Unemployment continues to rise across the country and locally as well. The latest statistics say that the number of unemployed claimants in Nottingham East constituency in February 2012 was 5,501. This represents a rate of 12.3% of the economically active population aged 16 to 64, the 24th highest of the 650 UK constituencies. The number of claimants is 980 higher than in February 2011 and 166 higher than in January 2012. Against this backdrop, you’d have thought that the Department for Work and Pensions would be expanding their local services to counteract the lack of jobs. But there are strong rumours this week that the JobCentrePlus office in Hyson Green (see picture below) – and specifically their ‘JobShop’ process of bringing in employers to match vacancies with local jobseekers – might be under threat. This facility in Hyson Green is the last remaining JobShop of its kind in the city and we need proactive support to help get people back into work. I’ve written to the Secretary of State with my concerns about these rumours and hopefully he will change his plans before the end of March. It would be appalling to lose the Hyson Green JobShop and I will be keeping the pressure up on the Government not to axe this service.

There are many minority ethnic groups living across Nottingham and on Friday I attended a meeting with individuals from the Roma community, largely living in Sneinton, who have come from the Czech Republic and who have language and other difficulties to contend with. The event at the Greenway Centre (pictured below) brought together representatives from across a number of services to discuss some of the issues on their minds – and it was a worthwhile discussion and I pay tribute to those at the Renewal Trust, St Anns Advice Centre and others for helping advise and support those in need.

In the Fairmead and Thorneywood area of Nottingham the ‘Health and Home Education Base’ pupil referral unit provides a much-needed specialist schooling support service for young people from a variety of schools across the area. When some pupils need to be taken out of school for behavioural reasons they can go to a ‘pupil referral unit’ (PRU), but in this case the service focuses largely on those pupils who cannot be adequately educated in a school-based environment because of health condition reasons. Some pupils have anxiety disorders, others mental illness or eating disorders, and it was therefore very heartening to see such dedicated and caring staff spending time often on a one-to-one basis helping these children with their recuperation and attempting to maintain their education in the process. I have enormous admiration for this service, which is currently under the auspices of the City Council ‘local education authority’. As schools move more and more into the independent ‘academy’ model, it will be really important that these shared facilities don’t get neglected as some children are extremely dependent upon them.

There are suggestions that the Chancellor will announce the end of Sunday trading restrictions over a two month period this summer as a prelude to potentially abolishing protected Sunday shopping hours. The Government believe this will be good for business and economic growth – but clearly there will be serious concerns from the ‘Keep Sunday Special’ campaigns and many employees who rely on restricted hours to protect their right to time off and a break in the working week. Do you think that this would be a positive move? Is it worth a trial run to see what impact occurs? Or do you have misgivings about the impact on the employment market – and wider British social and retail culture? I can see both sides of the argument on this matter – although personally I worry about pressures on the workforce and think that a proper and widespread consultation should take place before making hasty changes. I also worry that family life is already hard-pressed, and if we turn Sunday into just another working day then the time for parents, children, grandparents etc to rest and have fun will also be eroded. I’d value your thoughts and feedback on this issue.

Tomorrow the House of Commons will debate a motion on an Opposition Day against the Government’s Health Bill, a proposal now widely discredited not just among NHS professionals but now even among rank and file Liberal Democrats! Despite this, Bill is now nearing its final hurdle in the House of Lords and looks very difficult to stop. It creates major structural upheaval in the NHS, replacing the current commissioning arrangements with convoluted and complex systems at great financial cost. Despite promising no top-down reorganisation, the Bill continues to push competition within the NHS, with hospitals able to make half their income from private patients. At the same time our NHS is facing major cost pressures, with resources no longer increasing and more and more emergency admissions beginning to crowd out planned operations. I will do what I can as one MP to express my discontent with the Government’s plans. But I am seriously concerned for the future of the NHS as we know it, and only wish that the Government recognised the strength of feeling on this and dropped the Bill.

The Government announced their new mortgage support scheme today to great fanfare – except it is highly unlikely to help more than a handful of prospective first-time buyers in Nottingham over the year ahead. For a start, it only applies to certain new-build homes, with a narrow number of construction first and banks involved in underwriting the scheme. And given that the average age at which an unassisted first-time buyer makes that transaction has risen to 44 years old, I suspect this ‘NewBuy’ initiative, though better than nothing, will be a drop in the ocean. Instead we need serious banking reforms to shine a spotlight into the mark-ups charged by mortgage lenders above the wholesale costs of the money they borrow and then add a margin on when parcelled up to consumers. And we need action to stimulate the construction sector to boost affordable home building – and jobs – in the first place.

