HORNSEY AND WOOD GREENS NEW MP LYNNE FEATHERSTONE BRINGS WARMTH TO HORNSEY AND WOOD GREEN

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Newly-elected MP Lynne Featherstone is urging vulnerable households in Hornsey and Wood Green to apply for government heating and insulation grants to keep their homes warm and healthy and save money on fuel bills.

“I am encouraging local residents to take advantage of the Warm Front grant. Far too many local people are struggling to heat their homes, often at serious risk to their health,” said Lynne Featherstone MP.

“The Warm Front scheme is here precisely to help vulnerable people make their homes warm. It’s a fantastic programme that we should be taking advantage of. Many of my constituents have no idea that they could qualify for up to GBP2500 of Government money. It’s a great shame that so many people in the area are missing out.

“I know during the current weather it may seem strange to be talking about the Winter, but if people get the work done now, they can benefit later this year.”

According to the latest figures compiled by Warm Front managers, Eaga Partnership Ltd, at least 1,021 households in Hornsey and Wood Green have already benefited from a warmer home since the scheme started in June 2000. Thousands of households in the area could still benefit from a grant to help improve the energy efficiency of their homes and reduce fuel bills.

Warm Front is part of a 10-year strategy to end fuel poverty in England by 2010. Fuel poverty is defined as spending more than ten percent of household income on fuel bills and affects around 3 million households in the UK. This is double the percentage of income that the average household spends and means that many vulnerable people have to face the choice between heating and eating. The elderly, young children, and people with a long-term illness or a disability are particularly at risk.

Warm Front provides heating and insulation measures to households on income or disability benefits. You may qualify by calling Eaga Partnership free on 0800 316 6014.

Helping the arts

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Not at Parliament today as not needed for the chamber and have two local commitments. First of the day is a meeting with the Director of the Mountview Theatre School to see if there are ways that I can be of help in their aspiration to combine on one site and to draw some synergy with the Chocolate Factory – an artists colony next door.

We reminisce – well I do – about my first contact with the Theatre School when I was about 8 and was understudy for a production they were putting on – ‘The Innocents’. I remember it so clearly – and spent years thereafter hankering to be an actor. Happily for me that didn’t work out and I became a designer.

What my love of theatre has done though is give me a great belief in the arts and entertainment. And I will always want to promote entertainment, arts and culture as it breathes life and fun into life.

At lunchtime, and in the blistering heat, I am at the ceremony to open the Therapeutic Network at Canning Crescent. Horrifically and short-sightedly – Haringey saw fit to close the two mental day-care hospitals in our borough. Campaigners – after a two-year battle – have succeeded in getting this service (in different form and much smaller) re-opened. Hurrah. Great occasion – but very hot!

ID cards

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Breakfast meeting with a briefing from Liberty on ID cards. Won’t rehearse the arguments here – but am sharing platform with Tony Benn and George Galloway on the subject next Wednesday. Of course we will all be on the side of the angels and against ID cards – and almost certainly so will the audience. But delighted to be involved in fighting what I regard as one of the most outrageous attacks on civil liberties in my lifetime (and it’s a long list to choose from – control orders, removal of right to trial by jury, loss of freedom of speech…).

I have been shocked by the ravages of Labour on the very heart of all the things I believe in. It’s even worse close up in Parliament.

At the Lib Dem Home Affairs Team meeting – the news is that Evan (who was going to lead on the Incitement to Religious Hatred Bill next week) is now going to have to address a health conference. As Alistair Carmichael (Deputy Shadow Home Secretary) can only do the Tuesday – I will have to lead on it on the Thursday. It’s fine – I have never even attended a Bill Committee – but I am sure by next Thursday I will know it all – I will have to!

Into Prime Minister’s Questions. It is fun – but I am not attempting a question as yet. A couple of ours bob up and down trying to get called – but the whole half hour passes without a Lib Dem being called at all. Is this fair? It’s up to Mr Speaker basically – and I guess we just didn’t catch his eye.

In the evening, we new MPs, the Lib Dem intake of 5th May ’05, meet at the National Liberal Club for a dinner – partly to get to know each other but also to examine what we have seen, heard and experienced so far with our own party.

It was quite an exciting evening with challenging contributions from each new MP around the table. We form about a third of the Lib Dem parliamentary party – so a substantive grouping – and plenty of thoughts about how we want to see things turn out.

Incitement to Religious Hatred Bill

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Yesterday there was a press conference at which a cross-party representation of us politicians who are against the Incitement to Religious Hatred Bill and a sprinkling of the famous names in like mode were gathered to launch our preferred amendment.

The Bill goes into its second reading today and the argument lies at present in the legislation having unintended consequences. Those unintended consequences being attacks on freedom of speech and the use of the legislation to attack religious opponents.

