Stephen's week

MONDAY 29th JANUARY 2007

Education Select Committee in the afternoon was the first evidence session in our wide ranging review of higher education. The witness was Prof David Eastwood, Chief Exec of the Higher Education Funding Council for England. You may recall that I met him by myself during Christmas recess as HEFCE are based in north Bristol. The Select Committee is of course a cross party committee scrutinising all aspects of education and also child welfare. As I am also the Lib Dem Shadow Further and Higher Education Minister this means that I sometimes meet the same people or consider the same topic while wearing different political hats! The party is just starting a review of its post 16 education policies and I will be playing a key role in the process.

In the evening I go to the terrace pavilion for a Lib Dem Friends of Israel reception with the Israeli Ambassador. In fact it turned out to be a joint reception with the Labour and Tory equivalent societies. And the Ambassador left before I got a chance to speak to him. I had wanted to tell him that the events of the last year in Lebanon and the continued occupation of the West Bank angered many of my constituents. The situation had lost Israel much of the goodwill it has with some MPs, myself included.

Later I was pleased to welcome my predecessor as Bristol West Lib Dem candidate, Charles Boney, who was on a business visit to London. Charlie and Sue now live in Cornwall. It was good to catch up on news.

TUESDAY 30th January

In the afternoon I ticked off another Parliamentary first for me, representing the party at European Standing Committee. These don't happen very often and I had difficulty finding a colleague who had done one before for advice on procedure. I was doing it as the topic for consideration was the European Commission's proposal to set up a European Institute of Technology. There is a desire by some countries in the EU to replicate the success of some American universities in technology transfer from the lab to the market place. Also most of the world's top 30 or so universities are American. But...Britain is also the home of world class research, most notably at Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial and University College London. Our fellow Europeans don't fare so well. So we are less keen on spending EU taxpayers' money on funding a new Institute, originally rumoured to be in Strasbourg. The Committee starts with quick fire questions for half an hour to the Minister, Bill Rammell. Both Boris Johnson for the Tories and myself ask him some sceptical questions and to be fair, the Minister shared much of our scepticism. The plans have already been watered down, though £1.6 billion is still allocated to the project. We then have a series of speeches from the two Opposition shadows and Labour and Tory backbenchers. We agree that the proposal will need to be amended further and considered again before the British government can give it any support.

Later in the evening we vote for two Tory opposition day motions on problems in special needs education and criticism of a radar sale to Tanzania, which keeps the pressure up on dodgy government sales. Next week we will be raising the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia (by the Tories originally), something that the establishment is desperate to avoid.

WEDNESDAY 31st January

Education Select Committee at 9.15am. Today we have two ministers. Bill Rammell is in to answer questions on the "Bologna Process". This sounds like a pasta recipe but in fact is an attempt to get a common structure for higher education across forty five European countries, so much more than the EU. For instance, in England and Wales we do 3 year first degrees whereas many other countries (incl Scotland) do 4 year courses. Likewise, our Masters courses are shorter. The issue is recognition of qualifications and mobility of academics and students. Then Jim Knight came in to answer questions on the new 14 - 19 diplomas.

After an uneventful PMQs spent much of the afternoon in the office. Then at our weekly party meeting we had a long discussion about House of Lords reform. Government proposals are due very soon.

THURSDAY 1st FEBRUARY

Morning do a filmed interview with a Bristol University student who is making a film on supermarkets for a student film festival. Later in the afternoon do a radio interview about some worrying figures that we've unearthed this week on attacks on teachers. In 2005/2006 there were 221 serious assaults on teachers, that's just more than one a day.

Caught the 7.30pm train back to Bristol.

FRIDAY 2nd February

Started off with a really enjoyable visit to Cabot Primary School in St Pauls. I was shown around each class by 3 pupils, who were a credit to the school. The atmosphere in the school was really positive and there is some good work going on. This is an example of where league tables fail to give the true picture of what is being achieved by some schools. Cabot serves a diverse community with about 14 languages being spoken in the homes of the children. There is a high turnover of children as people move in and out of St Pauls. Two of my guides were originally from Somalia.

Then to a briefing on local health issues from Debra Evans, the chief executive of the Bristol Primary Care Trust.

In the afternoon I did my usual surgery.

SATURDAY 3rd February

Early morning some photographs with our campaigners in Cotham and Clifton East, Roger Mcdermott and Mike Popham. Then to the Council House for the results of the election of Bristol's representatives to the UK Youth Parliament. The Youth Parliament's MYPs meet several times a year and Bristol has two to elect. There were 15 candidates and just like a real election there was a bit of drama with two recounts as the second and third placed candidates got the same number of votes. In the end the second MYP was chosen by lot. Kerry Mcarthy MP and Doug Naysmith MP were also there but none of the three of us were given anything to do, which was a missed opportunity by the organisers to get the children to meet some real MPs.