Frank's Westminster Blog

The news that Britain has just crawled out of recession deserves at least a cheer. We were the first country into recession and the last one out. It is hard to agree with the Prime Minister that we were better prepared for the recession than any other country. Most of the commentators have centred on how this sickly figure will affect the major parties at the polls. Almost no comment has been made about how this will affect those who have lost their job or, have taken pay cuts, to keep...

In May, I expressed my worries to the Pensions Regulator that the pension fund custodians, far from protecting pension funds, were gambling with assets committed to their safe keeping. In December the Pensions Regulator reported back to me on their survey of Trustees and on Friday published a statement accepting the need for much more stringent control on the safety of fund and therefore pension assets. Robert Maxwell "borrowed" assets from the pension funds of the firms he owned and failed

How do we explain why social mobility has been on the decline? I look at part of this debate in my Liverpool Echo column today. The term ‘social mobility' is used in at least two ways. The first is how I have used it in the article - meaning how many people from a less advantaged background move into more advantaged positions. The immediate post war period was marked by a big increase in the welfare state and middle class jobs. This made upward mobility a lot easier. A more radical...

Balanced Migration's aim is to stop Britain growing its population by immigration. We have advocated two major policies. The first is to break the link between people coming here to work and automatically becoming citizens. The other policy has been simply to reduce significantly the number of immigrants being granted citizenship places. Before Christmas, Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, seriously engaged with Balanced Migration in breaking the link between coming here to work and...

I have just returned from Demos' launch of its Commission on Character. David Cameron, Camila Batmanghelidjh and I spoke in support. Character used to be central to Labour politics. It was the cornerstone of building up a culture of respect and self-respect. Our characters are first nurtured for good or ill within families. The address that I gave - which is can be found here - gave emphasis to the teaching of good parenting in schools. Good parents can affect our life chances...