Ed Vaizey

Word has got round that I am doing Question Time tonight.  Actually I have had to pull out, as I have an adjournment debate on the proposed reservoir that Thames Water wants to build in my constituency.  Getting an adjournment debate is quite hard, and I have been trying on and off for several months.  Anyway my number came up tonight, and I cannot do the debate and get to Dover in time.

I am going to use the debate to call for a public enquiry into the reservoir.  There are many issues that need to be resolved, not only on whether one is needed at all, but also if there are better ways of increasing the water supply.  The Government will try and get the reservoir through its new Infrastructure Planning Committee, but without these issues being properly aired and examined, it will be a terrible fudge, and my constituents will be badly let down.  The public enquiry need not last for months and be very expensive - the issues are pretty clear.  I hope the GOvernment will agree.

Two moving ceremonies on Remembrance Sunday.  The first in Faringdon, where the church was packed, standing room only. The second in Didcot, where despite driving rain hundreds turned out, and young children stood silently in the cold.  As I have said before, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have brought more people out, for the saddest of reasons, to pay deserved respect to our armed forces.

At the end of the Didcot service, I was able to buy an incredible book.  Written and published by two Didcot residents, Richard Polley and Clare Wadley, over a four year period, Didcot’s Heroes  Remembered gives biographies and accounts of every Didcot resident killed in the World Wars.  It is an amazing achievement, I wonder if any one has done anything similar.