Elliott will miss out if Tories win

If the Tories win the general election Putney's Elliott School will miss out on the absolutely vital cash it needs to renovate a rapidly decaying building.

Elliott has been badly treated for years by the Conservative council who waited until the very last tranche of funding from Labour's Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme to bid on the school's behalf - and now the man who will be in charge of schools has said that any project without an end date (and Elliott only just about has a start date, let alone an end date) will lose this funding.

This is a crazy decision: even for a Conservative Party hell-bent on making drastic and catastrophic immediate spending cuts. And this from a party that promised us that education funding would be safeguarded if they ever won power.

And instead of a word of objection, or a campaign to save Elliott's essential funding, all residents are getting right now from their Conservative candidates for MP and council is a bizarre letter talking about some airy-fairy notion of establishing a so-called free school on Putney Common - a school that will drain money from existing schools like All Saints, St Mary's and Hotham.

This contast shows, yet again, how out of touch the Conservatives are. I was always taught that you make the best of what you have before starting something new - and that means sorting out Elliott and bringing a 1950s building into the 21st century. Education study after study - as well as common-sense - says that children learn best when they are in a comfortable, safe, clean and modern teaching environment.

Elliott has not been that for decades - and if it doesn't get the BSF money guaranteed by Labour and guaranteed to be cut by the Conservatives it will soon become unfit for purpose. I want to see Elliott thrive, not fail. If you do too, reject the Conservative cuts and renew Labour's mandate to keep investing in our existing schools.

Putney's better with Labour

Putney schools: better with Labour

Putney families: better with Labour

Labour's one-to-one Tuition Guarantee

Today I began my schedule of speaking with parents and carers as they collect their children from schools across Putney, Roehampton and Southfields.

I am very proud of Labour's education record. Resoures for schools have increased enormously since we came into power and as a result school performances have increased dramatically.

Despite this great record, there is still more to do. One of the commitments in labour's manifesto of which I am most proud, is our promise to provide one-to-one catch up support for children at risk of falling behind in English and Maths.

Nearly 2,200 Wandsworth school children will benefit from the £1.4m funding the Government has allocated for this scheme if Labour is re-elected on 6th May. One more reason to vote Labour on Polling Day.

School election packs available now!

Right across the constituency, and indeed the country, schools are organising mock elections to engage students and pupils in our democratic process.

Labour HQ has written a guide for those progressive, gutsy and optmistic students flying our flag in their mock elections - which can be downloaded here (it's quite a large file, so be patient if you have a slow connection).

You may also get some ideas from my special site for Roehampton University students here.

The pack is of course about our national achievements, so if you'd also like to campaign on some of my local priorities, do feel free to get in touch. You can email me at stuart.king@putneylabour.org.uk, write to me at 35 Felsham Road, Putney SW15 1AY, or phone my campaign centre: 020 8788 8961. I'll also throw in some goodies!

Good luck if you're representing Labour in your school's mock elections: you've chosen the right team to lead, and you're part of a broad, deep movement that has transformed Britain for good in our 100 years.

My priorities for Putney: schools and families

When I'm asked what Labour has ever done for Putney, one of the most self-evident responses is to look at the transformation of local schools and the introduction of SureStart children's centres.

In 1997, the last year of Tory government, just 35% of Wandsworth GCSE students achieved 5+ GCSE A-C passes. In 2009 that percentage was 71% - more than double.

Our primary schools have gone from strength to strength - and the biggest improvements have come in those schools serving the most disadvantaged areas. Ronald Ross school in the middle of the large William Willison estate in West Hill has seen its SAT achievement go from 35% in 1997 to 85% last year. And it's right across the board improvement.

Labour's Building Schools for the Future programme has done just that: refitted dilapidated classrooms and provided teachers and students with 21st century ICT.

Teacher numbers in Putney have more than doubled: 120 primary teachers in Putney in 1997; 250 in 2008.

And then there's SureStart: our groundbreaking scheme to provide far better, more cohesive support for families in order to eradicate the gap in emotional and educational development that once opened at the start of a child's life is exceptionally hard to close later on. And it's worked.

Roehampton SureStart: the first in the borough, has eradicated that gap on both emotional and educational measures. In 1997 we had no SureStart children's centres: the scheme didn't exist under the Tories. Today we have eight, with two having recently opened in Southmead and Granard Schools.

Conservative plans threaten this progress. They want to take money from existing schools to set up so-called "free schools": there is no new money for this idea of theirs. They want to abolish both Child Trust Funds and Child Tax Credits. Cuts of £200 million in the SureStart budget that the Tories are planning would result 1 in 5 Sure Start centres closing. They'd end Labour's free swimming for under 16s.

That's the choice at this election on schools and families: continued progress on educational improvement with Labour, or back to children being left behind under the Tories.

Read the news articles I've written on this website about education here

Read the news articles I've written on this website about children and families here

Find the facts on education improvement in Putney here

Congratulations to St Cecilia's

St Cecilia's School in Sutherland Grove has won the 2010 BBC Question Time Challenge - one of four in the entire country to achieve the feat.

Two students from the school will now join David Dimbleby and the Question Time team for a workshop in May. They will also shadow members of the production team as they produce an edition of the programme on 8th July. To win, they staged a Question Time event and were judged, along with 11 others across the UK, in various categories including citizenship skills, creativity and project management.

Students from all four winning schools submitted ideas for their ideal QT when they originally entered the competition last year.

The Schools Question Time Challenge aims to help students aged 14 to 18 in schools nationwide by supporting the citizenship curriculum, helping improve students' public speaking and listening skills, and engaging young people in society and politics. It has now run for seven years.

If there's a year to win a competition like this, it's a general election year when engagement in and awareness of politics is hopefully higher than it otherwise is.

So congratulations St Cecilia's.

