Southampton’s Labour MPs back “Big Switch” Which? campaign

Southampton’s Labour MPs have backed the ‘Big Switch’ campaign for energy customers to bargain together to get a better deal from the Big Six.

The campaign, spearheaded by 38 Degrees and Which? already has over 80,000 people signed up. The campaign aims to have even more signed up by March 31st. After that date, Which? will hold a ‘reverse auction’ among as many energy companies as possible to see who will offer the best deal for this customer block.

Southampton’s Labour MPs have backed the campaign and are encouraging local people to sign up.

Alan Whitehead said: “Soaring energy bills are driving up inflation and contributing to the cost of living crisis afflicting millions of families. Labour believes that community action, including collective purchasing, is essential to reforming our energy market, and I am pleased to support the Big Switch campaign.

“There is of course a lot more we need to do to fix some of the fundamental problems with our current energy market, but this is an encouraging first step.”

John Denham, Labour MP for Southampton Itchen, said: “We need to break the stranglehold of the big six energy companies, so that communities can work together to generate clean energy in their own area and be more empowered when purchasing energy from other suppliers.

Southampton Labour MPs call for urgent review of Working Tax Credit cuts

Labour MPs John Denham and Alan Whitehead are calling on the Government to reconsider its decision to cut Working Tax Credits in April.

Under the Tory-led Government’s plans:

* Some couples will be better off splitting up than staying together;

* Some couples will be better off giving up work than working;

* It will be difficult for people to find extra hours when jobs are hard to come by. Every week we hear more news about public sector jobs being cut.

Over 212,000 couples with 470,000 children will be affected nationwide. In Southampton, 725 households in Southampton’s two constituencies could lose out. Those households include 1,675 children. If they cannot find extra work, these families will lose their whole Working Tax Credit worth £3,870.

This change will mean many families would be better off claiming benefits than continuing in work. Couples with children will lose Working Tax Credit worth £3,870 if they stay together, but not if the parents split up.

Labour is using an Opposition Day debate in the House of Commons today to step up the pressure on the Chancellor to come up with a plan for jobs and growth in next month’s Budget and reconsider changes to tax credits and child benefit which will cost families with children up to £4,000 per year.

Speakers confirmed for Southampton Drop the Bill event

The speakers for Southampton’s Drop the Bill event on Thursday have now been confirmed.

The event will take place at 7.30pm, on March 1st 2012, in the Sir James Matthews Building, Southampton Solent University.

The event will be an opportunity for all those in Southampton who are against the Health Bill, currently making its way through the House of Lords, to come together and listen to the organisations who have publicly spoken out against the Bill in its current form.

The speakers will be:

John Denham, Labour MP for Southampton Itchen
John has consistently voted against the Health Bill in Parliament. The Labour Party is the only major UK political Party to publicly oppose the Bill in its current form. Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour Party, recently told the Prime Minister in the House of Commons: “The problem with this Prime Minister is that on the NHS he thinks that he is right and everyone else is wrong. It has become a symbol not of how his party has changed but of his arrogance. I tell him this: this will become his poll tax. He should listen to the public and drop the Bill.”

Whitehead: Use money from carbon taxes to help UK homes cut energy bills

Alan Whitehead, Labour MP for Southampton Test, has called on the Government to back the Energy Bill Revolution, a new campaign calling on the Government to use the money it gets from carbon taxes to help UK homes cut their energy bills.

New analysis by energy efficiency experts has calculated that the Government will raise £4 billion a year in carbon taxes over the next 15 years. They estimate that if this revenue were recycled to households to spend on energy efficiency measures, it would be enough to bring 9 out of 10 households out of fuel poverty. It could also be used to create 200,000 jobs and quadruple carbon emission cuts compared to the Government’s new energy efficiency schemes.

The new research also presents the most up-to-date assessment of the number of households in fuel poverty today and the number of households at risk in the future. It finds that 6.4 million households are now suffering from fuel poverty across the UK, meaning they need to spend more than 10% of their income to keep their homes warm.

The research reveals the risk that fuel poverty could affect 9.1 million households by 2016, the year in which the Government has a target to eliminate fuel poverty. This is a potential rise of 40% which would increase the number of UK households in fuel poverty from one in four to one in three.

A petition is being launched at www.energybillrevolution.org to raise public and parliamentary support for the campaign. The campaign petition is already backed by over 50 leading charities, unions, consumer groups and businesses.

Local Southampton businesses lunch to be hosted by John Denham

John Denham, Labour MP for Southampton Itchen is organising a lunch for local Southampton businesses with keynote speaker Chuka Umunna MP (Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills). The lunch will be held at La Margherita restaurant, 1 Town Quay, Southampton, SO14 2AQ, on 2nd March 2012.

He was rapidly promoted to Shadow Minister of Business and Enterprise, before his election in 2010 Chuka Umunna was a law solicitor at a city law firm. In October 2011 Chuka was appointed by Ed Miliband to the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills leading for the opposition on a wide range of issues including business, enterprise, science and universities. He recently launched the Doughty Report a Labour independent report on support for small businesses.

Chuka has worked closely with Ed Miliband in calling for policies to encourage long term investment in UK businesses and to enable employers to have more influence over the development of workforce skills.

This event will give local businesses the opportunity to create a platform, which allows local businesses in the area the chance to connect on a personal level and may encourage the development of relationships in the future.

Mr. Denham said: “Following on from the success of last year’s event, this will be an ideal opportunity for businesses to hear from the expertise of Chuka Umunna with the chance to discuss their concerns locally in the current climate.

