New Experience #3
W/C 16th Jan: New Experience # 3: Meeting Baroness Finlay of Llandaff
It’s not often that you get you meet a member of the House of Lords, yet so arose my first opportunity to do so this week when Baroness Finlay of Llandaff popped into school to give the most interested (and dare I say most interesting, mange tout, mange tout) students an insight into the goings on at Westminster. I have in the past met MPs and AMs whilst on work experience with the Welsh Government and at different climate change events and these politicians are publicly elected officials and come attached to a party.
Baroness Finlay is neither; her background is in medicine, more specifically as professor of palliative medicine at Cardiff University, top consultant at Velindre Hospital in Cardiff and past president of the Royal Society of Medicine.
As well as her day jobs, she is an independent crossbench member (i.e. she has no political party telling her how to vote) of the House of Lords, a position which she applied for in 2001 and was later given life peerage due to her expertise in the medical field. Her work in the Lords is completely voluntary and she regularly visits London to advise the Government and vote on, and recommend changes to, proposed bills, such as the recent failed benefit cap.
Interestingly, it was Baroness Finlay who proposed the ban on smoking in public buildings in 2003, something which I agreed with profusely, and she described the three year process from proposition to implementation. I am very interested in politics but knew very little about how bills are made into laws and so found this part of the talk the most useful.
As a whole, I found the meeting very inspiring and informative. I was able to ask her opinion about the use of Twitter by MPs in the Commons (politicians are able to send/receive tweets whilst debating issues of parliament) and she weighed up the pros and cons most insightfully. I came away feeling reassured that such an intelligent, level-headed person is playing a key part in the way the country is being run and realised how important the Lords is for making sure the Government makes the right decisions.
Rating: I’d give this a 5/5, for a highly engaging hour.
Any suggestions for my next new experience? Please leave a comment below.
Info World, Europe, UK & Wales Politics UK Politics
Related Article: New Experience #1 & #2
IMAGE: New by chrisinplymouth
1 Comment – Postiwch sylw
Sprout Editor
Rhoddwyd sylw 52 mis yn ôl - 25th January 2012 - 20:13pm
Go tommy b. 51 more new experiences to go! You could put a book together will all of these at the end of the year!