The choice on public services

The choice on SureStart

New Headteacher for Elliott

I very much welcome the appointment of Mark Phillips as the new head of Elliott, and of the wider plans to provide Elliott with much more support from a range of partners including Roehampton University and Burntwood School.

Elliott has already begun to turn around since the difficult Ofsted report last year and the discontent there was among staff with the school's former leadership. And while it's great that Elliott is now part of the Labour Government's Building Schools for the Future programme, which will provide modernised classrooms and buildings alongside the "modernised" school leadership team, it's still a crying shame that the Conservative council waited for so long to apply for this rennovation funding and then made sure it was in the very last tranche of awards for this set of bids.

One thing is clear from my visit to Elliott's Sixth Form Society last Autumn - Elliott's students are a very impressive bunch and I have no doubt that with the right leadership and, in due course, a modernised school building, once again Elliott will be a beacon school for comprehensive education in Putney.

Pseudocyesis

...That's the technical name for the medical condition known as false pregnancy.

I thought it an appropriate term to use given the Conservatives claims earlier this week that "In the most deprived areas, 54% are likely to fall pregnant before the age of 18, compared to just 19% in the least deprived areas."

In case you haven't heard, the actual figure is 5.4%, not 54%. And when confronted with their amateur mistake, did the Conservatives admit it and apologise? No - they said that a decimal point does not change the basic message they were trying to make, whatever that was.

Well, actually, a decimal place that overstates the teenage pregnancy rate tenfold DOES change the message. And it prompted me to find out what the figures are in our area.

Here they are - in the decade since Labour was first elected, pregnanices among 15 to 17 year olds in Wandsworth fell 14% - in real numbers that's 64 fewer girls becoming pregnant. Nationally, the fall is 10%.

In fact, in every single Inner London borough bar one there are fewer teenage pregnancies now than there were when the Tories left office.

But the fact is that there were still 166 pregnancies in Wandsworth among 15-17s in 2007 and that number is still too high. It's another reason why we need to keep SureStart centres operating, not close 1 in 5 of them as the Conservatives plan to do.

But in their determination to talk Britain down, the Tories won't let the facts get in the way of a headline. We've seen it in the way they manipulated violent crime statistics last week. We've seen it in the way Putney Conservatives have repeatedly lied about burglaries and Police numbers in our area. Now they?re doing the same thing on teenage pregnancies.

I simply don't believe this is the way politics should be done. If the Tories want to debate these issues sensibly, I'm up for that discussion - but to just lie and then, when found out, deny there's anything wrong with what they've done is just contemptible.

The change we see

These are some of the hundreds of new and revamped facilities around the country completed by Labour since we were elected. They're from right around the country, but here in Putney we:

• Rebuilt Queen Mary's Hospital in Roehampton
• Upgraded doctors and dentists' surgeries like the one in Augustus Road
• Are currently upgrading the pool at Southfields Community College;
• Built the Brandlehow Nursery extension
• Are about to fund a major refit of Elliott School and the expansion of Hotham Primary School
• Funded the expansion of South Thames College on their central Wandsworth campus
• Expanded Roehampton University

..Among other important local investments in our community. Continuing investment in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields depends on who wins the general election - and that depends on who you vote for locally. The Tories will cut these building schemes substantially. Labour has a track record of delivering for our area.

GCSE success has doubled with Labour

In 1998, the first full year after the Conservatives were voted out, less than 35% of Wandsworth pupils gained 5 or more A-C grade GCSEs. In 2009, that number was 71.3% - a 36.6 point jump in performance in eleven years.

Is that transformation - and transformation is the correct term - due to osmosis? Is it because in 2009 that one year of students was so abnormally brilliant that ten years of failure were suddenly swept away?

Or might, just might it have something to do with a decade in which schools were finally funded to the extent they deserve?

In which dilapidated classrooms and portacabins were swept away and replaced with an educational environment fit for learning?

In which class sizes have been cut - just as we pledged we would do?

In which teachers, for the first time since the 1970s felt valued - and were recognised by government as among the most important professionals Britain employs?

Might it be that targets - apparently so disliked by the Conservatives - focussed attention on the really important aspects of the national curriculum like reading, writing and arithmetic?

And that testing throughout a child's development gave parents and teachers alike empirical evidence of where shortcomings were arising - so they could be sorted out before they became career-blighting problems?

Even those cynics who believe exams have become easier will struggle to dismiss a more than doubling of attainment since the Conservatives failed entire generations of pupils as so-called "dumbing down".

When I'm asked why Labour deserves four more years, it's because we haven't just spent the last twelve doing nothing: we've been transforming education. We've been transforming the NHS. I showed in a recent post how SureStart has been transforming the lives of young families, eradicating the deprivation gap that was so stark when the Tories were ejected.

But that's not why Labour deserves four more years - that's just the foundation upon which we ask for them. The reason is that 71% still isn't good enough: it means 29% aren't reaching their potential. And I want four more Labour years because we've proved we're serious about getting there - and the Conservatives proved when they were last in power that they are not.

Here's an excel spreadsheet showing how all Britain's education authorities have improved with Labour.

Roehampton SureStart has closed the gap

This is one of those really important stories that the media simply won't report - but Roehampton SureStart, the Labour Government initiative to help children and young families in our least affluent areas has succeeded in eradicating the gap between how children in its catchment area develop educationally compared to affluent areas.

This straightforward chart shows the impact SureStart's had in Roehampton:



Let me just explain what the jargon means. There are two key measures for assessing how children are "developing": PSE stands for Personal, Social and Emotional development - in other words how children interact with each other, cope spending time on their own, and their relationships with their parents. CLL is Communications, Language and Literacy - ie how a child is developing educationally.

And this chart, which looks at just personal, social and emotional development shows even more starkly the difference SureStart is making - the columns are almost equal after ten years of Labour government SureStart:



There are two questions that need to be answered now. First, isn't this more Labour-generated propaganda?

