Denzil Coulson

People are often telling me how they feel unsafe.  

Expensive ID cards aren’t going to change that, but an extra officer walking down our streets or more police on a Friday night will. 

At this time of enormous budget deficit, much spending will need to be cut. But in key areas of public policy where more investment is needed, the money must be found.

That is why we have decided to prioritise a limited commitment to increasing police numbers by 3,000 over the course of a Parliament. We believe this is vital if we are to build a strong, fair and secure society as we emerge from recession. 

Under Labour, we have seen police numbers drop in 26 out of 43 police authorities nationwide since 2005.

Unlike Labour, the Liberal Democrats are committed to more police, and this is the only way to create safer streets.

 Gordon’s Brown announcement that he is in favour of the Alternative Vote system for electing MPs will not break the logjam of two-party domination by Labour and the Conservatives. The system is used in London to elect the Mayor. Who exactly benefitted from this? Boris Johnson (Conservative) and Ken Livingstone (Labour). It does not help the smaller parties to increase their representation.

This is how Alternative voting works. Under Gordon Brown’s proposals, you select your MP by having two votes - one for your first choice and one for your second choice for MP. It still means that only a single MP can represent you in a constituency. If after all the first choice votes are counted and no-one is elected with at least 50% of the vote, then the top two candidates go forward to a second round of counting. All the second choice votes of all candidates who came third and below in the first round are added to the top two candidates until one of them passes the 50% threshold. Inevitably, it will mean that mostly Labour and Tory candidates will prevail in the second round in most seats thus perpetuating the two-party logjam.

Neither am I in favour of pure proportional representation as it exists in South Africa where I stood as a parliamentary candidate at No.61 on the Democratic Party’s National List in 1994. Here MPs are at the mercy of the party bosses who select them and there is no constituency link to speak of with voters. Many good MPs have lost their jobs in South Africa for defying the party line including ex-ANC MP, Andrew Feinstein for first exposing the arms scandal in 2001. 

Our party’s policy of having a single-transferable vote system in multi-member constituencies is by far the better choice. Under this system, you could have as many as 3 MPs from different parties representing you in a single constituency. Not only is the constituency link maintained but there is a much better representation of voter choice in Westminster.

 The Pupil Premium policy is one of the most innovative parts of our Lib Dem education policy. I am proud to have voted for it at our Spring Conference in Harrogate last year. As a primary school teacher myself, who has taught in both the state and private sector, I cannot overemphasise the importance of smaller class sizes in helping to boost individual pupil performance.

Our party plans to spend an extra £2.5 billion on schools to achieve our goal of smaller class sizes. The money will be targetted at schools taking on children who need more help, but will benefit every child in every school. The cash can be used to cut class sizes and provide one-to-one tuition or catch-up classes, ensuring every child gets the individual attention they need. An average primary school could cut class sizes to 20. An average secondary school could see classes of just 16.

Take an average primary school of just over 200 pupils. With an average number of children eligible for free school meals, this school could see an extra £90 000 in its budget. That would be enough to cut class sizes from 27 to 20. Just imagine what a difference that would make - ensuring that every child gets the individual attention they need to thrive.

Take an average secondary school with a roll of 1,000 pupils. It could expect around £400,000 more every year than it gets now, which would have an enormous impact. They could recruit a dozen extra teachers and cut classes to 16. Or they could pay for catch-up classes for 160 pupils, making sure no-one who struggles gets left behind.

This policy costs £2.5 billion, and will be introduced in the second year of the Parliament after our jobs stimulus package, paid for from savings in government such as our proposed reforms to tax credits (which will save £1.5 billion) and administrative savings in the Department for Education and quangos (which save an additional £1 billion).

Unlike the Tories who promise everyone an “elitist” education with qualified teachers without the detailed financial plans to pay for it, the Lib Dems have the proposed savings highlighted to pay for smaller class sizes.

This morning at 7am I went to investigate a complaint that a utility company had dumped spoil next to a disabled parking bay belonging to one of my residents. I have represented the Murrays in council on a previous issue. See the previous story here.

The Murrays returned from a weekend away to discover this spoil last night and they could not get their wheelchair-bound daughter out of the car, unless they moved the car out of the bay itself. How are they then able to get their daughter, Naomi, back into the car safely for school this morning? You can see from the photo above that they have no access now to their car side door where Naomi is supposed to get in.

One can only ask: What were the utility company thinking?

