Frank's Westminster Blog

THE leader of Wirral Council, Phil Davies, and I will soon be hosting a summit in Birkenhead, which the Metropolitan College is organising. Representatives of each stage, from birth onwards, will attend to see how we can, over the first 18 years of life, minimise youngsters’ chances of ever being Neet – not in employment, education or training. And here’s why. One in five youngsters in the poorest parts of Birkenhead leaveS school without finding a job, further education

You may have seen the wonderful TV programme on street pastors operating in Liverpool. They also operate in Wirral. Recently I met Mark Latham, who is the new co-ordinator of StreetLight on our side of the river. He is immensely enthusiastic and is anxious to extend their work. They meet at around 10.30pm on Friday night and head out by 11.15pm. The night lasts until 4am, sometimes 6.30am. So what do the street pastors do? They are there to minimise trouble. They hand out bottles of...

Two huge surprises awaited me on one of my visits on Friday. Those of you who know the area in Thingwall will have seen a new school arise. And not only one new school. Wirral has built two new schools. And they run into each other, each having hugely wide corridors. I fitted in a trip to Stanley School. Despite all the problems with the economy, the council has scored a tremendous success here. The first surprise was how beautiful their new school is. It is breathtaking. The...

Would you believe that poor and elderly people are being taxed around £25 million a year for the privilege of calling the government to ask about their benefit and pension claims, with all proceeds from the calls going to private telephone companies? I’ve called for this scandal to cease. This shocking scenario stems from the government’s reliance on higher-rate 0845 telephone numbers for calls to public bodies.Calls to an 0845 number can cost people up to 41p per minute,...