It is a shame Kemp Town MP Des Turner is so keen to shield his government from bad publicity that he has completely caved in over his Home Energy Conservation Bill.

It was a good Bill and should have become law. However, far from his claims last week, the blame for its failure rests with the Government and with Dr Turner who, by withdrawing his Bill, did its dirty work for it.

Unfortunately, Dr Turner chose to smear the Conservatives, saying we "contributed to the downfall of the Bill".

This is utter rubbish. Dr Turner has completely reversed his position and let the Bill be gutted by the Government.

In early debates on the Bill, Dr Turner provided me with a letter explaining the Government's proposals for the Bill meant it "will be sham legislation; this is a wrecking amendment and I cannot support it." With Dr Turner's support, we successfully defeated these changes.

In May, the Government tried again to wreck the Bill. Initially, it looked like Dr Turner would fight back again - he tabled an amendment we supported.

Unfortunately, he later withdrew this amendment. Not prepared to go along with the sham, a Conservative colleague reintroduced it, won the vote and again prevented the Bill from being wrecked.

After this, Dr Turner decided to withdraw his Bill to prevent MPs debating it further.

I reintroduced Dr Turner's Bill to Parliament, not as a stunt, as he claims, but to allow the many MPs who have backed Dr Turner a chance to support it - a chance Dr Turner denied them because he wanted to make life easy for the Government.

This is a shame. By working across party lines and without any of the party point-scoring or arguments that many people associate with politicians, Dr Turner's Bill had won support from all parts of the House of Commons on an issue that really mattered to the most vulnerable people, living in the worst housing in the country. That progress has now been set back by at least a year.

-Jonathan Sayeed MP, Conservative Shadow Environment Minister, House of Commons, London SW1