Libdem summer lunch celebration

The event took place at St Martha's church hall in Little Common on Saturday.

In addition to the guest speaker, Lord Bradshaw - LibDem spokesman for Transport in the House of Lords - the organisers were happy to welcome members of the community dedicated to fair trade and environmental issues, whatever their political persuasion.

Bill Bradshaw, who has served as a member of the House of Lords for nine years, following a working life in the railway industry, explained the role of the House in the legislative process, and the difference in procedures between the two Houses.

Many of his listeners were unaware that at committee stage while a specified time is allocated in the Commons to the consideration of pre-selected amendments, the Lords study the bill line by line and any member may speak to any of the amendments.

He questioned how thoroughly any bill would be examined were the House of Lords to be abolished.

Libdem member Jennifer Als said: "His view was that the present Labour government had tried hard and spent a great deal of money in an attempt to "put things right" but had not always been successful.

"This was in many ways due to the prevalence of selfishness which characterises our society and a general failure to recognise that any tax reduction inevitably means an increase elsewhere if any government is to maintain its level of income and expenditure.

"Where the current planning proposals are concerned, Lord Bradshaw sympathised with Local Planning Authorities who have been told by government to protect the environment, yet the planning process impedes applications for wind power projects, for example.

"The infrastructure for planning takes the decisions for big operations such as wind farms and runways away from Local Authorities, but with barristers prolonging the process in the interests of planning law it is still difficult to reconcile these factors: the need to move on renewables or greater increase in energy costs or a return to nuclear power.

"With such major problems facing the country the House of Lords tries to take an intelligent and sensitive approach."

Joseph Ammoun asked the speaker how to reconcile local objections to renewable energy.

"The answer was that in the same way that LAs are expected to meet waste disposal targets they could be told that they must provide renewable energy '“ or be forced to pay for it from elsewhere."

Other questions from the floor were put by Cllr Kathryn Field, John Kemp and John Zipperlen.