RADIO A VITAL FLOOD WARNING – TYLER

Former North Cornwall MP, (Lord) Paul Tyler, highlighted the importance of local radio for warning people about flood risks in the House of Lords yesterday (Wednesday). 

He told Peers, ‘I was involved in the flash floods in north Cornwall on the outskirts of Boscastle on Monday 16 August 2004. I fear that the lessons from that Cornish experience were not learnt before the 2007 repeat flash floods.

‘There were four lessons in particular. The first is the vital importance of speedy public information. I strongly recommend to the Minister that he looks carefully at the role of local radio. Those of us who travel around can now make sure that we get all the traffic news immediately interrupting national programmes.

‘That would be an effective way of ensuring that people do not go into a flood area or that they can find their way out of one safely.

‘Recently, loss of life in Cornwall was prevented by the so-called extreme rainfall alert that the Environment Agency used, which made possible pre-deployment of emergency services and, as a result, people were rescued from their vehicles.’

In response the Minister, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, said, ‘The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, about local radio is well taken, particularly in view of the experience in the example that he gave. I will make sure that that is reported to the right quarters.’

Lord Tyler also drew attention to the important issue of co-ordination of emergency services, which could be threatened by greater centralisation of their control, and the need to retain the enormously valuable expertise of helicopter aircrews.

Full speech available at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldhansrd/text/81217-0003.htm#08121767000382

CONSTITUTIONAL RETREAT
The Government’s flight from reform

Senior parliamentarians from both Houses and all three main parties have highlighted the Gordon Brown’s retreat from his constitutional reform agenda in a major new publication, Beating the Retreat. 

Liberal Democrat Peer, Lord Tyler convened Conservative MPs, Andrew Tyrie and Sir George Young, and Labour Peer, Lord Morgan to make contributions to the booklet, published by the University of Essex’s Democratic Audit. 

In an overall commentary on the reform agenda, Lord Tyler concludes the document by criticising both the Government and the ‘cautious’ parliamentarians who scrutinised the draft Constitutional Renewal Bill, published earlier this year. 

He says, “At times exchanges between Committee members and witnesses seemed so incestuous as to be constitutionally unhealthy – a dialogue between colleagues in the same Establishment.  The mechanism by which participants are chosen for such committees – and evidence is invited – seems to give disproportionate emphasis to the status quo, and those who have a vested interest in it.” 

“It is essential to re-emphasise that the government owes its legitimacy to the support of a majority in the House of Commons.  It is surely time, too, that the machinery of government itself ceased to be a press officers’ plaything.  Ever since Tony Blair’s now infamous attempt to abolish the role of Lord Chancellor by telling the wires it had been consigned to the dustbin of history, we know the folly of an approach that says new departments can be created, and old ones abolished, all at the personal whim of an individual Prime Minister.

“If this Draft Bill was meant to drag the Royal Prerogative into the 21st century, by making it subject to proper democratic accountability, it has certainly failed to do so.”

The full report is available from Democratic Audit – www.democraticaudit.eu

MINISTERS CANNOT BULLDOZE THEIR WAY TO NATIONAL COASTAL PATH – TYLER 

Coastal paths should be determined by locally elected councillors, according to former North Cornwall MP, Lord Tyler. 

The House of Lords began consideration of the Marine and Coastal Access Bill this week, which could see residents forced to give up land to make room for extensive coastal paths. Decisions as to where the paths should go, and onto whose land they can encroach, could be left to an unelected quango to decide, if Peers do not make changes to the Bill before it reaches the House of Commons. 

Speaking in the Chamber, Lord Tyler said, “There will be important roles to play for local, elected representatives…Cornwall is now going to be a unitary authority.  There are going to be people there, not only in touch with local opinion on these issues, but with a lot of experience.  If we just sweep that away and say that the quangos will do the work, the legislation will not work.  It will not be bought into by the local communities that are most affected.”

The Liberal Democrat Peer was a spokesman on agriculture when he sat in the House of Commons, and has recently taken up a position on the Lords frontbench, speaking on Rural Affairs. 

Referring to his time as a local MP, he said, “I spent 14 years representing Cornish constituencies, which have some of the most dramatic, fruitful and admired coastlines in the United Kingdom…I am a frequent and enthusiastic walker on the South West Coast path – some 630 miles of coastal path – which, unlike in many other parts of the country, is well established.  My wife and I were among the first to take part in a charity walk last year organised by the excellent regional newspaper the Western Morning News.”