Trams everywhere..

Well, not really, but it just seems like that, certainly on Leith Walk. And trams has been a story that has come up at opposite ends of the constituency over the last few days. Last Thursday, I was at a good event in Telford College, a panel on "green issues" organised by the students there - a lot of interesting questions, and one of them the continuing concern about transport links to North Edinburgh. There's still a question mark about the phase of the tram programme that will provide a link to Telford College and the surrounding areas, and the students (and staff) are keen that the link goes ahead, and I'll be backing them in their campaign for this.

Meantime, there's a meeting tonight with the traders in Leith Walk who are worried about the effects of the tram works on their business, an issue I've raised with Tie before. I can't make the meeting as I'm in the House of Commons this week - but I hope that all the political parties can now work together on this issue, and not make it a political football. Whatever our views were about the idea of the trams, they're going to happen - let's all of us do what we can to make sure that Leith Walk traders (and others) get help to cope with the undoubted difficulties they are having, and let's also work together to make sure that the tram does serve North Edinburgh, which is where the whole idea of the tram came from in the first place!

The 10p tax rate - continued

I said in my post on this blog on Monday that I would come back to say something about the 10p tax rate furore. I had planned to do so yesterday, but things have been moving so quickly that I didn't get a chance to prepare something. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I was at the Parliamentary Labour Party meeting on Monday with Gordon Brown, and at meetings with Alistair Darling yesterday and today.

What happened at these meetings has been reported in the media pretty comprehensively, so I won't add much to what had already been said. Sufficient to say that at last we seem to have a package which will, eventually, go a long way to repair a lot of the undoubted damage caused by this episode. But it should never have happened in the first case - as the days have gone by, it is clear that large numbers of MPs, like myself, had been writing to and lobbying the government over this issue for some time, and the issue should have been dealt with a long time ago. And we need to get a solution which helps all the groups affected, as soon as possible. Alistair Darling's statement (here) makes it clear that there will be a comprehensive look at the issue - and I'll certainly be feeding ideas into this process myself.

The tragedy of course is that it has given the Tories a real chance to make political hay at our expense - even though it was their policy (until now) to be against the 10p tax rate. And it has also allowed attention to shift from what we have done over 11 years for people on low incomes and pensioners- tax credits, winter fuel allowance, minimum wage, pensioners' free travel and central heating schemes - and much else besides.

On the streets of Leith..

Had a meeting at the end of the week with the Chairman of Tie, the City Council company building the Edinburgh tram routes, at which I raised a number of concerns raised by local residents and traders. He gave me details of the extension of their grant scheme to help businesses affected by the tram disruption, so that it includes businesses in streets nearby the tram route as well as those actually on the route itself. I was also told that the initial phase of work on Leith Walk should finish shortly, which is obviously important given the inevitable disruption it has caused. And work on Constitution Street is currently ahead of schedule.

That street is blocked at present, of course, which is why the route of the Edinburgh & Leith Sikh community procession to celebrate Vaisakhi had to be diverted. However, it didn't dampen the spirit of those who took part in the march, which I joined along with my colleagues Councillor Gordon Munro and MSP Malcolm Chisholm.

And tonight, back in the House of Commons after our two week (late) Easter recess, the PM addressed Labour MPs on the 10p tax issue - on which I hope to 'blog' about tomorrow!

First Minister Questions v Prime Minister Questions

Leith's local community radio station, Leith FM, invited me into their studios today to be a political commentator today - a change from being an MP! More precisely, to watch and join in their analysis of "First Minister's Questions" at the Scottish Parliament. It was interesting to contrast and compare it with Prime Ministers' Questions at Westminster - a lot of similarities at the end of day, but interesting to see how Holyrood seems to give some advantages to the First Minister (whoever he or she is!) compared to the PM in the UK Parliament. For example, at Holyrood the First Minister knows in advance the subject matter of the questions to be asked by "backbench" MSPs, unlike Westminster, and he also seems to get away with much longer answers than the Prime Minister would be allowed. Today's performance, I think, showed the Scottish Parliament doing its job of holding the government to account well - an effective performance by Wendy Alexander. Effective answers from Alex Salmond, as well, although he did seem to avoid the subject of the question a few times - but that's not unknown for us MPs!

Interesting to see the question of cutbacks in council services being the subject of a few questions - it's certainly a live issue locally. I mentioned in an earlier post the campaign against Edinburgh's closure of the creche at Leith Victoria pool and fitness centre. Earlier this week, I went along to the meeting organised by the parents who are campaigning against the plans - they certainly don't intend to give up the fight!

Community health in North Edinburgh

Went to a conference in Telford College organised by the Forth Neighbourhood Partnership on Community Health issues in North Edinburgh. About 35 people there from a range of local groups, and a lot of good points made. The key issues which came out of the event for me were, firstly, there's a lot going on: but secondly, that means good coordination between the different initiatives underway; and a bit of a worry (expressed by quite a few at the meeting) that although a lot of money seemed to be going into bricks and mortar (and that's welcome), some of the grass-roots projects which actually were in touch with people were not getting the same type of support. Hopefully the representatives from the Council and from the health service will have taken these points on board - they seemed to on the day.

And, not surprisingly, the same point about transport (or lack of it) that came up at the meeting with the Telford students and staff that I mentioned a few days ago.

Save our creches!

Here's a link to the campaign to save the creches in many of the Edinburgh Leisure centres from being closed by Edinburgh Council's cuts. Save our creches!

The campaign has a big event at the Scottish Parliament this week - hopefully that will help to highlight the issues!

