Category Archives: Blog

Police Justice Bill

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Leading for the Liberal Democrats in Parliament on the Police Justice Bill today – which means pressure! What always astonishes me is that although it takes months for a Bill to wend its way through the legislative process in both Houses of Parliament, when it is due to come to the Chamber, it is so utterly rushed. Third reading in the Lords on the Thursday, Hansard published on Friday (needed so you can read up on what was said, what happened and why etc) and back in the Commons for Lords amendments on the Monday. So frantic weekend preparing – but even then you don’t know what amendments will be taken in what order – as that only came through at lunchtime today.

The big issue was extradition – because we on the Lib Dem side believe that – in a nutshell – our treaty with the USA means they can extradite our citizens much easier than we can get theirs. The Without going into the nitty gritty that had the lawyers in the house slavering – it’s not fair! Oor extradition expert, David Heath, did a great job on extradition

The rumours were that the vote would be close – possibly even a defeat for the Government. And given the number of Labour ministers in the lobbies (including Tony Blair – who often does not vote) I guess the Labour whips must have thought they might lose. It was close – but not that close. Close enough, however, for it to be likely that the House of Lords will have another go on this when the Bill goes back to them.

I then battled on Conditional Cautions – where the Government is creating (in my view) a two-tier justice system as you will be given a choice to pay a fine or go to court. If you pay a fine (i.e. if you can afford it) – then you not only avoid the nasty business of going to court, but you also evade a criminal record. I call this Labour’s Pay & Go policies.

Then it was the powers that the Home Secretary wants to directly intervene in a failing police force. There used to be independent inspection – which if negative would trigger intervention. The Government had conceded that some independent inspection should still be involved – but there are no criteria for what constitutes ‘failing’ or ‘last resort’. Given the Government’s sensitivity to bad publicity, you can just imagine something going wrong and getting them bad headlines over a crime incident. And then in order to look active and in charge – the Home Sec ‘intervenes’. The operational independence of the police in my view would be seriously compromised. The last thing we need is any more politicisation of the police.

On police mergers the Government agreed to the five test that we and the Tories put forward – making the case, public and proper (not just statutory) consultation, adequate parliamentary time, addressing the funding etc. So no vote needed on this one!

And last but not least – prison inspectorates. We had already had a great victory in the Lords. The Government’s defeat meant they came back at the last minute with 20 pages of amendments to Lords Third Reading stage abandoning their proposals to merge five inspectorates together. I had laid such a similar amendment at Committee stage in the Commons – but the Government didn’t budge. Sadly we rely on the Lords to right wrongs! Anyway – there were a few details that pulled back power to the Home Sec again – and away from the independent inspectorates. So the Tories managed to get amendments down on these – but the Government defeated us.

I also just about managed to meet my constituent Caroline Sharpe – part of the Breakthrough Breast Cancer lobby today. And she was very successful in lobbying me (and I was very happy to be lobbied as so many women fail to get screened). I am going to see if I can get a letter out to those areas in Hornsey & Wood Green where screening take up is so poor. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t know someone (or more) who has breast cancer. I have several friends – and my mother had it too. Early detection and the new treatments can change the prospects of survival dramatically. Also – as Caroline pointed out – Herceptin is easy to get if you go privately as are new forms of chemo – which up your chances. Our state system has to improve in its treatment of these types of diseases. It used to be that the difference between going private or state was just that you got a nice private room and food – but the clinical treatment was the same – and in the end it is the clinical treatment that really counts. Now there appears to be a clinical difference – then we need to agitate for the NHS to be able to provide the best possible.

The Green Tax Switch

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It’s the big Lib Dem Green Tax Switch campaign week at the moment, so today we held our own street stall. This is a national campaign to get people to sign up to our Green Tax Switch (www.greentaxswitch.com). And Lib Dems up and down the country are having street stalls to back the campaign. I was on our stall on Crouch End Broadway, and after a bit of early rain – the sun came out.