The answer to that is no - I took these tables from a report written by the Conservative-run council last week; which is available here. In fact, Councillor Kathy Tracey, the Conservative Cabinet member for Children's Services in Wandsworth attended the Roehampton Partnership on Friday endorsing the successes the report highlights.

Second, the cynics will question whether this has anything to do with SureStart rather than general factors. In response to that, it's really interesting that there are two other "big" SureStart schemes in the borough: one in Battersea and one in Tooting. Both started after Roehampton's - Battersea came next and Tooting was much more recent.

The same charts for each show lags in children's development - more in Tooting than Battersea and both behind Roehampton. The principal difference between them is the length of time Roehampton SureStart's been running - and it certainly isn't comparative deprivation: Roehampton is far more disadvantaged than Tooting, for example (Which is why Roehampton's SureStart got set up first).

Actually, there's a third question - and it's one that Putney's Conservative MP has to answer. It's simply this: SureStart works and here's the proof - so why is your party, the Conservative Party, planning to abolish SureStart if you get into power?

Poverty and the Conservatives

The Conservatives have recently been trying to present themselves as the champions of the poor. You may be someone who's been a bit surprised by this Damascean interest in poverty by the Conservatives, but in case you're thinking "That David Cameron bloke seems sincere on this issue, so let's give him a whirl", here's what he's also on the record as saying on the subject...


"Labour?s plans for minimum wages, the Social Chapter and large increases in spending and taxes would send unemployment straight back up."

David Cameron, The Chronicle (Stafford), 21 February 1996

"I long for a chancellor who stands up and introduces a Budget which abolishes all of Brown's endless reliefs and credits - and uses the money to cut tax rates at the same time. 'My Budget has no title', the peroration would go, 'it's your money, spend it as you choose.' Am I alone?"

David Cameron, GuardianUnlimited, 18 April 2002

"Unravelling Labour?s tax credit system will be a complex and long-term task."

David Cameron, Speech in Devon, 1 September 2005. He now wants to scrap the Child Trust Fund for those earning over £16,000 and tax credits for couples who each earn over £25,000.

"The Government should stop new spending on Child Trust Funds for better off families? [Tax credits would be kept for families] in receipt of Child Tax Credit and have a household income in 2009/10 (as calculated for CTC purposes of £16,040 or less)"

Conservative Party Press Release, 6 October 2009

"The Government should stop paying tax credits to households with incomes over £50,000 by starting to means-test the Family Element of Child Tax Credit at a lower threshold." Conservative Party Press Release, 6 October 2009

You see, it's really easy to say "poverty is bad and I'm against it" - but it's action that counts. And David Cameron - and his Conservatives - have a track record of voting against Labour action that has helped the least affluent the most: the minimum wage; tax credits; child trust funds; initiatives like SureStart that provide the support that enable parents to return to work.

Labour's record stands - proudly - in stark contrast:

• 900,000 pensioners lifted out of relative poverty since 1998 - pensioners now less likely to be living in poverty than the population as a whole.
• Since 1997 we have spent around £100 billion more in total on pensioners (in current price terms) than if we had maintained the policies of the last Tory Government.
• On average the poorest third of pensioner households are around £2,100 a year (or £41 a week) better off on average as a result of our tax and benefit changes they would have been if the Tory system had continued.
• In 1997 the poorest pensioners lived on what would be the equivalent of £98 a week (in today's prices). Today Pension Credit means no-one aged 60 or over has to live on less than £130 a week.
• We have lifted 500, 000 children out of relative poverty since 1997
• We have enshrined in law a duty to eradicate child poverty by 2020

I still come across people who say that the political parties are just the same. Even today, when the Conservatives would wreck the economy by taking us down a path no other major international power has chosen. And even today, when the Conservatives claim to care about the poor but vote against their interests every chance they get.

Send me to Parliament and I'll be a genuine voice who not only speaks up for but acts to help the least affluent in our community.

Playpond to be drained

The council has got back to me to explain that the reason the play area-come-swimming pool on the Lower Ashburton estate off Westleigh Avenue has flooded is because tree roots have broken into and clogged the underground drainage pipes.

Work to unblock them, which should take a week, started yesterday - Wednesday. So even though the colder weather, and an item of unsafe play equipment, will still mean this play area won't be as well used as it should be, at least it won't be rotting under a foot of water any more.

Good news for the residents - and even for the Conservative councillors for the area who I understand discovered the problem by reading about it here on my website. They're more than welcome visitors to find out what's going on - but residents might actually prefer them doing the job I'm doing for them instead of sitting with their feet up reading about it.

Those of us who can, do. Those who can't become Conservative councillors.

Q. What do you get if you cross a pond with a playground?

A. Something like this: the one and only young kids' play area on the Lower Ashburton estate, off Westleigh Avenue.







This was originally a pond, which the Conservative council turned into a nice, secure play area. But in their latest Homer Simpson "Doh" moment, the Tories appear to have forgotten to pull the plug out.

It's such a shame that a really nice play area is currently unusable because it's flooded. One thing's clear: with winter approaching, I suspect the Ashburton's "playpond" is going to fill with more water, not less. Still, if we get some really cold weather, Putney might get its first kids' ice-rink.

I've asked the council to drain this play area and fix the defective equipment.

Childcare vouchers

Last week I attended a meeting with Yvette Cooper MP, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in part because I wanted to raise my opposition to the abolition of tax relief on Childcare Vouchers in five years' time.

Labour has done a huge amount for working families:

• Extending maternity leave to twelve months
• Introducing a statutory right to paternity leave
• Guaranteeing a nursery place for every 3 year old whose parent wants it
• Creating SureStart Children's Centres which help young families with childcare and support

...and much much more. It's a great record and Childcare Vouchers are part of that.

The Government's argument is that by removing the tax relief they can extend childcare to fund 10 hours free childcare per week to 250,000 two-year olds from lower income families. That's a laudable aim, but it shouldn't be at the expense of denying already hardpressed working families help with childcare costs.

