Local Lib Dems joined scores of protestors to march on Saturday 24th June against proposed cuts to local NHS services. Councillors Wayne Hoban and Carolyn Baker took a frontline role in the protest, with Councillor Hoban giving a speech at the rally to call for an immediate halt to the planned cuts to the X-ray service at St Ann’s Hospital.

Cllr Hoban comments:

“Despite Labour pumping huge amounts of money into the NHS at the national level, we are seeing the results of their chronic mismanagement of the NHS – cuts to local services. The Government says that it wants to see NHS services transferred from NHS Trusts into the local community so that they can be delivered closer to where people live and work, but in reality, the very opposite is happening.

“In seeking to reduce services at St Anne’s Hospital there is a very real threat that the most vulnerable members of the community, particularly those with mental health needs, will suffer through the proposed contraction of services. We must take a stand now to stem this tide of cuts.”

Lynne Featherstone, MP for Hornsey & Wood Green comments:

“It isn’t profligate spending that puts us over budget in Haringey. It is meeting the health needs of the people of this borough. Local people should not have to pay with cuts in frontline services and cuts in frontline staff in order to service debt created by Government for poorly centrally negotiated consultant and GP contracts. We need more control locally and less for our strings to be pulled from Whitehall.”

The Home Office was asked by Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson, Lynne Featherstone MP, when it would publish its annual report but could not come up with an answer.

The report for 2004-5 was published on June 7th of last year but this term’s report has yet to have a date confirmed. Ms Featherstone is calling on the troubled department to finalise a date for publication.

Commenting Lynne Featherstone MP said:

“The Home Office must bite the bullet and announce a date for publication.

“The public has a right to know what the Home Office makes of its own performance at a time when it is the subject of much warranted criticism.

“It seems that the Home Office is delaying the publication of its annual report until it has recovered slightly from the current situation in which confidence in the department is at an all time low”

One of the Lib Dem council group’s newest and youngest members has been appointed to the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. Cllr Ed Butcher (Stroud Green ward) joins the crucial 17-member body responsible for the running of London Fire Brigade.

Cllr Butcher, who only recently stormed to victory with Laura Edge and Richard Wilson in Stroud Green in the May local elections, has previously worked for the Fire Authority as a human resources officer. His appointment follows a successful election in which he was chosen by the votes of Lib Dem councillors across the whole of Greater London.

Cllr Ed Butcher comments:

“I am thrilled, not only to have the opportunity to represent Stroud Green but now also the millions of Londoners who rely on the Fire Brigade in an emergency.

“I very much hope to contribute to how the Fire Authority adapts to the ever-changing needs of London’s richly diverse population and ensure that it is as prepared as it possibly can be to respond to any major incident.

“I’m also keen to make sure that the Brigade provides a world class fire and rescue service in the most environmentally friendly way possible. It’s a tall order, but I’m looking forward to the challenge ahead.”

Lib Dem council group Leader Cllr Neil Williams adds:

“The Fire Authority fulfils a vital role for Londoners, and I am extremely proud that Ed Butcher was chosen and that there will be a Haringey councillor on board. Ed is following in the footsteps of Lynne Featherstone, who also served on this body, and we wish him well. He deserves hearty congratulations.”

New figures revealed by Liberal Democrat London Spokesperson, Lynne Featherstone MP, show that there has been a dramatic increase in TB outbreaks in London over the last five years.

With a 15% increase in TB cases in London over the last 5 years and over 3,000 cases currently recorded, Lynne Featherstone is calling on the government to investigate the rise of TB in London and put together a plan of action to combat this disease.

Commenting Lynne Featherstone MP said:

“It is too easy to think that TB is a thing of the past. It is on the rise in London and must be stopped.

“It is time that the Government realises the seriousness of this problem.

“The Government needs to come up with concrete plans to tackle the rise of TB. Let’s not forget that today TB is a curable disease. The Government urgently needs to find out why the number of TB cases in London is increasing each year and make clear how it plans to deal with this epidemic.”

Notes:

The number of cases in Haringey increased from 136 to 149 between 2000 and 2004.

Figures for all London boroughs are available from Hansard.

