In the final instalment of the Isle of Man Examiner series of interviews with the new MHKs elected in September, PAUL SPELLER talks to Ann Corlett, MHK for the new constituency of Douglas Central. The daughter of two former mayors of Douglas, she hints at a new dawn of political attitudes in the Department of Education and Children and also reveals what Sunday lunch was like growing up in a politically active household.

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Actions speak louder than words, according to Ann Corlett.

‘It does not always have to be about what you are saying, it is as much about what you are doing,’ she states.

On that theme, you get the feeling Mrs Corlett – a member of two government departments – is rather busy.

We take a very Manx approach to organising the interview; from making ‘phone me’ gestures through a window while I’m talking to one of her colleagues, to confirming the venue just half an hour before the anointed time.

A meeting of the Tynwald Management Committee overruns, causing Mrs Corlett to be slightly late. She is apologetic. When I suggest her time is probably more important than mine, she dismisses such a notion. She means it, too; it is not the false ’umbleness of Uriah Heep.

In previous parliaments, there has been a feeling that certain members came to regard themselves as a higher level of species than the electorate. Mrs Corlett does not subscribe to that. She is fully aware she is there to serve.

Although she has run a family catering firm for decades, you could argue true family business is politics.

Her parents, Bill and Glenda Corkish, both served as Mayor of Douglas and she came to the Keys following a three-year spell on Douglas Council.

When we first met on general election night, I remarked that I used to report on her father at Douglas Council. Knowing smiles were exchanged. Mr Corkish was not afraid of confrontation. Political jousting with David Christian, current Council Leader, was a regular event.

With such a political family, Sunday lunchtimes in the Corkish house were ‘lively’, she says.

‘We did not always agree and still do not. There are lots of issues within our family that we don’t hold the same views on.’

Department of Health and Social Care member Mrs Corlett, 56, is certainly her own woman and has her own style, that is neither as vocal nor – to put it bluntly – as provocative as her father’s.

She has kept a relatively low profile in the opening months, although has managed to avoid the criticism other colleagues received for doing the same.

‘If something needs saying or supporting, I will be quite happy to speak out. But I don’t feel pressured into repeating something that somebody else has already said, just for the sake of your voice being heard.’

She says she first witnessed the ‘pointless’ exercise of a line-up of people standing to say precisely the same thing in debates when she was on the council.

That said, she recognises there will be occasions when the public will want to know their MHK’s precise position in a debate. She cites abortion as one such issue. Dr Alex Allinson has now been given the go ahead to introduce reforming legislation and she knows people will want to know her stance.

She says it is important all sides are listened to, but her belief is a woman should have a right to choose.

‘I don’t think it is something that I would do personally, but I believe I should have the choice,’ she says.

‘I do believe it should be carried out in the Isle of Man rather than people having to travel for it, but I do not believe it should always be free.’

She explains that in situations of rape or where a child or mother will not survive, then the procedure should be free, but consideration should be given to charging – with the procedure still to be carried out here – in other circumstances.

Mrs Corlett’s other departmental membership is at Education and Children.

After the 2011 election, the department went through turmoil following the ill-fated appointment of Peter Karran as minister. The DEC closed down its state-run pre-school facilities in 2012 – it did describe the move as privatisation, but it seems like a gloss when not all the 11 nurseries re-opened at the start of the next term – and that was followed by other teaching job losses.

There are signs, however, that the mindset at the DEC has changed since those tumultuous times. Even after Mr Karran’s departure, there lingered for a while an air of defensiveness about past decisions, coupled with suspicion that, on a political level, not all education concerns below secondary school level were regarded as a priority.

Now, just five years after the closures, there are moves to improve the pre-school provision – signalled even before a union official highlighted the negative impact the closure of pre-schools had on the social skills of reception class intakes– and the motivation seems to be coming all the way from the top, appearing in Chief Minister Howard Quayle’s Programme for Government. The commitment has been re-iterated by Education Minister Graham Cregeen.

‘There is a will to provide pre-school, definitely,’ says Mrs Corlett. ‘If they are going to provide pre-school, it has to be across the board and it has to be well regulated.’

She says that where practical, the ideal situation is for pre-schools to be attached to primary schools and to work alongside them in all circumstances.

‘It must be easier for a child going to pre-school in a school they are going to enter. The whole point of pre-school is preparing a child for school so, if it could be in the same school, that would be great.’

She emphasises that the early years of education are crucial.

‘They are the most important time of a child’s life. It is the foundation to build everything else onto.’

We return to her background as a councillor and the question of why, no matter who is in the town hall and who sits further up the hill in the House of Keys, the respective memberships spend their time snapping at each other and marking their territory in the manner of stray dogs looking to establish supremacy.

It seems odder, still, when you consider a good proportion of Douglas’s MHKs over the years started out on the council.

‘Maybe there just has not been the will to co-operate in the past,’ she suggests.

‘We are having regular meetings, the Douglas MHKs, with the council.

‘What I would really like to see is some sort of surgery taking place with MHKs and councillors together, so when people come with an issue, you can say, “that is a council issue”, or a councillor can say it is for an MHK, and you can still deal with it there.’ If Mrs Corlett and her Douglas colleagues can end the sabre-rattling up and down Prospect Hill, it will be no small achievement.