Frank's Westminster Blog

I welcomed Wirral Clinical Commissioning Group’s decision to invest in developing services so more of us can see our doctors. But this is now being reversed under pressure from GPs and their union. Local GPs are walking away from their patients. That’s what it looks like to us patients after they voted last week against longer opening hours. The movement to secure greater opening hours of doctor services to the public is one to which I and my constituents attach the utmost...

The Liverpool City Region’s Child Poverty and Life Chances Commission decided last Friday to prioritise efforts on making sure children start school successfully. There are many initiatives the Commission will suggest but this will take priority. It reflects a groundswell of opinion in favour of having clear outcomes attached to the spending of taxpayers’ money. It is an outcome to which Wirral Council’s leader, Councillor Phil Davies, is committed. Talking last...

WIRRAL Council takes the lead for those half a million plus North West workers paid less than a living wage. Poverty wages on such a vast scale mean workers and their families are forced either to rely on means-tested top-ups from the government, in the form of tax credits, or go without food or heating. Taxpayers’ subsidies to low wages cost 5p on the standard rate of tax. Meanwhile food banks report that large numbers of working people turn up for food as their wages do not cover...

I HAVE always taken a keen interest in creating and protecting jobs in Birkenhead. One of the big successes on this front was to get HM Land Registry to pitch up here, creating 400 jobs in the process. These were jobs that David Hunt and I got for Wirral, having lobbied the then minister responsible for Land Registry, Lord Hailsham. Land Registry has since seen umpteen attempts under review proposals to question their future as a civil service department. The most recent review,...

One person one vote is back in vogue. Here’s the role I played initially in trying to prevent the SDP splitting from Labour by suggesting that they remain part of the Party and campaign around this reform. It’s difficult now to recall the swirling of emotions in the events leading up to the fatal split leading to the SDP. The status quo wasn’t defendable. I therefore wrote a piece for The Observer making a case for a one person one vote operation within the Labour...