I don't know what's happening with Nigel Adams, in the last parliamentary session he spoke frequently in The House but since being tragically re-elected in June he has not spoken at all on any topic or submitted any written questions. Perhaps he's still preening himself over the Brexit campaign or consoling himself over his failure, as campaign manager, to get BoJo into No 10 Downing Street. Either way, the stentorian voice is unusually silent around Westminster.
The last occasion he spoke in the Commons was April 26th this year. I like to keep an eye on Mr Adams and occasionally I look at his register of members interests. I note he has received some odd donations in the past year. He received £3000 from C D Forbes-Adam, a former High Sheriff of North Yorkshire and owner of Skipwith Hall, just before the election - so money well spent to get the Conservative majority down a bit. Another £3000 came on 29th June from George Hollingbery MP for Meon Valley in Hampshire.
Why one MP would provide funds to another is a mystery but no doubt there is a simple explanation for it. Mr Hollingbery is interesting because he has not uttered a word in The House since 16th March 2015 - an amazing record that a Trappist monk would be proud of, one questions why he bothered to get elected.
Both Adams and Hollingbery have websites that seem active with the usual constituency stuff but it's curious they seem to have contributed nothing important for a while. I wonder what they're up to?
Adams also received another £2500 from Alexander Temerko, a Ukrainian born British businessman who gave him £31,300 in 2016. Mr Temerko is active in the energy sector and is also an enthusiastic backer of Boris Johnson - which is surely evidence of his appalling judgement. Anyway his donation added to the £11,350 Sanjeev Gupta gave Adams in September 2016. Gupta is chairman of Liberty House and apparently a champion of renewable energy. I assume all this was in aid of Adams' role as Chair of the all party Biomass group.
Recent publicity about biomass being burnt at Drax cannot have been welcome. The wood pellets are even more polluting than coal in some respects. The release of PM10s has quadrupled recently and is equal to that produced by three million diesel cars. According to this week's Selby Times, some Drax workers have developed asthma. Drax received £541 million in subsidies last year while there is now talk of the government having to help the car industry with a scrappage scheme to get diesel cars off the road!.We pay to produce PM10s and we pay to reduce them!
