I FEEL I must respond to Mark Harper's article in your

newspaper in which he defends his support and his

persistence in asking a public body to overrule an Act of

Parliament.

I have corresponded with Mr Harper on this issue

and attached to his reply he has sent me a copy of the

letter from the Solicitor General's Office which she (Vera

Baird) sent to him following his request for her

interpretation on the Act that says a registered free miner

shall be a male.

In the letter she does not specifically say that the

Equality's Act over- rides an Act made in Parliament, "but"

she does say that the Deputy Gaveller for the Forest of

Dean is the proper authority for the purpose of

registration, and that he made the right decision.

But that decision did not, it seems, suit Mr Harper,

so the Deputy Gaveller was asked to think again. Of

course it was the same decision he had made in the first

place, but still not the right decision for Mr Harper.

So a few faceless men in Scotland were asked for

their views. They came to the conclusion that the Sex

Discrimination Act did not override the 1838 Dean Forest

Mines Act as "it was not an employment issue". You see a

woman can still work in a quarry or down a mine (or down

a cave scraping a little bit of coloured dirt in to a little

plastic bag to sell to the tourists) without being a

registered free miner, but they said refusing to register a

woman was not in the spirit of the Sex Discrimination Act,

and may be a breach of a person's human rights, so

consequently our Deputy Gaveller was told by these

people from another country to register this lady ( so

much for the Tories' involvement of local people) by the

way the Human Rights Act states,

I quote! "The Act makes it unlawful for any public

body to act in a way which is incompatible with the

convention, unless the wording of an Act of Parliament

means they have no other choice".

So our MP has allowed himself to be used for a silly

"them and us" gender thing. In a recent meeting with him

in which he defended the proposed sell off of woodland

he said that our ancient rights, privileges and laws would

still be respected. As I pointed out to him then what a

load of old tosh! He's already started interfering with

them.

– I.G.Ellis, Lower Milkwall.