Councillor Report 3.1.17 - "Could we become Haringey Development Vehicle (HDV) Two?"

This is my latest written report (previous one 7 December 2017).

Council Issues
Meeting with Senior Council officers

13 December. I met again with other concerned backbench Councillors senior officers at Newham Dockside to discuss and examine reports on the way that the Council buys and manages commercial properties for investment purposes. The meeting was constructive and informative but I still have huge concerns about the governance arrangements and oversight. Newham is borrowing hundreds of millions of pounds to invest in property. We are still being refused sight of the Newham Council reports on the London Stadium disaster and the reasons for the £50-60 million pound losses. This is an executive decision not to release and not by officers.

Newham Council Investment & Accounts meeting
14 December. At this meeting while discussing the minutes of the previous joint Audit meeting the Director of Finance confirmed that the £40 million original loan to the London stadium is not being “written off” but swapped in some “debt for equity” exchange? Since the loan was recently declared in our annual accounts as “impaired” (currently worthless) I do not know what on earth that means? Nor what happens to the lost £4.4 million interest charge, the £5 million loan for investments in the Olympic South Park and the £12 million of "working capital”.

I was very shocked to hear that some Newham Schools are allowing private contractors to not enrol new starters into the Local Government Pension Scheme. This will penalise already low paid female school staff and is of course a disgrace and these schools should be named and shamed.

At the meeting there were members of the Newham Carbon Divestment campaign. I suggested that they should be allowed to make a presentation at the Newham Pension AGM.

Newham Cabinet Meeting. Could we become Haringey Development Vehicle (HDV) Two?
21 December I attended Cabinet as an observer and spoke to the Mayor about privatisation of Council services and also a proposal to set up some special vehicle to run all Newham’s property assets (we are talking potentially billions of pounds). I am astonished that this is even being considered before we learn the lessons on what went wrong with the London stadium special vehicle. This could be an even worse political mess than Haringey Council has found itself over its property development vehicle. I asked the Mayor if he would bring any such future plans back to a full Council meeting for approval but he did not agree and said it would go to Labour Group.

Fortunately Cllr’s Hussain and Clark managed to amend the proposal to just doing a review of existing arrangements and nothing else.

Review of Scrutiny arrangements
The Select Committee on Communities and Local Government has recently published a hard hitting report criticising many Councils for inadequate Scrutiny of Executive decisions. I have publicly commented on this report with and I am pleased that Scrutiny Chair, Cllr Rokhsana Fiaz, will be taking the recommendations to the Overview & Scrutiny Committee.

Surgeries and case work
I have attended 2 surgeries per month in Vicarage Lane Community Centre and Brassett Point Residents Association room. Casework regarding Academies, ASB; parking ticket policy; disabled adaptations disrepair, speeding cars, Right to buy, insurance and forming a Tenants & Residents group. I was most unimpressed with repair failures in the Church Street block run by One Housing Group and I am trying to arrange an inspection. I have received a petition from residents which I will present at the next Full Council meeting.

Ward Issues

Ward meeting/Xmas Social
7 December I attended ward meeting and went on to enjoy the Xmas social. Many thanks to Lyn Brown MP for attending and the organisers for a great evening.

West Ham campaigning & petition on lack of social homes in Ford Showrooms development
We are waiting for the planning meeting. There is now a West Ham Labour ward petition at Change.org http://chn.ge/2iq4UKb. Please support this petition.

Durul Jannah Community Centre, E15 – Planning permission
19 December. I spoke in favour at a hearing for a change in planning permission for this centre. Officers are opposed but I think they have got it wrong over this issue. I was supported by Cllr Forhad Hussain and Cllr Mas Patel. Unfortunately due to a mistake with the paperwork the application had to put on hold but I hope this can be sorted out as quickly as possible.

Other Issues

Labour doorstep
9 December after Surgery I went door knocking & leaflet distribution in Stratford ward with a local Councillor and activists.

Councillor Candidate’s selection meeting postponed.
Apologies to ward members who had reserved 9/10 December for the chance to elect candidates for the local elections in May 2018. Due to a number of appeals outstanding for applicants who did not pass the initial interview the Regional Labour Party has postponed the selections. No new date yet.

Mayoral “trigger ballot” to be rerunThe Mayor, sent out a press release saying that he wants a rerun of his selection process as the Labour Candidate for Executive Mayor. I thought his release was extremely odd but it does appear that he concedes that the process was “rigged” and that it needs to be rerun. I strongly support it being redone but think that there is not enough time for a Mayoral “Trigger” and selecting Councillor candidates, so I believe that there needs to be an open selection process for our Mayoral candidate.

London Collective Investment Vehicle (CIV)
11 December I attended with UNISON colleagues for the public part of the business meeting. The CIV is planning to manage nearly all Local Government Pension funds in London (including Newham). However, the governance arrangements are nonsensical since there is no beneficiary representation.

