Subject: News

 Bulletin  from  Greg  Hands  M.P.  #296

Date: Friday,  29  April  2011  10:27:43  United  Kingdom  Time
From: Greg  Hands  M.P.
To: news@greghands.com

In this edition: Issue 296 – Friday 29 th April 2011

Greg Hands M.P.’s Diary

Since the last edition, Greg:
Website of the Week:
www.greghands.com · Campaigned for a “No” vote in next week’s AV referendum,
meeting commuters outside Sloane Square and Fulham
UK economy grows
in first quarter Broadway tube stations.
· Campaigned door to door in Royal Hospital and Stanley
H&F is Street party wards in Chelsea for a “No” vote to AV in next week’s
capital of Great Britain
referendum on the voting system.
Have your say on South · Was interviewed by new local TV station ChelseaLifeTV,
Fulham's future which will begin broadcasting in a few weeks time.
Royal Borough of · Visited the Old Bailey, meeting with senior judges, to
Kensington & Chelsea become more familiar with the system of murder trials in the
Statement on the UK. More than 85% of trials at the Old Bailey are for
Thames Tunnel project murder.
Do your duty - fill in · Raised in the Commons the continuing non-attendance of
the census former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. For more, see
below.
Why vote No to AV
on 5 th May
· Attended a reception in Parliament for both Conservatives
Abroad and (US) Republicans Abroad.
Hands in the papers: · Appeared on LBC Radio discussing this week’s Prime
Harrumph! Another bad
day for the impatient
Minister’s Questions.
Squeaker

Hands in the media:

ID portrait for silent Website of the Week:
Brown

How to contact
www.greghands.com
Greg Hands M.P.
The newly revamped website of Greg Hands, the M.P.
for Chelsea and Fulham, including news in your area,
and what Greg has been doing in Parliament.
 

UK economy grows in first quarter

New figures released show the economy grew by 0.5% in the first
three months of this year.

George Osborne said: "It's particularly good news that manufacturing

is growing so strongly when we've had such an unbalanced
economy in recent years and manufacturing hasn't done well. And,
of course, jobs have been created since the new year and
Government borrowing is down.

"Of course, around the world we are facing some choppy economic
conditions - a big rise in the oil price in recent months. You see
countries dealing with very high budget deficits, and we've got one of
the highest.

"But I think that reinforces our determination to stick to the course,

and the economy is growing and that's good news."

Other recent figures show:

· Employment up 143,000 in 3 months to February
· 400,000 more private sector jobs than a year ago
· Borrowing beginning to come down: £15 billion less in 2010-
11 vs 2009-10
· Manufacturing up almost 5% over past year; the trade deficit
fell by almost 40% in February, with exports up and imports
down.

H&F is Street party capital

of Great Britain

Hammersmith & Fulham is set to be the street party capital of Great

Britain with 12 events set to take place on the day of the Royal
wedding.

And residents have until Monday, April 11 to tell the council that they
would like to get in on the fun and hold their own event.

When Prince William marries Kate Middleton on Friday, April 29,

Hammersmith & Fulham will celebrate with street parties the length
and breadth of the borough.

Cllr Harry Phibbs, H&F Council's cabinet member for community

engagement, said: “I am delighted that so many people will be
hosting street parties in Hammersmith & Fulham. I look forward to
seeing the bunting out and hundreds of people celebrating the Royal
wedding in style. There are more street parties taking place in this
borough than almost any other in the country but there is still plenty
of time to tell the council that you would like to host your own event.
We already have 12 applications and I am sure that we shall receive
many more before the deadline.”

The council has made it easier than ever before for residents to
arrange a street party by simplifying the application process. Instead
of reams of forms and red tape getting in the way, residents now just
need to fill in one simple on-line form.

Under previous time-consuming central Government regulations,

community groups were asked to apply for up to five separate
licences and found it difficult to navigate through the numerous
layers of bureaucracy and paperwork. They also found the process
to be tedious which often lead to delays or cancellations to
community events.

Cllr Phibbs added: “We have managed to strip away the bureaucracy
just in time so all you need to do if you want to hold an event is log
onto the Internet and fill in one short form!”

Have your say on South Fulham's

future
A thriving riverside and thousands of homes could be on the way in
South Fulham Riverside – and the Council wants residents to have
their say.

Now and over the next 20 years developers are expected to come
forward with proposals to transform disused industrial land in a
riverside stretch of Sand’s End, Fulham from Carnwath Road to
Imperial Wharf.

