The good, the bad and the ugly…

The good news is that I decided the time had come to make a serious personal commitment to saving the planet. So I have taken the plunge and purchased a hybrid motorcar that is so clean it is exempt from the London Congestion Charge!

I really look forward to the day when most vehicles will be powered by hydrogen. There are some prototypes about now. Meanwhile we have to settle for cars that use gas - or combine fuels. There aren't many hybrids on the market - mine is a Toyota Prius. A 1.5 litre petrol engine and a 33kW electric motor provide the traction. On start-up and up to about 12 mph the batteries drive the car. Then the petrol engine cuts in. When decelerating and coasting a generator charges the batteries - so 30% of energy used to drive the wheels is recovered.

My wife's ancient and trusty Volvo 440 will be replaced in her affections by my six year-old BMW - it is the finest car we've ever owned and worth far more to us than the market value. It has fantastic performance but is very thirsty. My green machine is still quite nippy - but gives me 55mpg on the open road and over 60mpg in the urban cycle (because it is using the electric system and kinetic energy more).

Next time you look at a car ad, read the very small print and look for the carbon dioxide emission figures. My green car emits 114 grammes per kilometre. What does yours do?

The bad news is that after a whole year of promises, our NHS Mental Health Trust is unable to deliver the service improvements promised to patients in Salisbury and South Wiltshire. Remember, at least one in ten of us needs these services at one time or another. It could be you!

For those of us who fought against the transfer to the new NHS Trust which includes the Bristol area - and which is millions of pounds in debt, it is no comfort to local patients to say 'told you so'. Our local mental health team is wonderful, but they know there will be cuts. They will probably be forced to sell their office building to pay the staff wages - with luck, that will last them about 18 months. Have you ever heard anything so daft? So where are all those extra billions we are told are pouring into the NHS? That is what I will be demanding of Ministers when I shortly deliver a petition from those in need.

The ugly side of life is the consequence of the failure of some of the international community to heed the warnings about Saddam Hussein years ago. We should also have insisted on urgent attention to the Israel/ Palestine conflict. As one senior constituent put it to me, he remembered his father telling him in 1933 that Hitler should have been stopped in his tracks. The world sued for peace - but his generation then had to spend six years of their young lives at war.

Robert Key MP
9 February 2003