SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGNS
Since being elected to Parliament in 1997 I have had the chance to play a direct part in legislation on many issues about which I have been campaigning for years –
• Reform of the residential leasehold laws;
• Access to the countryside and protection of wildlife sites;
• The repeal of Section 28, the equalisation of the age of consent, adoption and immigration rights and civil partnerships for same sex couples - and the Gender Act;
• The abolition of hunting with hounds.
• New laws to encourage and protect co-operatives and other forms of mutuals
• The National Minimum Wage
• Schemes such as Business Improvement Districts to revitalise our town and City centres
• A Tenancy Deposit Scheme to protect both private sector housing tenants – and their landlords.
In the Press Releases and Speeches sections of the website you can find more about my involvement in these campaigns and in other on-going campaigns, especially the need for a community Stadium at Falmer for Brighton and Hove Albion.
BELOW YOU CAN FIND OUT MORE ABOUT SOME OTHER CONTINUING CAMPAIGNS IN WHICH I AM INVOLVED
Campaign to change the Single Room Rent for under-25s.
When the House of Commons debated the Welfare Reform Bill in January 2007 I raised once again the fact that current Housing Benefit or Housing Allowance rules often leave under-25s with a big gap between the rent they have to pay and the support they receive because support is based on the idea of living in shared accommodation.
Julia Harrison, the housing manager for Hove YMCA, which manages housing for young people, tells me that one of the consequences of the single room rent or youth rent is that young people are forced into inappropriate shared accommodation, often with no proper tenancy contract at all. That makes them increasingly vulnerable.
! called on the Social Security Minister to review the way the system works as it is rolled out nationally and was told that the government would indeed review the local housing allowance over the next two years to monitor its impact.
The Minister also accepted that the way the single room or shared rent for under 25s is worked out would have to change, saying: “When the local housing allowance is rolled out nationally, we shall look to define shared room rate accommodation. I believe that that will mean a significant increase in affordable accommodation because we shall use a different calculation system… which will no longer disadvantage young people.”
My view is that the new local housing allowance scheme tested in Brighton and Hove for private sector tenants has worked well. But it doesn’t work for under-25s any better than the old housing benefit scheme did.
Raising this is the House of Commons was the latest stage in a campaign which I have been backing since 1998 to get the rules changed for young people. The YMCA, Shelter, the CAB are among the organisations campaigning on this issue.
I shall keep a close watch on what the Hove YMCA and other agencies working with young people have to say as the new system comes into operation.
In a high rent area like our city I am still concerned that under-25s will be severely disadvantaged in terms of privately rented housing unless the lower rate is scrapped.
AFFORDABLE HOMES
All three of the City’s Labour MPs backed the then Labour leadership of the Council when the Planning Inspector’s Report for Brighton and Hove criticised the city council for requiring 40 % of new housing developments to be at affordable prices. By saying this figure is too high the inspector is showing how out of touch he is with the housing situation here.
I have consistently raised with ministers – including Tony Blair as Prime Minister – the problems faced by young people wanting to rent or buy in our area. I have welcomed the government's Starter Homes initiative in Brighton and Hove to help some teachers and health service staff with housing costs and am pleased that the governments has now responded to calls from me and others to extend the scheme to other groups of workers.
Proposals announced since May 2005’s general election for more support for first time buyers could help many in our area. As a member of the parliamentary committee dealing with the 2003 Local Government Act. I am pleased to have played a part in changing the rules to allow councils to charge full council tax on empty and second homes which Brighton and Hove City Council is now doing.
Now Gordon Brown’s commitment on affordable housing made in May 2007 is an important sign that further action will be taken.
In the press releases and speeches section the website you can find a selection of information about other work which I have done on housing.
A NATIONAL PARK FOR THE SOUTH DOWNS
National Park status for the South Downs is essential to protect a unique landscape, which is under threat.
Our local campaign, backed by the then-Labour leadership of Brighton and Hove Council, persuaded the government to begin the process of designation and to announce the proposed boundaries and system of administration. I am pleased that following my requests on behalf of local residents Green Ridge and Coney Hill are included within the proposed boundaries.
However there has been fierce opposition from some landowners and Conservative local councils in East and West Sussex and the government has carried out a public inquiry.
Now that is complete and legal challenges have been settled I have called for the final report to go to Government by the Summer of 2007.
In the speeches section of my website you can find speeches I have made about the South Downs.
