Showing records 1 to 10 of 342
Article - Published in The Liverpool Echo - 13 February 2012
THE Liverpool City Region's Child Poverty and Life Chances Commission published its first report last week, but will it make any difference? Will it lead to real change? The commission was established by the City's Regional Cabinet and they asked me to chair it. I wrote about the commission's birth in an earlier column, but in this column I want to concentrate on one aspect of the report.
Article - Published in The Times - 10 February 2012
The 903 children reported to have been taken into care last month ("Children in care at record as parents given fewer chances", Feb 9) are but the tip of an iceberg of cruelty and neglect.
I recently asked three headteachers in my constituency how many families of children who came to their school they would not wish to live with themselves if they were children and, if the budgets were unlimited, how many children would they take into care that day. Their answers were 40 and 20 per cent
respectively.
- 08 February 2012
Frank used a Westminster Hall debate yesterday to accuse unnamed Wirral council officers of “crass inefficiency” which has cost the town £60 million in missed development projects.
Article - Published in The Liverpool Echo - 06 February 2012
LABOUR learned one big lesson from the £26,000 cap on benefits debate. The Tories did not.
Let me rewind the film. Last year, the Tories introduced a huge Welfare Reform Bill. It had one main aim - to change attitudes about work.
Large numbers of claimants want to work and are denied the chance. But there are also many claimants who have never worked and do not show much sign of ever doing so.
Article - Published in The Liverpool Echo - 23 January 2012
THE most common complaint at my surgery comes from decent families living in
rented housing who feel that the welfare state not only works against them, but
penalises them to boot.
They work hard, pay their taxes and have brought their children up well.
These families, who are sometimes desperate to move home, find that they
never get a look in when houses in decent areas come up for reallocation.
I am introducing a new Bill tomorrow which is a direct response to these
decent citizens.
Article - Published in Pensions Week - 23 January 2012
A final domino has fallen. Shell, the last FTSE 100 company offering new
recruits membership of its generous final salary pension scheme, has announced
the offer is no more.
Article - Published in The Liverpool Echo - 16 January 2012
SCOTLAND is lost. That is my conclusion unless the Government is prepared radically to rethink its strategy.
All the main parties in Westminster are basically English parties. Even the Lib Dems, who rely disproportionately on the Celtic fringe for representation, owe most of their presence to English MPs.
And yet the English voice is hardly ever heard at Westminster. All three main parties wish to speak in terms of Great Britain.
Article - Published in Guardian.co.uk - 07 January 2012
Britain is in a deep housing crisis. High prices and low supply, strict lending criteria, and unbridled rent rises have created a vicious circle. Home ownership is plummeting.
We need a radical new policy both to ease the pressure on social housing and lend a helping hand to aspiring homeowners.
Article - Published in The Liverpool Echo - 17 December 2011
IT was not meant to end like this. The European dream was to ensure an age of European political stability.
Now switch from that utopian goal to where we are now. Germany is insisting on the balancing of budgets in those countries who German taxpayers see as profligate.
- 13 December 2011
Frank met with WPH's ASB team to congratulate them on recieving a Tilley award for their work on the Nocturum Estate.