The Budget on 21^st March looks as though it will continue taking great sums from the majority of people but perhaps give a little back in the usual “spin” on the day. We can only hope that the appalling reductions to working tax credit and child benefit changes will be reconsidered, and that instead George Osborne institutes a bank bonus tax on the still soaring bonuses we see among the senior ranks of banking executives. It is also surely time for Osborne to close the loophole where the richest top rate 50% taxpayers can’t claim 50% tax relief on their pension contributions, when basic rate taxpayers can only claim 20%. Hopefully the Chancellor will not prioritise tax cuts for the wealthiest again.

I challenged George Osborne directly on his poor record on economic growth during Tuesday’s Treasury Questions in the Commons chamber. A year ago the Chancellor published a “plan for growth” claiming he had created ‘a Britain carried aloft by the march of the makers’. Unfortunately growth has been miniscule since the last Budget – with only one private sector job created for every thirteen public sector jobs lost in the last quarter. The Chancellor didn’t exactly answer my question about where his plan had gone wrong…

Most of my time was spent in week three of the Financial Services Bill committee with hour after hour of technical debate on the nature of banking regulation, consumer credit reforms and changes to the Bank of England. Some of the debate in committee can be found at the link here.

The Commons debated the remaining stages of the Consumer Insurance (Disclosure) Bill on Tuesday. I tabled two amendments, to review the impact of the broadly positive changes within a year to judge the effect on costs to consumers, and a safeguard to protect consumers from being put off by volumes and reams of detailed questions. The debate on the floor of the Commons is at the link here. We debated the need for action to help reduce motor insurance costs and assistance for consumers facing flood risk.

A speech last week by Ed Miliband calling for greater patriotism in our economic and industrial policy has been echoed in comments by George Cowcher the Chief Executive of the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Chamber of Commerce. The Labour Leader was calling for a ‘Made In Britain’ mark to help ensure that those who wanted to use their purchasing power could identify and support manufactured products designed, invented and made here. The Derbyshire & Notts Chamber of Commerce highlighted the importance of manufacturing to Nottingham’s economy and how advanced engineering, science and export-driven businesses need as much support as possible from Government.

The Environment Agency say that drought conditions are looming for the East Midlands, following an exceptionally dry winter. Hosepipe bans, farming restrictions and orders to tighten up on leakage in the water system could all be around the corner as falling reservoir levels have already seen measures imposed in the south east of England. I will be taking a closer interest in the service quality and forward planning of Severn Trent Water over the months ahead.

The Victoria Leisure Centre has re-opened at last and there are some great facilities for all ages. Over £9million has been invested by the City Council in the state-of-the-art fitness centre and I’m particularly glad there is a children’s section for young toddlers which is something that has been missing in the area for a while.

Two good stories for Nottingham’s image: Nottingham’s buses have topped a national customer satisfaction table – and a Nottingham University academic has brought out a book challenging the city’s reputation as the UK’s ‘binge capital’. Totally unconnected, but it’s sometimes worth taking the time to notice these positive things.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Age UK, one of Britain’s leading charities, launched a major campaign to press the Government to properly address the growing elderly social care challenge with their ‘Care In Crisis’ campaign this week, including a lobby of Parliament. With a growing elderly population and stretched resources, how should we ensure that the basic needs we will all have in our old age can be met – ideally in our own homes if possible. Home helps, basic sanitary care, help to preserve independence in old age; all are extremely expensive but necessary. Should we really expect people to have to sell their homes in order to fund such services? Half of all people will have to face a bill of £20,000 to fund their elderly care costs, with one in ten facing costs of over £100,000. Yet funding for social care has fallen by 4.5% in the past year. The Dilnot Commission recommended a cap on personal social care costs with support helping individuals above a certain cost threshold. How could we ensure that the elderly in society can face a decent and supported future rather than the uncertainties that currently exist?

