The fabulous Streatham Festival has started! In its sixth year, the Festival is full of music, comedy, drama, storytelling, film, dance and much more. I’m sure everyone in the area is tremendously grateful to Patricia Sauer, the Chair of the Streatham Festival Association, and her team for putting on this fantastic event.

As Patricia says, “Streatham was once full of great places to enjoy the theatre, music and comedy and was home to many world-class performers.
“The festival helps keep that spirit alive by nurturing new and emerging talent”.

I had the pleasure of being invited to a private showing of local artist, Tim Sutton’s “Bingo Girls” exhibition last night, which features in the Festival and which I thought really captured the spirit of this place – outgoing, eclectic and multicultural. “Bingo Girls” is a portrait exhibition celebrating the Streatham Bingo Hall and the people paying for it’s preservation (ie. the bingo players who frequent the building). I am pictured with one of the wonderful bingo ladies who features in the exhibition next to her picture.

For more info on Bingo Girls click here, and for more info on the Streatham Festival which carries on until next Sunday, click here.

Happy Birthday to the NHS which is 60 years old today. Today the comedian Jo Brand, a former nurse, said:

“I worked in the NHS in the Eighties, and it was a right balls up. And as a former mental health nurse, it’s good to see Labour taking nurses seriously; keep listening or you never know where a thermometer might end up.” Says it all really.

Below you can watch a video of my colleague, the Labour MP for Watford Claire Ward, walking around Watford General Hospital with her baby, explaining what the NHS has done for her family and how Labour has been investing in the NHS since the party founded it 60 years ago.

48 years today, Italian Somaliland gained its independence from Italy and united with British Somaliland to form the Somali Republic, located in the Horn of Africa (the Eastern tip of the continent).

It is estimated that over 70,000 Somalis now live in London, many having fled the troubles in their country of late, and the Somali community is thought to be the oldest African community here.  There is, of course, a growing Somali community in the Streatham parliamentary constituency.

I was very grateful to be invited to take part in the Third Annual Somali Community Conference at Richard Atkins Primary School last night, organised by the Aayatiin Foundation For Relief & Development (headed by Dr Musse Hassan, with whom I am pictured above).

I would like to wish all Somalis living in the Streatham my very best wishes for their Independence Day celebrations today and look forward to working with the community to improve the educational prospects of their children and the employment prospects of Somalis in Streatham, amongst other things (I am pictured right discussing these issues with conference delegates).

My colleague, Cabinet minister Harriet Harman MP, Minister for Women and Equality (and Member of Parliament for nearby Camberwell & Peckham!) has just published the government’s White Paper on the Equality Bill. A “White Paper” is a document produced by the government setting out details of future policy on a particular subject and usually forms the basis for a Bill to be put before Parliament.

From the first Race Relations, Equal Pay and Sex Discrimination Acts introduced by the 1974-79 Labour government - outlawing discrimination on the grounds of race and sex - to the legislation introduced by this Labour government - outlawing discrimination on the basis of sexuality, religion or belief - since 1997, the Labour Party has always been at the forefront of moves to make Britain a fairer, more decent and equal place to live. I know this because, as a specialist employment law solicitor, I use all of this legislation every working week to ensure that employees are treated fairly and not discriminated against by their employers.

The new Equality Bill will build on this fantastic legacy and go further to tackle inequalities which still remain. For example, the pay gap between men and women, though down from 17.4% in 1997, still means that a woman’s full time pay is on average 12.6% less per hour than a man’s; the employment rate of disabled people has risen by 10% in the last decade, but if you are disabled you are still two and a half times more likely to be out of work; and, if you are from an ethnic minority, in 1997 you were 17.9% less likely to find work than if you are white, but the difference is still 15.5% in 2008.

So how, when it passes into law, would the Equality Bill make a practical difference to people living in this area? This list is not exhaustive and the detail of the Bill is still to be finalised before it becomes law (i.e. an Act of Parliament) but here are some details of what is intended:

• Ending age discrimination: Many pensioners in this constituency will have been refused insurance cover because some insurance companies have upper age limits for life insurance or holiday cover. According to the pressure group, Age Concern, 95% of insurers will decline your business if you are over the age of 85. Existing legislation which outlaws age discrimination principally applies in the field of employment - the Bill will extend the scope of the legislation to apply to those providing goods, facilities and services, bringing an end these types of unjustifiable practices, so people are not discriminated on the basis of their age when being provided with goods, facilities and services.
• The new Equality Duty: There are three existing equality duties to promote equality and reduce discrimination for race, gender and disability in the public sector. These duties will be replaced by a new, single Equality Duty on public bodies and will extend to cover gender reassignment, sexual orientation, religion or belief, and age. This could lead, for example, to extra park benches being provided in local parks by local councils (such as Lambeth or Wandsworth), so that older people can benefit from public spaces as well as younger people; or local police developing an emergency mobile phone text service, and incorporating sign language video clips on its web site to meet the needs of deaf people.
• Requiring transparency: We cannot tackle inequality if it is hidden – increasing transparency is essential to tackling discrimination. In addition to requiring public authorities to publish clear information on their progress on important equalities issues, the Bill will, amongst other things, outlaw secrecy clauses in contracts of employment which ban employees discussing their pay. This does not mean you would be forced to disclose your pay to others but, in situations where you work closely with colleagues doing the same work and you and your colleagues receive variable rates of pay, you would be able to compare what you receive with those colleagues if you want to.
• Extending the scope of positive action: The Bill will allow employers to take into account under representation of disadvantaged groups, for example women and ethnic minorities, when selecting between two equally qualified candidates. Employers will have greater freedom to “fast-track” or select recruits from under-represented groups, as long as they are equally suitable and there is no fixed rule that this must be done in all cases – this is not about employment quotas and will not allow people to promote one candidate above another if that person is less suitable.