So, present amongst others were Rowan Atkinson and Ian McEwan. Fine words were spoken. Couldn’t have wished for better exponents of what is called the Lester Amendment. This changes the Bill to ‘incitement to religious hatred as a proxy for racial hatred’.

But today the Bill has its second reading. I am on the front bench as I will be one of two taking this Bill through Committee Stage next week. And just as with Violent Crime Reduction – I need to know all the arguments. So I take notes for hours – and hours.

It is a good debate – but whilst I think Labour know it’s poor legislation and doesn’t deliver the intentions behind it – I think they feel they must drive it through. No doubt they will be looking for a way out of this mess.

I am relieved for one hour to go and have some food – and I go to the Members Dining room. You are only meant to sit on your ‘traditional’ table – i.e. a particular table where members of your party always sit. At ‘our’ table are a group of Lib Dems who I join. Amongst them is John Hemming, one of our new MPs from Birmingham who has so recently received huge amounts of publicity for his private life. He had given a brilliant quote – “all my children are love children” – and handled it pretty well given the circumstances.

LYNNE FEATHERSTONE MP URGES LOCAL ORGANISATIONS TO ENTER THE EDGE EMPLOYER AWARDS

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Lynne Featherstone MP is calling on the organisations of Hornsey and Wood Green to enter the Edge Employer Awards, which recognises organisations that provide excellent practical learning opportunities for young people.

Supporting the awards, Lynne Featherstone MP said:

“It’s fantastic to see big rewards for local employers that put practical learning at the heart of what they do. This is a great opportunity for our local companies, both large and small, that are leading the way in this area to get the recognition they deserve. It’s also a chance to show other employers how investment in on-the-job training and work experience can improve the talents of employees and put young people on a path to success.

“There are so many organisations out there that offer young people the chance to learn by doing and we want to hear from all of them. Whether you’re a local mechanic that helps young people after school or multinational offering one-year placements, enter the Edge Employer Awards today and be recognised for the great programmes you offer.”

The Edge Employer Awards will award four outstanding organisations in the London regional awards, with the chance to win up to GBP10,000 to be reinvested in work-related learning, such as apprenticeships or work placements, for 14-25 year olds.

Winners of the Regional Awards will be short listed for the national finals which offer a top award of GBP200,000.

To enter, organisations will need to demonstrate how they already offer excellent learning-by-doing opportunities, and explain their ambitions for the future.

Deadline for entries is Friday 15 July. For further information and to enter the awards call 0800 980 3343.

LOCAL MP'S WEBSITE SHORT-LISTED FOR NEW STATESMAN NEW MEDIA AWARD

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What have Kew Gardens and Lynne Featherstone MP got in common? Both have been short-listed for the New Statesman New Media Awards 2005.

The New Statesman, Britain’s leading political magazine, announced the nominations last week. Since 1998, these awards have promoted projects that embrace new technology, fresh thinking and creative management in the UK.

The key themes of this year’s awards are “ingenuity, modernisation and accessibility”.They intend to award those who have achieved something of benefit to others, whether in their community or in society at large.

Lynne Featherstone, MP for Hornsey and Wood Green said:

“I am delighted to have my website short listed in the “Elected Representative” category.

“I would like to thank everyone who has worked on the site for their efforts.The site has proved to be an enormously popular means of enabling local residents to find out what I am doing and for them to give me their views, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.

“As a local MP, it is absolutely essential I communicate with my constituents, and the internet is an increasingly important way of doing this.”

Violent Crime Reduction Bill

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Big day – as ‘my’ Bill (the Violent Crime Reduction Bill) is getting its second reading today. I won’t have to lead on the floor of the Commons as our Shadow Home Secretary, Mark Oaten, will do that. But I will have to speak and get a grip on the debate so that when I lead for the Lib Dems as the bill goes through its committee stage I will know what I am doing and where the debate is.

(If you’re wondering what second readings and committee stages are, there’s an explanation of how laws pass through Parliament at www.libdems.org.uk/parliament/legislation.html).

But first I have lunch with the Evening Standard lobby correspondent. He seems really OK. Have worked with lots of journalists from the ES and they have all been great – so far.

Then (barring quick press conference on the Incitement to Religious Hatred Bill) off to the chamber for the debate on the Violent Crime Reduction Bill. Basically this bill tries to address the twin rising problems of alcohol and weapons. In a typically Labour way – some of it is right, but some of it is gesture ‘tough on crime’ politics.

For example – there is a proposal to stiffen the laws around the manufacture, sale and carrying of imitation firearms. I totally agree with the general intent of this. However – the bit on carrying states that the sentence will be raised from 6 months to 12 months. So I make an intervention whilst Charles Clarke (Home Secretary) is introducing the proposals to ask why a 6 month stiffening? What work has been done to estimate the reduction in carrying that that particular length of sentence will deliver?

Basically – it’s all speculative says Charles. Hmm – not an impressive way to make laws! (You can read the exchange in Hansard).

