This year, Parliament is hosting the ‘Kids Count Inspiration Awards.’ MPs have been asked to nominate an inspirational young person or community group that deserve to be recognised for their contribution to our communities.

We have some amazing groups and individuals in Haringey, and it will be difficult to pick which one to nominate! I have some ideas in mind, but I would like your views too.

Please don’t hesitate to email me on lynne@lynnefeatherstone.org if you would like to suggest someone to nominate.

The awards will take place on the 24^th June in Parliament.  Nominations close of 15^th May – so let me know asap!

Here are the two categories in more detail:

1)      Best contribution by a community group

CRITERIA. Recognising a community group who by example, track record and commitment have signalled that responsibility lies within their own community to protect and foster the well-being and development of young people.

2)      Most Inspirational Young Person

CRITERIA. Recognising an individual young person, who has inspired others by their personal dedication, personality, enthusiasm, resilience, flair and commitment to one, or a number of issues affecting the lives of young people.

Today is pay day for millions of people across Britain. It will be the first pay slip since the Income Tax personal allowance was raised to £9,440.

The personal allowance is the amount you can earn before being taxed. When Liberal Democrats came into power in 2010 this was just £6,475.

Increasing the tax-free personal allowance is the Liberal Democrats’ flagship policy. We have fought hard for this and secured it.

Since we’ve been in Government, millions of low and middle income earners are now paying £600 less tax per year.

The tax-free allowance will rise again next year to £10,000, fulfilling a commitment from the front page of the Liberal Democrats’ 2010 General Election manifesto and resulting in a total tax cut of £700.

By this point, 86,500 ordinary working people in Haringey will have received the £700 a year tax cut, and 7,520 of the Borough’s low or part-time earners will have been lifted out of paying Income Tax altogether.

Earlier, Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander summed it up very well:

“If you get paid today, take a moment to compare your pay slip to last month’s. You’ll see that Liberal Democrats have cut your taxes.

“It has taken the Liberal Democrats being in Government to deliver the largest programme of tax cuts for working people for a generation.

“The Liberal Democrats are the only party that will radically cut taxes for people on low and middle incomes to build a stronger economy and a fairer society so that everyone can get on in life.”

Here’s a blog from me on World Malaria Day. You can also read it on the Huffington Post website.

Malaria affects over half the world’s population, with a child dying every minute from the disease. In the worst-affected countries malaria has a devastating impact on health systems and economies. When faced with these stark facts it can often seem like there’s no hope.

But amongst the gloom there are genuine signs that we may finally be winning the battle against malaria. Across the world malaria is on the decline. Over the past decade governments, NGOs and multilaterals like the UN and World Bank have come together to fight the disease, while national governments in the worst-hit countries made real progress in delivering malaria control programmes. This global coalition had an enormous impact. By 2010, 145 million bed nets – the simple, cheap yet hugely effective defence against malarial mosquitoes – were being delivered to sub-Saharan Africa. The amount of artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) – the most effective pharmaceutical treatment for malaria sufferers – jumped from just 11 million in 2005 to 278 million in 2011. In just one country, Mozambique, DFID’s support for anti-malaria spraying has seen a dramatic reduction in deaths and hospital admissions of at least 40%.

The effect of these efforts can be summarised in just two hugely important statistics. Between 2000 and 2010 global malaria mortality rates dropped by 26%, saving over a million lives. Behind these statistics lies hundreds of thousands of families free from pain and suffering. Free from having to mourn the death of a child. Free to get a job and work themselves out of poverty without having to worry about another bout of fever.

Yet there is a danger that this anti-malaria coalition is fragmenting. Global funding for malaria is levelling off and is in danger of falling in the coming years, threatening the reversal of a decade of progress. The international community needs to sustain its support to make sure the gains made do not go to waste. This must be matched by increased commitments from the governments of high-burden countries.

International Development minister Lynne Featherstone with Félix Kabange Numbi Mukwampa, the minister of Health in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Picture: DFID. 

We are doing our bit. I’m in the Democratic Republic of Congo this week, one of the worst-affected countries in the world. Here malaria is responsible for a third of all deaths and 97% of people live in high risk areas. Children under five experience an average of between six to ten episodes of malaria per year. That’s why today, on World Malaria Day, I am announcing a major new UK anti-malaria programme that will protect around six million people in the DRC from the disease and result in approximately 2.5 million fewer episodes of malaria amongst children under five every year.

The UK will not stand on the sidelines while millions suffer from this entirely preventable and treatable disease. It’s time for the international community to come together yet again and keep up their commitments. We need another decade of action against malaria. The prize could be another million lives saved.

Here’s my second blog from my ministerial visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo:

Kasai Occidental, a landlocked province in DRC, seems cut off from the world. I flew into Kananga, its capital, this morning on one of the two flights a week. We flew over the railway, but didn’t catch a glimpse of the train that runs once a month, give or take. Potholed road access isn’t an inviting option. It’s little wonder that the business leaders I met with later identified transport as one of their biggest problems. Kananga, a city of around one million people, seems an island.

And this landlocked island has its problems. Conflict in the East of DRC has been making the headlines, but on some measures the situation here is worse. Malnutrition levels are high, in a malnourished country (all the harder to understand when the soil is fertile); conflict has been partly to blame. There is a lack of basic services like electricity and water, gender violence is all too common, the literacy rate for young women is around 35%, and lack of formal employment the norm.

So, where do you start? There is no easy answer, when each problem demands your attention and all are in some way connected. DFID is already investing in health, including the ASSP launched on Monday, which will work in many parts of Kasai Occidental to provide access to much-needed primary healthcare; and in police training, in a country where policing is not adequate to keep people safe.

And DFID is in the early stages of engaging with a new provincial government who appear committed to making things happen. The governor is credited with bringing electricity online – the six hours a day is a massive improvement on the zero hours previously. With the political will here to deliver for the population, perhaps Kasai Occidental can start to move in the right direction.