On 1^st August 23 year old Siddique Kamara was stabbed to death just yards from his home on the Brandon Estate. His family are devastated.  And this is the second murder in the same street within the last 3 months.  Rhyhiem Barton, aged only 17 years, was shot dead there on 5^th May.

The Police have worked quickly to arrest and charge a man with Siddique’s murder and it is vital that anyone who has any information that can help the police with either crime should come forward. If you do not want to contact them directly you can pass information entirely anonymously to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.   

The local community are, justifiably, shocked at this second killing.  As I did after Rhyhiem’s death, the day after Siddique’s murder I held a meeting on the Brandon Estate, attended by Southwark Council Leader, Peter John, local councillors for Camberwell Green and Newington, senior members of Southwark Police, the hardworking Brandon Estate tenants' representatives Joy Allan-Baker, June Lewis and Eileen Piper and local residents.   

At both meetings the same concerns were raised.  With the recent killings, parents are worried about having to leave their children and go to work when schools are on summer holidays.  Holiday play schemes are either full or too expensive.  So it was important that Peter John immediately pledged £10,000 from Southwark Council to support the summer youth programme in Rachel Leigh Hall.  They need to be able to pay youth workers and pay for extra sports activities and with the extra funds they can now do that. This isn’t just a problem on the Brandon.  Across all estates there’s a lack of facilities for young people.  It’s bad enough after school and at weekends, but it becomes even more of an issue during the long schools summer holiday.  With all the government cuts, there just isn’t enough money to provide the services that are so badly needed to keep the children of working parents safe and happy when school’s out.

The community also raised concerns about the lack of CCTV particularly around the low-rise homes where the elderly live. I am supporting their application for CCTV and the Council are acting on it, including lopping some of the trees which provide shady spots where criminals can lurk and where they would not be able to be seen by CCTV.   

In both meetings the community and the families have highlighted the role of social media in gang violence.  They believe that the internet is being used both to plan and to incite violence and they’re calling for action.  

Everyone agrees that the internet is crucial for exchanging ideas and sharing art forms. But the local community believe that much of the drill music and videos cross over a line and are used for criminal purposes.

Siddique Kamara was himself a drill rapper, under the name of 'Incognito'. In an interview earlier this year, he spoke about its effect on crime in London - "You see with the crime that's happening right now, music does influence it. You've got to put your hands up and say drill music does influence it." 

The lyrics often glorify gang warfare and include threats against rival gangs or individuals. For example in one track on YouTube, Moscow17 tell rival gang Zone 2 to "check the scoreboard". Another video asks "how you gonna make it even?" Zone 2 then posted a song in response telling their rivals that they would “roll up and burst them”.

I’ve called on Parliament’s Home Affairs Select Committee to conduct an inquiry into whether the police have enough resources to deal with surveillance of the use of drill music for crime, whether internet providers are quick enough in responding to requests to take down material which is inciting crime and whether more powers are needed to stop the internet being used for gang crime. I’m also liaising with the Youth Violence Commission and am a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Knife Crime.

Government cuts both to police budgets and youth services are having a significant effect on the rise of youth violence. Southwark alone has lost a quarter of its police officers since 2010. My Labour colleagues and I are intensifying our demands to government to increase officers on the beat and to restore police and youth service funding. It is time the Government stepped up to treat this crisis with the urgency required to help stop any more young lives being lost to violence and prevent other families and communities going through this heartbreak.  

As we mark the NHS turning 70 this month it’s impossible to look back and overstate just how much its creation by the then Labour government meant to people’s lives in Britain in 1948, and still means today.

Before its introduction only people who earned enough could see a doctor or get treatment. For the first time in 1948 the NHS meant people who couldn’t afford to take their sick children or elderly relatives to the GP suddenly found that they could get the treatment they needed and women who hadn’t been able to afford to have their babies in hospital safely could now do so.

70 years on the NHS has grown to 1 million dedicated and compassionate staff, it is a beacon of equality around the world and remains our most cherished national institution. The NHS represents that sense that we all have a duty to each other, we pay in collectively and it is there for us whenever we need it. 

But after 8 years of Tory government all around us now we see the effect of the cuts. For example at King’s College Hospital, which is a fantastic and important hospital for people locally, A & E waiting times are missed, cancer treatment targets are missed, there’s been an increase in cancelled operations, and the chair, Sir Bob Kerslake, resigned in December because he said it was impossible to cut the amount government are asking them to cut without affecting patient care.

