Peasedown St John received a VIP guest last week with a special visit from a Member of the House of Lords, Baroness Ros Scott. She is on a national fact finding tour to find out what is important to local communities and why so many people feel let down by the political system.

Baroness Ros Scott, who sits in the Lords for the Lib Dems, congratulated local supporters for all the work they do with the local community. She said how important it was for Liberal Democrats to have a team of supporters and helpers. She then gave an interesting and informative talk about the importance of the House of Lords as a scrutinising group to a Government which thinks the answer to everything is to bring in more legislation.

Baroness Scott said; 

“Since becoming a Peer in the year 2000 I have become increasingly concerned about the massive amount of legislation this government has introduced. When something goes wrong Labour Ministers think introducing yet another new law is the simple solution to the problem.

Quite often bills are rushed through the House of Commons with possibly only 40% of the detail scrutinised and this makes the work of a Peer very demanding. On the recent 42 day detention issue we spent 56 hours in the Lords going through the proposed legislation line-by-line.” 

Gail Coleshill, the future Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidate for the new North East Somerset Constituency, commented:

“We were very pleased to welcome Baroness Scott to North East Somerset. We wanted to tell her about the worrying trend of this target setting Government to control everything from the centre. We were particularly concerned to get her views about recent transport issues which ignore the plight of people living in rural areas.  

“With a government obsessed with legislation and control over people’s lives Liberal Democrats in both Houses of Parliament have to work harder than ever to protect people’s basic freedoms and liberties.”

Baroness Scott of Needham Market was made a Life Peer in 2000 by Charles Kennedy for her services to Local Government. She served as a Councillor in Suffolk at both District and County from 1991-2005. She is currently running for the position of Lib Dem Party President against Lembit Opik MP. Ros Scott is also Chair of the Local Government Association’s Transport Executive and is the first female board member of the Lloyds Register in the company’s 200 year history.