Here is my column from yesterday’s Ham & High: 

I got sacked from my first job.

It was a small design/advertising agency and one night during my six week trial period – one of the Directors asked if I would join him and a blue chip client for the show reel and drinks. Afterwards he offered me a lift home, insisted on stopping for a drink on the way home and as he dropped my at my mother’s house – made a pretty crude lunge at me. I told him where to go – and the next day I was fired.

I sobbed my heart out to my mother – who said it was just one of life’s lessons. Thank goodness these days (I hate to admit this was over thirty-five years ago) it isn’t just one of life’s lessons – it is sexism, bullying and discrimination – and we have laws against it!

But despite having pretty advanced equalities legislation – reality on the street means that women still find they are paid less than men; gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender members of our community still feel defined by their sexual orientation rather than their personality or skills. Black and ethnic minority teenagers are still condemned daily by assumptions and prejudice.

One of my proudest moments so far in government was the launch at Number 10 of our action plan for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights. We will be tackling homophobic bullying in schools. I am looking at the next steps for civil partnerships and I am currently working to produce a plan to take transgender equality forwards – the first ever by any government.

But perhaps the greatest shift is that this government sees gay rights not only as a domestic issue – but in an international context.

Homosexuality is still illegal in over 70 countries. It is why we will use Britain’s influence to push for a unified EU stance on LGBT rights and we will proactively question countries who retain homophobic laws.

We must also get our own asylum laws in order. I was delighted with the recent Supreme Court ruling on gay asylum – a ruling which endorses the coalition’s position of stopping the return of asylum seekers to countries where their sexual orientation or gender identification puts them at proven risk of imprisonment, torture or even death.

Last month I launched a consultation on the public sector equality duty. Public bodies have huge potential to create a fairer society through the way they deliver their services, the people they recruit and the training they offer. Up until now these bodies have been sidetracked by centralised targets – distracting them from the real goal –serving their local community in the best possible way.

Under our plans, these organisations will be free to focus on the community they serve. But in return they must be transparent. Public bodies will have to publish a whole range of equality data – about their staff – about their services. Complete transparency, putting people in charge of the public bodies they pay for.

Gender inequality at work persists – the pay gap itself, the paucity of numbers of women on boards and at senior levels across organizations and companies throughout Britain and in segregated work –where women’s work is often just paid less than men’s.

So we are working to extend the right to request flexible working to all employees, to bring in shared parental leave and to get more women on boards – as well as having commenced the Equalities Act on October 1^st – which simplified, extended and improves protection from discrimination.

There is no greater privilege than to spend every day fighting for equality. But it’s not just a privilege – it’s a necessity. Because when companies or organisations discriminate – it isn’t just the individual who loses their job who suffers – it’s all of us. We cannot afford to ignore 50% of our population whose skills and talents we all need.

Moreover, it’s just plain wrong.

Paul Burstow, Liberal Democrat Minister of State, Department of Health launched the social care policy yesterday – so am pasting information on the new proposals below.

Social care is essential for most people at some time in their life. It embraces the most intimate care for people, often at times of great distress. It is about helping people and their carers to live independent lives. This isn’t happening at the moment. That’s why the Coalition Government is moving away from the “business as usual” mentality of the last Labour government to tackle the broken system of how we care for our older and disabled people.

This new Government policy is built on two key reforms that Liberal Democrats have been campaigning for over the last decade.

The first is that people – and not service providers – will have control over their care. By extending the roll out of personal budgets, first proposed by the Liberal Democrats in 2004, we will give individuals the freedom to decide what their money is spent on. By 2013 councils will provide everyone who wants one and is eligible with a personal budget.

The second key reform, that Liberal Democrats have consistently championed, is guaranteed respite care. We believe that this is a lifeline – not just for carers but for whole families. The Coalition Government’s vision for social care will deliver on our Party’s manifesto commitment to provide guaranteed respite care by making over £400million available in additional funding over the next four years to hundreds of thousands of carers.

Please forward this message to anyone you know who could be entitled to respite care

Too often in the past money for carers has been diverted into other areas. (NOTE: Our allocated money for carers in Haringey dissappeared into the PCT never to be actually given to our carers!) Unlike the last Labour Government, we’ll ensure that the right mechanisms are in place to make sure that this money gets to carers. Under the current system, too many vulnerable people have been left imprisoned in their homes, fearful of moving to be near loved ones, in case they found themselves worse off in a postcode lottery of care.

Our reforms will reverse rules which mean those who receive help from their local council have to be reassessed if they move to another part of the country. People will have the freedom to move home without the fear of having their entitlements taken away from them. The care and support of our older and disabled population is one of the most urgent of all social policy issues we face as a society. That’s why the Coalition Government has committed itself to invest £2billion into social care by 2014/15.