Anti Academies Protest Hallsville School
23 December I attended a successful and well organised protest outside Hallsville School in Canning Town with parents, teachers, children and 4 other Newham Councillors (including are very own John Whitworth). I was quoted in the Newham Recorder that the Council must raise it game since schools are blaming it for “forcing” them to become academies due to lack of support.

UNISON
I am standing again for election as the Greater London UNISON Regional Finance Convenor (for the 10th year)

Workers Memorial Day 2018
Date for future is Saturday 28 April 2018 when West Ham Labour Party and local trade unions will be remembering all those killed at work or who have died of work related ill health at the Three Mills Green Memorial.

Living wages in Newham Schools
As a school governor I have sent in a question to the next Newham Governors Forum asking all schools to declare whether they pay a London Living wage to all their staff (including agency and contractors)

Donation in lieu of Christmas Cards
Once again I made a donation to a charity rather than send any Christmas cards. This year to the Magpie Trust which helps homeless families in Newham.

Congratulate Seyi Akiwowo
Finally, I think we should congratulate your ward chair (& Forest Gate Councillor) on her contribution to the UN about on-line hate and founding the campaigning group Glitchuk.

If any member wishes to contact me about this report to discuss any aspect please do not hesitate to do so.

Regards

John Gray
West Ham Ward Councillor

London Labour Party Biennial Conference 2010 (Morning speeches)

On Saturday at the Old Town Hall in Stratford there was the 2010 London Labour Party Biennial conference. 

This is now the 2nd London Biennial conference that I have posted upon. Check out 2008 here. I was again a member of the UNISON affiliate trade union delegation.  However, before the meeting I was helping out with the distribution of flyer's to all delegates about the impending launch of a London Branch of the Labour Housing Group (which was sponsored by UNISON Labour Link).

Usual health warning on the accuracy of my hurried notes. London Labour Party Regional Director Ken Clark opened the conference.  The first speaker was the the borough host, Newham Mayor, Sir Robin Wales, who happily reminded all delegates to sniff and enjoy the "Tory free" air in Newham.  Even better, in next door Barking and Dagenham, they enjoy the air being totally fascist free after the May elections! (loud applause).

Robin points out the sheer inequity and political gerrymandering of the "cuts" which has meant Newham will suffer £71 in cuts while Coalition run Richmond upon Thames, will only suffer £5 million.

Next was GLA Labour Assembly and London Pary leader, Len Duvall. I'll concentrate on the interesting bits of his speech (to me).  He condemned the Henz 57 model of community and personality politics.  Where elections are decided not on the basis of transparent London issues but on what is happening elsewhere.  The London Labour Party does want to have local parties (Tower Hamlets) in special measures, its not that we don't like someone or their politics but we are genuinely worried about what would happen.

Len spoke about the importance of London Labour Councils, not being too managerial and technical.  We need to be political and show there is a difference between us and them.  Between Labour and Brian Coleman.  We are different.  We want to genuinely negotiate and consult meaningfully.  If we look at terms and conditions of staff we need to think very carefully and make sure that everyone knows there is a difference.

Finally, never forget that Boris is an "anti-politician" who can make people laugh.  But the Tories fear Ken.  Because they know that Ken at his best is so superb.

Next was Barking MP Margaret Hodge.  Not only were the BNP in Barking and Dagenham "smashed" in May but their local defeat has contributed to their national destruction. Since May their BNP group leader has emigrated to Australia; BNP Assembly member Richard Barnsbrook has been expelled from their Party; their national leader Nick Griffin has agreed to resign and the BNP is also facing bankruptcy (shame). But we cannot take things for granted - such as the growth of the EDL. 

In London in May we won control of 10 new councils and 200 new Labour councillors. But this was still the 2nd worse defeat nationally in our history.  The Coalition policies are based on ideology not deficit. They are doing this because they believe in a small state, and "private good; public bad". This is worse than Shirley Porter in Westminster who only affected 1000 residents.  This policy will try and create middle class ghettos cleaned of anyone working class.

Remember always that Boris is at heart an enthusiastic right wing slasher.

Karen Bucks MP was warmly welcomed not least when she announced that dispute Tory predictions she was still the Labour MP for Westminster North!  Karen asked whether London stopped the Tories getting an overall majority? What will happen to waiting lists when the budget for new build is slashed by 50%?  Housing benefit may be a issue that makes ears bleed but even Boris is aware that if the housing benefits cuts go ahead then 20,000 children could lose their homes.

Finally, Labour should accept that they did not built enough houses while in power but instead did spend billions on much needed refurbishment and decent homes. However, we should agree that we did not spend enough time and money on new building new homes.

Note the recent comments by Tories that they only lost Westminister and Hammersmith seats to Labour because there are "too many poor people" living in these boroughs.

