more … ]]> I’ve been working with Mark on an online version of the cost of living survey that he recently put in the Hampshire Chronicle.

Surveys are still coming in and we are still collating the full results, but Mark already used the early results in a debate on the cost of living on July 9th.

All the survey responses to date have helped give a clear picture of the pressures that people locally are facing.

It’s a very long time since we’ve seen such rapid increases in food and fuel prices – combined with continued increases in council tax and fares. For obvious reasons, both Mark and I are very keen to see that the views and situation of local people are properly represented in Parliament.

If you want to read or see the speech Mark made referencing the survey, it’s available online at TheyWorkForYou.com.

more … ]]> We’ve decided to switch our office to using electricity from Ecotricity – so the press turned up yesterday to take some pictures in the back garden of our office.

Reassuringly, it doesn’t cost any more than the standard tariff from a non-green supplier.

We’ve had pictures of Mark and I waving low energy lightbulbs around before when we switched all the bulbs in our office.

Here’s one of the rare pictures from yesterday where we’re not all waving light-bulbs around – only one of us is:

On a more substantive note, the head of ecotricity has a thought-provoking blog at zerocarbonista.com. His view is that the biggest barrier to more wind energy in the UK is the planning system – not lack of feed-in tariffs:

Two thirds of all wind projects are refused by District Councils at the planning stage, and two thirds of all appeals are upheld by the government – a lot of bad decisions being overturned, eventually.

And wind energy is the only major generation source that depends for planning on District Councils – the government deals with all others for very good reasons. District councils are not up to the job, on the whole.

I’m loth to see any decisions move towards central government without a very good reason – overall, I’d like to see more local decision-making, not less – but there may be a case for making it a county council decision – like minerals and waste.

I’d also like to see CO₂ as an explicit factor in all relevant council and government decisions. Crediting new wind turbine developments against councils’ carbon targets could be another, more local, way to address the issue.

More on the zerocarbonista blog about feed-in tariffs and planning here.

Another green energy supplier used by Lib Dems (including our national office) is Good Energy.

more … ]]> I was very encouraged to see today’s Hampshire Chronicle report on how Winchester’s local hospital is making progress in the battle against MRSA.

Back in January, following an invitation, I accompanied the RHCH Medical Director, Dr Kevin Stewart, on one of the daily ward rounds by the executive team to inspect the hospital environment and see that action is taken on areas that need work.

We spent two hours visiting the hospital – mainly in Florence Portal House – seeing the improvements that are being made and discussing the infection control programme.

I’ve been particularly interested in infection control for several years.  Earlier in my career, I was involved in setting up public hygiene programmes in developing countries – teaching mothers and children basic handwashing habits can have a dramatic effect on infant health and mortality -  and have previously met with experts in infection control to learn more about it.

It was very encouraging to see how totally committed the hospital’s management team and staff are to improving infection control and creating a culture of cleanliness within the hospital – and how hard the staff are working to improve things.  It was clear that their top priority is to get the essentials right: regular hand-washing and hand-sanitising – reducing unnecessary use of antibiotics – making the hospital easy to clean and keeping it clean.  I was amazed how many hospitals didn’t mention handwashing or sinks in the recent Panorama survey the BBC published alongside their ‘How clean Is your hospital’ programme (although RHCH did).  Hand sanitiser (essentially alcohol with bit of glycerin and perfume thrown in) is good as far as it goes, but, if there is any dirt on the hands, it is not as good as soap and water.

We also talked about their programme of ‘prescribing’ the insertion of cannulae. It’s been getting great results and it’s very good to see RHCH taking a national lead on finding innovative ways to go beyond the basics.

Most of the time, the best thing that politicians can do about the NHS is stay out of the way of local health professionals. The one area where they can need more support is in ensuring they have enough funding to pay for the right number of beds for the number of patients they have and to modernise the wards to make it easier to isolate people who get an infection.

I know Mark Oaten and I are committed to doing everything we can to make sure that the hospital has the funding and support it needs to do this.  As recently reported on Panorama, if beds are used too intensively, it can increase the risk of infection – even if everything else is done right.  It’s essential that the hospital gets the support it needs to keep reducing bed occupancy rates and to continue driving down infection rates.

more … ]]> A very good report from Briony Leyland on the threat to Winchester’s Textile Conservation Centre.

What’s becoming increasingly clear is that the Government are flunking their responsibilities here. Ian Pearson’s answer to a question that Mark asked in Parliament makes this particularly clear.

But it’s probably best to let the report speak for itself!

more … ]]> Just back from an excellent meeting about Littleton Post Office in Littleton Village Hall – exceptionally well chaired – and very constructive. Around 200 people were there to question two senior post office managers about the plans to close Littleton Post Office.

A wide range of very strong points were made challenging the assumptions behind the proposed closure – particularly the assumptions made by the Post Office about how easy it would be for people using public transport to get from Littleton to Stoney Lane, the assumptions about how easy it is to get there on foot and the assumptions about how easy it would be for people who use cars to park and use the Post Office (particularly while Waitrose is being built).

