Richard Spring MP
Member of Parliament for West Suffolk

Driving around my constituency at the weekend, I reflected, as the sun broke from time to time through the clouds, how extraordinarily beautiful the countryside looked.

We may not have mountains or lakes, as in some parts of the country, but it is most of all our flintstone churches that stand out in the Suffolk landscape. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when the wool trade made East Anglia so prosperous, each village acquired a church. Many are of breathtaking beauty.

In London, there are two exceptional exhibitions which I recently saw – the seventeenth century Spanish painter Velazquez and the sculptures of Rodin. 

We are heirs to a remarkable heritage from across so many parts of Europe. It created literature, buildings and objects of enduring quality. We are all their guardians through good times and bad. Politicians may come and go, but it is both humbling for those of us in public life, as well as a responsibility, to ensure that we cherish and pass on the visible legacy of our civilisation. 

I have just been in the chamber of the House of Commons, speaking in support of my parliamentary colleague, John Gummer, MP for Suffolk Coastal, who secured a debate on the subject of the NHS in Suffolk.As all the Conservative MPs in Suffolk have recently signed a letter to the new Chief Executive of the Suffolk PCT, this was a good opportunity for us to restate the case to the Health Minister, Andy Burnham, that Suffolk is not getting a fair deal under the NHS funding formula. We have one of the oldest populations in England – one in five is over 65 - and yet the money we receive from the Government does not reflect this and instead is considerably below the national average.We had the opportunity to ask the Minister: Is it any wonder that every NHS organisation in Suffolk is suffering with millions of pounds of deficits because we don’t get the money we need, or indeed, the money we deserve.

We raised important points such as the long list of threatened community hospitals, the shortage of carers in Suffolk and the difficulty of signing up with an NHS dentist.

Regrettably, there appears to be a correlation between political representation and the closing of community hospitals. All the closures, barring a few in Liberal Democrat seats, have been in Conservative held seats. As with so much with this Government, money flows to areas, especially metropolitan urban areas in the North, where its political support is strongest.

I told the Minister that we have a genuine passion about this huge problem. I paid tribute to the staff in Suffolk. The collapse in the morale amongst our wonderful doctors, nurses, ancillary workers and carers is devastating and I wanted him to know this.

Hopefully, if we all keep the pressure up on the local NHS management and the Department of Health, we might just have a chance of redressing the unfortunate imbalance in health funding in Suffolk.

But I am not holding my breath…  

Shortly after I first became a Member of Parliament, I was approached by a local GP to discuss drugs abuse which he said was rife and on the increase. It led me to visit many drugs centres in the country, to find out about drugs, their impact on people’s lives and treatment and rehabilitation programmes. 

It is interesting that in an era when cigarette smoking is viewed so negatively because of its health impact, the health implications of cannabis have not been widely aired. 

Cannabis has carcinogenic properties far more potent than tobacco. Some studies suggest that habitual pot smokers begin to suffer mouth or lung cancer prematurely. We should also bear in mind that new variants of cannabis, like skunk, are far stronger than the cannabis of a generation ago.

I was told that taking cannabis for some was like pouring very hot water into a crystal tumbler which had a tiny flaw. One day the glass would disintegrate quite unexpectedly. In the same way those with an unknown predisposition to mental instability could be pushed into a really unstable condition. Yet, of course, we know that there is also some evidence that cannabis in its medicinal form – cannabinoids – may be helpful in softening the impact of certain diseases. 

After learning all of this, I set up a Drugs Task Force in Newmarket to help people affected by drugs, especially young people. Of course, the long term beneficial impact of the task force was very difficult to measure, but at least it brought key parts of the local community together to try to tackle the problem. 

Now evidence has been produced to suggest a very clear linkage indeed mental instability and heavy cannabis use. I am not remotely surprised. Cannabis smoking is not some cheerful recreational activity, free of risk. 

I suspect others are now taking on board what I discovered years ago from professionals in the field. We now need to look carefully at not only the question of the right drugs classification, but also whether the health issue needs to be properly aired.   

What do you think? Can we now escape from the did he/she or didn’t he/she stuff that trivialises this subject. 