It may be that the banks are hoping people won’t notice, but the decision by Halifax (part of the 40% state-owned Lloyds Banking Group) to raise its standard mortgage interest rate from 3.5% to 4% from 1^st May is a sign of the next phase of potentially worsening pressures facing millions of householders across the country, whether they are homeowners or private renting tenants. It comes a day after Royal Bank of Scotland made a similar decision to raise its rate from 3.75% to 4%. But there’s been no change in the Bank of England ‘base rate’, which remains at just 0.5%! The bottom line is that higher mortgage rates will hit family budgets hard, and landlords faced with higher costs will simply pass on these increases to their tenants in higher rents.

There is no justification for these rate rises. British banks have had access to subsidised ultra low funds through the Treasury’s ‘special liquidity scheme’ since 2009, but even as this comes to an end the European Central Bank has starting dishing out cheap loans to hundreds of European banks, including £9billion to Lloyds borrowed just this week.  

The Government may regret attempting to claim credit for the ultra low interest rates we’ve experienced recently, which are actually more to do with the ‘printing’ of more and more money at the Bank of England than anything attributable to George Osborne’s decisions. Only three months ago, David Cameron said at Prime Minister’s Questions (23^rd November) that “if interest rates went up by 1% in this country that would add £1000 to the typical family mortgage”. He may have spoken too soon. His Government is presiding over a banking system that threatens to squeeze households for the sake of maximising profits and prioritising their own balance sheets, even when they are able to borrow money ‘wholesale’ from central banks at record low 1% prices. The ‘mark up’ by the banks who are charging their customers higher rates even when they have access to cheap money is a growing scandal – and Ministers need to take action now, at the very least warning customers of what could be around the corner.

Next week I will table an amendment to the Financial Services Bill to require all mortgage lenders to forewarn their customers of the consequences to their personal financial situation when interest rates rise in the future. But we should also be vigilant against banks hitting customers when the circumstances just don’t justify their higher mortgage rates.

The vast bulk of my time in the Commons this week has been spent scrutinising the Financial Services Bill in the committee stage of its proceedings. This meant nearly six hours of debate on Tuesday and five hours on Thursday, which is very detailed but important work. For example, I tabled a series of amendments to achieve the following, although the Government resisted accepting them all:

• Banks should have a duty of care to their customers
• Consumer accessibility and transparency on terms and conditions should be easier
• Contracts and ‘small print’ should be legible and in plain and intelligible terms
• Firms should act professionally and have verifiable competences
• Claims management companies should be regulated
• Debt Management Plans shouldn’t charge customers upfront
• High cost credit should be better regulated

On Monday we debated the need for improved help for specific sectors of the European economy, and I took the opportunity to raise my concerns about the video games and software industry which has a significant disadvantage when compared with some of the tax reliefs and subsidies received in other countries. We have a big video games sector in Nottingham and I want to see the Chancellor consider action to help these firms cope with their high up-front research and development costs. The previous Government planned a tax relief in 2010 which was scrapped by George Osborne just before it was due to come in. I challenged the Treasury Minister this week to explain what alternative scheme he had in mind for supporting this sector. City Council Deputy Leader Graham Chapman has also written to the Chancellor urging more help for the video games software firms, especially given Nottingham’s strong interest in the topic. We will see what emerges in the Budget…

Congratulations to ‘Which?’ the consumers association for their ‘Big Switch’ campaign and attempts to get as many people to join forces and collectively bargain with the big gas and electricity providers for lower costs and a better deal. It’s a great campaign and well worth a visit at their website https://www.whichbigswitch.co.uk/ .

Another appearance this week on the BBC2 ‘Daily Politics’ programme, this time discussing the eurozone crisis and the problems facing Greece. Rather oddly, I debated the issue with former ‘cash-for-questions’ Tory Minister Neil Hamilton, who is now a spokesman for UKIP. The iplayer link to the programme is here.

As we approach the Chancellor’s Budget on 21^st March, the eyes of many in the brewing trade will be focused on what happens to beer duty. We are fortunate to have a very successful regional brewery at Castle Rock near the station, which I took the opportunity to visit this week (see picture below with Managing Director Colin Wilde looking at their ‘copper’ boiler). They produce a fine range of regular beers, from dark to pale and at different strengths – and it was fascinating to see the process from start to finish. The beer trade has evolved enormously in recent decades, and there is now a growing market for high quality local beers, although the supermarket cheap end still undercuts on the basis of price and quantity. We need to keep an eye on how the beer duty system is structured, so that it does not advantage the mass production end over the bespoke and higher quality smaller brewers who we need to support as much as possible.

