Chuka Umunna, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Streatham draws attention to free swimming provision for the over 60s and under 16s with this letter published in last week’s Streatham Guardian on 18 December 2008.

Coming in the same month that the double Olympic gold swimming champion, Rebecca Adlington, came third in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award, readers will be pleased with the latest investment in swimming which has just been announced.

The decision by Lambeth Council to participate in a £140 million government scheme means that our swimming pool in Streatham is amongst a host of others across Lambeth that will be able to provide free swimming to the over 60s and under 16s.

Having swum with locally based Leander Swimming Club for over 10 years at pools across South London, I am especially delighted at this decision to expand the local provision. Local residents will get to benefit directly from the scheme as swimming is one of the best ways to keep fit. I also know that it can be quite expensive, so it’s great that swimming will now be free for the age groups concerned.

The scheme demonstrates that Labour in government and in Lambeth takes the health of the community seriously. We all know that regular exercise is good for us, and we also know that, whether we are young or old, swimming is something people can do together as a family.

Above all, this initiative will help Lambeth to secure its own sporting legacy post 2012 and hopefully ensure we have many of our own Rebecca Adlingtons in the future!

Chuka Umunna, Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Streatham

Chuka Umunna, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Streatham, and Kate Hoey, Labour MP for Vauxhall, call for energy companies to pass on the fall in energy costs to local people or face a windfall tax.

The average annual spend on domestic energy per household has now breached £1,200. Since 2000, consumers in Lambeth and beyond have faced gas price rises of 100% and electricity price rises of 61%. Every 10% increase in energy prices leads to an extra 400,000 people joining the 2.5 million already living in fuel poverty in Britain today. At the same time, the main energy providers have seen their profits rise from £557million in 2003 to over £5billion now.

Ahead of the debate this week in Parliament on energy prices and fuel poverty, Chuka Umunna, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Streatham, Kate Hoey, Labour MP for Vauxhall (left), and others wrote in a letter to The Observer newspaper on 14 December 2008:

“We are gravely concerned at the behaviour of energy companies who are refusing to pass on price cuts to consumers, in spite of the sharp falls in the world price of crude oil.

“The record price rises coupled with the refusal of companies to pass on cost cuts could increase those in fuel poverty beyond six million.

“We urge government to introduce a new windfall tax if these companies continue to refuse to pass on their cost cuts to consumers. Revenues from any windfall tax should be targeted at homes in fuel poverty to give them immediate help and should also be used to start a programme of home insulation to protect people from future price rises.”

Commenting further, Umunna, who organised for Energy Secretary Ed Miliband MP (right) to meet with local community groups in June 2008, said:

“People living in communities like ours, containing some of the most deprived wards in the country, have struggled to cope in the face of price hikes - it is outrageous that these companies are now refusing to pass on the price cuts resulting from the drop in the price of world oil.”

Hoey is also supporting an Early Day Motion (EDM) submitted for debate in the House of Commons on the issue. The EDM, tabled on Thursday 11 December by Fabian Hamilton MP, calls on the government to actively intervene to force companies to reduce consumers energy bills and to then implement a windfall tax if they refuse to do so. So far 27 MPs have signed up to the EDM and the number of signatories is growing.

Keith Hill, MP for Streatham, Tessa Jowell, MP for Dulwich & West Norwood and Chuka Umunna, Labour Parliamentary candidate for Streatham, welcomed a funding announcement by the Government this week to start rebuilding local Primary schools.

After a successful application from the Local Authority, Lambeth will receive £12.2m to rebuild and refurbish its primary schools over the next fifteen years.

The funding is part of the Government’s Primary Capital Programme - worth £3.55 billion across England – which will continue Labour investment in the improvement of Primary School facilities. The initiative was confirmed this week by the Schools Secretary Ed Balls.

In joint letter, Hill, Jowell & Umunna said:

“Children deserve the best facilities that we can build and teachers deserve better classrooms to work in. So this funding is a really welcome boost from the Labour government for education in our area.

“This huge capital investment will not only improve the education of our children, but it will help to support jobs in the construction industry and local businesses in these tough economic times. Talk is good but we know it is action like this that Lambeth residents want to see.”

The London Borough of Lambeth was one of 133 English local authorities to have their Primary School Capital strategies approved.