Since maternity leave only lasts until the child's first birthday and nursery education doesn't start until they're three, there will still be a year's gap even if the government is able to fully fund their 10 hours a week plan - and that's where Childcare vouchers really help.

Without them, working families will either have to find extra money for childcare, rely on relatives, or stop work for a year.

The Conservative view, at least here in Putney is that a two-year-old's mother's place is in the home, not at work - as expressed by local Tory councillor Kathy Tracey. No ifs, no buts.

If like me you don't believe a one-dogma-fits-all approach is a good idea then we need to find another way. And for those of us in London, the problem is more acute because childcare costs around here are so much higher than elsewhere in the country.

So while it may be true that further north and west childcare vouchers are a tax perk for the very richest families, here in South West London they make a real difference to modest and middle income working families. That's why I don't think they should be scrapped - or at least if they are to be, they need to be replaced with a more equitable scheme that doesn't discriminate against London families who need help paying expensive childcare costs.

Castlecombe Drive paving

This photo of a cave-in pavement in Castlecombe Drive was taken on Saturday. Castlecombe Drive has a number of sheltered homes for pensioners - there are a set of bungalows just to the left of this picture; and across the road is Ronald Ross primary school. In other words, such poor quality pavements are especially dangerous given the number of pensioners and young children who use this road.

Remarkably, a Conservative Councillor lives less than fifty metres from this potholed pavement: yet it's clearly either beyond or beneath her to bother to get this fixed. I have to wonder what it is that the Conservatives do for their £10,000 a year allowances - because clearly looking after the area - even one they live in - isn't it.

I've reported this and will let you know when it's fixed.

Britain: second in world for innovation and entrepreneurship

Despite the continual talking down of Britain by the Conservatives and Putney Tory MP Justine Greening in particular, a new report by the free-market Legatum Institute finds that, surprise surprise, the UK is remarkably strong and robust.

Overall Britain comes twelth (out of 104) in the rankings which analyse a range of the factors that make countries competitive and successful: that's ahead of Germany, France, Italy and Japan to name but a few; and of our major competitors only just behind the US. And here's what they say about key aspects of our country:

Economic Fundamentals: "British inflation and unemployment rates are better than the global average, indicating a fairly stable economy...Foreign direct investment stands at 7% of GDP, showing the British economy to be an attractive investment opportunity to foreign investors.

So much for Conservative claims that we are, as a nation, over-extended, our (excellent) credit rating at risk and on the brink of being shunned by international investors.

Entrepreneurship and innovation: "Barriers to entry, in terms of number of procedures required to start a business, are very low in the UK. This is reflected in the fourth highest number of new businesses registering in the country in 2007...ICT goods account for a high percentage of total exports, ranking the country 12th, internationally, and 34% of exported manufactured goods are high-tech exports. The country devotes 2.3% of its GDP on R&D expenditure, placing it in the top 10 on both variables. The UK receives the third highest amount of royalties, reflecting successful capitalisation on the country?s intellectual property.

Social capital: "...Instances of charitable giving also ranked second highest, internationally. Over a quarter of respondents had volunteered time to an organisation the previous month, and 59% had helped a stranger, ranking the country in the top 30 on both variables."

Education: "British workers benefit from high levels of tertiary schooling, boosting labour productivity"

Health: "High life expectancy, low infant mortality, and a strong health infrastructure characterise the health care system in the UK"

Personal Freedom: "British society is characterised by a high degree of personal freedom and perceived tolerance of minority groups"

It's incredibly easy to forget in the drip-drip world of sensationalist tabloid news just what a fantastic country the United Kingdom is, especially when we have HM Official Opposition doing everything in their power to destroy our reputation at home and abroad and threatening to take us down an economic path not a single G20 country is heading.

This report hasn't been compiled by Labour, the trade unions or by Government, but by a global investment firm: hardly a firm likely to sugar-coat its findings because it's politically sympathetic to the Labour Party. But don't take my word for it: download the full report here.

Hat-tip to blogger Don Pasinski for drawing this story to wider attention.

Student Loans Company response

Below is a bland reply from the Deputy Chief Executive of the Student Loans Company in response to my letter of a few weeks ago. I wrote to highlight the plight of Roehampton University students who have been as badly affected by their incompetent failure to pay financial packages on time.

One of the ridiculous things the SLC is claiming is that students will get their money once their registration has been confirmed. But many institutions don't allow their students to register unless they can prove they can pay fees and, where applicable, rent for their room in halls of residence.

We really need better from the SLC. It's only purpose is to provide students with funds during their studies. If it can't even do that one thing, there really isn't much point to its existence.

This is what the SLC had to say for themselves:

Southmead SureStart coming soon

A brand new SureStart children's centre is opening on Monday 9th November at Southmead School in Princes Way. The Southmead SureStart will be the seventh in Putney opened since Labour came to power. And it exceeds Labour's general election promise at the last general election to make sure that each constituency has at least six SureStart centres.

SureStart childrens centres will, I believe, come to be seen as one of the great Labour achievements in the same way that setting up the Open University was in the 1960s. And one reason we can be fairly sure of that is the fact that, while the Conservatives would dearly love to axe SureStarts because they cost money they've been forced to U-turn on their pledge to close them because they work and they're increasingly cherished by the communities that benefit from them.

SureStart offers real, practical help and support for families after their children have been born: support that often makes a difference between giving those kids the very best start in life or getting off at a disadvantage. Our first SureStart centre in Roehampton Lane opened getting on for eight years ago, and now we have centres right across the constituency, from Buckhold Road and Merton Road in Southfields to Fontley Way in the middle of the Alton estate.

Our seven SureStart Centres in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields are:

Fontley Way 1 O?clock Centre

Granard Primary School and Children's Centre

King George 1'o clock Centre

Southmead Primary School and Centre for Children & Families

Southfields Community College and Children's Centre

Sure Start Roehampton Centre

West Hill Primary School and Children's Centre

Putney School of Art progress

I wrote yesterday about the Labour Government funds being used to provide a playground at The Pleasance in the Dover House estate.

