After the excitement of the local elections which saw Labour win five of the seven Reading Borough Council wards in my constituency it has been back to normal for myself and my staff. My Westminster commitments have intensified recently as in addition to my work on the Home Affairs Select Committee I have also served on the committee scrutinising the controversial Counter-Terrorism Bill and last week I was also appointed onto the Marine Bill Committee.

Last week I also found time to speak in a Commons debate on Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) and managed to criticise the approach of both the government and the opposition in the same speech.

I called on the government to drop the retrospective increases in the VED and for the new tax bands to apply to future vehicle purchases only. I also criticised the Conservative motion which effectively sought to scrap the banded VED system when they proposed the same policy themselves only last September with a top band of £500 a year for high emission vehicles.  I agree wholeheartedly with the principle of graded VED-in fact, I was one of the backbenchers who lobbied for the proposal when I was first elected. I agree with incentives to make green choices pay with higher charges for the most polluting vehicles.

However, the retrospective nature of the measures will deny owners of older vehicles the opportunity to make an informed and empowered choice in favour of the environment and their family budgets. Choice is always an option for the rich - people on low incomes do not change their car every year or two. They need longer than from now until 2010 to make the changes necessary to cut vehicle emissions without being penalised by higher car tax. Following my speech I will be meeting with the Chancellor to press the case further.

There has been a more fevered atmosphere in the Commons this week with a series of controversial free votes on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. I remain strongly in favour of allowing scientists, within a proper framework of regulation, to be able to carry out embryo and stem cell research in the search for medial cures for Parkinson’s, Motor Neurone and Alzheimer’s disease and cancer. Whilst I respect those whose religious faith makes them want to reject such treatments for themselves I am not prepared to deny people who are suffering from some of these dreadful conditions the prospect of some relief at a future date. To do so, in my opinion, is frankly immoral.

I very much regret that attempts were made to hijack a bill on medical research to launch an attack on a woman’s right to access abortion services. Moves to cut the current time limit of 24 weeks by which abortions must take place fly in the face of medical evidence which still shows that 80% of babies born at 23 weeks fail to leave hospital alive. Claims that reducing the time limit would reduce the number of abortions are also spurious given that 90% of all abortions take place within 13 weeks of gestation. Many of those lobbying for a reduction in the time limit really want to outlaw abortion altogether and some are even honest enough to say so. I for one will never vote for a return to back street abortionists or to force rape victims to give birth their assailant’s child. That is my moral position and I voted with my own conscience on this issue.