Paddy Tipping presses for more UK coal production

Paddy Tipping contributed to a debate on energy prices with the following:

Reliable indigenous affordable fuel supplies can reduce costs. What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to support UK Coal? In particular, when will he make an announcement on the loan guarantee application at Harworth colliery?

Paddy Tipping is understandably concerned about the extreme reliance of the UK on gas as an energy source. With North Sea gas running out rapidly, this is increasingly imported, and as recent shortages have shown, the countries across which it is transported are likely to use it to meet their own needs first. One solution that Paddy Tipping is keen on is to encourage (subsidise) UK coal production. Coal normally would produce considerably more CO2 than gas, when used for electricity generation, but new 'clean coal' technologies can offset this.

Lack of GNER services raised by Paddy Tipping

In a recent parliamentary debate on Network Rail, Paddy Tipping MP asked the Transport Minister Derek Twigg to investigate:

Does greater co-operation include discussions with the Office of the Rail Regulator? Will my hon. Friend look particularly at services on the Great North Eastern Railway main line, where the Office of the Rail Regulator has blocked plans from GNER to deliver the extra 12 services promised in its franchise?

More information on this issue can be found in this article. Since this debate, the Regulator is reconsidering their decision to favour services by Grand Central at GNER's expense as reported in Rail News, which notes there have been "reports of strong pressure from the government and GNER", part of which has evidently been applied by Paddy Tipping.

Nottinghamshire crime

Paddy Tipping gets a mention in this Times article for his request in Feb 2004 to the Home Office to investigate the high levels of crime in Nottinghamshire.

Paddy Tipping supports full smoking ban

Paddy Tipping voted against excluding private clubs from the smoking ban.
I agree with this for a couple of reasons:

1) Employees of private clubs should have equal protection to employees of pubs. If the private club didn't employee anyone, and those behind the bar were volunteer members, then that would be a different matter, but that wasn't what was proposed.
2) The number of private clubs is very significant. A failure to extend the ban to them could make it difficult for pubs to compete.

I'm not entirely comfortable with the principle of a ban at all, however. As a non-smoker, I must admit welcoming it from a personal, selfish point of view, but it's hard to justify limiting other people's freedoms for my benefit. OK, there's a health consideration, but I don't have to go in pubs at all - it's a free choice, and it's also more or less a free choice to work in them.

Paddy Tipping joins other Nottinghamshire MPs in pressing for A46 improvements

Paddy Tipping tackles a local Sherwood constituency issue
in this debate on improving the A46

The debate consisted of a cross-party group of a number of Nottinghamshire MPs ganging up on the Transport Minister Stephen Ladyman and trying to squeeze some cash out of him.

Since then there has been another massive crash on this road which has been nationally reported. (In this particular case, however, the cause of the accident seems to have been not so much the inherent dangerousness of the road, but a driver overtaking like a madman).

Dementia prescriptions questioned

Paddy Tipping put a question to Jane Kennedy (Minister of State (Quality and Patient Safety), Department of Health)

If she will make a statement on the prescribing of drugs to Alzheimer patients experiencing dementia.

Her reply was

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence is consulting on draft guidance on the use of drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. The consultation ends on 13 February.

He followed up by a pointed question

Does my right hon. Friend accept that the early prescribing of Alzheimer's drugs can lead to savings in both community and residential care, and is she confident that the methodology that NICE uses adequately reflects the cost of that care?

Which Jane Kennedy replied to with a defence of NICE

NICE has taken account of the costs of full-time care in its current draft guidance on drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. It has looked at a range of costs, as opposed to a single figure that critics had previously claimed was too low. I stress that the consultation is still underway and NICE will listen to all the representations that it receives.

No doubt he is referring to this controversy