The Council engaged the Princes Foundation to help work with

Fulham residents so council planners can produce guidelines that will
shape any future development in the area.

A draft set of guidelines, the South Fulham Riverside Draft

Supplementary Planning Document (SPD), have now been produced
for residents to comment on between now and May 20.

Councillor Nick Botterill, Deputy Leader of H&F Council and Cabinet

Member for Environment said: “It is absolutely vital we involve
residents in the planning process from the earliest possible stage.
We were delighted to work with the Princes Foundation to ensure
residents had a big part to play in helping to shape our evolving
planning framework for South Fulham Riverside.”

South Fulham Riverside has been designated as a regeneration area

by the council, meaning it is a site capable of accommodating a
number of new homes and jobs.

The Princes Trust held workshops with residents and interested

groups to draw up a series of principles to help guide all future
development.

The principles include:

· All new developments should promote access to the Thames
Path. The Thames and open space around it should become
a focus for river-based activities and events such as farmers
markets, temporary festivals and the arts
· There should be a proper strategy for improvements to
public spaces including landscaping, lighting and tree
planting
· Buildings along the river front should have ‘active’ fronts,
such as offices, cafes and residential entrances
· The highest buildings should be on the riverfront or key
transport routes

Lord Charles Brocket, who lives in the development area, said: “It’s
been a very good process so far. The consultation sent a message
that we don’t want to build just high density homes, we want to build
a better quality of life.”

Townmead Estate resident Ben Perl said: “We really want to see the
riverside opened up to local people. It’s a transitional area right now
between industrial and residential and being a central part of London
it’s going to become more and more residential.

“We are working with the Council and the Princes Foundation at
ways we can make the area work for us as residents.”

The Council is holding drop-in sessions for you to view and

comment on the draft document on:
· Tuesday 3 rd May from 10.30am to 3.30pm
· Wednesday 4 th May from 5.00pm to 9pm
· Both Tuesday and Wednesday’s sessions will be held at The
Wharf Rooms, Imperial Road, London
· Saturday 7 th May from 10am to 4pm in the foyer of
Sainsbury’s in William Morris Way, Sands End

To view a full copy of the document visit:

· The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham’s website
www.lbhf.gov.uk/southfulhamriverside.
· Sands End Library, The Community Centre, 59 Broughton
Road, Fulham, SW6 2LE
· Fulham Library, 568 Fulham Road, Fulham, SW6 5NX
· Duty Planner Office. First Floor, Hammersmith Town Hall
Extension, King Street, London, W6 9JU

Representations must be sent via email to

SouthFulhamRiversideSPD@lbhf.gov.uk.

Or by post to:
Head of Development Management (Regeneration)
Planning Division, Environment Services Department
London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham
Town Hall Extension
King Street
Hammersmith
London, W6 9JU

Royal Borough of Kensington &

Chelsea Statement on the
Thames Tunnel project
While recognising that it would be desirable to reduce the occasional
overspills of sewage into the Thames, the Cabinet of the Royal
Borough of Kensington and Chelsea remains deeply uneasy about
the proposed Thames tunnel on which Thames Water has just
begun a 14 week consultation.

Not only will the tunnel be hugely expensive - £3.6 billion on current
estimates - that cost is to be borne by Londoners directly through
their water bills, pushing many thousands into “water poverty” as
defined by the Consumer Council for Water.

At the same time as pressing ahead with this mega-costly scheme

Thames Water has just announced that it is abandoning badly
needed mains renewal works in Kensington and Chelsea. We are
also concerned that the Thames tunnel will take resources from the
much-needed enlargement of Counter’s Creek sewer, designed to
protect residents from the disastrous effects of sewage flooding into
their homes.

This in itself will have a serious impact on Royal Borough residents

but the impact of the construction of the Thames tunnel project will
also be huge: our residents face long-term disruption, loss of amenity
and loss of open space too, which is already in short supply in this
part of London.

The beautiful Chelsea Embankment will be disfigured for years by

works on the foreshore. And that work will also reduce the
carriageway, producing severe delays on this major road. There will
be similar effects along the river at Cremorne Gardens. All these
“external” costs - costs of disruption, congestion and loss of amenity
over a number of years - need to be added to the expense of
constructing the tunnel to assess its true economic cost to London.