I have alerted my county colleague, Diana Smith, to investigate the marking out of the area next to their disabled bay as disabled too. Otherwise hare-brained jobs like this one are carried out thoughtlessly. Hopefully the utility company will remove the spoil today. I will keep you updated.

 I’m alerting you that from 8pm tonight (22 January 2010), the A320 northbound route through Victoria Arch will be closed for 6 to 8 weeks to undertake the replacement of gas mains at the junction of Goldsworth Road and Victoria Way to Market Square, Woking Town Centre. This work will be done by Southern Gas Networks. 

This will mean that northbound traffic will be diverted via Triggs Lane and Wych Hill Lane. Access through the tunnel for pedestrians, cyclists and southbound traffic from the Town Centre will be unaffected.

What is worse is that the same company are doing roadworks on Maybury Hill and they will be digging up the pavement on Triggs Lane, which will cause more chaos and traffic disruption. My county colleagues will be urging the Surrey County Council to co-ordinate these roadworks to minimise disruption as far as possible.

Please let me know what problems you experience so that I can inform my colleagues.

So let me get this right?

We, the taxpayer, bail out the Royal Bank of Scotland with billions of taxpayers’ money. We are told that this was necessary to save the economy and save jobs.

This week we learn that RBS have funded an American food company called Kraft to takeover one of our British firms, Cadbury’s. We are also told that thousands of Cadbury’s jobs could be at risk. Now - I don’t know about you but I don’t want taxpayers’ money being used to destroy British jobs. It is precisely these sorts of mergers and deals that almost tanked our economy 16 months ago. We are funding the loss of British jobs and we need serious banking reform to address it.

Yesterday our Shadow Chancellor, Vince Cable MP, wrote to Lord Mandelson stating the following:

“Cadbury is a national institution which provides thousands of jobs in the UK and there is a real danger its takeover by Kraft will lead to job losses.

“It is particularly galling then that state-owned RBS should part fund this takeover when it is clearly not in the interests of the UK economy.

“This takeover also raises broader questions about how hedge funds, out to make a quick buck, can destabilise even the most established companies.

“We have seen Cadbury shares rapidly bought up by hedge funds that are keen to accept the Kraft takeover regardless of whether it is in the long-term interests of the company.

“As the City minister Lord Myners himself notes, it is becoming too easy for good British companies to be taken over by foreign predators.”

I am sure that you have been just as horrified as I have been about the scale of the earthquake disaster in Haiti with at least 30,000 to 50,000 people feared dead. It does put our political concerns over here in the UK into stark perspective. The scale of the devastation can clearly be seen from all the videos posted on YOU Tube footage.

If you can, please donate to the Haiti relief efforts. You can donate through various aid agencies such as Action Aid and the British Red Cross here. But please be careful of donating money through any sham relief agency pages operating on social networking sites such as Facebook. Some are genuine but others are not. So do be careful.

It is great to see various people from South East England doing their bit to help Haiti such as these firemen from Horsham. Click here for their story.

 Woking refuse collections have been suspended today due to the dangerous road conditions. If like me, your refuse was due to be collected today, please keep your black-lidded wheelie bin out at your normal collection spot. I suspect that today’s collection will be collected tomorrow or at the first opportunity when it is safe to do so. I’ll let you know as soon as I know.

Full current details about refuse collections can be found at this link. Other council services at this link to the Woking Borough Council website.

Please contact me if you are experiencing any problems. I am at work but contactable by e-mail and mobile. My school has been closed to the children.

Up to 2,850 pensioners will miss out on Cold Weather Payments in Woking triggered by the recent weather, according to analysis of Government figures by the Liberal Democrats. 

Cold Weather Payments of £25 a week are paid to people on low incomes who receive a qualifying benefit, such as Pension Credit, which goes unclaimed by as many as 1.7m pensioners nationally. 
 
It is a scandal that pensioners on the breadline are missing out on these payments, worth an estimated £42.5m. 
 
Fuel prices are at an all time high, making Cold Weather Payments all the more important to people already struggling on a poverty pension.  

Labour has failed pensioners by creating a complicated system that makes it difficult for them to get the help they desperately need. 

The Government should be making every effort to identify pensioners who are missing out and get them this extra cash.

This is a reminder to all my residents that the food waste collection service will be starting later this month. The majority of households will receive a silver 7-litre kitchen caddy and one green 23-litre collection bin for the weekly collection of food waste.

For more information, please click on the link here to the Woking Borough Council website. Please contact me if you have any further queries or problems with the service as it begins.