Before becoming the Member of Parliament for Newmarket, I part owned two racehorses. It gives you a flavour of their success that on its first outing on the July Course at Newmarket, one of the horses parted company with the jockey……..before the race! 

The Dubai ruling family, the Maktoums, own substantial chunks of land in and around my constituency. They have massively contributed to the revived success of British horseracing. Over the decades, it has been South African mining magnates to Greek shipowners who have been attracted to owning racehorses trained in Newmarket, which is the world headquarters of racing. 

On Friday, the most expensive horse ever run in England, owned by the Maktoums, ran in the first race. Despite being the favourite, it came fourth. Oh dear…and the colt cost over £5 million! 

Owning a racehorse can be the most frustrating and most exhilarating experience. 

On Friday it was the bookies who were the winners, But that’s racing for you!   

There is a lively argument about how we, in liberal and tolerant Western societies, interact with more conservative Islamic societies. However, what perhaps many people do not realise is that there are big differences between Islamic countries themselves. 

In the summer, I went to Kazakhstan, a Central Asian, former Soviet republic, which is the size of Europe, with a population of only 18 million. It is a constitutionally secular Islamic society with a substantial Russian minority. The population as a whole, both Russians and Kazakhs, wear their religions lightly. 

Kazakhstan is now becoming hugely rich because of its enormous energy assets. It is very keen to make its mark on the world. Next month, the President, Mr Nazarbaev, will be visiting London. Important Kazakh companies have listed on the London Stock Exchange and are keen to be friendly with us. 

Many people feel that if secular Islamic societies can succeed with full human and democratic rights, they could be a role model in the region. 

Today, the lively Kazakhstan Ambassador in London, Mr Erlan Idrissov, is visiting my constituency. He will be meeting school pupils in Haverhill and seeing something of the racing industry in Newmarket – there is a long tradition of horsemanship in Kazakhstan. 

He can be assured of a very warm welcome in Suffolk.   

On the first day of the new Parliamentary session we were treated to the unedifying spectacle of the Home Secretary, John Reid, addressing our prisons crisis. 

It is symptomatic of this Government and their reliance on spin that John Reid could begin by saying, with a completely straight face, that “public protection has always been our first priority”. 

The cold hard fact is that the prison population now stands at 79,819; prisons are desperately overcrowded and they are considering moving some prisoners into open jails simply to free up space for new criminals. The Government even accepts that “in a last resort” they would consider the early release of prisoners to help the crisis in prison capacity. What confidence can the public have in their safety and security when offenders are let out because there isn’t space to hold them. 

In many respects, the Home Secretary appeared before Parliament like the naughty schoolboy who after returns to school after the summer holiday to try to valiantly explain to the class why he hasn’t finished the project he was set. 

We had the full list of excuses, ready and prepared the night before – “I’ll stay behind after school to fix it”, “it probably isn’t as bad as it seems”, “I’m sure it will all be ok in the end”. 

Well, when we are contemplating using cells in police stations to detain convicted criminals because of a chronic shortage of space in actual prisons, then it is as bad as it seems and it probably won’t be ok in the end, especially when it costs £365 per night to keep a prisoner detained in a cell. 

All this is even more unbelievable when we consider that a string of Home Secretaries, over the past nine years, have known that the prison population was rising inexorably and sooner or later, this would have to be resolved. 

Instead the Government decided it would be better to squander millions of pounds trying to restructure the entire police service of England and Wales because it was “not fit for purpose”.  The Suffolk Constabulary, which polices my constituency, were tied up in endless red tape and confusion trying to comply with the various targets for reform, even though they are one of the best performing constabularies in England. 

A year later, John Reid came in and dropped the whole regionalisation/merger scheme. When they could see a prison crisis looming, why were more time and resources not diverted to urgently finding additional prison places. Why are we now searching around for more and more obscure solutions such as bribing foreign prisoners with education and training packages worth £2,500 to leave Britain. It is the politics of despair. 

Alas, if it all comes crashing down around John Reid’s head at the Home Office, at least he can resort to blaming the bigger boy who was sitting at the desk before him.