Working in Parliament

A big part of my job is to represent your interests in Parliament. Indeed, I always try my best to make the link between constituency and Commons so that you can be confident, if you raise something with me, that I will express your point of view to Ministers or their Departments in debate or correspondence.

I am currently a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and the Chairmen's Panel. As Chair of the All–Party Smoking and Health Group, I worked with parliamentary colleagues to get the smoke-free legislation onto the Statute book - an important personal milestone for me as an MP.  In 2008, I became Treasurer of the newly-formed All Party Parliamentary Group on Food and Drink Manufacturing.

To check out how I’m performing on your behalf, you can log on to www.TheyWorkForYou.com, a non-partisan, volunteer-run website which aims to make it easy for people to keep tabs on their elected representatives. You can also sign up to get an e-mail alert every time I speak in the House so that you can read for yourself what I am saying and in what context I’m saying it.

Loyal - but not lobby fodder

Like most MPs, I’m elected on a party ticket and I accept that any personal vote is quite small.

So, as a Labour MP, I am there to help deliver the key items in the Labour manifesto and, having been a member for over 30 years, I generally regard myself as a party loyalist. However, I do believe that MPs have a duty to be much more than just lobby fodder, blindly voting on the party line irrespective of moral or personal beliefs or local implications for the constituency.

If I feel that my government is wrong on a major matter with a serious impact on the people of North West Leicestershire, I will say so and vote accordingly. I am always willing to explain why I vote the way I do.

I strongly believe that MPs have an over-riding duty to act in the public interest and that any Government must take notice of concerns at the grass roots, consulting more effectively and balancing contentious reform ideas against what constituents and MPs will accept.

My Record in Parliament 

Here’s what www.TheyWorkForYou.com had to say about me at the end of 2007:

• I’d spoken in 187 debates in the last year – ‘well above average amongst MPs’ according to the website.
• I’d received answers to 176 written questions in the last year – ‘well above average amongst MPs’.
• I’d voted in 87% of votes in Parliament in the last year – again ‘well above average amongst MPs’.

Please note, these statistics are illustrative only and I do not claim them to be an absolute measure of MP performance at Westminster.

According to www.publicwhip.org.uk, this is my voting record as at the end of 2007:

• Since the 2005 General Election, I have attended 526 votes out of 607 (86.7%) in which I voted with the Government in 485 votes (92.2%) and against it in 41 (7.8%)
• From 1997 to 2005, I attended 1938 votes out of 2519 (77%) in which I voted with the Government in 1861 votes (96%), against in 77 votes (4%)