Chuka Umunna has obtained confirmation that Streatham will lose direct train services to stations beyond Blackfriars from 2015

Network Rail have decided that the Thameslink service as we know it is to be no more. With no real consultation they have declared that Streatham and other stations on the “Wimbledon Loop” part of the Thameslink line will lose direct train services to stations beyond Blackfriars from 2015.

For Streatham and other stations on the Wimbledon Loop this will mean:
• No direct train to St Pancras and its interchange with the Eurostar and many cross-country links;
• No direct service to Farringdon, cutting Streatham and other Wimbledon Loop stations off from Crossrail;
• Streatham and other Wimbledon loop stations will miss out on the new connections as Thameslink expands.

Network Rail banded together with other rail industry bodies to produce an industry-wide “Route Utilisation Strategy” for South London, a 160 page document published in March 2008. The proposal to sever Streatham and other Wimbledon Loop stations from the rest of the Thameslink line was hidden away in two small paragraphs in that document. Given that no apparent consultation of service users has been carried out, the existence and status of the proposals has been unclear or unknown to most service users.

In order to seek clarification of the position and to enquire what consultation remains to be carried out, Chuka Umunna recently spoke with senior Network Rail executives who revealed that no further consultation is planned and that the plans will be presented for approval to the Department for Transport shortly.

Commenting on this, Chuka said:
“These proposals - hidden away in two small paragraphs in a 160 page document - will have a huge affect on thousands of local residents who hop on and off Thameslink at Streatham every working day, every year.
“The proposals are completely unacceptable. Thameslink provides the only direct route for rail users in Streatham to destinations north of the river and now this is being taken from us. We want Streatham to be better connected, not cut off from the rail map of the future.
“Network Rail have cooked up these plans without giving a single leaflet to service users or putting up a single poster to canvass our views – there has been no meaningful consultation whatsoever – and now they are seeking to quietly push these plans, as a fait accompli, through the Department for Transport.”

Network Rail cited two main reasons for this devastating change in discussion with Chuka: the allegedly huge cost of altering the platform layout at the new Blackfriars station to allow trains from the Wimbledon Loop to continue on northwards; and, the alleged prohibitive cost of upgrading Streatham and other Wimbledon Loop stations to accommodate the longer 12 car trains.

Responding to these claims, Chuka said: “It is bad enough that rail users from Streatham were not considered important enough to factor in when re-vamping the new Blackfriars station. It is nothing short of a disgrace that Streatham is being consigned to the second-league, unable to join the super-league of stations that will see 12-carriage trains as a matter of course.”

Network Rail have promised more trains to Blackfriars and London Bridge –from 5 or 6 per hour to around 10. Chuka wholeheartedly supports the expansion of these vital services. However, he thinks that the plans to terminate trains at Blackfriars pose a real threat to Streatham:

“Our links to the rest of the capital and beyond are being severed, whilst stations in Kent stand to benefit at our expense. This, added to the upheaval the present plans will inevitably bring, will anger this community.”
Chuka will be campaigning to ensure that the proposals as envisaged are not granted approval by the Department for Transport.

For more information, or to join the campaign to save Streatham’s Thameslink Services, email thameslink@streathamlabour.org.uk.

Network Rail’s South London Route Utilisation Strategy (RUS) was published in March 2008 and can be found here. The proposal to sever the Wimbledon Loop from Thameslink north of Blackfriars is contained in paragraphs 9.6.1 and 9.6.2 of the document on page 111.

Chuka Umunna, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Streatham, and others call for a windfall tax on energy companies to help people with dramatic rises in energy bills.

The average annual spend on domestic energy per household has now breached £1,200. Since 2000, consumers in Streatham and beyond have faced gas price rises of 100% and electricity price rises of 61%. At the same time, the main energy providers have seen their profits rise from £557 million in 2003 to over £3 billion now.

In an article on The Guardian newspaper’s website on 7 August 2008, Chuka Umunna, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Streatham, wrote:

“Shell, BP and Centrica (which owns British Gas) reportedly made £1,000 every second of the day for the first six months of this year. To put this in context, what BP presently makes in profit every month is roughly equivalent to what my local council, Lambeth, spends on running local services every year.”

Every 10% increase in energy prices leads to an extra 400,000 people joining the 2.5 million already living in fuel poverty in Britain today. In the piece, Umunna wrote:

“People living in communities like mine in Streatham, containing some of the most deprived wards in the country, are struggling to cope in the face of these price hikes - they are being clobbered.”

