WE NEED A NEW APPROACH TO FAMILY LIFE – FOR BOTH MUMS AND DADS

THOUSANDS of dads in Derby are celebrating Father’s Day with cards, presents and quality time with their families.

But too many fathers struggle to make the most of their time with their children because as a country, and as a society, we fail to offer enough support for families.

In Government, Labour introduced many changes that made a real difference to family life Derby such as 18 Sure Start centres in every neighbourhood in the city.  We also brought in statutory paternity pay and extra help for mothers, but the current Tory-led Government is making it harder for parents to spend enough quality time with their children.

The Tories’ economic failure is making life worse for families, with prices rising faster than wages and living standards falling faster than ever – adding to the pressure families are under.

Many local parents tell me they have two main priorities: their family, and a job that enables them to improve their family’s standard of living.  But many feel that the Tories have let them down on both fronts: no support for parents and falling living standards.  Confirmation of the crass decision to build trains in Germany rather than here in Derby for the Thameslink line reinforces the sense of betrayal.

The Government has sent out a clear message: ‘we’ve got nothing to offer you’.  Families have already lost up to £1,500 in childcare support through cuts to tax credits, funding for Sure Start is being curtailed and the Government’s childcare policies are in chaos.  So much for David Cameron’s promise to make Britain the most family-friendly country in Europe.

I know families need more support which is why Labour is exploring ways of easing the pressures parents face.  Father’s Day gives us an opportunity to concentrate minds on how to involve both parents in family life as much as possible.

That’s why Labour is looking at ways to offer flexible childcare that meets the needs of working parents and is affordable, helping to ease the pressure on family budgets.

There is still much to be done to help increase the quality of family life for each parent.  Both men and women want fulfilling home and working lives but mothers still tend to be pushed into the home and fathers into work. Too often that has meant women stopping working and men unable to spend enough time with their children.  This needs to change.

We need a new approach that provides both parents with the opportunity to truly balance their working life with their family life.

 

GOVERNMENT’S PLANNED BADGER CULL IS BEYOND BELIEF

THOSE who know me best also understand that one thing likely to wind me up is animal cruelty. I am all too aware there are a great many more pressing issues in our society, especially at a time when the Government’s austerity measures are hurting people and pushing families into poverty.

But I think there will always be an animal rights activist lurking within me, perhaps borne from the time I spent fiercely opposing animal cruelty during my late teens and early 20s.

I used to be an active member Hunt Saboteurs back then.  I feel the need to defend animals just as strongly now, which is why I have been a trustee of the League Against Cruel Sports since 1979.

That’s why I simply cannot comprehend why the Government has ignored an abundance of professional opinion in opting to press ahead with a badger cull.  It is quite literally beyond belief.  There is no justification for the Government’s decision whatsoever.

The theory is that by culling badgers they will control the spread of bovine tuberculosis.  The reality is entirely different, as has been pointed out by a wealth of expert scientific opinion.
It’s not even as if it should be a political issue.

Animal welfare is something that should unite all people.  But the Tories’ decision suggests that they have mistaken the badgers for one of the social groups they normally target – such as people who are on low pay or out of work.

One former Government chief scientist, Lord Robert May, is among those who have said the decision makes no sense while another, Professor Sir John Beddington, has refused to give the policy his backing either.

More than 30 scientists signed a letter to The Observer warning that the complexities of tuberculosis transmission meant the cull would be more likely to increase its spread rather than reduce it.

Among the signatories were a former chairman of the Independent Scientific Group, the president of the Zoological Society of London, a former chief executive of the Natural Environment Research Council, and representatives of the Food and Environment Research Agency and the Royal Veterinary College.

But, somehow, the Government hasn’t heeded the warnings.

I took the opportunity to highlight some of this in a House of Commons debate on the subject, brought after Labour proposed a motion calling for the cull to be halted.

I also explained how there has actually been a vaccination for bovine TB available since 2010.  Surely anyone with an ounce of common sense can see that vaccinating is preferable to culling?
But that’s not all we can do.  We should also be following the examples set in areas where cattle movements have been restricted and high standards of farming husbandry are observed.

Alongside a plan to vaccinate badgers, that is the sensible way to halt the spread of bovine TB, without the need for the merciless shooting of these beautiful wild animals.

Even DEFRA, the government department responsible for proposing the cull, has acknowledged that badgers will die slowly and painfully as a result of this course of action.

When the cull fails, which it inevitably will, there will be no wriggle room for the Government.  Ministers will not get away with saying they were following advice from professionals, or that they had no reason to doubt it would work.

