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I’m hopeful we can get a register of companies who offer adventure activities off the ground

Posted by Kate Green, MP for Stretford and Urmston, at 14:03, Fri 24 January 2014:

The Labour work and pensions team (of which I'm a member) was out in force on Monday morning. Rachel Reeves, the shadow Secretary of State, was giving a speech on employment and social security, and we all went along to hear the speech and the reaction she got.

It was very positive. Recognising that lack of basic skills traps many people in long term unemployment, Rachel announced Labour would ensure anyone claiming Jobseekers Allowance would be assessed for these skills as soon as they claim benefits, and routed immediately to appropriate training if they have problems with literacy or numeracy.

This announcement went down really well. At lunchtime, I gave a couple of radio interviews about the speech, and it was clear that it was a very popular policy. So that was a good start to the week.

In the afternoon, I had a couple of meetings, one with a charity that specialises in campaigning for people who have suffered a spinal cord injury, and one which works with people who have lost benefits, which frequently leave them homeless.

Then I fitted in one more radio interview in the evening, and made a couple of phone calls back to the constituency, before heading back to my flat around 9pm.

Tuesday was a big day for me. Gill and Steve Molnar, who live in Stretford, had come to parliament because I was presenting a bill proposing the introduction of a register of companies who offer adventure activities and expeditions. The Molnars' son Luke died on a diving expedition to Fiji in 2006. In the inquest that followed, it was clear the company he'd travelled with had failed to carry out basic safety procedures. I want a register so that parents can know what standards companies meet, and whether they've been independently inspected and accredited.

There has been a lot of interest in my proposal, including from the media (Gill, Steve and I have done countless TV, radio and newspaper interviews in the past few days), from ABTA, and from the adventure activities industry itself.

I'm really hopeful we can get this register off the ground. I've written to the Secretary of State to ask him to meet me to discuss what steps the government can take to bring it about.

Wednesday morning kicked off with a debate on the closure of certain banking services that enable people to send money abroad. This is badly affecting transfers to a number of countries, including Somalia, which affects the Somali community in Old Trafford who want to send money to help out family members back home.

I then went off to do yet another TV interview (they're like buses, none for ages, then they all come at once). This interview was about the closure of the Remploy factories last year. Remploy provided employment for some severely disabled people, who nonetheless were very keen to work. Despite government promises that they'd get new jobs, many remain out of work, and worried they may never work again.

Later, I met Motability, the organisation that provides specially adapted vehicles and motorised wheelchairs to disabled people. Changes to the benefits system mean fewer people will be entitled to these vehicles in future. I'm very concerned about that. Motability will try to put transitional arrangements in place to help people who lose their entitlement to buy their cars, but that won't be possible for everybody. Some people will undoubtedly end up isolated, possibly forced to give up a job, or find it more difficult to get out to go shopping or visit family and friends.

In the afternoon, the All Party Group on Poverty, which I chair, held its AGM. We discussed our plans for the year ahead, including working with children and young people on a manifesto to end poverty, and examining the work of the poverty and fairness commissions around the country, and how we can spread what they've achieved. As I'm a member of the Greater Manchester Poverty Commission, I'm especially interested in this work.

Thursday morning saw me in the chamber to ask a question about pregnancy discrimination. The figures on this are very out of date, and meantime, women are reporting that they're being sacked while they're on maternity leave or when they tell an employer that they're pregnant. That's illegal, and its welcome the government are reviewing the extent of the problem, but I want to know what support women can get now. Many of the advice lines that used to help them have lost funding. It now costs a substantial sum to take a case to an employment tribunal, which means even fewer women will be able to pursue a case.

I spent the afternoon attending a meeting with my team to discuss our future work, reading up on changes to the child support system (we will be debating new regulations about this soon), and looking at new stats about the number of people claiming employment and support allowance (which is paid to sick and disabled people when they're out of work) - the figures have increased and we can't work out why. My researcher Liz and I discussed some parliamentary questions to try to get to the bottom of it, and we have tabled them for an answer next week.

It was nice to get a bit of thinking time!