In addition, there is a lack of investment in securing renewable energy to help Britain become energy independent and more carbon neutral. By 2020 the UK wants 15% of all energy to be from renewable sources - this is currently only 2%.

Umunna has therefore called on the government to levy a windfall tax on the energy companies. Commenting on the move today, Umunna said:

“I am in the business of politics because I want to build a fairer, more equal, democratic and sustainable world for people here - I think this necessitates, amongst other things, government intervention where appropriate, which is I am calling for this measure.”

“The point is not to punish the energy companies – the winners in this situation - for their unearned fruits, or even that the increase in global fuel prices is their fault; the point is that those fruits should be spread more widely to relieve the burden on the many residents in Streatham, Brixton, Clapham, Tulse Hill and beyond who, faced with these huge price rises, are the loosers here.”

“Revenues from this tax should, in the short term, be ring-fenced to immediately help those struggling with rising fuel bills and to ensure every home is insulated and energy efficient to the highest standards; long term, the proceeds could also be invested in renewable energy production.”

Umunna is a signatory to a statement published in The Guardian on 6 August 2008 calling on the government to introduce such a windfall tax. The number of signatories continues to increase and includes fellow London Labour politicians, Jon Cruddas MP, the former Labour deputy leadership candidate, Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney North and former deputy mayor of London, Nicky Gavron AM.

Umunna’s call for the windfall tax has won support from local residents. Charlene Smith, a resident of Streatham Hill, said: “It’s affecting my family because it’s adding to the rise in prices with inflation. Companies with lots of money can help. It’s a good idea to give some back to people.”

Janet Chambers, a resident of Clapham Common, said: “I think the companies who make mega profits should be part of helping people who are struggling.”

Keith Lillis, another resident of Streatham Hill, said: “Shareholders and managing directors need to be prepared to see some of their extra profits come back to people who need it. A windfall tax is a good thing if this happens.”

Members of the public can join the campaign for a windfall tax on the energy companies by adding their name to the statement in support of the measure on Umunna’s website: www.streathamlabour.org.uk.

The Cabinet minister responsible for the Third Sector, Ed Miliband MP, and Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Streatham, Chuka Umunna, today met with local community groups in Streatham as part of the government’s drive to consult with and support the Third Sector.

The government’s £30m Community Assets programme, launched in September 2007, aims to empower communities by encouraging the transfer of underused local authority assets to local organisations. In April 2008, the Streatham Darby and Joan Club (the “Club”) celebrated the news that its bid for a grant of £1m from the programme was successful.

The £1m grant will enable the Club’s existing premises on Leigham Court Road, Streatham, which are currently owned by Lambeth Council, to be refurbished to a high standard. These changes will form the heart of new and improved community spaces and services that will be known as the “Streatham Communities Hub” and will involve the Council devolving ownership of the building to the local community to manage.

The bid for the grant was the result of partnership work between the Club, those who use its premises - Age Concern Lambeth, the Make A Difference Club, the Lambeth Asian Centre - and the Council.

Further to the award of the grant, Ed Miliband MP, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (pictured above), and Chuka Umunna, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Streatham, visited the building and met with the community and voluntary groups who use the Club premises to find out what further support can be given to Third sector ogranisations locally.

Commenting on the visit Chuka Umunna, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Streatham, said:

“Funding has always been an issue for the community and voluntary sector which is why I am delighted that the central government is injecting this large slice of funding into the area – it will make a real difference to the lives of people here.”

Ed Miliband MP the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, said:

“From speaking to people active in their communities like Chuka, it is clear to me that we, as a government, must listen to and ensure that community and voluntary organisations, such as the users of this building, are given the conditions and support to make a difference in their local areas.”

Glyn Kyle, Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Streatham Darby and Joan Club, said:

“The Community Assets programme is very important in helping local third sector organisations to work effectively in partnership with local councils to deliver very important outcomes for local people”.

The Health Secretary today opened Gracefield Gardens health and social care centre.

Alan Johnson MP, Secretary of State for Health, today (25 June 2008) formally opened Gracefield Gardens health and social care centre situated just off Streatham High Road.