Someone asked the question about what would happen if the Stoney Lane Co-op went under as a result of Waitrose opening – a particularly apposite question given the recent closure of the Co-op owned Alldays in Chandler’s Ford and the resultant loss of the Post Office. (In practice, the experience from Chandler’s Ford is that they would be compelled to find a replacement – but it takes time – and if something similar happened to Stoney Lane, there would almost certainly be no Post Office in Weeke for several months).

Another rich vein of questioning related to how the head office costs are allocated to sub-post-offices – and whether local funding could have a role in keeping the post office open. Are 10,000 out of 14,000 sub-post-offices really unprofitable – or does it reflect the way they allocate costs between Post Offices – or between the Royal Mail and the Post Office? (Once this line of questioning got going, someone warned the post office spokespeople that there are a lot of accountants in Littleton!) How much subsidy would it really take to keep the Post Office open? Anyone who’s spent time in corporate life knows how changes in accounting policy can have a dramatic effect on the apparent profitability of a given business unit.

I’d also like to see further exploration of how Post Offices could be used as general access points for all government services – not just national services – but local services as well. Are there other businesses or services (including charities) that the post office could front? I discussed this briefly with Post Office management at the end of the meeting. There were some trials on this at the start of the decade, but the ones I’ve found seem to have restricted themselves mainly to information provision rather than actually providing services (for example, payments handling or document checking). This is not a question we can answer by the end of the consultation, but is definitely a policy idea I intend to keep working at.

There was also a discussion about the plan to put the Post Office into Smiths. The Post Office made it clear how forcefully Mark Oaten had stated his concerns during the recent meeting I attended with them in the House of Commons. Everyone who spoke at the meeting was in a very similar place.

Finally though, once we cut through all the arguments about the assumptions behind closure, there remained a core issue. Why are we cutting back our post office network so sharply in the first place? Many speakers highlighted the social role of the post office and the sub-postmaster or (in Littleton’s case) sub-postmistress. In many cases (including Littleton) loss of the post office means the loss of the last shop in the village. Combined with the Conservatives’ brutal cuts in local public transport, it leaves the elderly, the young and those without access to cars more isolated than ever. The chair of the meeting rightly captured and dealt with this issue at the beginning of the meeting so that it didn’t throw the rest of the meeting off track – but no-one should underestimate the undercurrent of real anger there was towards the policies that have led to the threatened closure of Littleton Post Office in the first place.

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Hampshire’s Library Service is currently in serious crisis.

• The books budget has cut by more than £500,000 over the last 2 years. Our libraries now have 20% fewer books than they did 5 years ago.
• 27 out of 60 professional librarian positions are in the process of being cut across the county.
• Hampshire’s library service now spends less than 6% of its funding on books – the lowest level of book purchasing of any county in England.

An urgent scrutiny meeting to review the operation of the library service has been delayed by the Conservative County Council administration for over a year.

In response to the crisis, the librarians organised a ‘read out’ by the Butter Cross to support their opposition to the current round of cuts.

Unfortunately I couldn’t be there due to a previously arranged meeting in London.

However, to try and compensate, I arranged with Mark Oaten and Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem Home Affairs spokesperson, that we would join the ‘read out‘ in spirit by reading books at the same time as people backing Hampshire’s librarians were supporting them in London.

You can see the results above.

If you’d like to find out more or back the librarians, there are three things that you can do:

1. Sign the petition to the Prime Minister asking for the decision to cut the number of staff by nearly half at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Defend-libraries/.
2. Write to David Lammy MP, Minister of State for the Arts, Department of Culture Media and Sport, Department for Culture Media & Sport, 2-4 Cockspur Street, London, SW1Y 5DH. Your letter should refer specifically to the failure of Hampshire County Council to provide a public library service as required of them under the Act of 1964. The letter should call upon Mr Lammy to obtain such information as is necessary to perform his duty of supervision of the library service and act accordingly.
3. Find out more about the situation of our libraries, by visiting http://www.goodlibraryguide.com and searching for ‘Hampshire’.

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Mark Oaten, Liz Leffman – the new PPC for Meon Valley – and I had an excellent meeting on Friday to discuss how we can work together most effectively.

Mark is very supportive of both our campaigns. Indeed, I started the day with him doing a visit to the site of the new Trinity Centre site and will be working closely with him on constituency issues from now onwards. Liz will be doing the same in the Meon Valley part of the current Winchester constituency. We also discussed ways to work together most effectively on local and national campaign issues.

more … ]]> As you may have read elsewhere, I was selected last night as Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Winchester.

Many thanks to everyone who voted for me. Many thanks also to the Returning Officer and other candidates for such a good-natured, although very competitive, selection.

Mark called to congratulate soon after the result, which was much appreciated. It’s obviously a top priority to sit down with him and work out the best way for us to work together.

If you can offer help to the campaign, please sign up using the box on the top-right of this page.

The campaign starts now!