Letter from Westminster and Bristol 27 April 2008

Before heading back to London on Monday I paid another visit to the youth charity Fairbridge on Cheltenham Road. I met with some of the young people who had been taking part in access courses and other courses getting their learning back on track. I presented their achievement certificates. It was also an opportunity to catch up with some of the people who I'd met on previous visits. It was good to find that some of them are now in paying jobs.

In Westminster on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I attended a number of skills and innovation related events. The City of London Corporation promoted the work of the world's leading financial centre. There were several receptions promoting engineering this week. At the Institution of Mechanical Engineers HQ, just across the road from Parliament, there were demonstrations of various designs to save energy or generate power more sustainably. The Institute of Engineering and Technology came into Parliament with various stands and I found the experts on data security most interesting. The highlight this week was the event on robotics organised by Parliament's Office of Science & Technology. The Bristol Robotics lab is a joint venture of Bristol University and the University of the West of England. I met two Phd students and their robot, Bert. Bert looks like a sci-fi robot and they are teaching it how to emulate human body language. By wearing a glove I was able to get Bert to imitate my movement as I spoke!

This week saw my first meeting conducted through British Sign Language, 'BSL'. I met BSL lecturers who are concerned that making lecturer qualifications too tight will restrict the entry of people who communicate through BSL, thus holding back otherwise talented deaf people.

PMQs this week was dominated by the continued rumblings over the withdrawal of the 10% income tax rate. This issue is doing real damage to Labour and Gordon Brown in particular. The withdrawal of the rate was announced in his last budget as Chancellor in 2007. The increase in tax for poorer people while tax cuts were introduced higher up the income scale was immediately spotted on the Lib Dem benches and was castigated by Ming Campbell in his post budget response speech. But Labour MPs have been mute for most of the last year and there was no evidence of concern from the Tories. Nick Clegg was able to pour scorn on Labour MPs fretting now, just ahead of an expected drubbing in next weeks local elections.

Last August when I was Shadow Schools Minister I wasn't able to enjoy the break most MPs were having as I had to comment on a succession of exam results. There was particular media frenzy around A level results.

While A levels and GCSEs plus SAT results are a fixed part of the education calendar, these only represent the academic achievements of young people. There has been no similar recognition for people who achieve vocational qualifications. This year that will change and on Wednesday I was at the launch of VQ Day. This will be national vocational qualifications day, with events around the country on 23rd July. You can find out more here http://www.vqday.com/

On Thursday I visited a medical research facility outside London and then spent the evening in the capital at a dinner for the vice chancellors of the Russell Group of top universities, including Bristol.

I caught the late train back from Paddington and was pretty exhausted!

On Friday I paid my first visit to a Steiner school. This was to the kindergarten for 4 - 7 year olds on Cotham Road. The Steiner ethos is that children should not be exposed to formal learning too early in life. The kindergarten children are read stories but do not themselves learn to read or count. The concentration is on play and practical and social skills. It can seem strange when you are used to the formal schooling methods.

I was then off to my second primary school of the day, this time Elmlea Juniors in Westbury. The whole school gathered for assembly and after they sung me a song I gave a short talk on life as an MP and answered questions. I then presented a variety of sports and academic awards to the children. There is a lot of building work going on at the school, which will see extra classrooms available by the end of the year. This will allow all of the children from the nearby infant school to transfer. This anomaly in spaces has been a local issue for some time and is at last being solved. But a more intractable problem is the lack of choice of good state secondary schools for the area. The opening of Redland Green School has not solved this problem as it is able to fill all of its places from households in Redland and Bishopston. At the same time, Henbury School has been rebuilt and has a new head. Early signs are that results are improving. If this school were to have a balanced social intake then it could easily be among the best in the city. The Tories are undermining this possibility by campaigning for the Redland Green catchment to be skewed so that stretches up to Westbury, excluding children from Bishopston. Undermining schools and presenting parents with false choices is grossly irresponsible.

From schools to the zoo, to catch up with their ambitious plans for a

new conservation park. The zoo itself is busy and I have a look at the

new butterfly house that has been built this week. There were rows of pupae ready to hatch.

After my surgery it was off to the beautiful village of Sherston to give the after dinner speech for the annual dinner of Malmesbury and North Wiltshire Liberal Democrats.

On Saturday I was one of the speakers at the lunchtime rally in the Centre organised by the Bristol Zimbabwe Group. There are up to 5,000 Zimbabweans in the greater Bristol area. About 200 had gathered for a protest rally against the continued regime of Robert Mugabe. On this issue the Lib Dems are in agreement with the line taken by the government and support pressure being exerted via neighbouring African state and international bodies. I make the point that the UK must be ready to offer aid and support to a new MDC President and government as soon as Mugabe departs. The demo is certainly noisy and colourful!

Later in the afternoon I was in the sunny garden of Manor Hall in Clifton. The hall is celebrating 75 years of student accommodation. To kick off proceedings there was a performance by the University Chinese lion dancing troupe. They had a new lion and by tradition it has to be brought to life. So I performed the ceremony of Dim Jing by painting (in red) the lion's eyes, ears, lips, spine and four feet. It then sprung into life, accompanied by the ding of the drums and cymbals.After a classical concert there was an evening dinner attended by hundreds of current residents and alumni.

Stephen Williams MP

Bristol West (Liberal Democrat)

Parliamentary email - stephenwilliamsmp@parliament.uk

www.stephenwilliams.org.uk