Today we have announced a vision for social care that joins up health and social care. It will provide better, more independent lives for older and disabled people – and their carers.

Baroness Newlove launched her ‘call to action’ for community safety today.

She is working with ministers to encourage local people, businesses and frontline workers (like the police) on what more they can do to make their communities safer.

The Baroness is keen to find what initiatives are being effective in various communities up and down the country in terms of community safety – so other areas can take them up if they think they would work for them.

She is going to go around the country visiting projects and meeting people who have helped make a difference in their area, witnessing first-hand what works and what the barriers are to successful community activism.

The Baroness has become a blogger! She is keen to communicate directly with activists and the wider public, sharing on-going learning from her visits, highlighting innovation and challenges and signposting people to useful resources – and reporting back to ministers next year detailing how Government can empower local people and communities in their endeavours.

For more details on Baroness Newlove’s progress – you can log on to her blog here.

A magnificent performance of Mendelssohn’s Elijah last night by the Highgate Choral Society (of which I am a patron).

Ronald Corp was the conductor, the New London Orchestra played the music – five soloists took the solo characters – but the real stars are without doubt the Highgate choristers – the many local people who every Monday night rehearse and rehearse  year in and year out. When the Chorus takes off and swells and soars to the rafters – those are incomparable moments.

Congratulations to everyone for such a wonderful performance and to the unsung and less seen members who do all of the organisation – and it must take a tremendous amount of organisation to put on such a huge show.

Went out for a walk in Kenwood yesterday. The sun was shining (for the first five minutes) and I love Kenwood and Hampstead Heath – nowhere better to see the seasons change. Kenwood was in beautiful autumnal colours and looking just wonderful.

The point of mentioning this is only to say that on walking out of Kenwood the way I exit you get the most wonderful view of Athlone House – one of the most amazing landmark buildings overlooking Hampstead Heath. This beautiful building is still under threat – despite proposals for its demolition being decisively rejected by Camden Council.

The developers are taking it to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate in an effort to get Camden’s decision overturned.

It is absolutely vital that local people let the Inspector, Sian Evans, know how strongly local residents oppose the scheme. The Highgate Society has been fighting together with local people all the way against these proposals. They are campaigning (and I was handed a leaflet as I left Kenwood to this effect) to get local people tell the Inspector directly. The e-address is: Sian.Evans@pins.gsi.gov.ukif you want to let the Inspector know how you feel about this or you can write to The Planning Inspectorate, Temple Quay House, 2 The Square, Temple Quay, Bristol BS1 6PN. The reference to quote is: APP/X5210/A/10/2135357. There is more information on the Highgate Society website www.highgatesociety.com

How we arrived at this position is a matter of some interest itself. In 2005 planning permission to construct new flats in the grounds of Athlone House. In exchange – the developer agreed to maintain and restore Athlone House within three and a half years. Needless to say- the first part of the deal – ie the developer built the flats and made the gain by the sale of the completed flats but Athlone House has not been maintained and restored. A new owner is instead seeking to replace one of London’s finest Victorian Houses houses with a new one.

It’s that time again – my annual Christmas Card competition for primary school children in Hornsey & Wood Green.

I visited some of the children actually during one of their painting classes (Highgate Primary – my old school) to see how they were getting on. As I walked in Christmas Carols were blaring out and there was glitter and golden snowflakes everywhere. Paintings full of Christmas trees and Santas – as you would expect – but there are always lots of things you would never have thought of in a million years. Each  year to date – I have set a particular theme – but this year decided to ask the children to do whatever Christmas means to them. As ever – the children were huge fun – very excited and inquisitive – and it is a lovely way to finish as my last visit on a Friday afternoon!

I will be judging on the 11th and the winner and runners up will be announced shortly after that.

Arrived in Sheffield early afternoon and went to visit two really excellent projects.

Sheffield Domestic Abuse Partnership  As I said in my previous post, I inherited recently, the Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) portfolio. So I was very keen to see the new way that Sheffield was handling its Domestic Violence agenda – as they have a new way of working. It’s called the ‘Sheffield Domestic Abuse Partnership’ – and the major difference is that for the first time the volunteers from the sector and the police dealing with Domestic Violence incidents are housed together. This co-location brings together multi-agency working in a new way. The colocation means that things can be handled across so many departments all by speaking to each other.

Having seen the ghastly mess of people in different agencies not knowing what each other was doing, not sharing information appropriately in a timely way n the Peter Connelly case in Haringey, this seems to be an  answer.

