Vince Cable

Please be aware that Vince Cable's advice surgery on Friday April 3rd will be held between 09.00am and 11.30am instead of the usual evening session.

With petrol prices going through the roof, it is important that there is an attractive public transport alternative. For most local residents, that means commuting by train.

In some respects the situation has improved in recent years. Statistics confirm my impression as a commuter that trains are more reliable, if slower. There should be more trains at the end of the year with the new platform converted from Waterloo International. The new rolling stock is much better.

Soaring fuel prices worry many people especially those in remote and rural areas but also local people who cannot easily get around on public transport. Some analysts think that the oil price could rise much further.

Britain still produces most of its oil (though we shall soon become importers again). But we are affected by international prices. Prices are being driven up by rising demand (in Asia) hitting up against limited supply. Supply is not expanding because of years of under investment when prices were low and also because of conflict (Iraq; Nigerian delta). Some geologists also say that we are near the peak of possible production. There is also financial speculation based on fears of worse to come (if Israel attacks Iran there would be massive disruption in supply).

This week parliament enjoyed a rare excursion into voting free from party lines and whips. The subject was the Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. Unusually the Chamber was full to listen to the arguments. Like many MPs I struggled to understand the complex bioscience involved but we had to reach a decision.

This week the Commons receives the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. I worry abut the level of ignorance. Very few MPs have studied science to degree level. I am one that has, but my degree, before switching to economics, was in physical science and I have only limited understanding of modern biological sciences with which the legislation deals.

I don't normally receive much local mail about tax issues. But I have been deluged with angry letters about the end of the 10p rate. Ironically, most people benefited from the budget because of the 2p cut in income tax. But it was the losers who noticed. And most of the losers are not well off.

There are women aged 60 to 65 with low salaries or pensioners; large numbers of carers (with carer's benefit) who are not allowed to work over 14 hours a week and have small incomes; and young couples or single people without children working for low wages. In Britain, 5 million people will lose on average £200 a year: all of them poorer people.

Following the public interest in the remarkable personal history of Norman Jackson, VC, a former resident of Hampton Hill, there are now plans afoot to give him a permanent memorial. Vincent Cable, MP, has been in correspondence with the council, St James Church Hampton Hill, the Hampton Hill Association and veteran's groups like the RAF Association. The council is proposing a commemorative plaque on a house close to where he lived (the original house has been demolished) and there is also a suggestion of a commemoration at St James Church.

A local policing issue illustrates the dilemmas of balancing law and order against traditional British freedoms.

A mother told me that her teenage daughter had been filmed by police while standing at a bus stop in Teddington with her friends. They had committed no offence; and no one has argued that their behaviour was in anyway anti-social. They were young people in a street where there has recently been some trouble with young people.

Many longstanding Twickenham residents - I include myself - have shopped at Cousins the greengrocer for decades. With the butchers next door (now Wishbone), the bakers and the fish shop it has created a traditional shopping centre with fresh food and varied outlets. Yet both the greengrocer and the butcher are now threatened with eviction - within days - by their landlord.

The budget last week was my fifth shadowing the Chancellor. It was unquestionably the gloomiest, and also the worst delivered: evasive, tedious, full of padding.

The economy is in trouble. There is a shortage of credit stemming from the collapse of confidence in financial markets, starting in the US. We also have a home grown problem: too much household debt, mainly mortgages which have soared in value because of the house price boom. Yet that boom has burst and house prices are now falling. This could be good news for first time buyers. But it is worrying for people with big mortgages and affects overall confidence. Meanwhile inflation has soared for essential items like heating, food and transport making it harder for the Bank of England to cut interest rates.