Labour Party East Midlands Regional Conference - Leicester 9th July

I had the pleasure of attending Labour Party East Midlands Regional Conference this weekend. It is an important opportunity to find out what is happening in other councils across the region. It is also an opportunity to meet Shadow Cabinet members. Rt.Hon Margaret Beckett and Rt.Hon Harriet Harman attended this years conference.

I was able to speak briefly to Harriet Harman about the work of Food Bank in Grantham, and flagged the need for action to get the Government to ensure the Department for Work and Pensions DWP engaged the Job Centres in the process. Food Bank have been struggling to get Job Centres to give food vouchers to those identified as in need. This is quite appalling when you consider that rather than get involved in the scheme the Job Centres are seeing families go hungry. Harriet has agreed to take the matter away and raise it with the appropriate Government minister.

It was interesting to listen to the concerns of Labour Councillors who have taken control of a number of City councils including Nottingham and Leicester. There are serious concerns that the areas with the most need have received the most draconian budget cuts from the Tory Government. As a result local people are likely to lose key services. Yet, in the meanwhile Richmond on Thames (one of the most affluent areas of the country) has received no significant cuts.

I raised a concern about people's lack of awareness of how hard they will be affected as the benefit cuts, combined with changes to housing rules and the Localism Bill. Margaret Beckett advised one of the biggest stumbling blocks is the media. Rather than provide a useful service alerting people so they have advanced warning, the media would rather pick up a story after the event and run with it.

In Grantham the local Labour Party is planning to be proactively engaged with the community and those likely to be affected, as soon as we have more details. Others took this idea away for their area.