OK – so what would I have done to establish this before guestimating an addition to the sentence? I would have first established how many people had been done for carrying and what sentences they had (in fact I have a Parliamentary Question down on this). I would have gone back to them to survey whether they had any idea of what sentence was on the books, how much of deterrent it was, etc.

Anyway – the main area of disaster in these proposals is the plan for Alcohol Disorder Zones. If there is a lot of drunken, abusive and criminal behaviour in a particular location, the Local Authority and the Police will have the power to create an area where all those inside deemed to have alcohol as their main trade (a minefield in itself) will have eight weeks in which to produce an action plan and improve. But if they don’t – a levy will be imposed to pay for extra policing.

Fine in principle – polluter pays. Love it. But – good landlords will be treated same as bad (and probably move to a better area). The area will get a name as a ‘no go’ area – and people (consumers) will stop going there. Property values will plummet. And so on.

So – sounds a good idea at first – but not thought through. But as I say – the thrust of the Bill to get a grip on the British malaise of drinking yourself to oblivion on a Friday night is right. But as ever with Labour – there is no other side to the equation: examining why people drink themselves stupid, why it is a status symbol to carry a knife or a gun – and so on.

When the great reforming legislation on drink driving and wearing a seatbelt came into being – the Government put immense resource behind the message it was sending out about irresponsible behaviour. The resource was both in enforcement of the legislation yet also the huge educational and advertising campaigns that accompanied the change in the law. Labour is still shallow in its intent and will. Right message – lack of real depth to deliver change!

And I said so in my speech!

LIB DEMS CALL FOR ACTION OVER COUNCIL'S CCTV FAILURES

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Following a visit to the CCTV Control Room at Woodside House, Lib Dem crime and community spokesperson Cllr Ron Aitken and Crouch End Cllr Dave Winskill have expressed frustration that shortcomings in the CCTV system adopted by Haringey Council have still not been resolved six years after installation.

The cameras were installed in the Broadways of Crouch End and Muswell Hill two years ago following pressure from residents and Lib Dem councillors in Muswell Hill as well as traders in Crouch End.

However it has taken Haringey Council years to get the cameras online and to date many still remain unusable. It is a similar story in Green Lanes and Seven Sisters.

Among the problems with the cameras are:

Crouch End: 1 of the 7 cameras doesn’t work at all and three others provide very poor images. CCTV cameras at Hornsey Town Hall and the Library are not connected to the system.

Muswell Hill: 1 camera doesn’t work at all and 1 other camera provides poor images.

Green Lanes: cameras have been out of action due to a bus colliding with the transmitter station.

Seven Sisters: cameras have been moved to overcome problems with the signal.

The system has not been formally accepted by Haringey from its contractor because around 40% of the cameras either do not provide usable pictures or do not work at all due to the poor nature of the analogue signal from the sites to the aerials.

Council officers have been trying to resolve the problems with the cameras, which were funded by the Home Office, but Lib Dem Spokesperson Ron Aitken has written to the Lead Member for Community Safety suggesting that it is time to consider legal action against the contractor.

Cllr Aitken (Crouch End) comments:

“Clearly the Police and Council have tried to resolve these problems. However the public have a right to question whether they are getting value for money and a system that works properly to detect crime and provide reassurance to the community. The Council needs to take urgent steps to ensure these shortcomings are addressed.”

Cllr Winskill (Crouch End) adds:

“There are some Alice in Wonderland contractual issues here – money was handed over to the supplier before the system was signed off. They seem to have lost interest in it. I shall be asking Lynne Featherstone MP to approach the Home Office to see if they are still on any approved list. On the basis of this saga, they shouldnt be!”

LIB DEM CALLS FOR COUNCIL TO RESURFACE PATCHED-UP SYDNEY ROAD PAVEMENTS

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Lib Dem Environment spokesperson Cllr Bob Hare is calling on Haringey Council to resurface the pavements in Sydney Road, which he says have got beyond the point of simple repair.

The residential road situated on the Harringay Ladder has been subject to a poor level of patching work by the Council’s highway team over many years. The result is that the pavements have become a mishmash of tarmac, concrete and manhole covers, with much unevenness, and many cracks and trip hazards.

Cllr Hare is concerned that many sections of pavement in the road not only look shabby, but have got so bad that they present a hazard to pedestrians, particularly elderly and disabled residents.

He has contacted the Council with over twenty photographs of paving blackspots in this road. These include:

Pavements raised and cracked by tree roots,

Un-repaired tarmac,

Uneven mix of paving and tarmac, and

Trip hazards

He says that this is just one of a number of streets in the borough that have been neglected by the Council. He says that action must be taken to ensure pavements are up to an acceptable and safe standard.

Cllr Bob Hare comments:

“Uneven pavements can be a real worry for elderly people and those caring for them. People have a right to pavements which have a safe surface. Uneven pavements mean that everyone has to constantly watch their step to avoid tripping over.”