The Equality Bill is due to be introduced in Parliament in the forthcoming 2008-09 session. If you want to know more about it, comprehensive details can be found at the Government Equalities Office website here.

I was delighted to welcome Alan Johnson MP, Secretary of State for Health, to Streatham today with Keith Hill MP, for the opening of Gracefield Gardens health and social care centre.

The £8.9m landmark building, situated just off Streatham High Road, 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 NHS local improvement finance trust (LIFT) initiative announced in August 2002.

One of the reasons I chose to join the Labour Party was because it was the post war Labour government (1945-51) which set up the NHS to ensure equality of health service provision and a truly national service for all (instead of a piecemeal provision, which had existed across the country up to that point). It is worth remembering that that Labour government led by Clement Attlee set up this national treasure in the face of opposition from other parties.

The NHS celebrates its 60th anniversary on 5 July 2008 and what better way to mark this than with the opening of this fantastic new centre. Labour has trebled investment into the NHS to £100bn since 1997 but big numbers mean little to the every day person on the street in my view – it is tangible things like this centre which people can see and use which demonstrate the return on that investment and the positive difference that can be made locally. (The Prime Minister’s wife, Sarah Brown, is pictured, right, at the centre earlier this year)

Whilst Mayor of London, Labour’s Ken Livingstone ensured money was devoted to allow Safer Neighbourhood police teams (SNTs) to be introduced into every ward in London (he did so in the face of opposition from the Conservative group on the London Assembly).  Each team is normally made up of six police and Police Community Support Officers. As the Met’s website says:
“Their aim is to listen and talk to you, and find out what affects your daily life and feelings of security. These might be issues such as anti-social behaviour, graffiti, noisy neighbourhoods, yobs or vandalism.”

Safer Neighbourhood Panels (SNPs), made up of 10-12 local people who live or work in the area nominated by the community, shadow the work of SNTs and ensure they are responsive to local needs. The Safer Lambeth Partnership which includes the Lambeth Council, the Metropolitan Police, the probation service, Lambeth Primary Care Trust, HM Prison Service and others, recently released details of the Streatham constituency’s SNPs’ priorities:

Brixton Hill: prostitution; dog fighting; and, burglary;

Clapham Common: street crime; youth engagement; and, burglary;

Thornton: burglary; anti social behaviour and gangs on Poynders estate and Cotton and Angus House; and, robbery of the person, specifically along Emmanuel Road;

Tulse Hill: prostitution around Josephene Avenue; anti-social behaviour on Cressingham Gardens; and, drugs on the St.Mathews estate;

Streatham Wells: anti-social behaviour, in and surrounding Albert Carr Gardens, SW16; and, motor vehicle crime on Woodleigh Gardens, SW16;

Streatham South: burglary; robbery; motor vehicle crime; and, anti social youth and street drinkers;

St Leonard’s: burglary; motor vehicle crime; and, anti social behaviour around Streatham Green & St Leonard’s;

Streatham Hill: anti social behaviour on Palace Rd, Hillside, and Killieser Avenue; cycling on pavements; and, street robberies on Streatham Hill. 

Tackling these problems is an absolute priority for me. Nationally, police numbers have increased by 14,000 since Labour came to power and we have introduced initiatives such as the Respect Agenda which aims to empower individuals and communities to combat anti-social behaviour and take control of their own areas.

But we have a lot more to do, not least on early prevention and ensuring that those who fall foul of the law are properly rehabilitated and do not enter prison only to exit and re-offend again. I do not pretend to have all the answers, so I would be interested to know what you think the solutions are - please do drop me a line with your thoughts here.

I was delighted to address (below) Ruach Ministries church on Brixton Hill on Sunday with Harriet Harman MP (pictured centre), Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and Secretary of State for Equalities.  I was also very pleased to joined by “London’s Chair”, the wonderful Jennette Arnold AM, Chair of the London Assembly (pictured second, left).

I am so very proud that Ruach is situated in our community. It is the second largest Black majority church in the UK led by Bishop John Francis (pictured third, left), attracting more than 5000 people through its doors every Sunday.  It does fantastic social work in and around the community helping to improve people’s lives, be it through Ruach’s street pastors or its outreach work with troubled people in the area.

Bishop Francis, who co-founded the London Community Gospel Choir in 1982, is considered to be one of Britain’s most influential Black church leaders and founded the church. He is an in-demand preacher, with an extensive international ministry, and in recent years has become one of the most well known Britain-based church leaders in the US.  Bishop Francis is celebrating 25 years of ministry – 10 as a Bishop – this month. Congratulations Bishop Francis!