Category Archives: Blog

Stroud Green parking survey

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My Lib Dem council colleagues from Stroud Green ward (Ed Butcher, Laura Edge and Richard Wilson) have launched their parking survey on the internet to gain further views from local residents.

They’d already begun a door-to-door survey in response to news that Haringey Council were delaying plans to review the Finsbury Park Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ) until at least 2010. Curses on the dreaded Haringey Council – can they do nothing right? When you go door-to-door, not everyone is in etc, so hopefully this online survey will reach out further

If you’d like to take part in the survey, go to http://survey.libdems.org.uk/take/611.

Great Ormond Street Hospital – senior management must take responsibility over Baby Peter

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So – Dr Al-Sayyat – the doctor who famously failed to diagnose Baby Peter’s broken back and broken ribs – is suing Great Ormond Street Hospital over her dismissal.

For all the criticism over her behaviour, that shouldn’t let Great Ormond Street off the hook. As far as I can tell Great Ormond Street’s management has a lot of responsibility for the hospital’s failings during the Baby P tragedy.

Yes, it was Dr Al-Sayyat who saw Baby Peter, failed to spot major injuries and was then dismissed following an investigation. But just as with Sharon Shoesmith – who wasn’t the actual front social worker visiting the house but paid the proper price for overseeing a system that failed so badly – so the senior people in charge at Great Ormond Street should have to take responsibility for a system that failed so badly.

Jane Collins (CEO), Dr Elliman (designated safeguarding doctor) and Jane Elias (senior management) are the key people at Great Ormond Street, who are commissioned by Haringey Primary Care Trust (PCT) to be responsible for running the children’s health service for Haringey.

The Evening Standard recently published a damning letter from four senior paediatricians to Elliman and Elias over desperately serious concerns about the safety of children at risk in the borough. Moreover, they say in their letter that their concerns are being ignored by management. And when the letter was published – Jane Collins went on TV and rather than facing up to the issue and taking action, she dodged around.

So – there is still a job to be done to ensure that the senior management at Great Ormond Street are properly held to account.

Between 2006 and 2008 out of four senior paediatricians, two resigned, one was off sick and one was on special leave. That left the staffing at Great Ormond Street’s services to Haringey’s children at danger level. And I only got those figures after digging and digging to find out why it was a locum doctor – Dr Al-Sayyat – who had looked at Baby Peter.

Those responsible for there being dangerously low staffing levels in such a vital service need to pay the same price as those in Haringey Council did for their part in Baby Peter’s tragic death.

Speaker speak to me!

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I am a floating voter in today’s election of a new Speaker. I just got back from doing BBC Breakfast talking about same. I am certain I want someone who understands the game is up – someone who can walk the establishment into the light of the modern era. I want an end to stupid traditions from the absurdity of the new Speaker having to be dragged to the Chair – sheer pantomime -to the use of arcane forms of address in the Chamber. I want an end to partisan speakership. I want someone who knows that the only way to save Parliament is to break the chains that bind us.

The interviewer this morning said to me that I was a reformer so why hadn’t I put myself forward given I had signed the old Speaker’s death warrant. Well – outside of the fact I would almost certainly fall asleep in the Chair – I only entered in 2005 and you need to command respect across the House (and that takes a little longer) and I am a campaigning and doing MP – the real problem with a reformer per se is that it will take a traditionalist who has seen the light and understands what needs to be done to take that establishment body forward. Anyway – the Norman Bakers of this world who really could take the agenda forward – didn’t put themselves in the frame.

So – I will listen to the hustings and see what each candidate offers. I couldn’t give a fig which party they come from – as the person who gets my vote will genuinely have to put partisanship behind. And then I will give my vote to the person who persuades me that they really understand what has happened and the game is up, the gentlemen’s club is no longer – and it’s time for change. Yes we can!

A brighter future for asylum seekers

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Met this week with Brighter Futures – a group of young asylum seekers fighting for the right to be able to work and/or continue their education when their initial leave to stay runs out – and whilst they wait for the Home Office to process their applications.

Our bloody Home Office can take years and years and years. And imagine – you have come here from a war torn hell – to safety, to school – and then nothing. You are in limbo – not allowed to work or go to college while you wait on the Home Office’s pleasure. It is just a terrible thing to make a young person wait endlessly, barring them virtually from a place in the normal community and keeping them endlessly in suspended animation. I should think it leads to depression, isolation and misery. And how deeply ironic that when we have asylum seekers wanting to work and contribute to the community they are living in – the Home Office is stopping it happen.