(I'll hopefully post on rest of conference later UPDATE: here)

London Labour Party Biennial Conference 2008

The conference was in the historical Old Town Hall in Stratford, Newham, E15 so I was able to walk there from home this morning enjoying the blue skies, cold fresh air and winter sunshine.

I was there as a member of the UNISON Labour Link delegation. We had a delegation meeting first where we discussed motions and whether we should support them or not and who should try and speak on motions from the conference floor.

The morning session of the conference was dominated by speakers, reports and Q&A’s. The afternoon had workshops, “our Ken” and Resolution debates, finishing up with the internal regional election results.

I’m not going to try and give a “full report” on the conference. Rather, a snapshot of some of the stuff I personally found interesting, usually from my own particular trade union perspective. A health warning is that this post is based on my hurried and often illegible scribbled notes.

Ken Clark, London regional director of the Labour Party brought us all into order (eventually, a Labour Party meeting of any kind is loath to start on time). The main hall of the Town Hall was pretty full with delegates. I assume about 300 plus people? Len Duvall, Chair of London Labour Party (and GLA Labour leader) chaired the conference. He had been re-elected Chair unopposed. From my hurried squiggles I note that he pointed out that this was not a time for the London Party to be sending out mixed messages; Labour in power makes a huge difference to people’s lives and we should never forget this; in the recent GLA elections despite the loss of the mayor we actually polled more votes than in the past and we had support in inner and outer London. Labour represents all of London.

The first main speaker was Sir Robin Wales, the directly elected Mayor of Newham who welcomed delegates to smell the fresh air of a Tory free Newham (there are no Tory or Liberal Democrat opposition councillors in Newham). He reminded everyone of the Labour history of Newham and this very Town Hall. It was at this very place that Keir Hardy was elected as the first ever Labour MP in 1892. The balcony overlooking the High Street that we had all walked past to get in the hall was were Keir gave his victory speech.

The first ever Labour Council was elected in West Ham, Newham has the largest Labour majority in the Country. London as well as the “North”, has its Labour heartlands. Robin was very, very direct about his opinion about Galloway’s Respect (no comment). He also warned the conference about Boris and that we should judge him on what he does rather than what he says. This was a common theme from the day.

Harriet Harman MP (and deputy leader), reminded the conference that the Labour Government had indeed paid off debt in the past so now was in a better position to deal with present problems. While in the past you had to believe in prudence, now it is prudent to be bold. Labour in the current economic difficulties will not be saying unlike the Tories “if it isn’t hurting, it isn’t working” or that unemployment is “a price worth paying”. Traditional Labour values are about fairness and equality. She also noted that all London Tory MPs are white.

Next was an unopposed Conference Arrangements report (standing orders committee) followed by Guest speakers.

First was Tessa Jowell MP, Minister for the Olympics, who started her speech by mentioning that on route to Stratford today, the Jubilee Line had been partly closed. If Ken had still been in charge of Transport of London, this of course would never have happened! (Joke) She also said that the last time she had been at a London Biennial conference in 2006 she never thought that she would be present when Labour had nationalised the commanding heights of the British economy! (Joke – if somewhat true). Tessa pointed out that 75p in every £ spent on the Olympics would be spent on regeneration. 8,000 jobs will be created in the newly built Stratford Olympic shopping centre alone while 10% of the current 3,000 construction jobs are recruited locally from the unemployed.

Tony McNulty MP, Minister for London, Employment and Welfare Reform was next. He argued that some were overdoing the “doom and gloom”. The Tories are proving themselves not to be serious politicians. Cameron is very like “Strictly Come Dancing” Star, John Sergeant, (I can’t remember exactly why but it seemed applicable at the time and got a good cheer from conference). Tony reminded everyone about a fundamental difference between the Labour Party and the Tories – you would not get anyone in Labour “singing in the bath” about market cruelty. He also accused Boris of imitating disgraced Tory Westminster Politician Shirley Porter, for trying to use housing policy to gerrymander elections. Finally, he reminded everyone that if the election of Barack Obama taught us anything the last thing this country needed is an Old Etonion as our Prime Minister.

Good stuff - I’ll post on the rest of conference tomorrow.

Ken meets London Labour Party campaigners

Last night I went to a meeting of the Labour Greater London Assembly & Mayor campaign 2008 at the Party HQ in Victoria Street.

It went very well. There was a good mixture of London assembly members, the Mayor Ken Livingstone, London MP’s, PPCs, MEPs, Councillors, Regional board members and TULO members.

Picture is of Harriet Harman, Labour Party deputy Leader (who addressed the meeting), Ken, Joan Ryan MP, Len Duvall AM (Chair) and Ken Clark (Regional director).

Ken was on good form and gave his usual cracking speech. He was introduced by Len beforehand as the model candidate who always does what his agent is told to do and never interferes in the campaign. Of course.