Crouch End’s Fairfield Gardens is to get new lighting columns as a result of meetings between residents and Crouch End’s Liberal Democrat councillors.

The poor state of the existing lighting was just one of the items on a long list of problems that residents have identified in this short street at the rear of shops that front onto Tottenham Lane. They had organised a meeting with their ward councillors to discuss –

·Anti-social behaviour at night

·Rubbish dumping

·Inadequate rubbish collection/bin provision

·Illegal structures built behind shops

·Poor street lighting

·Cooking smells from restaurants

·Noisy extractor fans

·Blocked drains and much more

Long-term residents of the street had watched the problems accumulate and felt that enough was enough. Lib Dem councillor Lyn Weber asked for Haringey Council’s Neighbourhood Manager to invite a range of officers from different departments to attend the meeting last Tuesday morning at 8.30. Following a tour of the area several actions were agreed, including the promise of new lighting.

“We also want planning and street enforcement to visit offending businesses to ask them to remove a shed in which food is stored as well as looking at some quite serious planning infringements. This area is on the fringes of a conservation area, as well as a residential area, and these problems should never have been allowed to escalate,” said Cllr Weber. “Residents have been very patient but now it is reasonable for them to expect action.”

Cllr Winskill added, “It was a very positive meeting and we are looking forward to receiving a schedule of actions from officers that will lead to improvements to the vicinity. In the short term I have asked Haringey to provide a skip so that dumped rubbish can be removed”.

Lynne Featherstone MP is demanding better support from Haringey Council for unpaid carers who look after ill and disabled relatives, after many used National Carers Week to lobby her over the poor service they receive.

Lynne met with one group of local carers at the Black & Minority Ethnic Carers Support Services Carers’ Week conference, where she delivered a keynote speech calling for action. Carers at this meeting highlighted the long waits for assessments.

Lynne Featherstone comments:

“The circumstances leading up to a carer being needed are usually distressing enough – therefore the last thing people should have to contend with is excessive delays adding to their stress. There are real people at the end of these waiting lists and Haringey Council must act to ease their burden.

“Carers perform a valuable role in society, saving the taxpayer millions and meeting the needs of our sick and elderly in one of most compassionate ways possible. They should be rewarded and celebrated, not left having to fight for their entitlement.”

Cllr. Richard Wilson, Lib Dem Spokesperson for Health and Social Services, adds:

“Haringey’s service to carers’ is creaking. The Council’s own target is to increase uptake for the estimated 16,000 or so personal carers in Haringey. If it can’t cope with the 1,000 it has, then what hope is there for the rest?”

Notes:

Figures presented to the Labour Executive meeting on Tuesday showed that Council services to support carers are getting worse and failing to meet performance targets.The figures show that during 2005/06 over a quarter of carers had to wait longer than 4 weeks to get an assessment – this is an increase from 2004/05 when 1 in 10 carers had more than 4 weeks wait. The target is 91% to receive an assessment within the timeframe.

The percentage of carers receiving a carer’s break or service from the Council has halved to just 6% of carers in Haringey.

(Figures from Performance Report – April 2005 to March 2006, Chief Executive’s report to Executive, 13 June.)

Labour are dithering over how to tackle the growing culture of knife crime, say Haringey’s Lib Dems.Expensive metal-detecting arches purchased by the police have lain unused for more than a year. The discovery comes quickly on the heels of Labour’s national u-turn on knife crime sentencing.

Lib Dem Police and Community Safety Spokesperson Councillor Ron Aitken expressed concern over the rising level of knife crime in the borough as early as June last year, highlighted by several high-profile attacks in Muswell Hill, Ida Road and Seven Sisters.

Councillor Aitken requested a meeting with both Haringey Police and Haringey Council’s lead member on crime, Nilgun Canver. While the police responded, the Labour Executive Member was not willing to commit to specific measures to address the issue.

The police have purchased metal-detecting arches in a bid to dissuade people from carrying knives. “Labour have refused to say whether they believe a trial of metal detecting arches in schools should go ahead,” comments Cllr Aitken. “There should instead have been a public discussion of the issues involved before the expenditure of public funds.”