However, the three who came to see me were bright as buttons. I will be writing to the Minister asap because all they need – literally all they need – is a letter from the Home Office stating that they have the right to work (which they do – but no employer will employ them without their official status papers – which they don’t have whilst waiting for the new right to stay to come through). If the Home Office just sent out an official letter on receipt of every application from a young asylum seeker who is applying to get their adult status saying to any employer or college that the young person has applied and that this letter should be taken as evidence of their legality to work. That is all they need.

So bloody simple.

The 9th and 10th sittings of the Equality Bill Committee

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The 9th and 10th sittings of the Equality Bill Committee

We kicked off with a debate on amendments to do with ‘reasonable adjustment’ for people with disabilities. My proposals were around making it crystal clear that a ‘reasonable adjustment’ would not just be cosmetic. So – for instance – if a person in a wheelchair couldn’t get into a bank because of steps what would a ‘reasonable adjustment’ be? Perhaps a bank might try to argue that it could just install a bell so that the person could ring and get someone to come outside to do business on the steps of the bank with the person. But the real answer to deliver an equal outcome would be a ramp (or similar access) – obviously – so that the person with disabilities could have the same ability to enter the bank as someone without such a disability.

Although the argument back was that it was clear that a bell would not be ‘reasonable’ – and so no change in the Bill was needed – the Equality and Human Rights Commission supported the amendment, believing it to be a necessary change in the Bill. The amendment would have the twin benefits of consistency and clarity of approach. It would make it clear in the Bill that, for example, a service should, wherever possible, be provided to a disabled person in the same way as for a non-disabled person.

We then had a debate about frequency – which I thought was also a valid point. If something only happened once a year – then it would not be ‘reasonable’ to have to alter buildings etc to accommodate something that infrequent. However, if it was daily, weekly etc – then the same adjustment that would be needed would be ‘reasonable’ because the frequency made it so.

We progressed to my Lib Dem colleagues’ amendments around harassment and sexual orientation, which were argued very extensively. One of the key issues here is around the fact that lots of kids get bullied in school because they are gay or look gay or act gay – whether gay or not. Now the Government is seeking to exclude the protected characteristic of sexual orientation from harassment. We are arguing that we need sexual orientation to receive the protection from discrimination that the Bill provides. Can’t for the life of me understand why the Government wants to remove that protection from such a vulnerable group.

Evan Harris (Lib Dem MP for Oxford West and Abingdon) put the point that there is a real problem in the amount of homophobic bullying that takes place in schools. It is totally unacceptable for there to be no legal protection against harassment on the grounds of sexual orientation. If that protection is there – then it would focus the minds of governing bodies of schools – whether faith schools or ordinary schools – on the fact that they have a legal obligation to protect vulnerable pupils.

The Minister seemed not to be worried about homophobic bullying in schools – and followed her brief (supplied by civil servants), which basically said that she was not minded to accept the amendment. This one seems another one that the Government has just got completely wrong.

Progressing – John Mason (SNP) put an amendment which was basically aimed at supporting someone’s religious beliefs and allowing for conscience in deciding whether someone as part of their job had to carry out a duty which was against their religious belief. You probably remember the Islington Registrar who refused to marry gay couples – i.e. perform civil partnerships. It’s that type of thing. John Mason’s argument was that the world was a big enough place to allow people to abide by their religious beliefs and conscience and employers could work around that.

I totally disagree. So – I popped up and said:

“This is a difficult area, and we are trying to get the balance right, but as discrimination law has advanced so far as to bring into play factors that did not exist before, it is important that we get it right. That extends to a whole range of issues. There might be people who do not wish to police a gay march, or firemen who will not attend certain incidents. On the execution of public duty, it is important that we make it clear here and now that carrying out public services cannot be a matter of conscience in the way that the Honourable Gentleman might wish. That is not signalling against a genuinely held conviction or people’s conscience; it is a necessity in the modern age. People with such convictions might ultimately make different choices about their careers.”

In the delivery of public services – you have to do the job and if there are elements of the job that you cannot do in all conscience – then it isn’t the job for you.

The next main barney was over ‘age discrimination’ as people under 18 are to be exempted from the protection afforded against age discrimination in the Bill. I argued the case – supported by the Young Equals lobby group – that we need to include young people in the protection. Obviously there are age related issues that need to be dealt with – children of different ages and children and adults are different in capability and understanding – and that needs to be distinguished in the Bill. But that shouldn’t be an excuse to allow plain discrimination. But Vera Baird wasn’t having it.

Another big issue next – the blanket ban on gay men from giving blood donations. My argument is that individuals should be banned according to their actual behaviour, not according to crude categories.