Because of the massive local impact we would like to be convinced

there is no alternative, and we are not. Moreover we remain opposed
in principle to the involvement of the Infrastructure Planning
Commission. That is because we simply do not accept this scheme
meets the criteria to trigger IPC involvement. Nor did Parliament
include it in the IPC’s remit, though the scheme was well advanced
in design when the Act which created the IPC was passed. We
believe that as it is Londoners who will have to foot the bill for this
scheme through higher water bills, London’s planning committees
should not be bypassed.

As the Thames tunnel is a major project with major impacts on

Royal Borough residents, we will support and facilitate the ongoing
public consultation and we shall engage actively with Thames Water
on the issues. But for all the reasons above the Council believes
that now is not the right time to be pressing ahead with this project.

A Cabinet spokesman said, “At a time when the country is tightening

its belt, choices have to be made and priorities set. Londoners will
not understand why the Victorian mains replacement they have paid
for is being halted while the cost of a new project of marginal utility
is added to their already large water bills. It is time for a brave
Government to think again about when and whether it would be
sensible to proceed with this tunnel.”

For more information on the consultation please visit

http://www.thamestunnelconsultation.co.uk/.

Do your duty - fill in the census

Second-home owners and concierges of apartment blocks are being
asked to help make the 2011 Census a success.

You are obliged to complete the census even if you do not live in
the property all the time and census staff are currently visiting
households that have not yet returned the form. Census Collectors
have the legal right to go about their work and concierges and
porters have a role to play by making sure that they are given
access to apartment blocks and gated communities.

It is not too late to fill in and return your census or complete it

online. Failure to do so could mean you are fined up to £1,000.

The information gathered during the census is used to calculate

funding due to councils and help plan local services.

Information about the census is available in a variety of different

languages and accessible forms and can be found at
www.rbkc.gov.uk/census.

If you have not received a form or need help you can also call the
Census Helpline on 0300 0201 101.

K&C Council produced four films to encourage residents to fill in

their census. They can be found at
www.youtube.com/kensingtonandchelsea.

Why vote No to AV on 5th May

AV is costly
The change to AV will cost up to an
additional £250 million. Local councils
would have to waste money on costly
electronic vote counting machines and
expensive voter education campaigns.
With ordinary families facing tough
times can we really afford to spend a
quarter of a billion pounds of
taxpayers' money bringing in a new
voting system? Schools and hospitals, or the Alternative Vote –
that's the choice in this referendum.

AV is complex and unfair

The winner should be the candidate that comes first, but under AV
the candidate who comes second or third can actually be elected.
That’s why it is used by just three countries in the world – Fiji,
Australia and Papua New Guinea. Voters should decide who the
best candidate is, not the voting system. We can't afford to let the
politicians off the hook by introducing a loser's charter.

AV is a politician's fix
AV leads to more hung parliaments, backroom deals and broken
promises like the Lib Dem tuition fees U-turn. Instead of the voters
choosing the government, politicians would hold power. Under AV,
the only vote that really counts is Nick Clegg's. We can't afford to let
the politicians decide who runs our country.

Vote NO to AV on 5 May 2011

NOtoAV is a campaign that has support from right across the

country. Members of the public, trade unionists and members of
several political parties are part of a campaign that has a common
goal. Whilst we have many different views on what system of
elections is best for Britain, we all believe that the Alternative Vote
(AV) system will only damage Britain's democracy

Hands in the papers:

Harrumph! Another bad day for the
impatient Squeaker
Quentin Letts, The Daily Mail
Friday 29 th April 2011

One of the politicians attending the Royal Wedding will be Squeaker

Bercow. It is only proper, I suppose, that the Speaker of the
Commons should be admitted to the big do, despite his wife’s
sneeriness about the Royal Family. (If anyone was to have sat next
to the Bahraini ambassador perhaps it should have been Mrs
Bercow. Somehow, they deserve one another.)

But how is the Squeaker faring in his day job? In recent weeks he
has been sucking up to the Tories a bit, perhaps hoping to neutralise
the widespread impression that he is biased towards Labour.

This has not stopped rumours of a challenge to his Speakership.

Some say that the Lib Dems’ Sir Alan Beith is limbering up on the
touchline. Now that would be a laugh. Jack Straw (Lab, Blackburn)
has also been mentioned as a stop-gap Speaker, should anything
unfortunate happen to our little friend. Speaker Straw could be a
good idea.

Mr Bercow had a poor day yesterday. Ministers were interrupted

unnecessarily. Pro- Coalition backbenchers fared very much worse
than Opposition MPs in his favours.