We see cuts at the Maudsley Hospital pushing down the pay and conditions of those contracted to work there and large numbers of vacancies in nursing staff. Particularly worrying is that when I visited psychiatrists at the hospital they told me that when they have someone who is psychotic and paranoid who needs to be sectioned because they’re at risk to themselves or others in the community, cuts to policing mean there are a shortage of police to go with doctors to safely take the person to the Maudsley and sometimes they have to wait weeks before they get the treatment they so desperately need. During that time that person and their family suffer terribly and sometimes are at risk of violence. The Maudsley team only decide to section someone if they have tried everything else and that person is in crisis.  They can’t wait. I have written to the Minister to demand that she tackle these unacceptable delays and am liaising with the police as well. 

The Prime Minister, Theresa May, claims the Government is spending more than ever on the NHS. But in reality they have cut £20 billion since 2010 and spend 3% less a year than was spent by the last Labour government. When Labour got back into Government in 1997 we made one of our key 5 pledges cutting waiting times and we trebled investment in the NHS. Soon waiting times were coming down and people were no longer coming to my advice surgery asking for help with cancelled operations or unable to get on a GP’s list. More was invested in community services, mental health and GP practices, crumbling hospitals were rebuilt and staffing was massively increased.

That’s why there’s such a need for Labour to get back into government. To not only protect, but advance the NHS.

The 70^th anniversary of the NHS is a time to reflect and recognise that, though healthcare has completely changed, the principles at its foundation are as important as ever. I have made the NHS my constituency priority for 2018 and am working with Labour Southwark MPs Helen Hayes and Neil Coyle and Southwark Council to use this anniversary year to intensify our support for our local NHS and our demands to the Government to give the NHS the money it needs.

Liberal Democrat MP, Jo Swinson, was "paired" with Tory chairman Brandon Lewis so she could be at home with her new baby son Gabriel during the Trade Bill vote. This should have meant neither her nor Brandon Lewis votes so their absences cancel each other out and this does not unfairly impact the result of the vote or discriminate against her because she has just given birth. But despite this agreement Brandon Lewis MP did turn up and voted with the Government.

This shambles should put it beyond doubt that pairing is not the answer for MPs having babies. We’re elected as MPs to vote on behalf of constituents and MPs having babies shouldn’t lose that right. In Prime Minister’s Questions today I pressed Theresa May to urgently bring forward a vote on proxy voting for baby leave. There are loads more parliamentary babies in the pipeline and more crucial votes coming up. It’s time to sort it out. This one is overdue.

Cllr Jasmine Ali, Southwark Council Cabinet Member for Children and Schools and I met the Executive Head at Harris Academy Peckham secondary school, Rebecca Hickey, to discuss progress at the school and working with local parents to improve first preference applications to the school and hear from students on the important local issues they’re concerned about like youth violence, mental health and energy drinks.

I’m looking forward to the students shortly visiting Parliament to see us at work.

Meeting Southwark Clinical Commissioning Group management team to discuss progress on reducing GP and operation waiting lists, improving children’s mental health services and action they’re taking to ensure that the governing board of local health bodies like the CCG reflect the diverse community in Camberwell and Peckham. There are no black people on their board and I am concerned they must be representative of our community at all levels of the organisation.

The Home Office provided ‘no credible explanation’ as to why two children of the Windrush generation, Paulette Wilson and Anthony Bryan, were wrongfully locked up twice, depriving them of their human right to liberty, according to a report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights published today.

The Committee, made up of MPs and Peers Chaired by Harriet Harman MP, took evidence in person from Ms Wilson and Mr Bryan, (who have been settled in the UK since childhood) and examined their Home Office cases files. From the outset, the files contained all the evidence that showed that the Home Office had no right to detain them. But the Home Office still wrongly detained them, twice. The analyses of the two case files are set out as appendices to the report.

In evidence to the Committee, the Home Secretary said that he was sorry for what had happened. A senior official from the Home Office called the handling of these cases a ‘mistake’ but could give the Committee no account of any action that had been taken at the department to address the very serious shortcomings in these cases.