Currently there would be a lifetime ban on a gay man who had had protected sex once. There is no equivalent on a straight man – who may have had more partners. So to me the argument is clear – judgements should be based on people’s actual behaviour and the risks that arise from that. Stonewall agree with me and recently the Anthony Nolan bone marrow transplant trust removed their ban on gay donors. Other countries have a risk-based approach.

But in response the Government just quoted the NHS leaflet on blood supply. They weren’t even really prepared to listen or consider the unfairness and inequality of a blanket ban – especially disappointing as what it does is stop people who want to, and can, help their fellow citizens who are in need.

And whilst we are on the subject – the worst ever risk to the blood supply came from this Labour Government. They continued to allow haemophiliacs to receive contaminated treatment long after they knew it was contaminated. Consequently, haemophiliacs have been exposed to, infected and killed by this Government’s refusal to ensure the safety of blood donations. They have been contaminated with HIV AIDS, Hepatitis C and human variant CJD. Can you imagine the cruelty of their last tragic intransigence on the contaminated blood – in that they moved under 16 year olds to safe treatments (chemically produced – not from blood supply) but made any older males continue to use the contaminated blood. It’s the Government who are the biggest risk to anyone who needs blood – not gay men! As you can see – I get very heated and angry on that one.

But on to another interesting ding dong – this time between me and the Tories. I was arguing that the armed forces shouldn’t be able to be exempt from the Bill when looking at combat effectiveness. The Bill allows them to say to someone for reasons of age, disability, sex and gender reassignment, that they may not serve on the front line.

My argument is again that this should not be blanket – but that it should be according to capability and therefore you can’t just say a woman can’t do or someone who is transgender cannot fight for example. Goodness knows – as with blood donors, we are told often enough that there aren’t enough people coming forward. Of course – choose who should serve in what role based on ability and capacity – but not on crude categorisation.

And there is a very, very exciting bit to come – but I will post that separately!

House authorities get my expenses record wrong

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So – the House of Commons Commission stuffs up, puts me on a list of MPs who have had to pay back monies. I get an email from the Telegraph almost immediately asking me to clarify the repayment! Having not had to pay back anything because I haven’t done anything wrong (and the Telegraph should know as they crawled over my expenses early in the scandal and declared me a ‘saint’), I was furious.

What happened was that a reimbursement from a supplier got included for some reason in the list of MPs paying back expense claims. The House authorities apologised, said they had made an error and would remove me from the list and send me an email confirming their error.

I emailed the ‘clarification’ to the Telegraph and they emailed back wishing me a good weekend. Phew – though all sorted too late to stop the mistake appearing in print in The Times. But at least The Telegraph checked and didn’t run the wrong story!

When you are tall enough to see the top button on the till – then you can serve

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Well what do you know? This old film about the origins of Wood Green High Road was sent to me http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=74415

It brought back loads of memories as my aunt had a net curtain shop at the Turnpike Lane end of Wood Green High Road. My mother would often leave me there on a Saturday morning whilst she had to go to work. No 7 it was I think – Taylors of Wood Green.

I used to love it. High counters, bolts of lacy material – and in the back I was allowed to play all morning. My ambition was, as I grew, to be able to serve in the shop. I remember my Aunty Sadie saying, “When you are tall enough to see the top button on the till – then you can serve”.

By the time I grew tall enough to have made that a reality, I was busy with my next ambition – to be an actress. Ironic really – as they do say politics is show biz for ugly people! But many happy memories revived by the film – all so long ago.

Don't believe everything you read in the Guardian!

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Well – just shows the Guardian makes wrong assumptions. I see they have me down for being very modest in not claiming the £400 per month that MPs are ‘allowed’ to claim for food and says that I claimed a very modest five quid for a pasta bake or something. I have news for the Guardian – I have never claimed a penny for food – ever – from Parliament. All the food receipts are for my interns who get travel and lunch expenses. So – don’t believe everything you read in the Guardian!

Equality Bill continues through Parliament

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So – Tuesday’s two sessions in Bill Committee on the Equality Bill ran about seven hours in two dollops. The key wrangles of the morning were as follows.

The Bill has provisions about discrimination against people on the grounds of disability, but that requires a definition as to at what point something is permanent enough or lasting long enough for these provisions to kick in. Having a broken leg is very different from losing permanent use of your leg for example. The Bill currently uses the phrase ‘long term’ – which means for 12 months or more. If an impairment is long term then an employer has to take reasonable steps to adapt to that.

So the argument around this in terms of employment is around removing the words ‘long term’ because if the impairment is something like depression – it may come and go. The argument went back and forth for some time over whether something was ‘likely’ to reoccur and/or liable to reoccur. The Minister felt they meant exactly the same and brought in dictionary definitions.

