April Monthly Report

Parliamentary Business

Enterprise and Regulatory Reform

Labour won a rare concession from the Government to regulate letting agents and support tenants' rights.

Labour peer Baroness Hayter laid an amendment in the House of Lords to make it mandatory for letting agents to belong to a redress scheme, in line with estate agents.

After further pressure from the opposition in the Commons the Government agreed to support the measure which provides some protection for tenants. It is still only redress after something has gone wrong and we need to see a real effort to tackle the unfair fees that so many agents charge - sometimes charging both tenant and landlord for the same service.

I continue to campaign for better rights for tenants and am holding a housing conference in May to work with local people to influence the national agenda.

Co-operative schools bill

On 17 April, my colleague Meg Munn MP introduced the co-operative schools bill under the 10 minute rule, which allows an MP to speak for 10 minutes on why a bill should be introduced. I am a listed supporter of the bill which seeks to enable co-operative schools to register as industrial and provident societies. This small change would remove the hurdles co-operative schools currently face.

Get Britain Cycling

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Cycling report on the future of cycling in Britain was published in April.

As vice chair of the group I was delighted that MPs visited Hackney to see why the borough is top of the London league for journeys by bike (more people commute by bike than by car) and that this also informed the recommendations in the report.

We called on Government to increase the number of journeys by bike nationally from 2 per cent to 10 per cent by 2015, for 20mph speed limits in urban areas and 40mph on most small rural roads and for cycling to be given the same attention as learning to swim in our schools.

For full details, click here and you can also see the Hackney Gazette's coverage here.

APPG Global Health

As co-chair (with Lord Nigel Crisp) of this all party group I have been engaged in an inquiry into how NHS staff volunteer to work abroad and how receiving countries, staff and the NHS can benefit.

We have now completed our inquiry and will publish our report during the summer. I will chair our inquiry about health in conflict zones over the summer with a report due to be published in the autumn.

New School Places

The National Audit Office recently reported that 256,000 new school places need to be provided by 2014/15 to meet increased demand.

In Hackney the need is being met with a number of schools expanding the number of children they take each year and with some one off bulge classes.

The Public Accounts Committee, of which I am a member, considered the issue of school places during a hearing on 25 March. I had the opportunity to question the Permanent Secretary for the Department of Education on the issues.

I raised the issue about accountability for providing school places. Local authorities have a legal duty to ensure that there are enough school places but I am concerned that the Government's focus on free schools will mean that additional places will not be in the areas that have the most need. There is no requirement for these schools to be in areas of highest need. There is also some confusion about how local authorities can ensure that academies and free schools agree to expand when they are wholly separate from the local authority.

I also asked questions about accuracy of funding levels for local authorities to make sure they have enough money to provide the places and the lack of future planning.

I am particularly concerned that 240,000 of the school places that are needed are for primary school places and that 37 per cent of these are in London.

You can find further details on the Public Accounts Committee website here.

Other matters

GPs Out of Hours Service

I have previously reported my concerns about the local health board's decision not to award the out of hours contract to a local group of GPs for fear of a legal challenge if the contract was not put out for tender.

I have repeatedly raised my concerns and most recently to health ministers in Parliament on 16 April. There are still no answers for the GPs affected about why the decision was taken and whether this is in line with the Department of Health's guidance which is clear that tendering is not required. It is, however, proving difficult to pin down the various responsible bodies which are unresponsive and reluctant to put the position in writing.

The NHS is publicly funded and transparency of decision making is vital. Instead the whole process is maze like and confusing.

When I questioned the chief executive of a clinical commissioning group outside London as part of a select committee inquiry, she was clear that the threat of legal action by a supplier if a contract was not tendered would be a serious consideration in deciding whether or not to tender.

I continue to pursue the matter.

TalkTalk fined for making silent calls

TalkTalk has been fined £750,000 by Ofcom for making excessive abandoned and silent calls to potential customers.

Between February and March 2011, TalkTalk made approximately 9000 silent and abandoned calls to customers, vastly exceeding Ofcom's rules of 3 per cent of their call volume. It was also found that TalkTalk had failed to ensure that information messages were played, resulting in consumers receiving silent calls.

Please let me know if you have any concerns about silent or marketing calls.

Tax avoidance

As a member of Parliament’s public spending watchdog the Public Accounts Committee I have been at the forefront of Parliament’s efforts to tackle corporate tax dodging.

We recently took evidence from the big four accountancy firms about how they work with clients and government. We learnt that they both devise and advise on tax law - moving from pro bono advice roles in Whitehall to advising private clients on the same laws they have worked with government to develop. Read our report on the "poacher, turned gamekeeper, turned poacher" approach here.

