Labour will today use an Opposition Day Debate to call on the Government to bring forward infrastructure investment and build thousands more affordable homes as new figures show the failure of the Government's National Infrastructure Plan. Analysis of figures published by the Government of its 'infrastructure pipeline' shows: * Only seven of the 576 projects (1.2 per cent) are 'completed' or 'operational'. Most of these are road schemes which began under the Labour government, including one which started construction in 2007. * Just 18.2 per cent of the projects listed are said to have 'started' or to be 'in construction' or 'under construction'. In addition, Labour will highlight figures showing that in the first three years of this Government capital investment is £12.8 billion lower than the plans George Osborne inherited from Labour. This follows Nick Clegg's admission that the Government had cut capital investment too far.

• Westminster Council to a hire new £125k a year Spin Doctor as it makes £12m cuts
  
  By Westminster Labour
  Published 6 February 2013
• Minister must get tough with Westminster Council over “unacceptable and unlawful” temporary housing
  
  By Westminster Labour
  Published 5 February 2013

• Denham highlights persecution of Hazaras in Quetta, Pakistan
  
  By Southampton Labour
  Published 5 February 2013
• Southampton Labour saves Woolston Youth Club’s services
  
  By Southampton Labour
  Published 5 February 2013

• “75 per cent of the world’s poorest now live in middle income countries”
  Published 29 January 2013
  Ivan Lewis MP, Labour's Shadow Development Secretary, speaking at an event organised by aid charity CAFOD this evening, said: I want to dedicate my speech tonight to two women and group of young men I met in Goma, Eastern DRC on my visit with World Vision only last week. One woman told me how her home had been surrounded by troops from one of the many militias in Eastern DRC. She was raped so violently that she suffered unspeakable physical damage and was left unconscious. That same night her mother and brother were murdered. Another told me how 3 soldiers from another militia had gang raped her and left her for dead. In the same attack her husband and three children were taken away and she never saw them again. Every day these women cope with emotional and physical scars which may lessen over time but will never heal. These 2 women are not only victims of the impunity which is a stain on the East of DRC but also of the underlying causes. A state unable to offer basic security to its citizens, militias some of whom both recently and over a number of years have been supported by Rwanda and other neighbouring countries recruiting young men sometimes boy soldiers who see no other way of having a stake in their society and the extreme poverty which crushes all hope.  Read more »
• “One budget, one service co-ordinating all of one person’s needs: physical, mental and social. Whole-Person Care.”
  Published 24 January 2013
  Andy Burnham MP, Labour's Shadow Health Secretary, in a speech entitled 'Whole-Person Care A One Nation approach to health and care for the 21st Century', said today at the King's Fund: Today I open Labour's health and care policy review. For the first time in 20 years, our Party has the chance to rethink its health and care policy from first principles. Whatever your political views, it's a big moment. It presents the chance to change the terms of the health and care debate. That is what One Nation Labour is setting out to do. For too long, it has been trapped on narrow ground, in technical debates about regulation, commissioning, competition. It is struggling to come up with credible answers to the questions that the 21st century is asking with ever greater urgency. I want to change the debate by opening up new possibilities and posing new questions of my own, starting with people and families and what they want from a 21st century health and care service.  Read more »

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