The big idea is to begin the move away from taxing work towards taxing the polluter – and whilst the overall tax take remains neutral – as well as helping to stop Climate Change (one of the two biggest threats we face) it also allows us to lift the bottom 10% of people out of tax altogether and cut the basic rate of tax by two pence in the pounds for everyone. (That’s not two pence off the your tax bill, but rather more!). It is a real shift in taxation policy – and already we are seeing the other parties having to come onto our territory. I am just glad that the environment is now centre stage and that we are able to force the issue politically.

It’s so great when you are doing a street stall and you see someone rushing by with both hands full of shopping as one lady did and then – as you mention ‘climate change’ – they stop! It’s the last thing they want to do with hands full and rushing about – but their conscience will not let them pass. Thank goodness so many people really care about the future and took time to fill in the Green Tax Switch sign up cards.

The future of the Chocolate Factory

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I went straight on to from my meeting with Haringey Council’s Chief Exec to a meeting between the management, building owners and tenants of Chocolate Factory 1. There is a whole rumpus over the rent reviews on both Chocolate Factory 1 and 2 – but 2 decided not to come to the meeting arranged by Manoj (Collage Arts – the Management) as they are being represented by a surveyor who is fighting against the hike in rents and service charges. But the tenants of 1 were at the meeting and Manoj had invited me and David Lammy – as Minister of Culture and Arts it would have been useful if he had come, but he didn’t. The Chocolate Factory is our Cultural Quarter and the willingness of our artists to move into this industrial area and help revive it has so helped the area. So – gave them some advice on the short and long term issues, but most of all advised them to get detailed specialist advice over the possible future leases.

It was very difficult to know whether what was on offer was fair or not – but I am concerned that they are all individuals seemingly frightened that if they make a fuss or object, they will lose their space altogether. They wanted to know about funding streams and I will try and find out what they might bid for – but David Lammy is, as I say, the Minster for Culture and Arts and so I will try and get an appointment to see him – after all, charity begins at home!

Meeting with Haringey Council's Chief Exec

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Met with Haringey Council’s Chief Exec and raised a number of issues:

– the fact that the Noel Park Recreation Ground children’s play area was still unfinished and the contractors according to a local parent had not even been on site for three weeks. I can’t think of an excuse and if they were my contractors I would want to take action.

– the need for Haringey to gain two stars in their star rating assessment for housing. Residents were encouraged to vote to outsource housing from the Council to an ALMO (Arms’ Length Management Organisation) because then they would get lots of money for housing improvements – but only if the service also got a two star rating. So I asked for the action plan and was told I can get it from the new Chief Exec of the ALMO who used to be Director of Housing at the Council – which I will do. We need Haringey and ALMO to deliver that action plan (and I don’t care to distinguish between that revolving door) so that tenants don’t face the double whammy of outsourcing responsibility for housing in order to get repairs done only to find that they then don’t qualify for the dosh.

I have offered to help in any way I can to lobby the Government on this (or indeed if anyone ever was interested to tell them what I know from all those who come to me about housing issues).

– the long time it is taking to get a lorry ban in Dukes Avenue. I know there is a meeting to take place (not the first) soon between my colleague Cllr Susan Oatway (Lib Dem, Alexandra ward) and the appropriate officer – but I want to raise the slowness of the process (years) and indicate that waiting for the North Circular to be resolved is like waiting for Godot.

– the poor result in Ofsted on Youth Services – for which the response was an assurance was that the Labour Exec Member in charge of this area was a good and absolutely committed councillor. All well and good – but I had hoped for a somewhat more robust assurance about what the Council might be doing in terms of action and resource in this area – when we know that so much of the anti-social behaviour that is complained about stems from young people having nothing to do and nowhere to go etc.

– and a number of other issues, including provision of business recycling services (a must in my view), lobbying on the costs of asylum and the need to investigate what is and has been built behind the shop fronts on Myddleton Road.

Ita (the Chief Exec) will get back to me on all of these in due course.

Problems with Royal Mail

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I managed to attract Mr Speaker’s eye on at question time in the Commons – and came in on a question from another MP on lost and stolen post. Having done a survey a little while back in Hornsey & Wood Green and received an enormous response, it is clear to me that the Royal Mail is unable to deal with the issue properly. Part of the problem seems to be the lack of accountability short of the very top – when something goes wrong there is pretty much always someone else, higher up, to whom the issue can be passed rather than real local organisation and accountability.

