CHALLENGE TO BROWN

FAIR VOTES A VITAL TEST FOR NEW PREMIER

Speaking in the House of Lords, he said:  “When will the Government honour their manifesto promise to put to the people in a referendum the issue of elections to the House Commons? Does the Prime Minister designate regard this issue as a vital ingredient in his campaign to reconnect citizens with their Parliament?”

MINISTER "CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS" ON SGT ROBERTS FAILURES - TYLER

Liberal Democrat Peer and former North Cornwall MP, Lord (Paul) Tyler, has told the House of Lords that the MoD has come to stand for the ‘Ministry of Dither, Delay and Deceit’ in the minds of many bereaved service families.

In a special debate on the lessons learned from the death of Sergeant Steven Roberts, the first British casualty in Iraq, Lord Tyler called Peers’ attention to two contradictory answers that Government Ministers had given within a month of each other, when trying to explain away the MoD’s failure to order sufficient Enhanced Combat Body Armour to protect troops deployed in advance of the invasion.

In the first answer on 10th January 2007, a Defence Minister claimed that the MoD had made a judgement that to place orders for equipment which would have indicated preparations for the deployment of a large land force would have risked undermining diplomatic efforts to avert war. On the 8th February, the Minister said that the then Secretary of State, Geoff Hoon, had been advised that there were enough ECBA sets in stock already.

GOVERNMENT NETS £6 MILLION FROM CALL CHARGES AS TREASURY SAYS IT CAN’T COUNT

Research by Liberal Democrat Peer, Lord (Paul) Tyler this week revealed that government departments had netted over six million pounds from members of the public calling their “non-geographic” telephone lines, according to figures released in Parliamentary Answers. 

The telephone lines also offer a “revenue share” to the owners of the number, or to the private company operating it.  The numbers are said to be charged at “local” or “national” rates, but cost many times more to most telephone users.

The Department for Transport, for example, made £3.73m between September 2004 and September 2006 on calls to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in Swansea, and a further £1.82m for calls to book driving tests with the Driving Standards Agency.  The Department had said it was reviewing this practice in October 2005 but premium “national” rate 0870 numbers were still advertised on the DVLA and DSA websites this week for access to a range of services.