“I look forward to what should be an interesting and rewarding afternoon on March 2nd.”

Tories break pledge to protect local frontline police

New research by Southampton’s Labour MPs today confirms that the Conservative Government have broken their pledge to protect frontline police policing and that there are already over 50 fewer officers patrolling the streets in Hampshire.

This comes on top of warnings from local police chiefs who say that the Government’s 20% cuts to the policing budget will result in a further 400 officers lost by 2015.

Figures from the Commons Library confirm that the number of full time equivalent front-line officers in Hampshire has fallen by 51 since 2010.

And John Apter, Chair of the Hampshire Police Confederation warned last year that ‘20% cuts would see 454 fewer police officers across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.’

As recently as Autumn 2011 Tory Home Secretary Theresa May was still bizarrely insisting that the scale of her Government’s cuts to policing budgets would not result in fewer frontline officers. She said:

“We’re also going to help police by making sure that as we reduce budgets, we cut waste, not frontline services… Through better procurement, improved efficiency and a likely pay freeze, there is no reason at all why frontline police services should not be maintained and improved.” – (Theresa May, Conservative Party Conference, October 2011)

HM Inspectorate of Prisons figures show that 9 out of every 10 officers lost were from the frontline.

Whitehead calls for windfall tax on Big Six energy companies

Alan Whitehead, Labour MP for Southampton Test, has called for a windfall tax on the profits of the Big Six energy companies, with the proceeds going to help families struggling with their energy bills.

Dr Whitehead is one of the original signatories to Compass’s ‘End the Big Six Energy Fix’ petition, which calls for radical action to tackle rising energy bills and our broken energy market.

The Energy Fix petition calls for the Government to:

1) Impose a levy on the Big Six, with funds raised ring-fenced to help people with their energy costs, prioritizing those living in fuel poverty, by making homes more energy efficient.

2) Give the regulator new powers to cap prices and eliminate excess profit.

3) Launch an independent public inquiry into the Big Six so that everyone knows the measures needed to create an energy market that serves the people before profit.

The petition was launched with the backing of a cross-party group of MPs, unions, charities, academics, as well as celebrities including Tony Robinson.

John Denham MP to hold ‘Drop the Bill’ rally in Southampton

Labour MP, John Denham, is to hold a rally in Southampton next month for local residents and health professionals to voice their opposition to the Tory-led Government’s unwanted Health Bill, which will cost almost £16million to implement in our city.

The Health and Social Care Bill will cause huge damage to the NHS. The Government plans to allow NHS hospitals to devote 49% of their beds and theatre time to private patients. This will open the door to an explosion of private work in NHS hospitals.

This rally is for everyone who is against the Health Bill and wants to voice their opposition. At this time, John Denham has speakers confirmed from:
* Royal College of Nurses
* Royal College of Midwives
* Unison
* Unite
* GMB
* Chair of Local Involvement Network (LINk) and Chair of NHS Southampton Patients Forum

John Denham believes the Health Bill – coupled with other measures in the Health and Social Care Bill – will result in lengthening waiting lists for NHS patients and increases in health inequalities.

Just in the last week, not only have senior Tory Cabinet ministers called for it to be dropped, but senior Liberal Democrats are now calling for the removal of the Health Secretary on national television.

In Southampton the cost of implementing David Cameron’s damaging and unnecessary top-down reorganisation of the NHS is at £16million. This will undoubtedly impact frontline patient care.

Tax credit bombshell to hit more than 700 Southampton families

Over 700 couples with children in part-time work in Southampton could lose around £4,000 a year from this April, following a change to tax credit rules being introduced by the government.

Southampton Labour MPs John Denham and Alan Whitehead are urging the Conservative-led government to reconsider a little-noticed change to tax credit rules which means thousands of families will lose all of their working tax credits unless they can significantly increase their working hours.

The change means that couples with children earning less than around £17,700 will need to increase the number of hours they work from a minimum of 16 to 24 hours per week or they will lose all their working tax credit of £3,870 per year.

Government figures revealed in parliamentary answers to Labour’s shadow Treasury team show 725 households in the Itchen and Test constituencies, including 1,675 children could lose out. Across the country a total of 212,000 could be affected by the changes.

A recent survey by the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development found that one in five organisations have cut back on the number of hours that people work as a result of the economic downturn, with just 6 per cent increasing them.

John Denham, Labour MP for Southampton Itchen, said: “This is a deeply unfair change from a government that is increasingly out of touch with parents feeling the squeeze and struggling to juggle work and family life.

Whitehead calls on Southampton Council to toughen HMO cap

Alan Whitehead has called on the Conservative Council in Southampton to toughen its proposed ‘tipping points’ for how many Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) should be allowed in the city.

The Council has just closed its consultation on what proportion of HMOs should be in different parts of the city. Currently the Council proposes setting an upper limit of 1 in 5 homes in most parts of the city being an HMO. They want to set a tougher limit of only 1 in 10 homes being an HMO only for northern city wards Portswood, Bassett and Swaythling.

This would likely curb HMO conversions in the north of Southampton, but would leave the way open for further HMO conversions in the city centre, where there are already more HMOs than anywhere else in the city.

It would also potentially leave the way open for every other part of Southampton to become as crowded with HMOs as central Southampton is currently.

Alan Whitehead has written to the Council urging them to adopt guidelines saying the density of HMOs in northern and central Southampton should not grow beyond current levels, and HMO density in the rest of the city should not rise above 10% (i.e. 1 in 10) of the total housing stock in each area.