I predicted in that report that the Conservatives would seek to claim credit where none was due them - and one of the reasons I'm confident about that prediction is that it's exactly what they've tried to do over Putney School of Art.

Putney School of Art in Oxford Road is currently undergoing a major expansion costing £818,000. 73% of that cost is being met by the Labour Government, and a further 7% from fundraising carried out by the excellent, courageous and persistent Friends of Putney School of Art. This work will increase capacity at the school by almost a quarter - or, in the way the Conservatives view things, increase potential income for them of £78,000.

Yet the Conservatives make out that the prospect of a thriving Putney School of Art is down to them. I'd tolerate that outrageous spin were it not for the fact that it was this Conservative council that tried to close the school down only a few years ago because their "cost of everything, value of nothing" attitude only sees benefit to the community when it comes with financial benefits too. That's why I pay tribute to the hard work of the Friends of Putney School of Art, whose campaign was almost single-handedly responsible for keeping the school open.

Now we have the prospect of Putney School of Art going from strength to strength with Labour, on a stronger financial footing and offering a wider variety of courses. That's something the whole community will welcome. But let's just give credit where credit is due, and certainly not to Putney's shameless Conservative opportunists, whose commitment to the arts runs about as deep as their pockets - shallow, in other words.

Click here to read more about the progress being made on improving Putney School of Art.

Labour: the best start in life for our children

Labour: creating jobs and improving your skills

Making more of Roehampton Fields

When I was out and about talking to residents of the Dover House estate recently, one of the things that kept coming up from families with small kids was the lack of play facilities in the area.

They've got a point: there is not a single children's play area anywhere on the Dover House estate. And this despite there being plenty of open space in the local area.

The largest of these open spaces happens to be the huge Roehampton Playing Fields at the top of Dover House Road just before you reach Putney Heath. "Why can't a small section of this space be turned into a children's play area?" I was asked.

And so in turn, I asked the council. This is the response I got:

"The site has not at any time, neither during the Council?s tenure nor during the previous ILEA tenure, been a publicly accessible open space. That being so there are no plans to extend use of the facility by local residents, however we are aware of local concerns at the lack of play facilities for younger children and officers are considering the potential to provide some appropriate form of play facility on the Pleasance open space."

Well, secure play facilities for young children and families on the Pleasance, at the other end of the Dover House estate near St Margaret's Church is something that should be looked at. But that doesn't really explain why they can't look at providing something at Roehampton Fields - in fact the only reason the council has come up with is that they've never been used for this purpose.

I don't think that's good enough. With some imagination, young families' play facilities could be incorporated into the playing fields without impinging one foot onto the games pitches and without compromising the overall security of the fields.

If you agree, please sign my petition. Click here.

What a difference eight months make

The google search above encapsulates why you can't trust the Liberal Democrats. Back on 9th February, the Lib Dem leader was promising in The Guardian that he would scrap tuition fees for university students.

As recently as July of this year, one of his most senior MPs, Evan Harris, who represents the University half of Oxford was continuing to spin this line, claiming: ??the media are wrong if they think that tuition fee abolition with student debt reduction will not be one of our key proposals to put before the British public."

Back in 2005 the Lib Dems saw students as a key target group - and so came up with their "abolish tuition fees" line. It won them a handful of university seats and 41% of the student vote.

Now they've calculated that this week it's more important to out-Tory the Tories on slashing public services, so the students can be forgotten about. Remember that this follows the jettisoning of their promise to raise income tax by 1p to fund education; the jettisoning of their pledge to stop post office closures and the jettisoning of a pledge to lift thousands of the poorest from paying income tax.

As someone passionate about politics, I by and large don't subscribe to the view that politicians say anything to win a vote. But I tend to find that it is the Liberal Democrats who are the exception to that rule. In a by-election not that long ago, they campaigned for a motorway bypass to relieve congestion in the town of Newbury. There's nothing wrong with that, except that in the rural parts of that same constituency which the bypass would have run through, the Lib Dems were campaigning against it! This would be funny if it weren't so cynical.

Some of us still believe in honour in politics. The way too many Liberal Democrats behave is not honourable. Supporting one policy in one general election, and the diametric opposite of it - as with tuition fees - at the next is not honourable.

You just can't trust the Lib Dems, I'm afraid.

Why we need Labour's September Guarantee

The chart above shows - in quite shocking terms - how the global recession has particulary damaged employment opportunities for 16-18 year olds in the UK.

The knowledge that this was how this particular recession was playing out was one of the reasons why Labour made the September Guarantee that I wrote about a few weeks ago.

In summary, we've guaranteed a place in Sixth Form, college or training/modern apprenticeships for every single 16 year-old school leaver for the coming two years. That's 55,000 more places - and it's the first time in our history that any government has guaranteed further education to every single 16 year old.

The entire basis of the political divide between Labour and the Conservatives on the recession is whether we should take the sort of action like the September Guarantee, or instead just shrug our shoulders and, to quote former Tory Chancellor Norman Lamont, just accept that this youth desolation is "a price well worth paying."

It isn't. It never was. It never will be. And it's beyond me how anyone in politics can think it could be.

Student Loans debacle

There have been some quite spectacular examples of incompetence from quangos over the past twenty years - starting with the Child Support Agency under the Torie, but also the Qualifications & Curriculum Authority (QCA) failing to correctly mark exam papers.

But the ineptitude of the Student Loans Company takes some beating. To leave over 300,000 students without any finance in place at the start of the month, when its sole purpose is to ensure that it is, is gross incompetence.

And I've just written on behalf of Roehampton University students who have been affected, to the Chief Executive of the SLC to tell him just that. What compounds their failure is their inability to provide a phone helpline that students can actually get through on, a website that couldn't be less informative if it tried, and an abject refusal to say sorry for failing to justify its existence.