Areas elsewhere aspire to this way of working – but having the helpline, the Independent Domestic Violence Advisers, the citywide outreach service, the youth offending service worker and the police Domestic Violence Unit tother with the Children’s Specialist Services Joint Investigation team all in the same space makes the world of difference. Everyone knows each other, what they do, how to approach things. When an incident happens – they can immediately put together the right intervention for the situation – and be on the scene within the hour. This just doesn’t happen elsewhere. There is really too much to put in a blog post – but I have copious information to study now as I think this was a real innovation.

Community Justice Panels I’d always been impressed in the past when I’d heard about these panels but this is the first occasion on which I had had the opportunity to hear first hand from the volunteers and managers – how it all worked.

Restorative Justice works. The figures speak for themselves. From ninety young people who went through the process – only three have re-offended. Those are stats to die for!

The level of nuisance to which this process can be applied is relatively minor – ie anti-social behaviour that people call the police or council about time and time again. Often it is neighbour disputes – and there cannot be a councillor or an MP in the land who doesn’t have a raft of those – long running and with no resolution ever really reached.

An incident happens. The police decide to refer it to the Community Justice Panel. The volunteers go to visit, for example, both parties and talk to them to find a way forward. If the perpetrator agrees to the proposed Justice Panel – it goes forward to the panel where both parties have to appear and speak to each other . Sometimes it is just the process of facing the reality of the impact that your thoughtless or nasty act has had on another human being’s life that makes the break through. Reparation is sought which is appropriate to the ‘crime’. If the perpetrator doesn’t want to go through this process or goes through it but mucks around or doesn’t take it seriously – then it reverts to the law.

But that statistic – out of ninety youngsters only three have re-offended, is truly incredible. And the thing about early intervention like this – is that from what the volunteers were saying – it actually not only deals with the current situation but seems to change those involved for the better.

It’s only been up and running for eighteen months – so early days – but could be a significant model for how to address some types of anti-social behaviour.

So – all in all – a really worthwhile afternoon.

Well – I’m going to Sheffield tonight as guest speaker at Nick Clegg’s local party’s Annual Dinner.

Befor the dinner, I will be doing a tour of Sheffield Domestic Abuse Partnership and meeting Community Justice  Panels volunteers.

Having inherited the Violence Against Women and Girls portfolio a few weeks ago – I am very keen to hear how different parts of the country deal with Domestic Violence. These types of visits to the front line are always instructive as it is rare to go anywhere where you don’t pick up new thoughts and ideas and best practise.

Likewise – Community Justice Panels – as we move to hopefully a justice sysem that is effective not vindictive. It’s what works that matters.

Post the Browne report, Vince Cable’s been working to produce a more progressive way of funding Higher Education.

I have always believed that education should be free – for everyone – and always will. However, Labour ended the principle of free education with the introduction of tuition fees – and whichever way you turn in the current climate – those fees or costs are going to go up. I also despair that virtually the entire conversation around Higher Education is about the economics and nothing else.

Vince, as I said, has been working beyond hard to try and make this as good as it can be – and as progressive as can be.

A brief synopsis of the proposals:

1.       All students will repay less per month under this Government’s policy than they currently pay.

2.       The lowest earning  25% of graduates will repay less under this Government’s policy than they do now.

3.       The top earning 30% of graduates will pay back more than they borrow and are likely to pay more than  double the bottom 20% of earners.

4.       Over half a million students will be eligible for more non-repayable grants for living costs than they get now.

1. Almost one million students will be eligible for more overall maintenance support than they get now

6.       Part time students will no longer have to pay up front fees benefiting up to 200,000 per year

7.       There will be an extra £150m for a new National Scholarship Programme for students from poorer backgrounds and we will introduce tough new sanctions of universities who fail to improve their access to students from backgrounds.

This is not coming to the floor of the House for a few weeks yet to come and is a difficult issue for Liberal Democrats because we cannot have the solution we, on the whole, want.

The Coalition agreement only goes as far as to say “We will await Lord Browne’s final report into higher education funding, and will judge its proposals … If the response of the Government to Lord Browne’s report is one that the Liberal Democrats cannot accept, then arrangements will be made to enable Liberal Democrat MPs to abstain in any vote”.

So the issue will be whether the Liberal Democrat MPs feel that the response to Lord Browne’s report is acceptable or not.

The NHS pledge which most LibDems signed up (including me) said: “I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative”

Vince has made it quite clear that the pledge is subsumed by the coalition agreement – and indeed – because even if it wasn’t, as he said in Parliament, we cannot keep that first part of the pledge – it is no longer viable.

However, he also argues, that the second part of the pledge he has undoubtedly delivered on – a much, much fairer regime than under Labour.

I won’t make a final decision until the final proposals are on the table. I will have three choices in theory: support the Government (and as a Minister this would be the norm), abstain as per the coalition agreement  or vote against as per the NUS pledge.