Our Lady & St Edwards Catholic Primary School in St Ann’s is a well-attended and popular school and it was great to spend time on Friday with headteacher Moira Dales, looking around the premises, discussing education policy and meeting the children. They were getting ready for their arts festival and were very proud to show off their face masks and dance routine when I popped into the classroom! (see picture below). They have recently become part of a Nottingham-wide four-school catholic academy, but are still subject to the national requirements for testing – including the soon-to-start nationwide phonics tests for six year olds, which I do have some concerns about. Nevertheless, I am confident that this school is very focused on high quality teaching and wish them well with their plans for the future.

I visited the Nottingham Forest City Ground this week to meet with the team behind the ‘Forest In The Community’ project for young people, reaching out to promote sports in schools across Nottinghamshire. I met with Graham Moran the Forest FC Community Director and their Community Operations Manager Calum Osborne (pictured below) and was impressed with their continued commitment to sports education and outreach work, even though much government funding has now come to an end. They are dedicated to a high level of involvement in local neighbourhoods and this is a strong example of how a football club can integrate successfully with residents and the community.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

How do high and rising petrol and diesel prices affect you? We have historically high proportions of fuel duty in the UK – but high and rising VAT now at 20% doesn’t help either. The rumours of Iranian nuclear programmes and the tensions across the middle east, especially in Syria, are pushing crude oil prices to record levels. While we have some of the better public transport networks in Nottingham compared to other parts of England, these costs are very significant. Have you changed your travel behaviour as a result of petrol prices? Does diesel still have any advantages over petrol? Shouldn’t we be doing more to prioritise investment in low carbon transport technologies before things get to crisis point? Or should we take temporary action to cut VAT now when times are especially difficult?

Perhaps the most significant vote in the Commons this week was on whether the ‘risk register’ on the Government’s Health and Social Care Bill should be published, so that everyone can decide for themselves exactly what the risks are of embarking on the biggest top-down reorganisation in the history of the NHS. Following a Freedom of Information request from my colleague John Healey MP which was turned down by Ministers, the Information Commissioner ruled that the Department of Health should release the ‘transition risk register’ associated with reorganisation of the NHS. Yet Ministers are still refusing to publish it, denying people the chance to see exactly what the the biggest risks associated with this Bill are judged to be. I believe that there is an overriding public interest in now seeing the assessment of health officials and the full implications of the proposals, which still have a chance of being stopped in the House of Lords – but only if the smaller political parties and cross-benchers join Labour peers in voting it down. There is no electoral mandate for this top-down reorganisation, and the bureaucratic costs of scrapping the PCTs and reconstituting a new superstructure of commissioning bodies runs to hundreds of millions of pounds. It’s clear to me that the Prime Minister should take charge here – and drop the Bill. 

My week has been dominated by the Financial Services Bill committee stage, which involved five and a half hours of debate on Tuesday and another four hours on Thursday, focusing in particular on the changes the Treasury want to make to the Bank of England with new powers to make rules on loans, mortgages and the supply of credit to firms and individuals. It is a seriously long piece of legislation and if you are inclined to find out more, there is a great deal at the parliamentary website link here.

On Wednesday we debated the Consumer Insurance (Disclosure) Bill and I moved an amendment to ensure that customers were protected from a barrage of detailed questions which might take so long to answer that they could feel deterred from taking out basic insurance in the first place. The Bill is a good measure in general terms, but it is important that they strike the right balance in requiring insurers to be more specific in asking for customers to disclose details relevant to the policies. Details of the debate are at the link here.

On Wednesday morning I delivered a speech at the PIRC Annual Conference, the UK’s leading advocates of corporate governance and corporate social responsibility. I proposed a series of changes that need to be made to enhance the accountability of senior executives in our largest firms to the shareholders who have an interest in making sure that they are successful – and responsible. PIRC have some great reports and insights into the world of corporate Britain at their website http://www.pirc.co.uk/

On Monday I spoke in the debate about economic growth in the UK and EU. Ministers are still refusing to take action to stimulate the economy, and every month that goes by with higher unemployment and lower tax receipts means the prospect of our national debt growing rather than falling, and borrowing higher than it should be. Action to tackle the deficit shouldn’t just be about cutting expenditure, it should also be about generating new revenues from new businesses and new jobs. It seems that Ministers are totally oblivious to this.

