Shan Nicholas, Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group, said that Chuka “stands out as one of the first to have signed a personal pledge committing to action. “We are delighted that Chuka Umunna MP is so strongly committed to ending child poverty”, he added.

Chuka has also pledged to work in Parliament on national action that will end child poverty for all UK children.

For more details of the excellent work done by the Child Poverty Action Group, click here.

The Parliamentary Under Secretary for Crime Reduction gave the following reply:

“The Department commissioned two studies in 2009 to explore the social harms associated with khat use, though the perceived health effects of khat are also briefly reported on in each of the studies. The first of these is a mainly qualitative study undertaken among the UK’s Somali, Yemeni and Ethiopian communities exploring perceptions of the social harms associated with khat use and perceptions of the appropriate role of Government intervention (the study also included a short survey of drug action teams to gauge the availability of treatment service provision for khat users). The second is a review of the national and international literature examining the evidence on the social harms associated with khat and the impact of legislation in countries which have legislated against khat use and supply.

“In addition, the British crime survey report “Drug Misuse Declared 2009/10″, published on 22 July 2010, for the first time includes estimates of the prevalence of khat use in the general population. Preliminary findings (based on six months data) show that 0.2% of adults reported using khat in the last year.”

Do you think that the use of khat should be banned? Or should it remain legal? Chuka is keen to hear your views.

Last month, the Liberal Democrat – Conservative government announced sweeping cuts to the BSF programme affecting three schools in the Streatham constituency: La Retraite, Bishop Thomas Grant and Dunraven.

Following this announcement, Chuka tabled an Early Day Motion in Parliament protesting against the BSF cuts which has been signed by 30 MPs, spoke up for our local school building projects in Parliament and set up an online petition against the cuts which now has over 400 signatures.

As a ’sample’ school, Dunraven’s project faced a review but will now go ahead. Chuka will continue to pressure the government to reverse its decision on La Retraite and Bishop Thomas Grant schools’ essential projects.

The Save Streatham’s School Building Projects petition can be signed here.

The project, set to deliver 120 new homes on the Clapham Park estate was put on ice last month, being included in a list of housing projects agreed under the previous government subject to review and possible cancellation.

Clapham Park was shortlisted to benefit from £9 million of funding for new homes under Labour as part of the Kickstart scheme and was visited by the then Housing Minister John Healey in January.

Following the new government’s announcement, Chuka wrote to Housing Minister Grant Shapps and tabled a series of Parliamentary Questions demanding answers from ministers on the funding.

Thankfully, this week the Homes and Communities Agency has announced that the project will now go ahead as originally planned.

To watch Chuka’s appearence, follow this link

He has also been to school fetes at Fenstanton, Bonneville, Orchard, Christ Church, St Julian’s and Sunnyhill schools.

Below is a small selection of photos from some of these fantastic events:

One of the problems reported during the visit was the number of potholes around the estate. Following the visit, Lambeth Living assured residents that the worst of the potholes will be filled in within the next two to three weeks and the Council suggested that Lambeth Living should meet with the Council officers responsible for filling in potholes in the borough to see if their knowledge and experience can be of assistance – a small example of why walkabouts like this, with representatives from all the relevant agencies, are so important.

Local residents also raised the lack of activities for young people, and Chuka visited the Jubilee Hall facility which has lain dormant because of a lack of funding – following this Chuka is meeting with its steering group which is working to get the building up and running again.

Chuka will be doing regular walkabouts throughout the constituency to meet as many constituents as possible, hear their concerns and take action.

To read the speech in full, follow this link

In our area, La Retraite and Bishop Thomas Grant secondary schools, which were due to benefit from new, state of the art buildings, have seen their BSF projects stopped. As a result La Retraite will remain the only school with post-16 provision in Lambeth without purpose-built sixth form buildings.

The other project at Dunraven School – as one of a handful of ’sample’ projects nationally – has been put in doubt and placed under review. It is crucial that the government announces the time scale and terms of this review, which it has completely failed to do so far. Chuka has tabled a number of Parliamentary questions to Ministers seeking clarification on this for constituents.

In his speech, Mr Umunna defended the previous government’s school building programme, citing the transformation of Elm Court School under the Building Schools for the Future programme.

He said:

“There are examples in my constituency of the BSF programme being very effective and highly successful. They undermine and contradict the overall view put forward by the Government and the Secretary of State. One example is Elm Court School, a special school in the Brixton area. An old Victorian building was transformed into a modern learning space, with fantastic new facilities including a theatre, a drama space and multi-use games and sports areas. The young people love it.

Mr Umunna called into question the evidential basis for the government’s decision to stop BSF projects:

“The lack of evidence calls into question the coalition’s motives for the announcement that they have made. They have said that the money being taken from the programme is not being diverted into free schools, but do they not accept that it adds insult to injury when the parents and teachers in my constituency, whose schools are affected by the cuts, see all that money being ploughed into the Secretary of State’s pet project, the free school model? [Jessica Lee MP] mentioned the structural deficit, which tends to come up every time we talk about anything relating to resource. Okay, I accept that, but one of the ways of dealing with the deficit is to bring about growth. That is ultimately the best way to eradicate the deficit, in many respects. Why take investment away from the people to whom we are looking for the growth of the economy in the future? It does not make sense to me.

“The hon. Member for Banbury put a premium on what school principals say about the project, and I would not disagree with taking note of what school heads and principals say about it. PricewaterhouseCoopers published an evaluation of BSF in February in which more than four fifths of head teachers agreed that the programme would contribute to educational transformation in their schools; three quarters agreed that it had more potential to deliver educational transformation than previous capital investment programmes; and all the head teachers surveyed agreed that it delivered a more stimulating environment and tackled fundamental design issues in schools. That is the overall evidence.”

Speaking of the urgent need for investment in new buildings at La Retraite school and the shortage of school places in Lambeth, he said:

“Just before coming to the debate, I received a copy of a letter that Susan Powell, the head teacher at La Retraite school, has just sent to the Secretary of State about the significance of the scrapping of the BSF project at her school. She explains how, in anticipation of receiving the BSF moneys, her school took on site three mobile classrooms: “The reason for these mobile classrooms was that, two years ago, we agreed with the local authority to take on extra pupils and to extend the intake to 5 forms of entry. We agreed to do this as part of the arrangements for BSF; it was part of our bid. We believe that we have a moral right to new buildings to house the extra pupils, which we only took on in return for this promise. You may not know that pupil places are at a premium in Lambeth which is, as an authority, extremely short of places.”

“Many hours, weeks and months of planning have gone into projects in my community that have been scrapped. I appeal to the Minister not only to approve the project at Dunraven school, which is in the balance, but to reverse the decision on the La Retraite and Bishop Thomas Grant schools. We are talking about our children’s future, and the coalition needs to wake up and come to its senses.”

Mr Umunna has set up an online petition against the Liberal Democrat – Conservative government’s cuts to local school building projects which can be signed at: http://www.gopetition.co.uk/petitions/save-streathams-school-building-projects.html, as well as tabling an Early Day Motion in Parliament calling on the government to reverse its decision to stop projects in their tracks.