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A lot cross party cooperation this week

Posted by Kate Green, MP for Stretford and Urmston, at 10:19, Fri 7 March 2014:

I spent last weekend in London, attending Labour's special conference discussing new rules governing the relationship between the party and trade unions. The changes we voted on will really enable us to strengthen our link with individual trade union members at local level. Our Labour movement brings together hundreds of thousands of ordinary working people around shared political goals. It's exciting to me that we could massively boost our activist and supporter base, but it will take work to make it a success. People won't be getting involved in Labour campaigns if we're not working on what matters to them: decent jobs, housing and public services.

I've spent most of the week in parliament in meetings around subjects I campaign on. That's meant lots of meeting with disability charities, and also with the Young Explorers Trust to talk about my efforts to improve information to consumers about safety on overseas adventure activity holidays. So I've had very little time to go into the chamber, except for the important debate on Wednesday on the report by Robert Francis, following the shocking events at Mid Staffordshire hospital. This was a really thoughtful, serious debate about how to protect the highest standards of care in the NHS.

I've also been meeting think tanks. One researcher came to talk to me about her work on ethnicity and another on social security and equality, both topics of interest to me. Think tanks are a really important resource for new ideas, and they can do the in depth research about the costs and implications of possible new policies. So for an opposition MP, with no civil service to help us, they're really useful, and it is always good to hear what they're working on.

The government made a couple of surprise announcements this week, one good, one very worrying. The good news was announced on Thursday. Ministers have decided to increase the level of compensation to mesothelioma sufferers who can't trace their former employer or employer's insurer. I was really delighted to hear this, and pleased that the campaign fought by MPs of all political parties to achieve more generous compensation had finally borne fruit. Sometimes the combined efforts of MPs really can make a difference for good.

But I was shocked that ministers also announced on Thursday that the independent living fund, which supports some of the most disabled people to live independently at home, will be totally scrapped in 2015. The government has been trying to do this for some time, but was stopped in its tracks when it lost a court case which meant it wasn't allowed to proceed. It looks to me as if ministers have done the absolute minimum to address the court ruling, and gone right back to what they planned all along. Disabled people will be angry and frightened about that.

I was also very pleased this week to attend the inaugural meeting of a new All Party Group which has been formed in parliament to promote and debate issues relating to the magistracy. As a former magistrate myself, this is something in which I take a lot of interest, and I'm especially pleased that the new chair of the Magistrates Association, Richard Monkhouse, is a member of the Trafford bench. The meeting was a bit out of the ordinary: we watched a mock trial and debated the sentence imposed, and it provoked a lot of discussion among the MPs in the room. A great way to hook people's interest, and I very much look forward to working with the new group. Well over 90 per cent of criminal cases are resolved in the magistrates court, and changes to the criminal law, sentencing, fixed penalties, and so on have a direct impact on what magistrates do. It is really good to have a group of MPs who can keep up to date with the changes, and raise concerns and issues with ministers.

Overall, then, my week's seen a lot of cross party cooperation, not perhaps what people expect of MPs. Even Prime Minister's questions wasn't the usual shouting match, as questions were asked about the very serious situation in Ukraine. People complained it was boring, but I'd rather be doing serious work that can make a difference to people's lives. I'm glad to have been doing that this week.