I appeared on the Andrew Neil ‘Daily Politics’ BBC2 show on Thursday lunchtime to debate the bonus pool awarded to senior executives at Royal Bank of Scotland – £785million and an increase in what they call the ‘compensation ratio’ (ie, pay versus income) from 32% to 39%. Despite all the media reporting and Ministerial rhetoric, the steam-roller of lavish rewards continues and has barely changed, even in the state-owned banks. It is highly inappropriate, and I just wonder when or where any reform is ever going to begin, if not at this point.

Congratulations to Nottingham Council for Voluntary Services (CVS) for winning a major grant from the Big Lottery Fund of £331,000 to help improve, coordinate and rationalise the administration of voluntary service organisations and partnerships across the city – something known as ‘Transforming Local Infrastructure’ regarding the voluntary sector locally. Many charities and non-profit bodies across Nottingham depend on the advice and support they get from what some might style “back office” voluntary sector activities, which in reality make sure that good budgeting, forward planning and basic services such as meeting rooms and office space can be provided. You can’t get a really efficient ‘frontline’ without some seriously professional ‘back office’ work, and cutting the latter will often weaken the former. I was really pleased to have the chance to visit the team at Nottingham CVS this Friday (see picture below) at their great offices at the bottom of Mansfield Road to look around and see for myself the significant number of third sector bodies who benefit from their work. Times are really tough right now and financially things are quite bleak, but the determination to keep going - and improving – is impressive.

There are some great businesses doing fantastic things in the city. On Friday morning I spent time with a small firm of personal finance advisers called ‘InvestmentSense’ based on High Pavement in the city centre (see picture with Philip Bray and the team). They have a range of clients and help give independent advice on how people reaching retirement should invest their pension pots, where savings can be maximised and what not to do with a windfall or cherished investment. We discussed the very difficult situation facing people on the brink of retirement who are forced to purchase an ‘annuity’, which are at very low rates of return and therefore even those who’ve contributed to pension schemes for many decades can find they are not able to sustain the income they would wish for. We agreed that financial literacy needs to go into the national curriculum – amongst other things!

I also took the opportunity to visit the headquarters of Games Workshop on Friday, who employ over 630 people in the city and have a £120million turnover with over 200 shops and ‘games centres’ worldwide. There seems no doubt about it; they make the best model soldier miniatures anywhere in the world. This is a seriously impressive company, who refuse to ‘outsource’ their manufacturing to China but retain it here in the UK because the specialist skills and high quality attention to detail is something they feel can only be achieved here in Nottingham. Their customers purchase kits to make detailed miniature figures which are painstakingly painted by the collector who then assembles an ‘army’ collection to be used in games scenarios and competitions. ‘Warhammer World’ is also located at the Games Workshop HQ, is free and open to the public, and well worth a visit if you’ve not been. While I suspect my own tolerance for the detail of the miniatures and the game rules is probably at a very low threshold, there seem to be plenty of others (mostly male teenagers, it has to be said!) who get great pleasure from immersing themselves in the games and the collections (see picture below in their massive tournament room – I’m the one with a quizzical look on my face!!). My thanks to Head of Site Services Dave Holmes and Chief Exec Mark Wells for taking time to meet with me and show me around.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Do we make enough of an effort to attract tourists and visitors in the city? While some people frown on the tourism trade as unreliable and prone to rising as quickly as it can fall, many core cities in England are waking up to the need to bring those with money to spend into their city centres, have them stay overnight and create local jobs in the process. I took time this week to visit the ‘Experience Nottinghamshire’ offices, where chief executive Jennifer Spencer leads the very small team part-funded by local councils aiming to coordinate and market the best that the county has to offer. They have a massive job to do, with tiny resources. But what do you think we should be making more of? Do we ‘push’ the Robin Hood story enough? Or too much? Should we do more to market the castle or other selling points? Personally, I feel the gateway to the city needs real attention – but the withdrawal by Westfield from the Broadmarsh development may make that less feasible for the time being. What would be the one thing you would do to improve the attractiveness of Nottingham as a destination for visitors?