CAMAPIGN AGAINST THE 16 HOUR RULE
Despite erratic progress on funding immediately after Labour’s 1997 victory, I believe 16+ further education is one of our successes.
Funding has improved – in the year to March 2006 the Learning and Skills Council-funded spending was up 13% on the previous year at £10.4 billion.
Labour’s Education Maintenance Allowance now helps many from low-income families to enter or stay in education or training post 16, gaining skills to improve their chances for the future - and which are vital to our economy. Take-up of the EMA is now 82 %. By the end of 2005 76.2% of our 16-18 year olds were in education or training.
But there are still obstacles for some.
In November 2005, as chair of Parliament’s cross-party group on Foyers, I helped launch the Foyer Federation’s “Give Us A Chance” campaign in Westminster to persuade the government to change a policy which stops some young people entering further education and makes others drop out at the age of 19.
The country’s network of Foyers provides supported accommodation to some 10,000 young people each year who can no longer live at home and are potentially vulnerable. Their tenancy contract is linked to a commitment to education and training.
Most Foyer residents have missed out in education up to 16 for reasons beyond their control, but are now determined to change that as a vital step to independent living as adults.
But their average age is 19 - the age at which a regulation comes into play removing eligibility for Income Support and, with it, for Housing Benefit. Instead the option is to claim Job Seekers Allowance - which means declaring yourself available for work and for New Deal help.
Fine. Unless you are about to start a further education course of 16 hours or more a week. Then you are deemed not eligible for work, or for JSA and, because of that, not eligible for Housing Benefit. How do you play your rent?
At the campaign launch parliamentarians heard from young people, including some from the Foyer in my own Brighton Pavilion constituency, who had faced the difficult choice of switching to a different, less appropriate course of less than 16 hours to maintain their Housing Benefit eligibility or staying on their current course and leaving the secure home the Foyer provides because they can no longer pay the rent and going back to “sofa-surfing” in friends houses.
These are committed young people who want to succeed.
Since the campaign launch we have put the case to government that to change the 16 Hour Rule would be good for young people and for the government’s targets to improve the economy’s skills base.
In April 2006 came a change which has not been widely enough publicised allowing anyone already on a 16 Hour + non-advanced course at 19 to keep their HB until the course ends or they reach 20.
In early 2006 Jane Slowey and Sophie Livingstone, the Foyer’s Chief Executive and Head of Policy, and I met Department of Works and Pensions Minister James Plaskitt. He has visited Foyers and shown real interest in looking again at the rule, which, of course, doesn’t only catch those in Foyers. As Learning and Skills Council Chief Executive Mark Haysom pointed out when I raised the issue with him in October. I have also met with the Association of Colleges which backs the campaign.
However, the Foyer’s link between housing and education could provide a basis for a pilot scheme to test if relaxing the 16 Hour Rule improves participation at 19+. This is a continuing campaign.
RESTRICTIONS ON THE SITING OF MOBILE PHONE MASTS
I have backed local residents protests about mobile phone masts sited near residential areas and schools.
Campaigning for more powers for local councils to regulate the siting of masts and for a national plan for sites, I was a sponsor of Debra Shipley's Private Members Bill on this issue.
REMEMBERING JANE LONGHURST
People across the country were shocked by the murder in early 2003 of Brighton teacher and musician Jane Longhurst and the revelations about the use of extreme internet sites inciting violence against women.
Longhurst and the revelations about the use of extreme internet sites inciting violence against women.
Jane lived in my constituency and taught at Uplands special school. Her mother Liz and sister Sue from Reading started a campaign for international action against these sites.
In 2003 I went with them and their MP Martin Salter to a meeting with the then Home Secretary David Blunkett and Home Office Minister Paul Goggins who pledged to raise the issue of the need for greater international regulation of these sites with the US, EU and other G8 governments.
There followed a meeting with Charles Clarke soon after he became Home Secretary in the early winter of 2004 and were encouraged by his support.
In August 2005 the Home Office announced a consultation on proposals for a new offence of possession of a range of different kinds of violent pornographic images downloaded from the internet.
Mrs Longhurst, Martin Salter and I welcomed this as a useful step forward which recognises that getting international agreement to deal with the source of this pornography will take a long time but shows the government’s determination to take some action.
Now new laws were promised in the Queen’s Speech in November 2006 to be brought before Parliament in this Session.
I welcome the support the Argus gave to Mrs Longhurst’s petition and thanks the thousands of local residents who have already signed it.