I raised the result of my survey with the Minister Alistair Darling who said he would see that the Royal Mail addressed any specific issues and that 99% of the mail is delivered just fine and dandy. Gee thanks Alistair – I have already passed all the individual complaints to the Royal Mail having already got their agreement that they would deal with them. The point I was making to Mr Darling was that it wasn’t some tiny little individual problem – but that if I get around 1,000-2,000 complaints from just one survey in one constituency – something ain’t right! More on this in next week’s Ham & High column.

My future

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Wednesday evening sees my reselection for the seat of Hornsey & Wood Green. Happily – the motion passed unanimously. My lot know a work-horse when they see one!

We had the local party’s AGM on the same evening – and it was really well-attended, with a new Tottenham Branch also formed, following the election of our first councilors in the seat in May (and moving back up to second place in the Parliamentary seat in 2005). Hopefully we will replicate our success in Hornsey & Wood Green in Tottenham.

The second half of the evening was political debate. Paul Marshall, who runs the Centre Forum think tank came to discuss his book Britain after Blair, in which I wrote a chapter on race relations. Given that Haringey is one of the most multi-cultural areas in the country – and all the debate about veils at the moment – we had a pretty lively evening on both race and Blair!

Iraq, ethical companies and post offices

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PMQs – same old, same old. Bear pit behaviour – no score draw between Blair and Cameron – but Ming was really on form. It was on Iraq – and of course this is home territory for Ming and where he is at his best. Still – despite the barrage of suggestions that our military presence might be part of the problem rather than the solution – Blair is only conceding that ‘of course they want to bring the troops home as early as possible – but not until the job is done’. When is ‘done’?

The debate today is the second day of Modernising Company Law Bill and I sat in to listen to the part that I have had most correspondence from local constituents on – that is the section about regulation and audit for companies with regard to their ethical behaviour in purchase, behaviour and sales.

The Labour Government dropped some rules in this regard a little while back – and the amendments today are to try and introduce a wider remit for what is now called Business Review – a requirement to report on a variety of ethical behaviour issues.

The amendments widened that remit to include reporting and revealing things like the supply chain – for who a company buys from is just as important in terms of how ethical or not that company is as its own direct behaviour.

Sadly, the so-called Labour rebels withdrew their amendment on this before the vote. Our amendment was on bringing a formal audit to the Business Review – alone in the lobbies with the moral high ground as usual – we lost the vote. The debate continues.

Big lobby on Parliament today by the sub post office masters with the largest petition ever presented – something like four million. Not surprised – as per my entry on Monday it was down to the Lib Dems to bring a debate on the Post Office to the floor of the House of Commons as the Government won’t even give it debating time – let alone save the sub-post offices that remain after decimation under both Labour and Tory governments.

Post Offices, David Hockney and Cyprus

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Lib Dem Opposition Day – which means we get to put a motion to the House in the main chamber – which means in normal speak that the Liberal Democrats get to choose the topic for debate in the House of Commons today. And as the Government won’t give the Post Office debating time – we pick the Post Office, whose network which has been decimated over recent years – denuding both rural and urban areas of a central function and social fulcrum. Thousands of sub-post offices have given up the ghost as Government has removed function after function from their stock of services.

What the Government seems completely deaf to are the consequences for villages and little local shopping parades and for the vulnerable who can just about get to a post office. Stony ground during the debate. The Government is not interested in good arguments, logic or reason – only in steam-rollering through ‘modernisation’. But genuine modernisation would be to use Post Offices to provide more services locally – not less. The Tories voted with us – but the Government can always out vote us and they did. Moral victory is not satisfying enough!

