Stephen's week

MONDAY 5th FEBRUARY 2007

Carried suitcase and lap top down to the Council House for a meeting with Bristol's Director of Education before heading off to Temple Meads for the 11am train to London.

Afternoon meeting of Education Select Committee was a seminar to tie up our enquiry on the government's school building programme. I have real concerns about some of the PFI (private finance initiative) schemes that schools are having to adopt. These tie the school in to usually a 25 year contract of payments to a private company that has built and will run the school. There are many problems but two that stand out are the timing difference between payments made by the school/Local Education Authority (up to 25 years) and the credits received from central government by the LEA which are spread over a much longer period. Secondly, what happens when there are population changes, or if a school becomes less popular? Gordon

Brown likes PFI because he can keep debts off central government's books which make him look prudent, with borrowings at about 40% of national wealth. But I read a report recently from the Institute of Fiscal Studies which showed that if you add in PFI deals plus the debts of Network Rail then the real debt burden is about 87% of national wealth.

Although the seminar was interesting there was also the novelty of a different committee room. Normally on Monday and Wednesdays we meet in the Wilson Room in Portcullis House, with a pretty hideous piece of modern art on the wall. Today, as a one off, we were in a committee room above the House of Commons with two fine paintings of the House in the late 18th century and of William Pitt the Younger. Much more to my taste...

In the evening I went to the National Liberal Club for a talk on Liberalism and the British national identity.

TUESDAY 6th FEBRUARY

Highlight of the day was a select committee visit to Lewisham College of Further Education, in south London. The College has a good record in vocational education and we were there as part of our new skills enquiry. We saw young trainees learning everything from brick laying to football coaching and from catering to leg waxing. I showed one of the girls my hairy legs but declined to have a test waxing! We also had a discussion with the College senior staff on the new 14 - 19 year old diplomas.

In the evening I had good intentions of going to party HQ in Cowley Street for telephone canvassing for the Welsh Assembly elections. But I was stymied by another Celtic area, with some votes at 7.40pm on a Northern Ireland Bill.

WEDNESDAY 7th FEBRUARY

Education Select Committee in the morning was spent considering our draft report on Citizenship teaching. Then off to PMQs which again was dominated by theatricals on the Blair-Brown handover. But I stayed in the Chamber for the much more significant event which followed. This was the statement by Leader of the House of Commons Jack Straw on the government's proposals for reform of the House of Lords. The government is proposing a new House where half the members are elected. The existing peers will be phased out over a long period. You can download a copy of the "white paper" here

http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm70/7027/7027.pdf if you want to read the full proposals. Labour MPs will be getting a free vote and there is likely to be a range of views in the opposition parties as well.

Personally, I favour a fully elected Senate with a much smaller membership than the 550 proposed. I would want the election to be held as soon as possible and for the existing peers to be removed if they don't wish to stand for election. Those life peers that have genuinely given up career opportunities to be a "working peer" should get some compensation if they decide not to stand for election. But some of my colleagues are nowhere near as radical as this! My best guess at this stage is that we'll get a 80:20 elected appointed split. I agree with the government's proposal that MPs should be able to vote for a range of reform preferences, so that a decision is made. In the last Parliament every reform suggestion was voted down. I'm looking forward to the debates on this fundamental piece of constitutional reform.

Later in the afternoon I went to two receptions. The first was by ICAN - a charity that works with children who have early speech and language difficulties. Guests had to choose a favourite word to write on a brick to build a wall of words. After prevaricating between "chocolate" and

"perambulation" I opted for "psephology"...

Then to the annual Universities UK reception in the Terrace Pavilion, attended by many vice chancellors and others from the world of Higher Education. The House vote today was on a Lib Dem motion criticising the government for abandoning the serious fraud office investigation into

corruption in an arms deal with Saudi Arabia. The Tories wouldn't vote with us - so are they in favour of government cover ups or corruption? Of course this issue has been around for years, the original deal was done while the Tories were in office.

THURSDAY 8th FEBRUARY

Most MPs were heading off home or to their constituencies today. It's the last day of term, Parliament isn't sitting next week. The snow also made some worry about travel plans. But I had to stay for an afternoon debate on UK skills. This was a government led discussion on the Leitch Report published at the end of 2006 on what the UK needs to do to improve adult skills by 2020. In my speech I highlighted the need for a cultural shift by some employers who fail to invest in employee training and also prefer not to employ older or disabled people. As our workforce will get older over the next few decades - 70% of the 2020 workforce have already left

school, fair employment policies will be a matter of economic necessity as anti discriminatory. You can read the Hansard report here if you wish

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmhansrd/cm070208/hallindx/70208-x.htm

Eventually I got the 7.15pm train out of Paddington, wondering whether we would be held up by snow. About 25 minutes out we all lurched forward as the train made an emergency stop. Eventually the guard announced that he was trying to get hold of the driver. About 10 minutes later he announced that something had struck the driver's window and the train would not be

travelling any further. The driver was unhurt, but unfit to drive and anyway couldn't see through the shattered glass. It turned that we had stopped just outside Maidenhead station. So we had to walk to the front carriage which was just onto the small platform. Then we went over to

another platform to stand in the snow for half an hour with no information until the third train that came along stopped and picked us up. The train was of course packed out. I was fortified by another passenger offering me a can of Guinness! He was the manager of Didcot bingo club so when he found out about my day job we had a discussion on the effect of the impending smoking ban on his business! I eventually got home at 10.30pm.

FRIDAY 9th FEBRUARY

To Christchurch Primary School in Clifton. A tour of each class with a question and answer session in years 5 and 6. The top class were certainly very interested in the effect of aviation on climate change and the 9 year olds had learnt a lot about Bristol history. The school does

very well in its cramped buildings. It really needs to be rebuilt to a better design, making better use of the site and giving the children and staff the room they need.

Later to Places for People, a social housing provider based in St Pauls. They have plans for a complete redevelopment of a large chunk of the area near Portland Square and Newfoundland Rd.

Afternoon surgery took its normal course until ten to 6 when a security guard said there was a problem outside. A group of 25 people had turned up with banners and a loudspeaker demanding to see me about asylum seekers. Eventually I saw them in another room. Two Iraqi Kurds had been arrested and taken to detention centres ready for removal back to Iraq. We

had not been involved in their case before and it is almost certainly too late to do anything to suspend the removal. If the demonstrators had turned up earlier or had contacted us at the office then we could have caught the Home Office officials before the weekend...

SATURDAY 10th FEBRUARY

Into the office with Alex one of my caseworkers. Drafted a letter to the Immigration Minister and faxed it to his office and also direct to the detention centre.

Then to the St Pauls Learning Centre to meet with Amana, a charity that works with Somalian children to improve their school attainment. You can read more about them here http://www.amana.org.uk/ They run classes at the weekend to supplement school learning. I will go back soon to speak to a class. Also went to Cabot Sports Centre to see (again) their sports classes - this was where I presented cups and medals on 2nd January.

SUNDAY 11th FEBRUARY

Quiet day, though did my usual delivery round of tabloids and letters in Kingsdown.