 

DERBY NEEDS SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM AND ONLY LABOUR CAN DELIVER IT

There are far too many people in Derby without a job and the Tories’ economic failure means their potential is being wasted.  But we are also wasting far too much money on a social security system that is no longer fit for purpose.

A future Labour Government will have to govern with much less money and if we want to protect the NHS and turn our economy around then we have to be laser-focused on how we spend every single pound.

Ed Miliband has this week outlined a new approach to social security with four main points - finding work for everyone who can work, tackling low pay, rewarding those who have contributed more and spending money on houses instead of housing benefit.

Firstly, this country needs to be a nation where people who can work, do work and not a country where people who can work are on benefits.  But the Tories have allowed long term worklessness to rise to its highest level for a generation while youth unemployment alone cost Britain £5 billion last year.

Labour would control social security spending by limiting the amount of time people can spend out of work through our Compulsory Jobs Guarantee and help unemployed parents prepare for the world of work as soon as their children reach the age of three or four.

But reform of social security needs to work both ways.  People often don’t get paid enough in work to make ends meet and the taxpayer is left to fill the gap through tax credits.  There are far too many people who are in work but also in poverty and this needs to change so that welfare spending is no longer a substitute for decent jobs and decent pay.

Today the welfare state, through housing benefit, bears the cost for our failure to build enough homes.  When not enough homes are built it is inevitable that tenants end up paying over the odds and so does the taxpayer through the housing benefit bill. We can’t afford to pay billions to private landlords who can charge ever-rising rents when we should be building homes to bring down the bill instead.  We have to start investing in homes again and unlike the Tories, this is a Labour priority.

Finally, parts of the public are often distrustful of a social security system that appears to give some people something for nothing and other people nothing for something.  For example, somebody who loses their job gets the same job-seeker support whether they’ve been in work for two years or forty.  That can’t be right so we’re looking at ways to reward those who have worked for longer, paid into the system and suddenly found themselves out of work.

It is only by controlling social security spending that we’ll be able to limit costs and ensure the next generation in Derby inherit a sustainable social security system that always rewards work.  Labour is the party of work, and it is our job to make it happen.

GOVT CRITICISED BY ITS WATCHDOG OVER HANDLING TRAIN PROCUREMENT

IF ever a fiasco epitomised the incompetence of its makers, it is surely the Tory-led Government’s continued mishandling of the Thameslink rail contract.  It is some two years since David Cameron’s Government disgracefully overlooked Derby trainmaker Bombardier and handed the £1.4bn deal to German firm Siemens instead.

The intervening period has been littered with more twists than a bag of pretzels.  Now the Government’s own watchdog, the National Audit Office (NAO), has intensified the pressure on the Government. 

The NAO’s report was published earlier this week and suggests the Government’s dithering and incompetence has jeopardized the 2018 deadline for the delivery of the Thameslink programme. 

 

I have expressed my concerns to a succession of transport ministers over the validity of the Government’s decision, but my representations have been ignored.

They also ignored the 50,000-name petition, just like they ignored the needs of the many thousands of workers, at Bombardier and in the supply chain.

Furthermore, the incredulity from industry experts who knew that the correct process had not been followed in overlooking Bombardier’s bid, were arrogantly dismissed. 

Instead they pressed on with their plans, a response tactic that has become all too familiar from a Government which has proven itself either too arrogant to listen or too mindless to understand.

There is an urge to shout “we told you so”, but far from celebrating the Government’s incompetence, my overwhelming sentiment is anger and frustration that the ministers just don’t seem to get it.

So now, inevitably, the question is bound to come up again.  Is it too late for Bombardier to come to the rescue?  Could the Government finally show a degree of rectitude and at least revisit its options?

I honestly don’t know how viable that is because the Government seems to have shrouded its negotiations with Siemens in secrecy since it handed them the contract on a plate.

What I do know with certainty is that the matter needs resolving and quickly.  The Thameslink scheme is vital to improving transport links in London and the South East of England.  Its very existence is the legacy of a Labour Government which had the vision and the nous that the current incumbents of ministerial office sadly lack.

The scheme’s future now hangs in the balance courtesy of a one-trick pony Government who don’t seem able to do anything well, except for their speciality – reckless cutbacks.

I dearly hope that the Thameslink scheme does not become the latest victim of a Government which seems adept at creating chaos but is incapable of building for the future.

Maybe there will be some incredible twist of fate and unlikely sequence of events enabling Bombardier’s bid for the Thameslink rolling stock contract to rise from the ashes.  I will certainly continue to do what I can to make that happen.