Frank's Westminster Blog

LAST week I published a pamphlet on extending the right to buy to housing association tenants. How would that policy work out in Birkenhead? When I first came to Birkenhead, housing was the number one issue at my surgeries. That issue then disappeared. Now it is back with a vengeance. Why? Part of the answer is that tenants now want better accommodation. Wirral Council responded by pulling down many of its properties, thereby cutting supply. Another reason was that much of the best...

JOHN Syvret and his team at Cammell Lairds are now working hard to reform technical education on Wirral. They are is leading a consortium, backed by other employers, Mersey Maritime Group, the Universities, Wirral Council and educationalists, that is bidding to establish for a new University Technical College. The Germans began serious technical education in schools well before the 20th century. And despite the 1944 Butler Act, well over half a century later, technical education never...

I went with the Mayor to a Christmas concert in aid of the Clatterbridge Hospital League of Friends.  As many of you will know All Saints’ Church in Thornton Hough is part of a rather beautiful village, much of which is the creation of the First Lord Leverhulme.   I was surprised by two aspects of the concert.  The first was the quality of the music.  One expects good singing and organ playing.  But here, too, was the Rock Ferry Salvation Army band.   It

And so to the Older People’s Parliament.  I had agreed to speak on anti-social behaviour.  I had no idea just how engaged the Parliament would be with this topic.   I have looked at Labour’s strategy to counter anti-social behaviour.  I lobbied against the form it took.  I believe modelling it on the criminal justice system was a mistake.   The aim of the policy must be to prevent anti-social behaviour, not create criminals.   The Coalition...

The strength of local communities in Birkenhead never ceases to surprise me.    In my local Church, St. Peter’s in Rock Ferry, for example there is a thriving group of devoted individuals who not only safeguard the church, but run in it all manner of organisations for the public good.   On Friday I finished my day at the Mayor’s fashion show at House of Fraser.  There was a real buzz there and our Mayor reported that well over £800 had been raised for...