Chair of the Committee, Harriet Harman MP, said:

“Our report presents the Home Secretary with an opportunity to address the systemic problems with wrongful detention at the Home Office. Paulette Wilson and Anthony Bryan were both locked up, twice, when the state had no right to deprive them of their liberty. The Department simply ground forward through their processes, clearly traumatising Ms Wilson and Mr Bryan in the process.

“The Home Secretary’s personal commitment to human rights is important. This report should alert him to the scale of human right violations within the powerful department he now leads.

“It is simply not plausible that these cases were just ‘mistakes’. The Home Office did not behave like a department which had discovered it had made a terrible mistake, demonstrating a systemic failure when it comes to detaining individuals and depriving them of their liberty. What happened to these two people was a total violation of their human rights by the state’s most powerful government department. It needs to face up to what happened before it can even begin to acknowledge the scale of the problem and stop it happening again.”

The Committee recommends that:

• The Home Office should review its use of detention for immigration purposes to ensure it doesn’t use it unlawfully and that it is only using these powers where necessary and proportionate.
• There should be a fundamental change in the law, culture and procedures to protect human rights in the work of the Home Office.
• A more humane approach to dealing with people who come into contact with the immigration enforcement system is needed.
• There should be more accountability when initiating or prolonging detention and stronger safeguards overall to prevent against wrongful detention.
• There should be more opportunities to challenge wrongful detention and clear parameters to limit the use of detention.
• Detention should only be used if the Secretary of State is satisfied that he has a power to detain.
• The Government should act immediately to set up a hardship fund to help individuals from the Windrush generation facing financial hardship, as recently recommended by the Home Affairs Committee.

The Committee intends to conduct a further inquiry into the UK's immigration detention system in the Autumn, in which the Committee will consider concerns around the safeguards in the immigration detention system in the UK, including the UK’s lack of a set time limit to immigration detention, which is unusual.

In a recent letter sent to the Home Office, the Committee asked to examine the case files of all those who have been wrongfully detained from the Windrush generation.

Notes to editors:

Harriet Harman MP, Chair of the Committee, wrote to the Home Secretary Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP asking the Home Office to share the case files of individuals who had been detained from the 63 Windrush deportation cases. The Home Secretary previously told the Committee in evidence that the cases of Anthony Bryan and Paulette Wilson – whose Home Office case files were supplied to the Committee- were “appalling and wrong in so many ways.”

FURTHER INFORMATION

Committee Membership is as follows:

Ms Harriet Harman MP (Chair) (Labour)
Fiona Bruce MP (Conservative)
Ms Karen Buck MP (Labour)
Alex Burghart MP (Conservative)
Joanna Cherry MP (SNP)
Jeremy Lefroy MP (Conservative)
Baroness Hamwee (Liberal Democrat)
Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Labour)
Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne (Conservative)
Baroness Prosser (Labour)
Lord Trimble (Conservative)
Lord Woolf (Crossbench)

Website:http://www.parliament.uk/jchr

Today I signed a joint letter to the new Home Secretary, Sajid Javid MP, with more than 150 other MPs, calling on him to confirm that he will continue his predecessor's plans to undertake a review into harassment and intimidation near abortion clinics. We must protect women accessing lawful healthcare.

This morning I visited psychiatrists at the Maudsley Hospital. It was very worrying to hear from them that when they have someone who is psychotic and paranoid who needs to be sectioned because they’re a risk to themselves or others in the community, cuts to policing mean there is a shortage of police to go with doctors to safely take the person to the Maudsley and sometimes they have to wait weeks before they get the treatment they so desperately need. During that time that person and their family suffer terribly and sometimes are at risk of violence. The Maudsley team only section someone if they have tried everything else and that person is in crisis. They cannot wait. I’ve written to the Minister to demand that she tackle these unacceptable delays and I’m liaising with the police as well. 

Read my 2017/18 annual report here.

The crucial EU Withdrawal Bill vote this month was the “meaningful vote” amendment. Since 2016 I have consistently voted for Parliament to have a say on the final deal. In the face of deep government divisions it would have been better from the start for them to face up to the fact that Parliament’s involvement will make a perilous situation better.

