Future of Wood Green

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Apart from preparation for the Violent Crime Reduction Bill’s committee stage, this afternoon I met with the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) to discuss a number of issues that might come up when various bills passing through Parliament this session.

Main highlight today was the Wood Green Area Assembly in the evening at the Civic Centre. It was webcast – for the first time! Maybe that’s why it was so packed – or maybe that was because the Council had hired consultants to come up with a ‘master plan’ for improving Wood Green. Wood Green desperately needs love and attention – and resources! However, despite pretty presentations and all that – still clear to me that whatever the promises or the master plan unless Haringey Council stops giving permission to ugly, ghastly blocks of flats and puts some pressure on developers to raise their game – master plan, shmaster plan.

LIB DEMS CALL FOR COUNCIL TO RESOLVE DUKES AVENUE SWEEPING PROBLEM

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Lib Dem councillor for Alexandra ward, Susan Oatway has demanded Haringey Council resolves the street sweeping problem in Dukes Avenue following complaints that the Council’s contractor, Haringey Accord, was not sweeping properly.

Residents contacted Cllr Oatway reporting that the sweeper was picking litter rather than sweeping the streets properly and this appears to have been confirmed by the Council in correspondence with residents.

Street cleanliness is an ongoing problem in the borough with the Lib Dems following up hundreds of complaints regarding this issue every year.

Cllr Oatway says that it is important that Haringey Council rectify the sweeping problem to ensure that further problems are avoided this winter.

Cllr Oatway (Alexandra) comments:

“I have written to the Council demanding and explanation. Haringey Accord is paid to maintain Haringey’s streets and they appear to be failing to carry out their duties properly.

“With winter closing in it is essential that the problem is resolved to ensure that wet leaves are regularly cleared from gullies and pavements to prevent flooding and accidents.”

Any Questions

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Surgery ’til lunchtime and then – after a bit of paperwork – off to Norwich for Any Questions. I catch the 4pm train from Liverpool Street with newspapers, briefings and blank paper and pens and spend the journey trying to work out what the questions might be.

When I get up to get off, I discover my co-panellist, Shami Chakrabarti from Liberty, is in the seat just in front. A car is there to meet us and take us to the restaurant – where Jonathan Dimbleby and John Bercow (Tory) are already seated for dinner. He now bears the ‘moderate’ tag in the Tory party and is a keen Ken Clarke supporter. David Miliband (Labour, minister) is not yet there. About three quarters of an hour into the dinner – Miliband arrives with assistant in tow. We are all strictly told not to bring assistants to the dinner – but Ministers and power and status you know. The atmosphere changes immediately. There is something quite chilling about Labour automatons – natural conversation diminishes and careful phrasing and tones take over. Strangely enough, in the anteroom when we arrive at the venue for the show, the coldness disappears just briefly and the human being can be glimpsed – completely charming.

Anyway – there is a warm up question on Pinter (not broadcast, but done to get us all into the swing of things) and then we are on. First up is the judgement on the Zimbabwe asylum seeker. Although he lied in his application, the courts have found the Government wanting and in neglect of their duty as they returned people to places without worrying enough about the human rights situation in the place they’re returning them to. Shami, John and I all welcome the decision – and Milliband mutters about a rethink. Jonathan Dimbleby asks me if I am encouraged by the Minister’s concession to ‘rethink’ and I say I am always encouraged when the Government says it will rethink. Of course – later I thought of a much better retort, as one does.
Drugs and Cameron! My take was that David Cameron should have just admitted whatever he had done at college and left it there. The BBC license fee (not surprisingly) was on the menu and we all paid tribute to the hand that fed us and then went onto the real heart of the matter on civil liberties. I am not going to bang on through the whole program (because you can listen to it on the BBC’s website for the next week – and because readers of this blog will know my views well by now!).

The show always finishes with a quirky question. On the train up and looking at the papers I thought it might be who would the panel choose to play the new James Bond. I carefully hone by answer (settling on Jonathan Ross in the end) but sadly – this isn’t the question that comes up!