However, the Tories agreed with us that the issue of a fluctuating condition was important and they centred their argument specifically on depression. However, the Minister was not having it and indicated that the Government would not accept our amendment. We withdrew our amendment.

Next on the agenda was an amendment from backbench Tory MP Tim Boswell, who has a very good track record on human rights and gender issues and who had supported me in my efforts last week to get the Government to change one of the protected characteristics (those groups that are protected from discrimination under this Bill). Currently this protected characteristic is termed ‘gender reassignment’ in the Bill and we want this changed to ‘gender identity’. The problem is that ‘reassignment’ deals with those who live in another gender to their birth gender and who may or may not have had medical or pharmaceutical input – or those ‘proposing’ to do so. Tim Boswell’s attempt here is to widen the coverage by substituting the word ‘proposing’ with ‘considering’ the process of changing gender or living as another gender. Once again the Minister threw it out arguing until she was blue in the face that the wording in the Bill covered the whole gender spectrum. It doesn’t. She is wrong on this – and I really don’t understand why she sets her face so determinedly against this change which would just broaden the definition to encompass those who have no intention of living in another gender but who perhaps are not identifiably male of female. Nor does it cover those who cross-dress – who are not considering change on any permanent basis. So little is known about this very small group of people – and my fear is that the civil servants and lawyers preparing the Minister’s brief for this simply do not comprehend. It feels as if they can only deal with black and white – whilst the reality is that in terms of those with gender issues about 10% of that group can be classified in terms that the Government wants to give protection to – but the rest will undoubtedly face discrimination, intimidation and humiliation.

One of the other protected characteristics is ‘marriage and civil partnership’. My next amendment was to test why these two types of relationship got the protection of the Bill but cohabiting couples or those who are single are not. If the intention of this characteristic is to stop discrimination on grounds of your relationship status – then why only marriage and civil partnerships? Well the answer from the Minister boiled down to not being able to find any evidence of discrimination against cohabiting couples or singles where there was a little (but not very much) evidence that married couples and civil partnership couples did suffer discrimination.

Then there was the longest wrangle over religion and sexual orientation. It was so long – I can only describe it thus. Basically those of religious faith appear to want to be able to employ people who they think hold their values and beliefs. Obviously it is OK to discriminate in employment if the job is proselytising – i.e. it is obvious that if you are employing a Catholic priest they need to be Catholic. But it shouldn’t be ok to, say, discriminate against a caretaker couple in the same way. Also – it was clear from the argument that there is a suspicion that the religious lobby do not want homosexuals in their employ because they believe that homosexuality – or more accurately gay sex – is wrong. Well – that’s the basic debate!

In the afternoon session I moved an amendment which basically argues that you shouldn’t be confined to one discrimination when taking action. It is possible that someone could be discriminated against racially because they were black and also sexually because they were female. You get the idea. There is often multiple discrimination and people should be able to bring a complaint or claim on multiple grounds. The Government is consulting on this (again – after two years of consulting already) and is minded to allow two protected characteristics but not more. We argued a bit as I felt that it shouldn’t be about business finding it difficult to deal with the complexity of multiple discrimination – but about justice. And if the discrimination was based on any number of issues – so should follow the ability to take action. You shouldn’t be able to get away with discrimination on one ground just because you’re also discriminating on other grounds!

One success of the day was the Government agreeing to our amendment 133, which replaced some really confusing wording around the asymmetry of disability discrimination. I know – it sounds like gobbledygook – but I’ll try. All discrimination law stops us treating people differently because of any of the protected characteristics – race, gender, sexual orientation, age etc. But with disability – it is quite different. The law allows us to treat someone who is disabled more favourably because only by doing so will they achieve equality with others. For example I would provide a ramp for someone in a wheelchair so they could enter a public building. I would thus treat them more favourabley to enable them to have equal access to someone who is able bodied. This is called the asymmetry of disability discrimination. And the Government accepted that the wording in the Bill was confusing.

Our amendment said basically leave out the Government’s wording and substitute with this:
‘If the protected characteristic is disability, nothing in this section shall be taken to prohibit more favourable treatment of a disabled person on the grounds of a disabled person’s disability’.

Yes – and that is the understandable and better version! Bet you can’t wait for the next sitting.

Congratulations Fiyaz Mughal

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News reached me late – but fabulous news! My Liberal Democrat councillor colleague Fiyaz Mughal has been awarded an OBE. It is awarded to him for services to the voluntary sector, including his work as director of Faith Matters. Congratulations Fiyaz. Very well deserved!