The Government’s infrastructure bill, which we debated this week, offers a chance for speedier construction of new roads and energy installations, which is welcome; but not enough is being done to ensure protection of our precious chalk rivers. I suggested(encouraged by Action on the River Kennet, our great local charity) that the Government affords special status to these habitats (see here).
Labour is cutting support for disabled people in a rushed, crude way which will also impact carers, as I said on behalf of the Opposition in response to an Urgent Question (here). It will also save very little money. We urgently need to reduce the benefits bill, but I think we can do it more effectively than this, and more sensitively to people who need help the most.
The Assisted Suicide Bill committee ended this week, so you won’t hear from me on that topic for a month or so, when it returns to the Commons for its Report stage and then Third Reading, when I hope it will be defeated. My final speech in the committee, summarising my objections and also setting out how the Bill would look if it were faithful to the PR campaign for assisted suicide (i.e. only for people at the very end of life, facing an agonising death), is here. I also gave an interview to the Hansard Society, looking at the (very flawed, in my view) process of the Bill (here).
A lady, and her dog, died on the level crossing at Pewsey in February, struck by a train. This tragedy was probably the consequence of the footbridge nearby being closed for repairs since last summer. Despite repeated inquiries by residents before the accident, Network Rail failed to communicate properly about their plans for the bridge. I met residents at the site a few weeks ago (see here) and - I think in consequence - Network Rail have now jumped to it. I met them this week and we looked at the level crossing (which to be fair is probably as safe as it can be) and the bridge, and they confirmed there will be a new bridge in place by June. ITV covered our meeting (here).
All Cannings, where I spent Friday, was named for Cana, an Anglo-Saxon chief who settled his tribe at this marshy end of the Pewsey Vale in the sixth century AD. The village appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in the record of a Viking force that penetrated this far into Wessex before returning home. It was ‘Old Cannings’ by the 13th century, when upstart Bishops Cannings was named. This is not only an old, but a modern place. Partly that’s due to Tim Daw’s father, parish councillor in the 1950s who insisted they make space for new housing. The result is a set of community institutions that show the place is alive:
- A community shop, staffed by volunteers, a hub for those needing toothpaste and those needing company; but it needs a new building, as Simon and Gill told me (here).
- A primary school, where the top priority for the children on the school council, who showed it to me and we enacted the Abbey Road album cover (above), is the crossing outside the school gates, which needs upgrading.
- Allotments, where young families take over the plots vacated by the natural march of time, in a telling sign of a village in good health.
- One of the great pubs of Wiltshire, the King’s Arms, heaving with regulars on Friday night.
- More peculiarly, a modern long barrow, built by Tim Daw with the ancient methods, including dry stone domes within; all funded by selling niches to people who reserve them to hold their bones.
Tim also showed me the spot in the field outside his childhood home, marked by a plaque erected a few years ago, where a German bomber - on its way to attack London - crashed, with the loss of its pilot. Would other countries erect memorials to their enemies? I am proud we do, I think.
For centuries from the late middle ages All Cannings hosted the Tan Hill Fair, a gathering of shepherds on Wiltshire’s equal highest (with Milk Hill, down the vale a little way) hill. It involved mumming (amateur dramatics) and the brutal sport of back-swording - hitting your opponent with the thick edge of your sword until you drew blood, which meant you won.
