Samantha Jury-Dada was today elected as Councillor for Faraday Ward. Congratulations to Samantha and to all the local members, councillors and everyone that campaigned to get her elected!

Faraday Result

Lab - 1072

LD - 255

Con - 117

Green - 138

UKIP - 93

Dean Porter - 47

APP - 38

Turnout 22.8%

Great to join Samantha Jury-Dada, Labour's candidate for Faraday ward, as well as local councillors and members campaigning to get Samantha elected on Thursday 21st January.

Samantha Jury-Dada said:

"Living locally off East Street, I want the best for my area and our community. I'll fight for a better Walworth - improved housing, better buses and opportunities for young people."

Today MPs voted on whether or not to abolish maintenance grants of up to £3387 which go to the poorest students to make sure that students from low income households can go into further and higher education.

Now the Conservative Government have abolished these maintenance grants. Currently over 6,000 Southwark students depend on maintenance grants for financial support to help them get educational qualifications.

Speaking after voting against the abolition of maintenance grants today, Rt Hon Harriet Harman QC MP said:

“I’m disappointed that 6230 (academic year 13/14) students from Southwark, and over 500,000 nationally, will be affected by the abolition of maintenance grants that this Conservative Government have just forced through.

Whilst interim leader in June 2015 I condemned abolition of maintenance grants in my budget response to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Grants provide vital support for students in Camberwell and Peckham and ensure that poorer students do not leave university with greater debts than their more privileged peers. You can read my speech here.

The government should be doing all it can to ensure that those from the poorest backgrounds reach their full potential. This change would do the opposite, and could make poorer students think twice about going into higher education due to the considerable debts they will rack-up in the process.

Southwark students have every bit as much a right to go to university as students from better off backgrounds.  It’s important for the economy of this country that everyone is able to fulfil their full potential and are not held back from higher education by lack of funds.”

Harriet Harman MP has today written to Southwark Council calling on them to review their reimbursement and compensation policy for estate residents in Camberwell and Peckham following the continuous disruption to hot water and heating services.

This is a major problem as nearly 4000 properties have been affected in Camberwell and Peckham in the last 18 months.

Harriet Harman MP for Camberwell & Peckham said:

 “My constituents are experiencing repeated problems with their heating and hot water services this winter. I have today written to Councillor Richard Livingstone, Cabinet Member for Housing at Southwark Council asking him to review the Council’s reimbursement and compensation policy to ensure that the process for affected residents is straightforward, fair and efficient.

• Residents should not have to apply to the Council for compensation when it is clear that there is a loss of an essential service like heating, hot water or gas. The council should automatically compensate them.

• Residents should be reimbursed for the additional energy costs incurred during the period without heating and hot water.

• Residents expect a reliable heating and hot water service and it is inconvenient for them to have to deal with these disruptions on such regular basis.

• There should not have to be a consecutive period of 24 hours without heating and hot water before a rebate is given.

• The compensation process is taking too long. It has taken nearly a year for all residents on the Gloucester Grove and North Peckham Estates to receive their agreed compensation, and some people may have moved out and not received what they are owed “

Ahead of the Faraday By-Election on 21st January, I joined local members and councillors to campaign for Labour's candidate Samantha Jury-Dada. 

Samantha played a big role in the  Bermondsey & Old Southwark election earlier this year, leading student campaigning as Chair of LSE Labour Club. She has worked alongside our Lambeth and Southwark GLA candidate Florence Eshalomi and Tessa Jowell on a review of stop and search and led a successful campaign on legal loan sharks.

St John's & St Clement's Year 5 pupils invited me to hear about their book fundraising project, Better Books, which was a part of the all school topic 'Power to the People'. Their aim was to have better resources in their classroom.

They explained how they decided as a group to raise funds at the Christmas fair and by holding cake sales. They raised almost £300 which was more than they needed and decided that they would donate the extra funds to a school in Cumbria following the recent floods.

Deputy Headteacher Anna Harding, also invited me to participate in a Q&A with Year 5 and Year 6 pupils.

Please find my monthly newsletter for November and December 2015 here: www.bit.ly/1JKvX9o .

Labour Women's Network held their annual Christmas reception at Labour Headquarters this evening. Around 100 Labour women attended and Olivia Bailey, Chair of LWN, asked me to say a few words. Other speakers included Kate Green, Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities, and Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP.

This weekend was borough-wide campaigning in Livesey Ward. We were campaigning for Sadiq Khan MP ahead of the London Mayoral elections in May. I joined Florence Eshalomi, Labour's Greater London Assembly candidate for Lambeth and Southwark, and local members and Councillors to hear about the issues on the doorstep that matter to the residents of Livesey.