Ian Henderson on the Grenville Fire & Why Labour Needs to Win in Kensington & Chelsea in May

I was late for the West Ham Labour Party General Committee meeting but I really appreciated our guest speaker, Ian Henderson, who spoke on the Grenfell Fire and its aftermath.

Ian is a Labour Councillor Candidate in Kensington & Chelsea (K&C) local elections in May but is also a long serving TRA rep who is, let me say, not very complimentary about Housing Associations.

He is genuinely appalled about what happened at Grenfell and knows personally the blogger whose warnings about safety at that block were ignored and how that bloggers was so lucky to escape with this life that night thanks to dedicated public service firefighters who risked their lives to save him.

K&C Labour Group believe they can win control of the Council in May and are planning a radical housing policy to build homes at a social rent.

As the CLP Vice Chair Campaigns I promised Ian that West Ham Labour will be out to help him and his colleagues win in May as well.

LAPFF Conference 2014: Public Funds & Public Purpose

Yesterday I came back from the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF) conference. I will post more on the conference later on.

It was I think the best attended LAPFF conference I have been to which reflects the huge changes and chellenges that the Local Government Pension Schemes (LGPS) faces and that membership of LAPFF is at an all time high.

The conference opened with a welcome from LAPFF Chair, Cllr Kieran Quinn Greater Manchester Pension Fund.

The Conference Chair was Sir Merrick Cockell, former Conservative leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council and the Local Government Association. He is now deputy Chair of LPFA. I found his remark that "No matter what your politics are you must be concerned about the under supply of housing" interesting.

He also said that we nationally need to invest in infrastructure for not only social purposes, but for sustainable and better returns than gilts & bonds. He believes the future is pooling & collective investments and you don't just need sovereign investment funds such as Qatar for such infrastructure & housing projects.

In the past Sir Cockell has publicly supported the merger of all 101 LGPS into just 5 funds and that this could result in some 300,000 new homes being built every year.

Next was a debate on LAPFF "engagement".