Violent Crime Reduction Bill – first committee stage

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I left at the crack of dawn on Thursday to get to Commons at least an hour before having to go into committee for the first session on the Violent Crime Reduction Bill. I drive in today – thank goodness – as the radio gradually makes North London aware that the Northern Line is completely closed today.

Preparatory work done, I go to the committee and introduce myself to the Minister (Hazel Blears), who I shadow for the Lib Dems, and the chair – Eric Forth MP. And then we are off. Having had the sense to look how others have started off the sessions, at least I know that I have to stand – or rather indicate that I want to speak after the current speaker by half-shifting out of a sitting position so that the Chair will call me next.

The Minister moves the Programming Motion – which in fact we have agreed anyway the night before – but this is an opportunity to talk about absolutely nothing important for as long as the Chair will tolerate. At least that was my reading of it. The Minister was brief and to the point. The lead Tory was rather more fulsome – and to my surprise made an unprovoked attack on the Liberal Democrats referring to something a colleague had said some time back in another debate on another bill. Aha – I thought – so much for scrutiny of the Bill without the usual political nonsense. But it was just a tiny swipe – not worth worrying about really in the scale of attacks unleashed on us – the increasing scale of which I put down to our increasing success. Then I rise to do my bit – and welcome the Chair, look forward to a rigorous debate, express some concerns about the timing though welcome the Minister’s indication that she will be flexible about it.

Into the debate – and I am moving the first two amendments. In the section of the Bill on Drink Banning Orders (DBO) – which would mean an individual can be banned from a locality for between two months and two years – is to make sure that DBOs are not served on people such as those with mental health issues that mean they are not able to understand the orders and so would be liable to break them because they’re not able to understand them.

I suggest that the court should receive a report on the individual in question’s state of health – so that they can assess whether this falls into extremely vulnerable category. The Conservatives were supportive – though wanted more discretion for the court. My concern was that more discretion would result in the power not being used when it should. The Minister’s argument against us both was basically that it was too much paperwork and bureaucracy. What I hope – and what the Minister promised – is that this element will now be included in the guidance to the legislation when passed. And this is quite common in committee – you put down an amendment to prod the Government, the Government responds (hopefully sensibly!) and then you “ask leave to withdraw the amendment”. This means you don’t have a vote on the amendment itself, but you can submit it again at a latter stage – which is useful if, say, the Government says it will go away and think about an issue so that you know you can return to it latter.

We trudged on for a while longer working through the amendments – and then the time beat us and we had to adjourn until the next session next Tuesday. I know it may not be riveting stuff – but this is how legislation is made. There had been quite a few attacks on the Lib Dems from the Labour back benchers and the Minister during the arguments – mostly trying to suggest that only Labour have drunks lying in their streets and want them cleaned up. Of course – we have lots of problems here in Hornsey & Wood Green that we want cleared up – so that is completely ludicrous. I would have thought the purpose of all this arguing line by line was exactly that – to make sure the legislation is totally effective in targeting those who should be removed from an area – and leaving along and supporting those who might inadvertently be swept up by poorly written laws.

And that’s kind of how it works.

As I went out of Committee Room 12 to make my way to the Commons chamber I looked at my phone to find masses of missed calls. So I sit down outside the room to work through them. Many from TV stations asking me to come and discuss the issues around getting more women into politics. Not surprisingly, this is because of yesterday’s kafuffle. Finish round of calls and go to numerous other meetings including briefing for Any Questions the following night.

MPs, babysitters and cleaners

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Just one of those days yesterday (Wednesday)! As I walk into Portcullis House (one of the office blocks for Parliamentarians and staff) my Head of Office hands me a copy of the Evening Standard.