The House of Commons has been in ‘recess’ during the half term period this week – but it is still an exceptionally busy time, especially preparing for the mammoth four weeks of line-by-line scrutiny of the Government’s Financial Services Bill. I’ll be leading for the Opposition on this task in Committee Room 12 in Parliament, with around ten hours of detailed debate and amendments each week split between Tuesdays and Thursdays. The Bill is 170 pages of legal text with 103 clauses (if you want to see the scale of the challenge, look at the link here!), making changes to the Bank of England, the financial regulators and a whole host of other rules relating to banking, consumer credit and financial services. I mention this because the heavy work of keeping a watchful eye on Ministers soaks up a great deal of time, much of it out of the media gaze. So this week, for instance, I have spent most time figuring out how to draft dozens of technical amendments to achieve some necessary improvements in the Bill. For example, I want the Bank of England more actively focused on supporting employment and growth in the economy, and have tabled an amendment to this end. Even though the Commons chamber has been empty, there is still plenty to do!

No Parliament this past week, but plenty of policy and politics going on! The decision by credit ratings agency Moody’s to place the UK economy on a “negative outlook” hit the headlines on Tuesday. They say that there are materially weaker prospects for growth in the economy – which is quite a statement given the current state of affairs. On Tuesday evening I appeared on BBC2 Newsnight to discuss this and the cost-of-living statistics with a Treasury Minister, see the iplayer link here.

The Government’s approach to NHS reform is rising steadily up the news agenda, not just with attempts to push the Bill through the Lords but with the eroding support from the vast majority of health professionals who are warning against the changes. The Prime Minister has even tried to recapture the agenda by calling a Number 10 ‘Summit’ on the issue on Monday – except he has refused to invite key players such as the Royal College of GPs. It would be very odd to have a summit without most of the professionals in the NHS represented around the table. It all seems to be shaping up for a very awkward week ahead for the Government on the NHS.

At the Nottingham City Council meeting this week a debate about the impact of the Government’s proposed cuts in tax credits revealed that nearly 70% of children in the city could be around 5% worse off by 2015 because of the combined reductions to in-work support, to those families where no adult is in work and for those in households on low incomes. City Council Deputy Leader Graham Chapman was citing an Institute of Fiscal Studies report – and it is still worrying that so few people are aware of the reductions that will start to hit from April onwards.

One of the amendments I’ve tabled to the Financial Services Bill is to tackle unfair bank overdraft charges and excessive fees that hit customers, for instance, the £50 charge for inadvertently dipping slightly into an unauthorised overdraft even if for a single day. I want the new Financial Conduct Authority to have the power to tackle these hidden charges that mask the true costs of banking. Have you ever been hit by charges or fee structures which you felt were unfair or unwarranted? Are there other changes we need to propose to restrain some of the practices that hit people below the belt? Given I’ve the chance to propose some reforms, any thoughts or suggestions would be well timed right now!

New unemployment statistics were out on Wednesday, and the number of unemployed claimants in Nottingham East constituency in January 2012 was 5,335. This represents a rate of 11.9% of the economically active population aged 16 to 64, the 29th highest of the 650 UK constituencies. The number of claimants is 918 higher than in January 2011 and 264 higher than in December 2011.

The Financial Ombudsman Service is the free service set up by law with the power to sort out problems between consumers and financial businesses. Last year they dealt with over a million enquiries and 200,000 individual disputes. In 2011 they received 365 complaints from consumers in Nottingham East – an increase of 48% on the 246 received in 2010. They upheld around 69% complaints from the Nottingham East constituency in 2011, up from 53% in 2010 – this was primarily driven by an increase in the number of payment protection insurance (PPI) complaints they dealt with. The top five most complained about products in Nottingham East are:

2011    (2010)

1.      PPI 224 (113)                                                               
2.      Credit card accounts 33 (29)
3.      Current accounts 26 (34)
4.      Car/Motorcycle Insurance 14 (7)
5.      House Mortgages 4 (4)

On Tuesday I spent time at the Nottingham Refugee Forum offices at Alfred Street North seeing for myself just how busy they are at the sharp end, advising hundreds of people each week on basic housing, immigration and financial matters. Those fleeing for their lives and seeking asylum have to make this claim on arrival in the UK at the Croydon office, who then disperse claimants across different parts of the country. Asylum seekers are forbidden from paid employment, and so there are often serious financial pressures, which was evident from the very basic advice and charitable support that many rely upon so heavily. I take my hat off to the hard working staff – and dozens of volunteers – who help some of the most needy people in society from becoming totally destitute. Their workload is immense and often unrecognised.

