News: September 2007 Archives

I was asked by the Labour Party to give my thoughts on Gordon Brown's speech to the conference this week. The video is now up on the Labour Vision homepage.

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As a Governor of a local primary school I'm particularly pleased to see the extension of tuition for young children in reading, languages and maths as well as sport and arts on the school curriculum. And as someone who works with young adults in our constituency I'm pleased to see the financial support for further and higher education. Whilst the Tories try to tell us that inequality is inevitable in society, its a Labour government that focuses on unlocking the potential of all. I'm standing for selection to be part of making that aspiration a reality both here in Walthamstow and across Britain and to make sure that the Government lives up to the promises speeches like this represent. Let me know what you think.

In my work in Walthamstow I seem to spend a lot of time with people who are parents of young children or about to become parents soon. Whether with the voluntary groups I work with or in being a school governor with responsibiity for the Children's Centre at Sybourn, when I do meet them I always get (good and bad) feedback on policy and ideas about how we can improve services given their experience. Now with all the interest in Walthamstow it seems to me a good chance to take that ad hoc process one step further. If anyone is interested in being part of an NCT informal parents coffee group to act as a sounding board for children's services I'd be happy to help organise it. So too, anyone else who is part of a local SureStart board or a school governor would also be welcome to join in and use the group to share ideas for our local childrens services. In the first instance indications of interest in taking part and the age of the children would be great.

Having a safe and secure place you can call home is vital part of wellbeing. If the last ten years of a Labour Government was shaped by the need to make the case for public service investment, I believe the next ten will be dominated by questions of quality of life and equality of life chances. For me housing is at the heart of these concerns. Whether the provision of more affordable and social housing, the impact it has on our economy and family income levels or the importance it has to sustainable development and regeneration, the cost of living is fundamental to creating a more socially just future for many people in Walthamstow and the UK. 

As a politician I don't believe you can simply wait for others to come up with solutions to these issues; you have to be capable of problem solving yourself if you're to be effective.  My experience of working locally tells me still too many people  find themselves caught in the quirks of our system which put their tenancies and homes at risk so I've been exploring options to address these issues. On the campaigns pages here you'll find out details of the work I'm doing on the difficulties caused by being housed out of borough with the Citizens Advice Bureau. I'm also a supporter of the Foyer Federation's work challenging the 16 hour rule which affects many vulnerable young people. Yesterday my discussions with a local resident raised another issue. Anyone who goes on a training course finds their housing benefit automatically ends at the end of the course meaning a new claim has to be made which can take weeks to process. This can lead to rent arrears and so acts as a massive disincentive to gain training or skills yet we know that these can be critical to securing employment. I'll be meeting with Shelter soon to discuss these problems and more - if you have other examples or issues you think are relevant get in touch, I'd be interested to hear about them.

The decision not to match the Council funding for the Lea Bridge Library refurbishment by the National Lottery has been a setback to the plans for its future, but not an end to them. This week I've been lobbying people to get ideas for who else we should approach to rebuild this beautiful but crumbling building and bring the top floor back into use. I've also raised the issue with Hazel Blears, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, and Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for the Cabinet Office, about the project and asked them for ideas. You can see the pictures here of me giving them the CD the residents produced to showcase the community work we do at the library as well as how the local papers have covered our campaigning. This coming week I'll be speaking to the Olympic authority and the Adult Learning Service to see whether they can help us. Being a politician has taught me the value of persistence - this project is too central to improving the lives of many in the Lea Bridge area to give up now and if anyone else has ideas for possible partners for this project they should get in touch. .

 

I recently took part in a podcast about the question of community and political engagement and talked about how the Labour party must revalue the role of members and activists. You can hear the whole interview here on Andy Howell's blog. Local CLP members know I don't just talk about the role Labour can play campaigning for change; I also put my words into practise. In May I organised an event in Walthamstow to bring together activists and Labour supporters to ask how we can tackle child poverty in our area. I wrote an article about this for the national Labour journal Progress to share our experience and the lessons we learned. We got some really good ideas from the discussion about how to help children and their families in our constituency and I'm now working with others in the CLP and the local area to take them forward. see the role of the MP as being someone who makes things happen like this, bringing people together to share ideas and plan a course of action to achieve our shared ambitions like ending child poverty on our streets. Let me know what you think.