View from Westminster, 27th January

Afghanistan

I was in Afghanistan last week with the Defence Select Committee. The Committee visit operational areas every year as it has a duty to look at and scrutinise the Government on these deployments. At the same time, other issues are also looked at when the Committee is enquiring into them such as ISTAR which is an information gathering system. The visit is kept a close secret until our return, the army ask us not to tell people that we are going, certainly not to tell the newspapers or radio and not to discuss the trip on our mobile phones. The latter may seem a bit extreme but the MOD take the risk of someone listening in seriously and if a terrorist group did get wind of our travel then the Defence Select Committee would be considered a prime target. An attack on us, of course, would put other lives at risk.

The visit included meetings in Pakistan to discuss both border issues and the terrorist threat in Pakistan; meetings with both Vice Presidents and others in the Afghanistan capital Kabul and meeting both US and UK military in Kandahar, Camp Bastion and Lashkar Gah. The security situation in the latter being much improved. A report of my visit will appear in next week's paper.

Paddy Ashdown

The former leader of the Liberal Democrats, Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon (the Somerset village where he lives) was in Devon on Friday, the day I flew back. He is leading the Liberal Democrat campaign in the South West and visited our three held seats in the county, North Devon, Torbay and Teignbridge (to become the new Newton Abbot Constituency). When I met him at Forde House I had been travelling back from Afghanistan and had been awake for 36 hours. As he is an ex marine, I knew he understood my dog tired look and would want to know about my visit which he did. In the evening he spoke at the Lib Dem annual dinner at the Langston Cliff Hotel at Dawlish Warren which again surpassed itself with excellent service and good quality food. Lord Ashdown was back in Devon on Saturday giving a key note speech to the party workers from across the South West in Exeter. I was honoured to get a special mention for my work on the boiler scrappage scheme last year which the Government adopted and has now come into force.

Digital TV

Digital Switchover had a reception in the Commons on Tuesday to allow MPs to meet their staff and get an update on the switchover. Several MPs were all complaining about the same issue, that is, where the signal comes from a relay station, then two channels people have enjoyed watching have been withdrawn, ITV 3 and ITV 4. These are replaced by ITV + 1. It certainly gave me the opportunity to bend a few ears on the issue but sadly not the ones that matter most, ITV's bosses. The loss of channels is a commercial decision by ITV and it is those ears that need bending. Sadly they were not there, I wonder why?

Hot Air

Following the success of my boiler scrappage scheme, I have been looking for other good ideas to help save energy. I was invited to a meeting of National Energy Action, who are a charity combating fuel poverty. The Director of the Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Association was there and we both moaned about the lack of Government action to promote combined heat and power schemes. One of his key points was that CHP boilers are not even used in Government projects such as hospitals or office blocks.

The planning system also does not encourage CHP plants in factories where the surplus heat could be used for district heating systems. Using CHP would cut emissions and costs, and would hopefully create local employment as Centrax in Newton Abbot are a leading manufacturer in the UK.