LIB DEM leader Sir Menzies Campbell has backed The Press's campaign to put child abductors on the Sex Offenders' Register.

The news marks a remarkable hat-trick for our pioneering Change It! campaign - every major party leader has now expressed their concern over the legal loophole.

Sir Menzies yesterday added his weight to a growing chorus in support of our campaign as dozens of MPs signed a parliamentary motion backing Change It!

He said: "I am sympathetic to the idea and I recognise the anomaly and if we can find a suitable way of drafting which deals with it, it would be entirely sensible."

Change It! was launched after 52-year-old Terry Delaney tried to abduct 13-year-old Natalie Hick at a bus stop near York, but escaped going on the register.

Since then thousands of people have signed The Press's petition, Tony Blair promised to look into the loophole and Conservative leader David Cameron also pledged his support.

Sir Menzies, an MP for North East Fife, was in York to open City of York Council's new EcoDepot, in Hazel Court, which is the new headquarters for the council's neighbourhood services team.

He said: "In Scotland, we seem to have had it rather better because the court in Scotland has more discretion.

"You have to be slightly careful because abduction sometimes is alleged in cases of husband and wife disputes over children.

"The thing to do would be to give the courts the discretion and when they thought appropriate they could use the powers.

"I am sympathetic to the idea.

"I think you have to make sure you get the detail right but I am sure it is not beyond the wit of Parliamentary draughtsmen to get it right."

Yesterday, we reported how 27 MPs have now given their backing to an Early Day Motion proposed by York MP Hugh Bayley to try to hurry the Home Office to close the loophole.

A legislative log-jam has meant the government has still not laid an order on the law before Parliament, despite a pledge by Mr Blair that there would be an announcement in the autumn.

Big switch on for council's new, eco-friendly neighbourhood services base

YORK'S first eco-friendly council building was praised by Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell as he opened the new depot.

Sir Menzies switched on the solar panels at the ecoDepot - City of York Council's new neighbourhood services base - when he visited the city yesterday.

Council leader Steve Galloway said the environmentally-friendly construction methods could be used in the new civic headquarters planned as part of the Hungate development.

Sir Menzies paid tribute to the hard work that had gone into planning the building. He said: "Projects of this kind require an advocate with enthusiasm who will not be diverted by obstacles. "The environment has become an issue which politicians of all parties now recognise. It has become an issue in the minds of the public in a way which was not the case five years ago. I hope this will be the first of many such ventures not only in York but across the whole of the country." The eco-friendly building uses solar panels and a 15m-high wind turbine to generate power and collected rainwater to cut mains use by about 90 per cent.

The office block is built from prefabricated straw panels and a wooden frame and is one of the largest buildings of its type in Europe.