The £8.9m landmark building opened its doors in the New Year and provides NHS primary care services, including GPs, and a Lambeth Council customer centre providing advice and information to local people on council services.

The funding for the scheme was part of a £30m construction and refurbishment programme across Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham under the national NHS local improvement finance trust (LIFT) initiative announced in August 2002 by the then Health Minister, John Hutton MP.

The opening of the centre comes on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the NHS on 5 July 2008. Despite opposition from the Conservative Party at the time, who voted against its creation, the NHS was launched in 1948 by the post war Labour government led by Clement Attlee and has treated millions of people since its creation.

Commenting on the opening of the centre, Chuka Umunna, Labour’s Parliamentary candidate for Streatham, said:

“What better way to mark the 60th anniversary of the NHS which Labour created than with the opening of this fantastic new centre.

“We have trebled investment into the NHS to £100bn since 1997 but big numbers mean little to the every day person on the street – it is tangible things like this which people can see and use which demonstrate the return on that investment and the positive difference made locally.”

Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Streatham addresses Ruach Ministries with Harriet Harman MP and Jennette Arnold AM.

Chuka Umunna, Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Streatham, addressed the congregation of Ruach Ministries, Britain’s second biggest Black majority church, on Sunday 15 June 2008, with cabinet minister Harriet Harman MP, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, to mark Bishop John Francis’ 25 years in ministry and 10 years in the office of bishop.  They were joined by Jennette Arnold AM, Chair of the London Assembly. 

Ruach Ministries, situated on Brixton Hill in the Streatham parliamentary constituency, attracts a congregation of more than 5,000 through its doors every Sunday. Ruach carries out extensive outreach work, through street pastors and community surgeries amongst other things, to tackle social problems in the area, such as prostitution, guns, gangs and knives.

The church was founded by Bishop John Francis, one of Britain’s most influential black church leaders, who has an extensive international ministry including in the US, where he is one of the best known British church leaders. This month Bishop Francis is celebrating 25 years in ministry, 10 years in the Bishopric.

Commenting on the visit, Umunna said:
“We are extremely proud to have Ruach Ministries, Britain’s second biggest Black church, in our area.
“Faith communities are often given a bad name in the national press but in Streatham we know that they are doing so much positive work.
“I congratulate Bishop Francis on his 25 years of ministry and thank him and Ruach Ministries for all the positive social work they do in this area.”

END

Chuka Umunna, Labour parliamentarty candidate for Streatham, writes to the South London Press in relation to the proposed Caesar’s/Megabowl development in Streatham Hill. 

“Labour’s Lambeth Council administration should be congratulated for making it clear the proposed development on Streatham Hill of the Caesar’s/Megabowl site was not appropriate, a view shared by local residents, prompting the withdrawal of the planning application by the developer.

Residents will be encouraged to hear that this issue has not been kicked into the long grass - Glentoran, the developer, has listened, gone back to the drawing board and will be putting forward revised proposals for the site.

There is clearly a recognition that development of this site can only proceed with the buy in of local people, which is why the Council will be organising a further public consultation in May. Only by working together with the community can we ensure Streatham Hill gets the regeneration it needs.”

Chuka Umunna, 29, has won the contest to succeed Keith Hill MP as Labour’s next prospective candidate in the parliamentary constituency of Streatham.

Umunna, who is Vice Chair of Streatham Labour Party, is an employment lawyer by profession and a leading member of the centre-left pressure group Compass, on whose management committee he sits. He is also a regular contributor to the Guardian and edits the online political magazine, TMP.

Commenting on his victory, Umunna said:
“Streatham is my home - I grew up here – so it is a great privilege to have been selected as Labour’s next Prospective Parliamentary Candidate in this constituency.
“Labour has achieved a lot and this country is a far better place to live than it was in 1997 with unemployment in Streatham down from 10.2% then, to 5.2% now, but we still have lots of work to do.
“I am very grateful to Labour Party members for selecting me to succeed Keith Hill, who has been a fantastic MP for Streatham, and I relish the prospect of getting out and about and taking our message to the community with him between now and the next general election.”

Harriet Harman MP, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, said:
“Chuka is an exceptional young man who will be a great asset to Streatham and to parliament.
“Chuka’s selection highlights Labour as the party of equality.
“Labour has three times more Black and Asian MPs and more Black and Asian councillors than all the other political parties put together.”