Jury Service

I was on jury service this week. This is one place where the people do decide. It is a far cry from the Government's citizen juries and talk about helping people to 'engage' in local decisions.

The recent comments I have been hearing indicate that many local people do not think public services are listening to what local people want.

I have been holding public meetings and coffee mornings with constituents about the plans for reconfiguring our hospital services. The overwhelming response has been a sceptical one questioning whether our voice will actually be heard. The irony of one of the meetings being held at Highlands Village Hall, the site of Highlands Hospital, was not lost on those who attended. Many remember the loss of the A&E, and then the community hospital, before it was sold off.

At a coffee morning in New Southgate last Saturday there were two examples of the derisory way in which people affected by decisions are treated in the name of 'consultation'. First, relatives and residents of care homes, where some of the most vulnerable of my constituents with severe dementia reside, were given short notice by the Council of a ‘consultation meeting’ which could well be informing residents of the closure of Coppice Wood Lodge. Second, TfL- which has become the byword for unaccountability, has issued traffic notices in the Gazette but failed to present the plans in Bowes library. It sums up how little TfL have cared about the views of local people. It is not surprising that increasingly people are saying why bother at election time if those in government are not giving local people real participation in local decision making.

The feeling of not being listened to by public authorities goes beyond these issues. In Green Lanes shopkeepers and residents have told me this week about their dismay at the continued lawlessness of open drug dealing and thieving. Public services in general and policing in particular should be more responsive to local needs. The health managers and police chiefs need to become accountable to local people and not central direction.

This brings us to the subject of the EU. What has the EU got to do with health and law and order? Well increasingly a great deal. The working time directive affecting junior doctors has meant that health services have been obliged to reconfigure. The EU directive for free movement of workers has left Parliament powerless to deport foreign criminals back to their EU home. If the Government are serious about giving people more say in local decision making than they should stick to their promise and give a referendum on the EU Treaty which transfers yet more powers from our country.