The article was based on an attack by a local Labour councillor. He had taken a line from a training session I gave for women at our Blackpool Conference. What I had basically said was that as these days councillors get paid an allowance, women could think about using it to hire a cleaner or a babysitter – helping to free up their time so they have enough hours to do the work of a councillor on top of all their other commitments. Lord knows it is hard enough for a woman to get out of the house if she is a single parent, on low or no pay – and we need a much more diverse range of people to get into politics.

Cllr Richard Milner apparently wishes to keep women chained to the kitchen – and rather than supporting efforts to bring more women into politics, he preferred to try and score cheap shots about me advocating becoming a councillor in order to get a ‘free cleaner’. Labour should hand their heads in shame over this one. Clearly they don’t believe in equality of opportunity.

Of course he can choose to spend his councillor allowances on anything he likes. He just doesn’t believe women should have that right too! It’s true I can afford help without which I couldn’t do the job I do – but I am out there fighting so that women who cannot afford any help can also enter public life. We need more councillors and MPs for all walks of life and all ranges of personal circumstances, including more women. I had hoped that sexism was dying out – but apparently it’s alive and well in Labour Haringey!

Anyway – I am on the run – and go straight into our Home Affairs team meeting where we run through all the home affairs legislation pouring through Parliament at the moment. Run to Prime Minister’s Questions – unedifying exchange between Blair and Howard. Oh yes you will – oh no we won’t – sort of thing. As I come out and look at my mobile for messages – loads and loads. The Evening Standard sets the hare running – and then everyone wants to know about cleaning ladies and babysitters I am doing all this sitting in the Members’ lobby outside the chamber – and not a woman in sight amongst the comings and goings. I rest my case!

Then it’s Westminster Hall where hundreds of pensioners have gathered to lobby their MPs on the appalling levels of state pension compared with ever-rising outgoings – like Council Tax – hiked up by many more percent than a fixed income can cope with.

The guy on the desk shouts out through the microphone that I am here for any lobbyists from Hornsey & Wood Green. I am retrieved by a group who have come to make their views known. Of course I agree with almost everything they say and will raise the issues they bring to me with the Minister and with our own Work and Pensions Shadow Secretary – David Laws.

Then it’s the ‘Programming Meeting’ where the MPs from all parties who are taking the Violent Crime Reduction Bill through Parliament meet to decide how long the committee stage will be and how many sessions it will comprise. Both opposition parties make the point that the Government itself has put down loads of amendments to its own Bill and both of us have tabled loads too. So the seven sessions allocated may not be enough. However, we are all co-operating and the Minster agrees to be flexible if we need more time.

There has been no time for lunch today. But it’s off to my sister for dinner and when I get home – I have to pour over the Bill and clauses and amendments and arguments – so that I won’t make a fool of myself in Committee the next day…

Does the government know how search engines work?

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Letter to the Guardian:

The call by the Government for a clampdown on information about suicide on the internet has all the signs of a typical New Labour panic (11 October).

First, there’s the exaggerated anonymous quotes from an official. In this case, it’s the implication that if you search for “suicide” and “UK” that you find information on what to do with a car exhaust and a hose pipe before you find information about the Samaritans.

This isn’t the general experience – for example, searching google.co.uk for UK sites on the day the quote was published for “suicide UK” gave a help group for suicides relatives first, then a counselling help site including the Samaritans’ number. And so on down the list, including the Samaritans’ own site coming up in the top ten results. The closest you get to the sort of sites the nameless official is trying to scare us about is in fact the Guardian’s own site, which gets a story in the top ten about euthanasia.

Then there’s the gut Government instinct that the way to progress is to regulate and interfere. In fact, the answer is much simpler – get high profile websites (like the Government’s very own) to link more to the Samaritans, and up the rankings it will go to. Encourage MPs, councils and others too to link through, and bingo – job done without the need for central control freakery. Going with the flow on the Internet and utilising its own strengths is much more likely to be successful.

There is much other serious work to be done, as the Guardian’s story explained with heart-rending examples. But the government hardly helps its case with such misleading exaggeration nor with proposed solutions which logically point to banning the Guardian’s news stories from coming up in search results.