After that, I went to the opening of the new David Hockney exhibition at the National Portrait gallery – and met David Hockney. For me – a real highlight. Having been a designer and illustrator for 20 years before politics, and having grown up through the years of Hockney’s Bigger Splash and Warhol, looking at the pictures sparked many memories of my youth. Standing in front of one of the swimming pool / naked young man paintings of the Bigger Splash era, one such memory came bounding back across the intervening decades – auditioning for Andy Warhol’s play ‘Pork’ when I was about 18. They phoned to offer me the part of the understudy – but it was just before the summer hols and I was going to Greece with my friends – so I turned it down! The rest, as they say, is history. And then moving along – sure enough – there was a portrait of Warhol.

Earlier in the day I had met with two women representatives of Embargo – a lobby group who are trying to get Turkish Cypriot isolation ended – Suzanne Nuri and Fusun Nadiri. Recently the intransigent impasse between Turkish and Greek Cypriots seems to me to have become more, rather than less, entrenched. But as always on these issues of great divides of historic rights and wrongs what strikes me is the dreadful situations ordinary people have to live with for decades whilst their governments and leaders refuse to move ahead.

I don’t see the point of keeping people in dreadful situations. It’s as if somehow if the situation is eased the people will feel less like keeping to old demands and will move on with their lives thus leaders lose their rallying causes. But I don’t think ordinary people should have to suffer in this way.

Having come out of the statement in Parliament on Northern Ireland for this meeting – the (near) miracle of Northern Ireland has to be a message of hope and possibility for all of these dreadful world divides. For whether Catholic and Protestant, Palestinian and Israeli or Greek or Turkish Cypriot – it is clear where great men and women put aside the hatreds of centuries for the benefit of all futures – there is no enmity so great that peace cannot be found. That is the message of hope from Northern Ireland. And if Tony really wants an outstanding legacy – one that would erase the bitter taste of Iraq – then let him go use his skills and energies in the Middle East – that would be truly remarkable.

Motor Neuron disease

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Hike Supporting the Motor Neuron Disease Association's charity walkover to Trent Park to start the Charity Walk in aid of Motor Neuron Disease. Lots and lots of people turned up for this good cause. Although the disease is incurable, there is much that can be done to make the life lived with the disease better and more enjoyable. The reason they wanted me is that Clare Chadwick, who is the North London organiser of the organization doing the walk, is a local constituent and she was telling me that they need publicity so that the 30% of people who have this disease but who do not beling to the Motor Neuron Disease Association here about it. Support is critical with such an illness – and the 70% of people with the disease who are part of the MND Association can find support, advice and company with others who understand the whole world that surrounds MND. The hope was that the papers might put it in if I showed up and that this might have the affect of reaching those who are not aware of this helpful body.

The afternoon event was a Green Flag ceremony in Albert Recreation Ground. Haringey, astonishingly, has won 7 Green Flags (certification of good open space / park with lots of criteria) which is more than any other borough in the country. And green spaces are truly important – it’s where human beings can get together and intermingle whoever they are and wherever they come from. Only human relationships will overcome the challenges now facing our country – and something as simple as the local park, free from crime and grime, can help provide the basis for that human network. And the sun shone too! The Friends of Albert Recreation Ground have worked very hard to achieve this (the status that is, not the sun shining!) – and indeed there is a network of ‘Friends of…’ for the spaces in Haringey. With 26 open spaces and 7 Green Flags – the ambition is to make all 26 winners. There was a lovely atmosphere, lots of kids, food, wine and a band – and of course – the raising of the flag!

Wood Green High Road

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The last (but one) call of the day is to a big public meeting in Wood Green about the Wood Green Audit. Local residents’ associations have put together after about nine months work an audit of the local conditions and needs for local residents living around the High Road. Haringey Council hired consultants to do a plan to maximise the land use and attractiveness to retail of the area – but hey – they forgot the people! Luckily the people have put together such a comprehensive audit of what they need in terms of care and attention behind the High Road, the back alleys, the need for public toilets, the open spaces and so on.

If they hadn’t done this then I am pretty sure that the issues – the very important and priority issues for local residents – would never have even been considered. Thanks to them – the Council will hopefully now incorporate the residents’ needs into any further planning.

I have suggested that they set up a steering group with the local Residents so that none of this work is lost – and so that they do not go further into any more planning without real input from local people. Hopefully Haringey Council will now recognise that there needs to be real partnership – not dictatorship.