The end of another parliamentary year
Posted by Kate Green, MP for Stretford and Urmston, at 09:03, Fri 26 April 2013:
I was delighted to be able to welcome members of the Breathe Clean Air campaign group to parliament this week.
The group has been campaigning to stop a proposed biomass plant in Davyhulme. A decision from Eric Pickles on whether the plant can go ahead is expected within the next month.
Local campaigners have been working on this issue for over the past 2 years. It has been a very important campaign, not just because it has highlighted worries about the environment, and about the impact on people's health, but also, as Jo Burgess, one of the campaigners, said, because it has brought so many people together.
It's been a real community campaign.
Health has been on the agenda all week in parliament, one way and another. On Tuesday, a debate was held in Westminster Hall about pressures on A&E departments (you can read a transcript of the debate at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm130423/halltext/130423h0001.htm#13042355000099). On Wednesday, Ed Miliband challenged David Cameron in Prime Minister's questions about delays, funding problems, and loss of staff in the NHS.
The government has been determined to press on with its unwanted top-down restructure of the NHS, at a cost of £3billion. At the same time, it has done nothing to stem the tide of cancellations and delays.
The new 111 out of hours telephone line had to be closed down just a few hours after its launch. It couldn't cope with the volume of calls.
6000 fewer nurses are employed in the NHS, 1700 fewer in the North West.
Managers who've left jobs in the NHS with large salary payoffs have surfaced in other hospitals just a few months later, where they've been re-employed on high salaries.
And when the Prime Minister says NHS funding has increased under the coalition government, what he doesn't tell you is that at the same time, massive cuts in local authority budgets for social care mean the NHS is bearing the burden. People can't be discharged from hospital because the community care they need to recover at home has been axed.
The extra funding is a sham. Hospitals are coping with bed-blocking as a result, and the NHS is struggling with rising costs.
All that made a sorry note on which to end the present parliamentary session - the next session starts on 8 May, with the Queen's speech. So I'm glad to report that the end of the parliamentary year also saw Labour win two very pleasing victories - forcing the government to back down on caste discrimination, which I wrote about in my blog last week, and also ensuring that the Equality and Human Rights Commission retains its legal duty to promote equality (you might think that's a bit of a no-brainer, the clue's in the name, but the government wanted to abolish the duty).
I'm pleased that caste discrimination will now be illegal, thanks to a coalition of cross benchers, Bishops, and Labour MPs and peers. Caste has no place in our country, and if even just one person suffers discrimination, they're entitled to legal protection. But it's vital that the government gets the detail of the implementation right, with proper safeguards to ensure that caste is eradicated, not entrenched in our society. We'll be watching that very carefully.
And, as Labour's equality spokesperson, I'm obviously very pleased that parliament voted to protect the legal equality duty. It might sound a bit theoretical, but that duty underpins the rights and interests of disabled people, including disabled children, of people of different faiths, people from different ethnic groups, older people, and LGBT people, among others. So winning the argument in parliament was important. It was a good week for equality, and a good end to the third year of the current parliament.
Best Wishes,
Kate
Kate Green Member of Parliament for Stretford and Urmston Shadow Spokesperson for Equality
Tel: 0161 749 9120 (constituency); 020 7219 7162 (Westminster) www.kategreen.org @kategreensu
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