Yours,

Lynne Featherstone MP

How not to make legislation

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Went to the gardens next door to Parliament to be photographed with a sheep (not real) for an RSPCA promotion of their ‘mark’ which will would signify food that has their approval ofr how the animals are treated. Realised after photographer had finished that I had stood at sheep’s rear end!

During questions today in Parliament I was desperate to get in on a question (somebody else’s) on British Transport Police. I wanted to ask the Minister what action he had taken since the controversy in summer over the use of stop and search powers on the rail network and the hugely disproportionate number of ethnic minority members being stopped.

Then statement in the House on Turkey’s accession to the EU. I was particularly interested in this as there’s a substantial Turkish community in Haringey and the issue of Cyprus very important to both the Turkish and Greek community here. From the statement, it became clear that there will be around 10 – 15 years while Turkey now tries to bring a whole raft of things in line with EU policy. There is no question that the Cyprus issue would have to be resolved and that its record on human rights would have to be vastly improved. It was equally clear that this must be the way forward – as Turkey’s desire to join the Union is the strongest motivator for improvement and resolution.

The bit of the debate I was less keen on was the constant reference by Straw to the EU being seen as a Christian club if a Muslim country such as Turkey (albeit pretty secular) was not admitted. I would have much preferred the debate to remain on the secular side as the EU should have no truck with using religion as a deciding factor on how to treat people or countries.

Later, Mr Speaker (Michael Martin) had invited new MPs to the Speaker’s House for a drink. Magnificent apartments! I talked to his chief of office for a while – and now understand better how I need to jump up and down to be called during question sessions. But it means jumping up and down all the time – even if it’s not really the question you want to be called on – so you end up risking getting called to speak on something you don’t want to talk about or staying sitting most of the time and not getting called at all.

It’s one of the macho things about the house I already can’t stand. Another is that the longer you talk, regardless of value of content of what you say, the better man you are. I had noticed in debates where speeches are limited to ten minutes that MPs nearly all talk for the entire ten minutes regardless – but not me! No doubt I am wrong to only say what I need to say; but call me old-fashioned – burbling endlessly is not a skill I intend to acquire.

Another bugbear is the way that legislation is brought forward and amended. You would not believe how archaic this is or that the age of technology had arrived.

Take the In Violent Crime Reduction Bill which is starting its committee stage starting on Thursday, You have the Bill, the Lib Dem amendments, the Tory amendments, the Government amendments, explanatory notes, selection order papers and so on – all which have to be to hand on each amendment. It would be SO SIMPLE to have an electronic version of the Bill with all the different amendments and information marked up on it in different colours. But no – another macho game is to make it much more complicated than it needs to be. Of course it does result – as we see all the time – in badly written legislation.

I whipped in to see the Labour whip on the committee to ask him about the programming motion (a 15 minute meeting on Wednesday to decide what and how long each bit should take). And he agrees with me about the presentation of bills and amendments – so cross party – perhaps … in the next century …

Concrecte factory – planning verdict

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Parliament started sitting again today. It felt just like it did on the first day of term, going back to school!

Much of this week will be preparation for the Violent Crime Reduction Bill which goes into Committee on Thursday morning and on which I am leading for the Lib Dems. This means that I have (and more accurately my researcher has even more) been pouring over the bill and working out the amendments which we tabled last Friday. We will be probing the Government’s proposals line by line. And boy does this bill need close scrutiny. The general idea is right – to tackle the twin evils of weapons and alcohol abuse – but the devil is definitely in the detail.

At lunchtime I meet with an activist from Camden who wants to talk to me about why the party does not work the way he thinks it should work. He is an interesting guy, but for all of us in the party the way to get an idea through the hierarchy into being is to demonstrate that it works.