Councillor Aitken adds: “While Labour are dithering, the Lib Dems have proposed real measures to combat knife crime. Nationally, we want the maximum sentence for carrying a knife to match that for carrying a gun – a policy Labour rejected. At the local level, we are committed to working with the borough’s police to make real progress.”

Haringey’s Liberal Democrats led by Councillor Wayne Hoban have launched a campaign to stop the proposed cuts to NHS services at St Ann’s Hospital. Budgetary pressure has forced the hospital to consider closing its X-ray unit, which supports many local GPs and other healthcare providers.

Tottenham councillors Karen Alexander and Carolyn Baker have joined Councillor Hoban and Lynne Featherstone MP in collecting signatures for a petition against the closures.

Councillor Hoban comments:

“Labour’s management of the NHS is in crisis. It is fine for Tony Blair to tell us time and time again that there is more being invested in the NHS, but at a local level we are seeing cuts, cuts, and more cuts. The closure of this x-ray unit would be a loss to the people of Tottenham and Haringey. Such services should be local, for local people.”

Sign our petition

We, the undersigned, call on North Middlesex Hospital to stop the closure of the x-ray unit at St Ann’s Hospital.

Lynne Featherstone MP, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson, has discovered information that shows how individuals’ samples on the DNA database have been shared with other foreign countries with no real safeguards in place. Under new EU proposals, all member states will be able to access the British DNA database and the information on it.

Commenting Ms Featherstone said:

“This is a bad omen for the upcoming ID register, now the Government has made it clear that our personal data can be shared with foreign countries.

“There are no real safeguards in place to control this huge database which leaves it open for misuse – and now we find out it’s not only being misused in our country but also internationally.

“What confidence can we have in the Government’s reassurance of the DNA database having proper safeguards when, until last year, they didn’t even collate requests properly?”

Notes:

The figures were revealed in a Parliamentary Question asked by Lynne Featherstone MP. Ms Featherstone is calling for an independent advisory body to oversee the usage of the DNA database.The revelation comes just two weeks after the Government admitted for the first time that it will share data from the ID cards register with overseas authorities.

National DNA Database

Lynne Featherstone: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many requests for information on the national DNA database his Department has received from other countries in each year since its inception. [73347]

Joan Ryan [holding answer 24 May 2006]: From the inception of the National DNA database in 1995 until comparatively recently, requests for international profiles were rare and therefore no data was collated by the NDNAD until 2004. Since 2004 here have been 519 such requests.

Joan Ryan [23 May 2006]: Section 18 of the Identity Cards Act allows information to be provided to overseas authorities, for example law enforcement agencies, for the purposes of criminal proceedings and investigations, as provided for in section 17 of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. This is subject to safeguards provided in section 21 of the Identity Cards Act and section 18 of the 2001 Act. Other than that, there is no provision, or power to make provision, in the Identity Cards Act for information from the NIR to be provided, without consent, overseas.

Haringey’s Lib Dem councillors have expressed their enormous disappointment at the decision of the Planning Inspectorate to give the green light for the construction of a concrete batching plant in Cranford Way, N8.

The decision came despite massive public resistance to the plans. Residents’ groups, local activists, Lib Dem councillors and Hornsey and Wood Green MP Lynne Featherstone have fought a long campaign against the proposals for the concrete plant.

Councillor Laura Edge (Stroud Green) worked alongside local residents on the Green N8 campaign, and helped to persuade Haringey Council to carry out independent assessments of the impact of the factory. She comments:

“It is extremely disappointing that the Inspectorate has ignored the views of local people and given the go head for this vastly inappropriate development.

“London Concrete Ltd put all their commercial might behind winning this appeal, hiring a QC to state their case. The decision shows how unfair the current planning system is, with local residents having no right of appeal against a decision which will undoubtedly have an adverse impact on local amenity and quality of life”

Crouch End councillor David Winskill adds:

“This decision is a great disappointment for residents group Green N8, who have worked extremely hard on a campaign the like of which has not been seen before – they deserved a better result. The desperately bad news is that Crouch End and Hornsey residents will now have to look forward to up to 100 lorry movements a day through their communities.”

Lynne Featherstone MP comments:

“Goliath has won against the quality of life for ordinary local people. This is a devastating blow. Whilst London Concrete had the right to appeal the decision, ordinary people don’t have this right.”