In an earlier session we heard evidence from Starbucks, Amazon and Google about those companies' tax regimes. A recent Reuters investigation has cast doubt on the evidence provided by Google about where its sales activities took place (which is important in determining where tax is paid). The committee is therefore calling Google to come before the committee again.

Long term we need better international agreements on tax law in a world where virtual purchases are common place. In the short term a general anti avoidance law and publicity about the tax affairs of these businesses are important in ensuring tax is paid.

HMRC hit hidden economy

Meanwhile HMRC have announced a crackdown on working people and businesses who do not pay the tax they owe.

HMRC is focusing on new businesses and also targeting local markets to identify traders who have not paid income tax, national insurance or VAT. Recent areas of focus have included neighbouring Camden and Walthamstow markets.

Overall the gap between tax owed and tax due is £32 billion. Of that about £5 billion is estimated to be due to the hidden economy.

Quick house sale market consultation

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has recently launched a study into the 'quick house sale' market and is encouraging anyone who has used, or considered using, these businesses to get involved.

Quick house sale providers offer to buy to buy a house, or find a third party buyer, very quickly and often at a discount from the full market value.

Many people who use this service are vulnerable and do not make a fully informed decision or seek independent advice. If you have experience of this you can get involved here.

Hackney Issues

Hackney Women's Dinner

On 24 April I held a networking event for Hackney sixth formers. The event was an opportunity for Hackney students to meet with women in business to discuss their careers and how they accessed them.

Google sponsored and hosted the dinner at Campus in Shoreditch and women from the Women in Telecoms and Technology network brought their members to meet with the students. The impressive line up included women who had their own start up businesses and those who had worked at many major tech companies including Google, Cable & Wireless, Microsoft and IBM.

Belinda Parmar CEO of Lady Geek was our keynote speaker. Lady Geek is a campaigning agency that seeks to bridge the gulf between the people who make and market technology products and the women who buy them. You can visit her website here. 80 per cent of all tech decisions are influenced by women but only 3 per cent of all advertising creative directors are women.

Belinda has also formed Little Miss Geek which is about inspiring young women to become tech pioneers.

The event was a great success and the professional women who took part were highly impressed by the confidence, maturity and focus of Hackney's young women.

They are keen to maintain the connection and host more events to encourage young women from diverse backgrounds into the opportunities in Shoreditch and beyond. At the moment 24 per cent of those working in Campus Shoreditch are women.

The Narroway

Hackney Council and TfL are introducing an experimental re-routing of buses to pedestrianise the Narroway.

With exciting plans to increase the footfall to shops in this part of central Hackney it is important that this important shopping street becomes a destination for the new visitors we hope to attract. I have met with local businesses who are nervous about the changes. You get involved and have your say here.

Blue Marble Training

Shoreditch Trust's Blue Marble training programme supports young people and adults to develop skills and careers in food and hospitality.

The Trust is recruiting east London residents who would not ordinarily get the opportunity to develop food skills and give them a chance to start a career in catering and hospitality. The Trust has a particular interest in working with ex-offenders, care leavers and those who have experienced homelessness.

It is a rolling programme with a weekly intake of trainees at the Trust's social enterprise Waterhouse Restaurant. The course is free to participants. For details call 020 7033 8539 or emailmarvin@shoreditchtrust.org.uk.

Google's open campus day

I nominated a local school to take part in Google's open campus day on 26 April. Google's Campus London is a seven-storey building in Shoreditch dedicated to technology start up businesses which opened a year ago.

As part of its first anniversary, 150 school children from across London, including the pupils from Hackney University Technical College, were invited to come and see the opportunities in the sector for themselves. The 10 students took part in a Teen Tech app design workshop (Teen Tech is an initiative set up by former Tomorrow's World presenter Maggie Philbin) as well as a Raspberry Pi coding session and met representatives from a range of industries.

The pupils represented the diversity of Hackney and I welcomed the opportunity to support young people in learning about career opportunities in this sector.

Future of Hackney fire stations

While no final decision has yet been made about the proposed fire station closures Kingsland is still on the list of likely closures.

I recently met with the London Fire Commissioner to raise my concerns about the impact locally of closure.

The London Fire Brigade has modelled the time it would take for a fire engine to reach an incident under the station closure plans. It has used real data from recent fire call outs but I have raised concerns that these do not take full account of rush hour traffic - which around Homerton is particularly bad.

The good news is that fire incidents across London have decreased over the last decade. Pressed on whether Hackney's population growth will have an impact the Commissioner highlighted that the drop in incidents had coincided with significant population growth. But when pressed on whether any modelling had been done to take account of the impact of Government welfare changes, including the bedroom tax, on household size and overcrowding this had not been done.

Over the winter months there were 11 fire related deaths in London. Of these six were linked to smoking and three to the use of fan heaters.