A Leith Museum - and our community energy project

A few meetings this week in the constituency about some local projects I’ve been involved with in Leith. The first is the campaign for a Leith Museum. I brought together a steering committee to take forward this campaign about a year ago. We’ve had a lot of support from the public (see the campaign website), and we’re slowly getting recognition from some of the public bodies who will need to make the idea a reality. We had a campaign meeting this week – and we’ll be making some interesting announcements soon – watch this space (or rather, the Museum campaign website!).

Another local project has been the idea of a community energy project – aiming at making renewable and sustainable energy, owned by the community, a reality here in North Edinburgh and Leith. Again, it’s been a slow process dealing with large numbers of organisations and interests – but once again, we’re at last making progress, and I hope there’ll be some announcements to do with this in the next week or so!

Greening Leith!

I'm happy to give a 'plug' for the Leith Open Space Group who will be helping out at the Persevere Community Garden tomorrow (Saturday). Have a look at the Open Space group website for more details of what will be happening, and the other activities and networks in which the group is involved!

Around the constituency

I mentioned in my last post that I was planning to meet some students and staff at Telford College, and I was able to discuss a lot of issues. Spoke to the student president, Tim Fitchett, who has done a really excellent job getting the students' union revived at Telford. He was telling me about their campaigning priorities - one of the top ones is to get better bus links to the college. It's a good point, and one that's made by many people in the North Edinburgh area as well. There are quite a lot of buses serving the area - but journey times to the city centre, let alone areas further afield, can be very long. If Tramline 1b goes ahead, that will provide a direct and fast link to the centre more or less from outside the college, but of course that's not certain, and in any event won't happen for three years at least, by which time most of the current students will be away! So I told Tim I would be happy to work with students and staff to support their campaign for better bus links to the area.

Another issue raised with me on my visit by both staff and students was the threat to the future of the North Edinburgh News caused by the decision of the LibDem/SNP coalition running Edinburgh Council to cut off funding to community newspapers. This would affect Telford's ability to get news about their programmes and courses to the local area.

Recess time again!

Our recess started last Thursday, and after a few days away in the Highlands with the family, I'm now back in the constituency. Unfortunately, as frequently happens, just as my children go back to school after their two-week break, I'm off from Parliament for my own break! That does give me the chance, however, to visit a lot of organisations in the constituency, as wellas catch up with work in the office. This afternoon, for example, I met with the JUMP group who are concerned about the plans for the redevelopment of Leith, and tomorrow I will be at Telford College meeting staff and students.

In the office there's been a lot of emails today about the withdrawal of the 10p tax band. I'm afraid I'm not surprised, because the fact is that although the increases in tax credits and reduction of the 22p rate will benefit more people than lose out from the changes, there are people on low income who will lose out, which is why I've raised the issue with Ministers on more than occasion over the last year. I still hope that the government will respond to the concerns that have been raised.

More powers to the Scottish Parliament?

This afternoon saw a debate which had been called by an SNP MP on the "Review of the Scottish Parliament". The debate not surprisingly concentrated on the "Constitutional Commission" set up by the non-nationalist parties, and the "National Conversation" set up by the SNP Scottish government. It would not be unfair to say that the debate generated more heat than light on the subject! - although much, rightly, was made of the fact that even though the SNP government had not risked bringing their "National Conversation to the Scottish Parliament for approval, the SNP had decided to discuss, in the UK Parliament, the Constitutional Commission even before it had got down properly to work! Hopefully we'll some more substantial debates on these issues in due course.

Earlier, we had seen Harriet Harman, as Leader of the House of Commons, standing in to take Prime Ministers' Questions in place of Gordon Brown who was away at the NATO summit. As is Parliamentary etiquette (lot of that here!), if the Prime Minister doesn't do Questions, the other parties also don't put up their leaders, so William Hague and Vince Cable took the lead for the opposition parties. I thought Harriet did well.

Climate change campaigning

This morning, went out to Parliament Square to visit a demonstration by the student "People and Planet" group, who were campaigning against proposals for new coal-fired power stations in the UK. There was an Edinburgh representative on the demo, so I was keen to meet him. That was the second demo/lobby in two days on the Climate Change Bill, an issue in which I've been closely involved in Parliament - Monday morning I had met a group of Christian Aid supporters who had come to my constituency office to present me with a "pledge" calling for 80% reduction in UK greenhouse gas emissions, which I support (see photo right).

Tuesday afternoon/evenings saw meetings of two of the All Party Parliamentary Groups in which I'm involved - one looking at financial advice, and the other looking at the effect of trade deals on developing countries. Otherwise, in the office catching up on emails and the rest- and then I will attend the last part of the debate on the Counter-Terrorism Bill. This is the first debate in the House of Commons on the Bill. The most controversial part, the proposed "42 day" limit for pre-charge detention for terrorist suspects, will probably be voted on in May. I've had quite a few constituents contacting me with their concerns about this proposal, so I'll be considering this issue very carefully indeed.

Airport chaos - there is an alternative!

I don't want to make it sound like I'm obsessed with trains, but given what I said below I thought I should put on record I had a good train journey down from Edinburgh this week - and, for the second week in a row, the train was early, taking under 4hrs 10 minutes. That is a reminder how even with the existing track and trains, 4 hour train journeys from Edinburgh to London are quite possible - and even without investing in a new high speed rail route for the entire way, journeys of 3 and a half hours are quite feasible. And a brand new high speed rail route could bring the journey time down under 3 hours.

That's worthwhile remembering when we see the chaos at the new Terminal 5 this week. For a whole host of reasons, encouraging a shift from air to rail for domestic journeys in the UK makes so much sense. That's an issue I've been involved with in Westminster over the years; and I think it's high time to give it another push, and I'm going to try and do that.