In the ‘Old Ragged School’ building on Brook Street, the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust coordinate their conservation and countryside protection work across the county – and it was very helpful to spend time this week catching up with their team to hear of their work. They have around 40 staff, with another 400 or more volunteers helping to preserve and protect hundreds of sites across Nottinghamshire, including dozens of sites even in Nottingham city centre. Even a patch of grassland left to go to seed can attract animals, insects and butterflies, and it was impressive to hear of their various education and site protection projects. If you haven’t seen their work and might be interested in getting involved, do visit their website at http://www.nottinghamshirewildlife.org/ where you can also watch a live HD stream of the city centre peregrine falcons (as I did, pictured below!)

There are so many hidden cuts and tax rises taking place at the moment that it is sometimes difficult to shine a spotlight and give sufficient attention to each of them. But the changes due to tax credits from 1^st April are going to leave low income families where parents are in part-time work significantly out of pocket – potentially as much as £3800 per year worse off. Families can currently qualify for Working Tax Credit if one parent works at least 16 hours a week – but around 212,000 families could be hit from April when the threshold is raised to 24 hours per week. Quite a few people working part-time hours may be unaware that these changes are coming in a few weeks time – and it might be difficult for parents to increase the amount of time they work as some companies are cutting employees’ hours because of the tough economic climate.

Tax credits are an important part of the way in which those who work, even part-time, are supposed to be better off than if they were on welfare benefits. So changes which reduce the support given to people working part-time hours might make some think twice about whether it is worthwhile going to all the costs of paying for childcare and losing other benefits by taking a job. This change therefore risks sending completely the wrong message about the need to help people into employment – not to mention the extra hardship that it will cause some of those already struggling to make ends meet.

And if you think that these changes to tax credits look worrying, just wait until the new ‘universal credit’ comes along in April 2013. There are going to be massive administrative problems, forcing people to apply entirely online, and ending the dispersed administration by 450 local authorities of things like housing benefit, replacing these with a single centralised computer system with all the costs and teething problems that this will bring. More news on this, therefore, in the weeks ahead…

One of the biggest political stories of the week has to be the renewed pressure on David Cameron to drop his NHS Bill currently being pushed through the House of Lords. The Bill seeks to transfer commissioning powers entirely to GPs who will be responsible for rationing and decisions on hospital budgets, who in turn will have the ability to raise half of their income from private sources. The reorganisation process is costing billions of pounds even before the Bill has been enacted, at a time when the ‘efficiency’ savings sought in the NHS are cutting around 6000 nursing posts nationwide. There are plenty of protests, but even the Prime Minister’s own cabinet ministers are beginning to turn against the idea. It is not clear what the Government will do next – but if you want to see the key issues involved, take a look at the exchange between the PM and Leader of the Opposition at this week’s Prime Minister’s Questions here. There is particular concern that the “risk register” detailing the impact of the Bill on the NHS has been withheld from publication by the Secretary of State. I am firmly of the view that this should be published, so we can see the civil service assessment of what the consequences of these changes will have on the health service.

Banking – again! – dominated much of the week in Parliament. On Tuesday afternoon we had a debate about the Government’s approach to excessive executive pay and the lack of progress made by the big banks in getting lending and credit to small firms across the country. And on Monday night we had the second reading (the main introductory debate of a Bill) on the Financial Services Bill in which George Osborne and Ed Balls opened the debate and I spoke for the Opposition winding up the proceedings with Mark Hoban as the Treasury Minister speaking for the Government. My speech detailing our approach to the Government’s proposals is at the link here – and in essence while we accept there is clearly a need for a stronger systemic oversight than existed previously, we have serious concerns about the additional complexity and lack of accountability in the new agencies being created within the Bank of England to monitor and regulate our financial system. I am now due to spend a whole month committee room 12 of the House of Commons scrutinising the Bill line by line, which will take a great deal of time and effort – but it is a necessary task.

The printing presses started to roll again at the Bank of England this week, with a further £50billion of electronic money ‘created’ at the push of a button – and used to purchase Government bonds (debts) held by city corporations. The theory is that this will help stimulate the economy, in a policy known as ‘quantitative easing’ (ie, enlarging the money supply). It was first used by Labour in 2009 during the credit crunch recession, but despite a recovery that was going well until late 2010, we have now sunk backwards because of higher taxes and spending cuts. So the Chancellor is sanctioning more and more money printing. It’s not a sustainable strategy for the long term and it is looking ineffective, given the lack of growth still in the economy. I appeared on the BBC2 Daily Politics programme this week to debate the news.