I realise this is a very serious matter, and I just wondered how many incidents there were.
I am a massive supporter of Mendip Community Transport. In fact, my village has a community transport minibus, which is an absolutely essential lifeline, particularly in such a rural area where we have no buses. What does my hon. Friend think about the fact that if someone wants to undertake a minibus driving test in my area, they must travel some long distance and the test can cost up to £2,000, which seems extraordinarily expensive?
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way for a second time. I would like to point out that a number of community minibuses are electric vehicles, and their batteries make them very much heavier, which, along with accessibility equipment such as wheelchair lifts, automatically take their weight way over the 3.5 tonne limit.
Councils spend far more on enforcing against a breach of planning controls than the offender is ever fined—and even then, that money goes to the Treasury. When it is cheaper to break rules than follow them, we lose any sense of deterrence, and there is a perception that breaches have few consequences. Will the Minister look again at the amount of fines, and at whether councils could receive the proceeds of fines, so that they can recover their costs?
The 2009 Gurkha justice campaign, spearheaded by Joanna Lumley, achieved settlement rights for British Army Gurkha veterans, and my understanding is that many progressed to settlement here by virtue of the access to indefinite leave to remain. Will the Home Secretary reassure the House that none of these changes will adversely affect the ability of those heroes to settle in the UK when they retire?
Thank you for chairing this debate, Sir Alec. I benefit from Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance and the Great Western Air Ambulance. They are both fantastic, but they have raised concerns with me about existing helipads that they may not be able to use in future. Will the Minister—I ask him through the hon. Member for Strangford— <span id="223WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="223WH"></span>consider whether there needs to be some protection and development of the town and country planning direction 2002 so that flight paths are protected from development and infrastructure? It is not just the new hospitals that we need to be concerned about; we need to make absolutely certain that existing helipads can be accessed by the air ambulances.
I went out with the South Western ambulance service to a cycle accident in my constituency, where a young man had fallen off on a road and was unconscious. When the air ambulance came, the doctors on board were able to stabilise him. I then went with him in the ambulance to the hospital in Bath. Air ambulances can sometimes stop the progression of injuries as well as take people to hospital. They are brilliant.
Community transport minibuses, such as Mendip Community Transport, are a lifeline for rural communities, but the minibus driving test is costly—it costs up to £2,000 per volunteer—hard to access and pretty unrealistic for volunteers, and drivers who qualified before 1997, and therefore have the D1 classification on their driving licence, are retiring. Will the Minister meet me and representatives of the industry, and recognise officially the sector’s own minibus driver awareness scheme as a route for car drivers to gain a minibus licence?
My constituent who is approaching retirement has been quoted £2,710 for root canal treatment. With just 23% of adults in Somerset having seen an NHS dentist in the last two years, will the Leader of the House highlight the problems with access to NHS dentists, and ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to reform dental services and end the south-west’s status as a dental desert?
I am so glad the hon. Gentleman has called this debate. I want to include the feeling of injustice that there is for those who suffer the loss of a family member. The person who killed the wife of one of my constituents with a car chose to give a “no comment” interview. There were only two vehicles involved: a bike ridden by my constituent’s wife, and a car. The perpetrator did not deny that she had done it, but she gave a “no comment” interview throughout the proceedings, which just added to the grief and injustice that that family feels.