Arts minister Ed Vaizey was one victim. Mr Vaizey is invariably

placed under time pressure by Mr Bercow. Labour MPs talk for ages
but Mr Vaizey finds that he need only stand at the despatch box for
ten seconds for Mr Bercow to start harrumphing and coughing and
generally agitating.

Yesterday his chosen gesture of impatience was a repeated tapping

of the right knee while Mr Vaizey was giving ministerial answers.

At the time Mr Vaizey was replying to Shadow Culture Secretary

Ivan Lewis. So eager was Mr Bercow to shut up Mr Vaizey that he
barked out the name of the next person on the Commons Order
Paper – in a ‘yes, yes, let’s press on, shall we?’ sort of way. This
denied Mr Lewis his right to a follow-up question. Poor Ivan. The
Speaker’s determination to do in Mr Vaizey had claimed collateral
damage.

Why should Mr Bercow dislike Mr Vaizey?

Vaizey is genial and quite amusing. But he is a former public

schoolboy (St Paul’s). Tut tut.

Or maybe it is because Mr Vaizey is a blowy charmer, one of those

men who amble through life without ever working up much of a
sweat.

He has a rogue’s twinkle in his eye. Women find him attractive. Is

Bercow envious?
Another minister given short shrift by the Speaker was Culture
Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

He had been asked by Philip Hollobone (Con, Kettering) what he

was doing to reduce wasteful spending at his department. Mr
Hollobone’s question was printed on the Order Paper. It was
perfectly legitimate.

Mr Hunt said that whereas the Labour Government spent £300,000

a year on ministerial cars, the Coalition had reduced this to £8,000
on minicabs. Where Labour spent £100,000 on departmental
entertaining, that sum had been halved. At this point Mr Bercow
crossly put a stop to Mr Hunt’s answer.

Why? The answer was directly related to the question. It was

factual. Short. What business was it of the Speaker to interrupt the
minister? Rob Wilson (Con, Reading E), a ministerial aide, shook his
head in disbelief.

I have since discovered that Mr Hunt had one further statistic up his
sleeve. As a servant of parliamentary accountability, let me report it.

Mr Hunt simply intended to say that whereas Labour spent £10,000

in nine months on pot plants at the Culture Department, the Coalition
has spent nothing.
There. Wouldn’t have hurt, would it?

Mr Bercow also tried to make life difficult for Greg Hands (Con,
Chelsea & Fulham).

Mr Hands ignored him and made the excellent suggestion that the
Commons authorities should acquire a copy of the official portrait of
Gordon Brown which has just been placed in 10 Downing Street.

Mr Hands hoped that this might assist the Commons clerks to

identify the Rt Hon Member for Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath (Lab),
given that he is such an infrequent visitor to the House these days.

Hands in the media:

ID portrait for silent Brown
Emily Ashton, Press Association
Thursday 28 th April 2011

Gordon Brown's official Downing Street portrait should be used in

the House of Commons for "identification purposes", a Conservative
MP said today.

Greg Hands criticised the former Labour prime minister for only
speaking once in the chamber in the past year and said his new
portrait, unveiled yesterday, could prove useful for MPs who may
have forgotten what he looks like.

He also urged the Government to provide training for former

ministers on the "procedures of the House".

Mr Brown made a five-minute speech from the back benches in

November in an attempt to save shipyard jobs in his Kirkcaldy and
Cowdenbeath constituency.

During exchanges on upcoming parliamentary business, Mr Hands

(Chelsea and Fulham) said this was "in stark contrast to the former
prime minister Sir John Major who used to speak monthly after he
stood down".

He told deputy Commons leader David Heath: "You will know that
yesterday saw the installation of the official photo of the Member of
Cowdenbeath in 10 Downing Street.

"I was wondering if the minister would agree to acquire a copy of the
photo for identification purposes to use in this chamber in case he
decides to come down ..."

5 ways to contact Greg Hands M.P.:

By Phone: 020 7219 5448
By email: mail@greghands.com
By post: Greg Hands M.P.
House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA
In person: Click here for details of how
to book an appointment at
Greg Hands M.P.’s weekly
surgery

www.greghands.com

More news from Greg Hands M.P., coming soon…

Please forward this email on to anyone you think may be interested.

If you have had this email forwarded to you and would like to be
added to the mailing list, please send an email to:
news@greghands.com with “JOIN” in the subject heading.

To unsubscribe from this list, please return an e-mail to

news@greghands.com with "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the subject
heading.