Of course, while it may be therapeutic to tell the SLC what we all think of them, that won't get students their finance any quicker. Nor will it ensure that universities - which normally require students to be able to prove they have the funds to pay for their tuition and board, where applicable, before they can register for courses - allow those affected to commence their studies.

That's why I've also written to the Vice Chancellor of Roehampton University, Paul O'Prey, to ask for some assurances on behalf of those affected by this debacle so that they can be housed and registered for day one of the new academic year.

You can read both my letters below - as usual, click on the image for a larger version.

Government takes an interest in Roehampton early voting

Below is a reply my campaign has received about my efforts to increase participation in elections of Roehampton University students from the Minister for Justice, Michael Wills MP.

I think the reply is really positive because even though he says it won't be possible to run an early voting trial for the general election, it is possible - if the Conservative council applies to do so - for there to be an early voting trial at next year's council elections.

We've forwarded this letter onto the Council's Chief Executive, Gerald Jones to urge the council to pursue this idea because if between us we can find the funds, what on earth can they have against increasing student engagement?

The Tory scrapheap

Staying on at school

I've written recently about some of the ways the Labour government is investing to keep the economy growing, to keep people in jobs, and to get young people who may have been unemployed for a while back into work. But there's another critical part of our strategy as we approach GCSE results day.

A couple of years ago, we set out our intention to raise the school leaving age to 18, up from 16, meaning every pupil at secondary school gets the chance to study A and AS levels, a modern apprenticeship or gain other qualifications.

We've made it possible for many pupils to stay on voluntarily by introducing educational maintenance grants so that the main reason many leave at 16: that they need to get work because their family couldn't afford to keep them in school for an extra two years, was removed.

As a result, this year 85% of 16 and 17 year-olds in inner London decided to stay on in full-time education or training - the highest ever level. And the number not in education, employment or training (the so-called "NEETS) fell to just 5.2% of 16 year-olds: still far too high, but a far cry from the levels during the last two Conservative recessions. That number is far higher among 18 year olds: the last group not to benefit from Labour's extra investment - which underlines why we need to invest to keep our kids in further education or training.

And it's why, earlier this month, the government announced Labour's September Guarantee: an extra 55,000 places in Sixth Forms, colleges and training facilities, so that every single 16 year-old school leaver from July has the option of staying on if they so wish for these two important years.

Here in Wandsworth, that means an extra 159 places and £1.876 million for 16-18 year olds. We'll offer over 5,600 places in total.

So, here's another clear choice on the way to tackle the recession and unemployment. We're doing something real, practical and now to help teenagers stay off the dole-queue scrapheap. The Conservatives don't support this funding and left an entire generation to unemployment despair - twice - when they were in power.

I'm proud to be on the side of action.

Recent Ofsted reports: Elliott and John Paul II

I know how much interest there is from parents for details of school performance - some of my most read posts have been those on school league tables and Ofsted reports. I also know how time consuming it can be to search for all these different reports, so I'm adding today two of the recent Ofsted reports into local secondary schools, Elliott and John Paul II.

Here are the reports:

Elliott Secondary School - 18 March 2009

John Paul II School - 10 June 2009

The neglect of Elliott

Building Schools for the Future is the Labour Government programme for - as it says on the label - renovating and equipping run-down schools.

The most run-down school in Wandsworth is Elliott, Putney's main secondary school located in the midst of the Ashburton Estate. Although its 1950s building has been listed because of its architectural distinction, it has never provided a fantastic physical learning environment.

With almost entirely glass frontages, the building is blindingly hot in the summer and incredibly cold in winter (so says my campaign manager who was a pupil there in the 1980s). It underwent a huge asbestos removal programme about 25 years ago. But in the past decade a huge backlog of major capital works has built up - largely I should add due to the indifference of the Conservative Council, which is the local education authority.

I have deliberately chosen to avoid comment on the serious problems Elliott is experiencing because the future of this school is too important to become a party-political issue, and a degree of "breathing space" has been useful for the relevant authorities to decide a future course for the school. But I am a strong believer that the physical environment at Elliott must surely have an adverse impact on the ability of pupils to learn and teachers to teach.

That's why I am troubled by the fact that you will not find Elliott in the list of schools about to benefit from the new round of Building Schools for the Future funding. You won't find any Wandsworth school on the list. And you won't find Elliott in the second round of funding either. It's because Wandsworth's Conservative Council has chosen not to bid for it.

As has been noted by the Wandsworth Guardian, that's £3 million in funding Wandsworth schools have missed out on because of the Tory decision not to bid for it.

The Conservatives are trying to argue that if they claim this money they'd waste it. It's an odd and, I suppose, remarkably candid admission - but it's not a good enough reason to stand aside while other schools benefit.

The council has known about the shortcomings of Elliott's built environment since they inherited responsibility for education from ILEA way back in 1990. The Building Schools for the Future programme has been around since 2004. The Council itself will not find the money needed from its own budgets to renovate Elliott. Hence the only way Elliott gets work done is through BSF funding, and the only way it gets BSF funding is if the council bids for it.

Elliott's wider, deeper problems suggest to me that the school needs a complete makeover, which ought to include - at the least - a new building in which its fortunes can be turned around. I want Putney's main secondary school to once again be a beacon for comprehensive education.

Tackling homophobic bullying in schools

Last month marked the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots - the demonstrations against US government sanctioned persecution of the homosexual community in New York. The stonewall riots are widely regarded as the beginning of the civil rights movement for gays and lesbians that has transformed how they are perceived around the world.

Forty years on, India has just repealed its anti-homosexual laws; in the US, state after state is recognising and allowing gay marriage; and in this country civil partnerships offer legal rights and recognition to same-sex couples.