My own success in winning Hornsey & Wood Green from 26,000 votes behind in 1997 is now a training model in the party. But I had (with my magnificent team) to prove the case – not simply have the idea. And quite frankly much of it is common sense and already the bread and butter of our campaign techniques – no miracles. But there are a few specialities – and now hopefully best practise will be spread to the 104 seats where we are second to Labour for the next general election. So hopefully, I sent him off to prove his points to the party.

Then into the chamber for Home Office Questions – terror, terror, terror. It is quite clear that this Parliamentary session up to Christmas will be totally dominated by the terror proposals and other home affairs bills. Great for me as a shadow home affairs minister – but one heck of a schedule.

Rush to Haringey Civic Centre in the evening for the Planning Committee which tonight hears the application to build a Concrete Factory in Hornsey. For those not following this story – there is an application from London Concrete to put a factory right in the heart of a residential area with narrow streets and kids schools etc. Supported (wrongly) by Livingstone on the basis that the aggregates can come in by rail (three trains per week), what seems to have passed the Mayor by is that it then goes out through the community in 56 giant HGVs that have no chance of turning out of the industrial site into the residential streets without chocking up the traffic, delaying buses and causing huge amounts of pollution, noise and so on.

As I arrive there are hundreds and hundreds of local residents with lots of children come to protest. Hurrah for people power! T-shirts and placards – we shout and chant. Ironically, we all know that the Planning Committee is going to refuse the application tonight as that is the recommendation of the officers. And whilst I put in to speak along with scores of others – there is no need to call anyone as the committee unanimously votes to reject the application on a number of planning grounds.

The real test will now come as we move towards the appeal – already lodged. The fight goes on – until we bury this one – in concrete.

LIB DEMS PLEDGE TO FIGHT FOR POPULAR NEIGHBOURHOOD WARDENS

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Liberal Democrats in Haringey have pledged to support the popular Neighbourhood Wardens scheme, which is under threat because John Prescott’s Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has withdrawn funding.

Labour’s cuts have left the Council with a £600,000 funding gap and the wardens, who cover Northumberland Park, Bruce Grove, Tottenham Green, Noel Park and Bowes Park, Seven Sisters and West Green, facing redundancy.

Lib Dem Spokesperson on Policing and Community Safety Cllr Ron Aitken has called for the scheme to continue as the wardens provide visible patrols, enforce against environmental and other offences such as abandoned vehicles, as well as providing sports projects in the summer to hundreds of young people.

Cllr Aitken comments:

“The Council’s own research indicates that crime is the number one concern of 49% of Haringey residents – an increase of 10 percentage points since 1994. It does not make sense to withdraw funding from the wardens, who provide reassurance to the citizen and vital intelligence to the police.

“We will be urging John Prescott to reconsider this decision and will also be supporting other sources of funding if the worst comes to the worst.”

Lynne Featherstone MP for Hornsey & Wood Green and Lib Dem spokeswoman for Police, Crime and Disorder added:”This is typical of the Labour Government, happy with the kudos from a good headline but unwilling to fund the real work on the ground in the longer term.

“I will be writing to John Prescott to ask him to re-consider this decision.”

HARINGEY COUNCIL'S DOG MESS SHAME

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Haringey Lib Dems have uncovered shocking figures showing Labour-run Haringey Council’s failure to tackle the problem of dog mess in the borough for the past five years.

The figures, published following a question from Alexandra ward councillor Susan Oatway, reveal that not one single person has received an on-the-spot fine for dog fouling in the London Borough of Haringey between January 2001 and September 2005.

Cllr Susan Oatway says that little has been done at all to address a problem which is a health hazard, particularly to young children.

She hopes that the publicity brought about by the publication of these figures will shame Haringey Council into taking action to improve dog bin facilities in the borough and enforce fines on those who allow their dogs to mess the parks and pavements.

Cllr Oatway comments:

“The majority of owners in the borough are very responsible and clean up after their dogs. However there is a small group who show a disregard for public cleanliness and children’s safety by not scooping their poop.

“Until the Council starts enforcing fines on these people the problem will continue.”