Romsey Advertiser 30 March 07

Written by Sandra Gidley MP on Fri 30th Mar 2007

Last weekend was dominated by the Charter celebrations - Romsey is celebrating the 400th anniversary of the granting of the Royal charter.

On Friday afternoon I had been invited to the unveiling of the wallhanging in King John's House. This clashed with a meeting at the County Council about provision of carers and the Friday afternoon traffic meant that I arrived at the venue more or less as everyone was packing up. The good news is that I did manage to see the wall hanging and also the splendid new figure of King John which was featured in the Advertiser last week.

Later that evening I was guest speaker at a dinner for Basingstoke Lib Dems. The guests had lots of questions so I didn't leave until midnight. This was a bit of a shame as I had to be up bright and early the next day to travel to Maidenhead for our regional conference.

On Sunday it was a pleasure to see that the Abbey was packed for the Charter service. There was also the unusual sight of a large number of fully robed and chained Mayors from all over Hampshire. The high turn out was a sign that community engagement is alive and well in Romsey and I hope that future events are as well attended.

I had not been particularly looking forward to Monday as it was my fiftieth birthday but lots of people made it a very nice day even if I did have lots of constituency paperwork in the morning and a round of meetings in the afternoon.

Happily there was no vote so I was able to enjoy the evening.

On Tuesday I visited some health related projects in Deal in the morning. Originally a ten o clock finish had been planned, followed by a series of votes on the budget but the good news from Northern Ireland meant that emergency legislation had to be passed. This meant that we did not vote on the budget until midnight and a series of votes meant that we didn't head home until one in the morning. I really pity the MPs who were around when that was frequently the way things were timed.

Tonight we will be voting on Casinos. The recommendations have not been without controversy and many MPs have been lobbied by people from Blackpool who feel they have been deprived of an opportunity. There are local implications as Southampton was in line for a new large casino and I have been urged to vote in favour of the legislation. This has been a difficult one to balance as I have concerns about the problems of gambling addiction. At this moment in time I haven't finally decided how I am going to vote and I will be reading further representations before this evenings vote but at the moment the balance of the arguments means I am more likely to vote against.

Published with the kind permission of Romsey Advertiser