I  believe that our MP, Mr Harper, has issued a press statement implying that it was his hard work and influence  which has led to (yet another) government U-turn on the future of the public forest estate (PFE), including our own Forest of Dean.

I would like to point out for the record that Mr Harper never did reply to HOOF's open letter printed in your newspaper, urging him as our elected representative to support the concerns of his constituents and back the amendment put forward by Baroness Royall to exclude the PFE from the Infrastructure Bill. 

Quite the reverse – my own understanding is that Mr Harper consistently told HOOF that there wasn't an issue, the government had no intention of applying this Bill to the PFE and there was no reason to have an exemption.

To now claim credit, once it is safely government policy and he can do so without upsetting his masters, is frankly infuriating.

It also begs the question why it took peer after peer to stand up in the debate and say, 'there appears to be a problem here', before Lord Ahmad made his announcement.

It didn't look to me that Lord Ahmad went into that debate ready to accept the amendment which you would have thought would be the case if Mr Harper's persuasive powers had been as successful as he implies.

Let's all give the credit where it belongs – to HOOF, to Baroness Royall and to 38 degrees for their last-minute petition which raised 150,000 signatures nationally in less than 24 hours.

And let's hope that, as this matter is far from finished with (we still don't have the protective legislation we were promised over three years ago), Mr Harper will manage to find some courage to actively support his constituents the next time we need his help.

Then we'd be delighted to let him take credit.

– Cheryl Mayo, Blakeney.