ONE of the most moving funeral services that I have attended was the Celebration Service for the Life of Amy Carter at St Michael’s Church, Stourport last Friday.

It was appropriate and relevant and a marvellous tribute to the memory of a popular, vivacious, loving teenager.

I realise how much understandable anger there is about her death and the treatment she received from the NHS. I will press for the rapid completion of the initial investigation into all the circumstances of this tragedy.

Last week’s paper warned us of fears over the future of Kidderminster Carnival. It is not surprising that Colin Hill, Peter Picken, John Pearsall and Ann Jones who between them have clocked up 70 years of service to the community by organising this successful event, are wishing to stand down and pass the baton to others after this year’s carnival planned for June 19.

They deserve our heartfelt thanks and the greatest tribute would be, in recognition of their tremendous contribution in building up the carnival to its current size, impact and popularity, if new volunteers were to come forward to shadow them this year prior to taking over for 2011.

It would be a great sadness for Kidderminster if we lost the carnival and once it had gone very difficult to bring it back.

On Monday I, with other Independent MPs, had a difficult decision to take about which way to vote after the Second Reading debate on the Crime and Security Bill.

The opposition parties had put in amendments to decline a Second Reading because the Bill does not go far enough in reversing the legality of retaining biometric data, including DNA profiles, of innocent citizens.

The difficulty came because one cannot just vote against a part of a Bill at this stage and so in voting against the Second Reading as I decided to do, I also had to vote against welcome parts of the Bill such as measures to tackle domestic violence, unauthorised possession of mobile phones in prisons and the possession of air weapons by under 18 year-olds.

The Government majority passed the Second Reading so we can only hope that it is modified during scrutiny in committee or failing that in the House of Lords.

To my delight I have been successful in the ballot for a Private Member’s Bill. Mine is number eleven on the chosen list so, being realistic, it has little chance of being debated but it does give me a chance to gain publicity for a specific issue.

After much thought I have chosen to raise the predicament of NHS staff who have blown the whistle about unsafe services and are now being pilloried for their action and of those who have not known how to raise concerns or been too frightened to do so.

I have come up against conventions of the House and not been allowed to call it the “NHS Whistleblowers’ Support Bill” as I had intended but the acceptable title will be the “NHS Public Interest Disclosure Support Bill”.

The Second Reading is due on March 12 but there are pitfalls before then and I shall report further in due course.

Dr Richard Taylor MP