David Evennett, MP for Bexleyheath and Crayford, has strongly backed a report by Lord John Stevens that sets out detailed proposals for a Border Protection Service (1 July).

Currently, there are eleven separate agencies that deal with border protection. Under a Conservative Government, the major agencies would be brought together into a single, uniformed, unified and coherent border police force.

This service would staff border posts at UK entry and exit points, including airports, seaports and the Channel Tunnel. It would have the power to stop, search, detain and prosecute smugglers, terrorists, traffickers and illegal immigrants.
Mr Evennett said "We need to strengthen our borders. I have long called for a tighter border controls and I strongly endorse these proposals. For too long, the Labour Government has done little to tackle illegal immigration. It is again the Conservatives who are taking a lead and setting the policy agenda. Labour has run out of ideas".

Local residents across Bexley face having to travel three times as far to visit their local doctor, Bexleyheath and Crayford MP David Evennett has warned (23 June). An analysis of Government plans to introduce 'polyclinics' across England has revealed that this could lead to a trebling of the distance that people have to travel in order to be able to see their local GP.

Labour Ministers intend to replace local GPs' surgeries with impersonal super-surgeries. It has been estimated that 1,700 family doctor surgeries could be closed down across England. Ninety per cent of NHS care is administered by GPs.

*          London is being used as the testing ground for the GP cuts. Currently, the average distance to a local GP in London is under half a mile away - but the Government has admitted that this will more than treble to 1.5 miles once its planned 150 polyclinics are introduced there.

*          If the same pattern was replicated across the country, the average family doctor could be more than 3 miles away. In Bexley, GP surgeries are currently an average of 0.6 miles away. Under Labour plans, this could increase to 1.9 miles. The elderly, infirm and young families will suffer the most from the increased journey times.

Mr Evennett said "I am very concerned that Labour's planned cuts to GP services will mean local residents will have to travel further to see their local doctor when they are ill. These polyclinics will also be more impersonal, breaking the valued link between patients and their family doctor.

"This latest round of cuts comes on top of plans to close down Post Offices. Gordon Brown doesn't seem to care about the social value of keeping services
local."