Last week, facing the prospect of a humiliating defeat on the ‘meaningful vote’, Theresa May was forced to enter negotiations with her backbenchers and offer a concession. But the amendment she put forward was not good enough and she’s gone back on her word to them. I voted for the amendment which would have ensured that if the PM’s withdrawal agreement is rejected by MPs - or no deal is reached at all - it would be for Parliament, not the Prime Minister, to decide the next steps. I am deeply disappointed that this was defeated by 320 votes to 303 votes.

I and Labour MPs are working to protect the country as best we can and are seeking to enshrine in law a commitment to avoiding a hard border in Northern Ireland, to retain workers’ rights and environmental protections and the Charter of Fundamental Rights.  

Together with Helen Hayes MP, SE5 Forum, South London and Maudsley, King’s College Hospital, Camberwell College of Arts and Southwark Council I am campaigning to re-open Camberwell Station.

This is urgently needed to alleviate delays and dangerous overcrowding at neighbouring stations and especially as there is no tube in Camberwell and Peckham.

Today Helen and I delivered a petition of over 2000 local people’s signatures in support of re-opening the station to Jo Johnson MP, the Minister for Rail.

He told us Transport for London are currently considering the case for re-opening the station and we have written to Commissioner, Mike Brown, to reiterate the intense local concern there is that the station should be re-opened to cope with increasing demand.

Almost every day following the introduction of the new Thameslink Railway timetable people in Camberwell and Peckham have contacted me exasperated telling that the delays and cancellations have caused total upheaval in their lives. They’ve paid for their season tickets but they’ve been late for work, missed hospital appointments, been late to collect their children from school and suffered misery on their daily travel.  And the overcrowding on the platforms and in the trains is dangerous.  

And people’s frustration has only been worsened by mishandling by Govia Thameslink Railway.

Though the new timetable fiasco has definitely exacerbated the problems, anyone who lives in Camberwell & Peckham will know that problems caused by Southern and Thameslink started well before this and trains have been cancelled, late or dangerously overcrowded from Denmark Hill, Peckham Rye and Nunhead every week for the best part of 3 years. The stations are now bursting -  the number of passengers has doubled in the last 5 years - and people are at their wits end.

For example, before the May timetable change there were 3 direct trains from Nunhead into Farringdon every hour. Now there is just one an hour, which does not even come at the same time from week to week. “It’s impossible to plan my journey to work” one man told me. 

The Government admits the service is ‘wholly unsatisfactory’ but they need to get a grip on the situation and ensure there is some level of accountability of train operators. I am demanding they demonstrate some urgency in tackling this matter and, together with many other MPs, I am taking action to push them on this:

*I have scheduled a meeting with the Rail Minister, Jo Johnson MP, to protest delays and demand an urgent response. 

*I have written to the new CEO of Govia Thameslink Railway to ask what they are doing to fix this rail disruption as soon as possible and compensate passengers.

*I am campaigning with Helen Hayes MP, SE5 Forum and Southwark Council to re-open Camberwell Rail Station which lies on the Thameslink Line. This would alleviate some of the pressure at neighbouring stations.

*I’ve met Network Rail to ask what steps they are taking to keep people safe on platforms. I welcome their commitment that both Denmark Hill and Peckham Rye stations are being prioritised in the top 10 stations for redevelopment. I am demanding the Government now put in the money to back this up.

Whilst the delays and disruption to people’s lives are of course totally unacceptable, even more important is that this has now become a matter of public safety. People need answers about how the situation was allowed to get to this point, what the Government is doing now to sort it and what plans they have longer term to end the issues with this struggling franchise and ensure passengers get value for money from the service they pay for and need to be able to rely on.

All credit to Abu & Fred Kamara who chair the Crawford Estate tenants association and do fantastic work for the local community. I’m helping residents sort overcrowding & damp problems following my visit with Cllr Dora Dixon-Fyle MBE on June 19th.

Congratulations to our new Lewisham East MP Janet Daby - elected with 50.2% of the vote on June 14th! Looking forward to working together in Parliament to hold the Tories to account.

Great to hear from students at Ivydale about why they love their new school. Congrats to teachers, parents, Hawkins Brown   architects and Southwark Council on the award-winning design!

Great to visit South London Gallery today and hear from Margot Heller about how they are creating links between great art and the bustling local community. I also got to see progress on the former Peckham Road Fire Station site as it becomes a new contemporary arts space and annexe to the main gallery which is due to open in September 2018.