PARLIAMENT is back this week and the big topic among MPs has been their own safety.

There is a new and fairly ugly glass screen in the House of Commons Chamber, separating the public gallery from the honourable members on the green benches below.

It's to stop members of the public trying to blow up, poison or biologically contaminate their members of parliament.

Some people think it's a knee-jerk reaction. Surely what is needed is good security throughout all the parliamentary buildings.

Surely the welfare of all the staff and visitors is as important as that of MPs.

Anyway, the MPs decided they wanted a permanent screen costing a cool £1.5 millions. They voted down (by 99 to 92) a sensible suggestion from my Liberal Democrat colleague Paul Tyler to put off a decision until they'd had more than four days to assess the temporary screen.

Two East Lancashire MPs made the effort to turn up to vote - Nigel Evans and Peter Pike. My own fear is that it's another move to keep elected politicians in their ivory towers, well apart from the people they represent.

The independent-minded Labour MP Bob Marshall-Andrews said that yes, there is risk, but MPs are not only there to "soak up the many benefits and privileges" they have.

He added: "We are here to bear and share the risks that our people bear and share."

I agree. I fear there are too many pompous people in positions of power who are only too happy to use the security scares to build fences round their own ivory towers and at the same time chip away at the rights of ordinary people.

Two weeks ago we had a two-day scare about a substance called osmium tetroxide.

The BBC reported they had learned that a plot to use this previously unheard-of stuff in an unspecified way in an unspecified place had been "foiled" by the "intelligence agencies".

It turned out that this "highly dangerous poison" could indeed kill a person or two but was really a catalyst - it can turn a little bang into a bigger one. Anyway you can buy it on the internet

What was sinister about the story was the lack of detail.

No names, no places, no suspect organisations, no alleged plotters, no arrests, no suggested modus operandi, no source - nothing but a statement that the "BBC has learned that a plot has been foiled".

The source was later revealed to be an American radio station.

Most of the media reported it as straight fact. Maybe it was all true.

But we are supposed to live in a democracy and in a democracy we deserve to be told more of the truth, even if it's about security and public safety.