One of the first things Labour did in government was to introduce a law recognising civil partnerships; but arguably more important than that, we abolished section 28 of the Local Government Act. Section 28 was introduced by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government, supposedly to prevent the "promotion" of homosexuality in schools. The Conservatives believed that there was some sort of conspiracy among teachers and "loony left" councils to turn children gay, as if that could ever be possible.

The problem with section 28 was that it was incredibly unclear to teachers what "promoting" homosexuality meant. So, for fear of prosecution, schools pretty much banned all discussion or explanation of homosexuality. Many children who needed help with these issues were unable to turn to teachers for advice and support - or even a listening ear. Most damagingly though, it gave a green light to homophobic bullying in schools: there is plenty of evidence that teachers failed to intervene in such cases because of section 28, and the legacy of that is still with us today.

Gay teenagers are between three and four times more likely than heterosexual teenagers to attempt suicide. It's an appalling statistic that should alarm us all. As well as all the "normal" difficulties gay teenagers grow up with, there is a whole extra weight of accepting they are gay.

Homophobic bullying has been described as the last acceptable form of bullying in schools. A pupil caught racially abusing someone, bullying a disabled student or harassing a member of the opposite sex is easily and confidently dealt with by school authorities. Tackling homophobic bullying is often considered a much trickier issue to deal with.

So I want to see the Government to set out in clear terms for schools, governors, teachers and education authorities that homophobic bullying is as unacceptable as racist bullying. We need unequivocal guidance that sets out how to support children who think they might be gay; every secondary school should have a policy on this and a confidential, effective and safe means for pupils to access help. We need to make it clear to all students that there is nothing intrinsically different between having a friend who is gay and one who is not.

Safeguarding children means even authors need to be vetted

As a society do we accept the need to undertake some basic vetting on those who work closely with our children in schools (and other vulnerable people) to make sure that they are not a known sex offender?

I do. So does the government. I suspect so do the opposition parties. It's why teachers, classroom assistants, administrators, cleaners and dinner ladies are vetted. The check doesn't hurt. It doesn't require any more than completing a form and paying a small administrative fee. And it provides reassurance to parents.

I struggle to see why authors should be immune from this very basic check?

The authors argue this is a terrible reflection on society: that we shouldn't need to be reassured that everyone who works with our kids isn't an abuser. And they are right, of course. But sadly, we do not live in an ideal world, and child abuse and paedophilia are a part of it. It is for that reason that the minor inconveniences created by the vetting system should be accepted as necessary and here to stay.

The choice on SureStart

A new website for new families

Wandsworth NHS has set up a website to help new families get as much information on services available and offer help, support and advice. It's called http://www.wandsworthlittlefeet.nhs.uk/.

Often, government-run websites aren't exactly easy to use and look terrible. But this one is pretty well designed and easy to navigate. if you are pregnant, have given birth, or even if you are just thinking about having a baby, this site could be of use.

3,000 SureStart Children's Centres opened

Yesterday the 3,000th SureStart Children's Centre was opened. When Labour was first elected there were zero. In our area, Roehampton's SureStart, in Roehampton Lane, was one of the first centres opened and has been going from strength to strength; but it's since been joined by over twenty extra Children's Centres in the vicinity - as can be found here.

By providing universal services for 2.4 million children under five and their families, these centres are a living embodiment of Labour's commitment to making sure that all children - not just some - get the best start in life, regardless of their background.

This investment in every child's formative years is absolutely critical to success later in life. But it's threatened by the Conservatives, who are already committed to cutting £200m each year from the Sure Start budget.

That's the equivalent of closing one in every five Children's Centres across the country. We can't go back to the 1990s when more than a million children than today lived in poverty; where failing schools were tolerated by the government as long as they were in less affluent areas; and where children were not given every chance in life to succeed.

That's the difference between Labour and Conservative when it comes to SureStart.

When is free swimming not free? When it costs £2

At the end of March, the Labour Government introduced free swimming for under 16s and over 60s.

Right from the outset, the Conservative Council tried to shirk the scheme: the only reason under-16s swim free in Wandsworth is because the local health service stumped up the funding because the Conservatives wouldn't. They also cranked up leisure centre charges for everyone else at the same time as they agreed to opt-into the Labour free swimming scheme.

But it gets worse. Yesterday, I discovered that free swimming in Wandsworth isn't free at all. Because the Conservatives have levied a "membership fee" of £2 for any pensioner wanting to take it up.

I asked the Council to confirm this - and their response was that they had been allowed to. Well, just because someone's allowed to do something doesn't mean they have to do it. Neighbouring Lambeth doesn't, for instance. I've asked the Tory Council to explain, as a matter of urgency:

1) Why does Wandsworth Council feel the need to levy this charge?

2) Which other local authorities in London are levying a similar charge?

3) Does the charge apply to under-16s "free" swimming as well?

4) Why does there need to be a "membership" scheme as eligibility for the scheme is clear and can be verified using other existing means of identification?

5) Is this a one-off membership fee or will those being charged be asked to re-register each year?

6) What are the actual costs of administering this "membership" scheme, and what is the expected income this will generate?

Wandsworth is among the highest-charging councils in the country for almost everything except council tax. Free swimming should mean free swimming.

David Cameron's "Age of Austerity"

Alton School improves

I was delighted to read the Ofsted report on Roehampton's Alton School, which noted the satisfactory improvement teachers, parents and pupils are making.

In last year's SAT scores the Alton, at the end of Danebury Avenue, made massive improvements, and the importance of the Ofsted report is that it shows that these strides forward were not a one-off fluke; the product of an unusually strong year, but because the school is building on strong foundations.

The key sentence in the Ofsted letter for me is "Given pupils? well below average starting points in Nursery, there is evidence of stronger achievement levels as a consequence of more consistently good teaching."

The importance of measuring not simply how pupils do when they come out of a school, but where they were when they went in - what is officially called "value added" is really important, because while schools that serve a challenging area like the Alton Estate will probably never get perfect academic results, they often stretch pupils far further than schools that select on academic ability do.

