Thousands of ill and disabled people up and down the country have been waiting for months to find out whether they will get the Government’s new disability benefit – Personal Independence Payment (PIP) – which is for people who need help with the extra costs of living with a long term illness or disability.

DEPUTY LEADER Conference Speech Harriet Harman 2014

It was great to see so many members, officers and councillors from Camberwell & Peckham CLP attend Labour Party Conference this year at our annual get together for lunch at Pizza Express.

Art makes Children Powerful was the theme of a Panel event on Young People and the Arts in Manchester today. 

Yesterday, in Manchester, I launched the Labour Arts Alliance.  You can read the press release below.

You can read my report by clicking here.

The phone lines were busy this evening at LBC for the next instalment of my regular phone in with Iain Dale.

I joined Southwark Labour Party members and councillors on Saturday 13th September at the Beormund Community Centre in Bermondsey for Southwark Labour's annual conference.

London Assembly Member, Val Shawcross, local councillors Richard Livingstone and Evelyn Akoto, and Southwark Council resident services officers Melvina Powell and Andrew Johnson on the Tustin Estate in Livesey.

This morning I joined my Labour colleagues to travel up to Scotland ahead of the referendum on the 18th September to help the No Campaign get the message across that we're better together. 

On Wednesday 10th September I visited the Maudsley Hospital in Camberwell to meet the new Chief Executive of the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM), Dr. Matthew Patrick. SLaM provides the widest range of mental health services in the UK and is at the forefront of tackling the stigma of mental health.

September is breast cancer awareness month and to show my support in the fight against breast cancer I dropped into the Breast Cancer Campaign's annual #wearitpink event in Parliament today.

Today I stood in for Ed Miliband at Prime Minster's Questions following the joint statement announcing that he, David Cameron and Nick Clegg would travel to Scotland to listen and talk to voters ahead of the referendum vote on the 18th September.

Liverpool can provide the “blueprint” for how the whole country ensures arts and culture are there for every child from every walk of life.

On 31st July I wrote to the Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond MP, on the Ebola crsis in West Africa.  Camberwell and Peckham has the largest West African diaspora in the country and my constituents will be very concerned about the situation in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria.  Many will be worried about family members and close friends in their country of origin and will want to know that the UK Government is doing everything it can to help the affected countries.

You can read the Foreign Secretary's reply to my letter here.

It was good to see so many members and councillors out campaigning in The Lane ward in Peckham on Saturday morning when we visited the Pelican Estate.

The BAME Labour Executive and Labour Party hosted a reception for members, supporters, MPs, Councillors and Parliamentary Candidates this evening. The event was attended by over 150 people from across the country – from Bradford to Plymouth. I spoke about the important role our BAME members will play in the General Election campaign and how it is only the Labour party speaking up for BAME communities. And when it comes to representation Labour has more BAME MPs than the other parties put together but we still aspire to do better and be more representative of the general population.

The Rugby Football Union visited Parliament today to launch their Women & girls strategy. Their plan is to get 100k more women involved in the sport.

Rt Hon Simon Hughes MP

House of Commons London

SW1A 0AA

Government must reach out to diaspora groups in Ebola crisis

We have started seeing on the TV news disturbing reports of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.  So far, we have heard that nearly 1,300 people have died from the virus and that 2,200 people have been infected in Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Guinea and Liberia.  The Presidents of Liberia and Nigeria have declared a national state of emergency in their countries and Guinea has closed its borders with Sierra Leone and Liberia.  The World Health Organisation – based at the UN – has declared Ebola a global public health emergency.   

Because Ebola is infectious and there is as yet no vaccine which can protect you from it or treatment that can cure you if you get it, senior government ministers here have been meeting to discuss it.  So far Cobra – the government’s emergency committee which brings together ministers from across government departments – has met twice and been chaired by the Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond MP.  Of course it’s important that they are doing this.  The UK is a major participant in the World Health Organisation.  And it’s important that they consider what the impact of the Ebola outbreak might be on the UK and how we can protect ourselves from it. 

Everyone should be concerned to see people hit by a horrible disease and anyone planning to go to any of the affected countries will look to our government to get the best advice about what is safe.  Southwark is home to many people from Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Liberia and Guinea.  These diaspora communities, who are well established here, retain strong ties with their countries of origin.  Many do business with their country back home.  Many still have family and friends there.  And many visit, for family reasons or for business. 

So it is disappointing that the Government has not engaged with our local diaspora communities in order to tell them the decisions our government is making about contingency plans and hear their hopes and concerns.  I’ve asked the Foreign Secretary to convene a meeting of the leaders of the diaspora communities.  So far he has not taken up that suggestion.  I've written to the Secretary of State for International Development Justine Greening MP and asked her to ensure that our government does as much as possible to help these countries protect themselves from the spread of infection. 

The health care systems in West Africa do invaluable work but they are very thinly stretched even without the Ebola epidemic.  DFID supports numerous vital health care projects – many of which I've seen on my visits to West Africa.  But what more are DFID doing to help in West Africa at the time of risk from this disease?  As yet I have not heard back from the Secretary of State - which is disappointing.  The Government should be doing everything it can to protect us from this disease.  They should be doing everything they can to help those in the affected countries.  But they should also be talking to the diaspora communities here.  And so far they have failed to do that.