No pupil left behind has been a key belief for Labour in Government - which is why school standards have been transformed for the better in the past decade. And it's why schools like the Alton are getting better and better.

Here is the Ofsted letter about Alton School.

The Budget in summary

Why we're Labour

Labour MP Nick Palmer represents Broxtowe in Nottinghamshire, and today wrote an article for the Political Betting website explaining why he - and so many others around the country - remain passionate about getting Labour re-elected at the next General Election.

Although I don't agree with every single point he makes below, I thought this was an excellent piece and so I'm reproducing it. If you're a Labour supporter I hope it inspires you; and if you're not, well, I hope the way he sets out the case gives you some pause for thought:


What do we expect of governments? We expect that they give us protection at time of crisis (military, economic or social) and pursue a coherent long-term agenda to make the country better.

First, then, is the Government offering protection at time of crisis? We certainly have an economic crisis on our hands, and I?d contend that it?s being dealt with more competently and with more attention to protection of the vulnerable than people originally expected when it first blew up.

We?ve seen predictions here that companies would fall like ninepins, unemployment would head straight for four million, the FTSE would plunge to 2500, the recession would last for years, mass repossessions would devastate the housing market, full recovery could take a generation. All those predictions are starting to look exaggerated.

Can we be sure? No. But it?s noticeable that the main Conservative critique has not been ?Why are you doing X and not Y?? but ?You shouldn?t have got us here in the first place?. And as for that, I wouldn?t try to maintain the claim that we?re uniquely well-placed to withstand the crisis, but it?s also obviously not true that it?s peculiar to us. Internationally, we?re all very much in the same boat.

That brings us to the second aspect: internationalism. Labour has usually been an internationalist party (with atavistic exceptions such as our anti-EEC stance in 1983, which I supported at the time and was wrong to support), and it comes naturally to a Labour government to seek international agreements without obsessing about national sovereignty: global problems need global solutions.

Gordon Brown has surprised his critics on this: after an apparently frustrating series of visits to the US, the EU and developing countries, he was able to get the G20 agreement which even the harshest critics struggled to call a flop. We are actively keen on international financial regulation, to an extent that makes the nationalist and City-linked wings of the Tories queasy. A Brown-led Labour government is clearly going to pursue this agenda, making life harder for tax havens (which many Tories half-think should be left alone as healthy competition) and limiting the wild speculation which triggered the current crisis. If we had an inward-looking government, preoccupied with tinkering with the domestic levers and arguing peevishly with the EU, we would be part of the global problem and not the solution.

Third, we are midway through five projects that are central to most Labour supporters? hearts:

? reducing both absolute and relative child poverty
? increasing overseas aid to the UN target of 0.7% of GDP
? tackling climate change seriously
? making the education system competitive with the private sector
? making the NHS genuinely comparable to best European practice

All have made considerable headway under this government. The Child Poverty Action Group acknowledges the rapid progress until the current crisis on poverty; third world charities are enthusiastic about the progress on overseas aid (including the quiet delinking from trade conditions like the Pergau-arms linkage that disgraced the Tory government), we are the first country in the world to impose binding carbon reduction targets on ourselves, and although there?s no shortage of Daily Mail readers who?ll claim that we have a Third World school and hospital system, you won?t find many head teachers or consultants who don?t acknowledge the progress. There?s a reasonable argument about whether the extra money could have been used even more effectively, but there isn?t one state school or medical facility in my area which hasn?t improved very noticeably.

Would a Tory government abandon all these efforts? No ? they?re obviously desirable (pace the fringe of climate change sceptics), and any conceivable government would think them a jolly good thing to pursue. But they are Labour priorities and they don?t seem to be the Tory priorities. Mr Cameron hastens to reassure us that he?d work towards the aid target, that he wants the best for the NHS (albeit without specific targets), and so on, but what was it that really got the Conservative backbenches restless? The suggestion by Ken Clarke that reducing inheritance tax for estates worth £2 million might not be a top priority.

I want a government that sees the five objectives above as the central long-term priorities, not a government harried by its backbenchers into being preoccupied with reducing Inheritance Tax, reshaping the group within which Conservative Euro-MPs affiliate at Stasbourg and other things that seem to me at best peripheral and at worst undesirable. It may well be that the Tories will in due course unveil a more compelling agenda, and I absolutely accept that there are plenty of decent Tories who want the best for Britain. As a party, though, they are so far relying very heavily on the ?time for change? argument, and if Mr Cameron has any particular priorities of his own, he?s kept them under wraps so far.

But what about freedom ? the libertarian-Conservative/David Davis agenda? Well, leaving aside the puzzling worry about CCTV (if I go into a public place I may be observed by real humans, never mind just cameras), I do think that all governments tend to lean on the side of authority, and it?s an ever-present danger that needs to be watched whoever is in power.

But the strongest defence against an encroaching state is legally-entrenched powers for the individual, and Labour has introduced two of them, the Freedom of Information Act and the Human Rights Act. Both have repeatedly been a nuisance to ministers, but despite wriggling on specific issues, there?s been no move to water down either of them. What would the freedom-loving Conservatives do with the Human Rights Act? Abolish it, and replace it by a British Rights Act which would say?er?what? We don?t know, as it?s seemingly not a priority for them to tell us.

Finally, what about specific things that go wrong? The McBride/Draper disgrace, the various resigning Ministers over the years, the slowness to tighten MPs? allowances? Sure. I?m not arguing that the Government is perfect. But party loyalty comes down to a shared sense of priorities.

I want a government that is internationalist, handles the current crisis competently, and sets poverty (at home and abroad) and public services as its priorities. I?m horrified when a Labour MP or party official does something disgraceful, but at root I think the party is the same noble cause that I joined 38 years ago. I?m proud to be part of it, and I?ll work to get it re-elected with the same energy and enthusiasm that I had in 1997.

Dr Nick Palmer MP