Fiona Bruce MP meets with Sandbach Sixth Form Students

Fiona Bruce MP meets with Sixth Form Students from Sandbach High School and Sixth Form College to talk political history

Year 13 Historians at Sandbach High School enjoyed the chance to discuss the British political system, current affairs and twentieth century history with Fiona Bruce MP.

Teacher Becky Abbotson said “Fiona Bruce gave a very interesting insight into the world of Parliament to our Sixth Form students. The girls thoroughly enjoyed the chance to ask her questions about current affairs, the experience of women at Westminster and her life as an MP."

Fiona Bruce MP said “It was a pleasure to speak to an engaged group of young people who asked intelligent questions about political history, and the workings of Parliament. Their questions were invariably interesting and showed a clear knowledge of current affairs”

Fiona Bruce MP Stands up for the Family

Fiona Bruce MP stands up for the family

In a debate this week in Parliament on strengthening couple relationships, Fiona Bruce MP pointed out the immense cost to society in terms of damage to health and wellbeing, particularly to children and the elderly of a breakdown in family life today.

Children’s Minister Edward Timpson, MP for Crewe and Nantwich, responded to the debate.

• The speeches of Fiona Bruce MP and Edward Timpson MP are below.

Fiona Bruce MP:

I speak from the perspective that supporting stronger relationships is a public health issue. The importance of relationships in preventing disease and in prolonging life, health and well-being is becoming increasingly recognised, not only for partners in a relationship, but for their children, their wider family and the community at large.

The scale of the problem of relationship breakdown is such that we cannot put it into the “too difficult” category. Government have to act and treat it as a public health issue. The public health outcomes framework should make explicit mention of family and relationship factors. In particular, we need to be concerned about the impact of family breakdown on those in the more deprived households. Relationship breakdown affects them more than others, and the outcome for the children can be disproportionately serious.

According to a recent YouGov survey for the Prince’s Trust of 2,161 young people aged 16 to 25, 21% of the children in poor homes said that no one had ever told them, “I love you.” Those results show that young people from deprived homes where there are not necessarily functioning and strong relationship standards are significantly more likely to face symptoms of mental illness, including suicidal thoughts, feelings of self-loathing and panic attacks. Young people who grow up in poverty are also twice as likely to believe that no one cares about them—22% expressed such a view compared with a figure of 10% for the wider youth population. The tragedy is that many young people are growing up today in households where they have no role models for strong relationships.

Professor Scott Stanley has talked about the perfect storm that is brewing with

“an ever greater amount of family instability”

and has said that for young people the problems are going to be pronounced. He says:

“Attachment is an unalterable, important human need and reality, and how attachment systems form in individuals really matters”

for their future health and well-being. He also argues that:

“The cultural systems and structures that always have helped couples clarify, form, and maintain strong commitments have been steadily eroding”—

most notably, the sense that marriage and childbearing inherently belong together, which makes ongoing stability more likely than not.

The nature and extent of the problem we are up against have all the hallmarks of a public health emergency. The Office for National Statistics recently found that people’s personal relationships, mental health and overall sense of well-being are all intimately bound up with each other. But the stakes are even higher than that: in many cases it is about life and death. A huge review of 148 studies, with almost one third of a million participants, that looked at how social relationships influence the risk of mortality showed that people with stronger social relationships have an incredible 50% increased likelihood of survival when compared with those with poor or insufficient social relationships.

I want to give credit to Dr Samantha Callan of the Centre for Social Justice for drawing many of these issues to my attention. She argues that the influence of social relationships on risk of mortality is comparable with risk factors such as smoking, and exceeds many well-known risk factors such as obesity and physical inactivity.

Other potential public health issues are isolation and loneliness. The absence of loving relationships of any sort is bad for health and is linked with increased risk of cardio-vascular disease, diabetes, stroke, obesity and death. One of my constituents has written to me to say that it is absolutely critical that the new health and wellbeing boards take into account the issue of loneliness and focus on how they can improve relationship support, bearing in mind the impact that loneliness is having on our older generation.

Studies on the impact of relationship difficulties suggest that improving couple relationships has the potential to reduce alcohol misuse. Recent studies focusing on metabolic syndrome suggest that obesity, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and poor blood sugar metabolism, all of which increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes and stroke, are other mechanisms by which poor marital adjustment increases poor health outcomes for women.

There is also the issue of obesity among children. Children who are raised by parents who have what is called an authoritative—not an authoritarian—parenting style apparently eat more healthily, are more physically active and have a lower body mass index than children raised under other parenting styles, such as authoritarian, permissive, indulgent, uninvolved or neglectful. Reports say that marital dissatisfaction results in more authoritarian and less authoritative parenting. In other words, there is a vicious cycle. The quality of the parental relationship has a significant bearing on children’s health. The sad fact is that disadvantaged children suffer the most.

If a focus on relationships has the potential to deliver significant public health gains, how do we realise those gains? Certainly, building stronger relationships requires encouraging couples to build on good habits and to reduce bad ones. We should encourage and support proposals within plans such as the “Let’s Stick Together” programme developed by Care for the Family, which talks about avoiding negative habits. Often the issue is skills, which can be developed. Such skills include being responsive or even enthusiastic about what a partner is saying, expressing feelings of warmth and affection, managing conflict, communicating well and preserving a friendship, as well as learning how to perceive and demonstrate commitment and deal constructively with misunderstandings. All those skills can be learnt, and learning them is critical when people have had no role models.

We also need preventive relationship education, web-based support and specialist counselling and therapeutic services—prevention rather than cure. Could we not move some of the millions of pounds that Relate receives to work at the outset of relationships instead of using the money to deal with the fallout and damage at the end?

The CEO of the Fatherhood Institute, Adrienne Burgess, has said:

“Encouraging parents to both take a lot of responsibility for looking after the child…and earning is a great way to help couples become real team parents. When they do this child rearing brings them together and means they are less likely to split up.”

On maternity services, Adrienne Burgess has argued:

“Increasing the potential for both of them to be involved is a really simple way to help strengthen couple relationships.”

To return to my point about the elderly, loneliness has significant links to a range of chronic conditions, including high blood pressure and depression, and increases the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease by over 60%. On average, 10% of the population aged over 65 is chronically lonely, which means that they feel lonely all or most of the time. It is vital that the health implications of this issue are recognised by those making decisions about local health priorities. The proportion of elderly people in our population is increasing. Many of them live alone due to relationship breakdown. Helping them to sustain partner relationships, with the mutual support that such relationships can provide in later life, could carry major personal and public health benefits.

The Relationships Foundation has described strong relationships as a national asset that we should preserve and strengthen. The social capital of families and communities is a sustainable bedrock not only of our national wealth but of our well-being. Stronger relationships between couples mean that those couples can then provide strength and support up and down generations, across families and out into communities. That is a national resource that we must nurture and cultivate, and that we ignore at our peril.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson):

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) for raising this deeply important subject, and for stoically being here despite his heavy cold.

Like all those who contributed this afternoon, I believe that strong and stable families are the backbone of a strong and stable society—the key to ensuring that children grow up in a loving environment and develop into healthy and fulfilled adults. That is why the Government have invested significantly in supporting families and couple relationships, as well as the institution of marriage—because we understand the crucial role that the family plays in providing a foundation for a child’s development and success in later life. I saw that for myself in my own personal and professional life before coming to Parliament, so I need no persuading of the merits of a strong, stable and loving family environment in bringing about a better society.

Although the view that I have set out is based partly on what we know intrinsically works, and the values that help to improve and enhance lives, we also know from research that happy relationships lead to better physical and emotional well-being for all involved. The fact is that the quality of the relationship between parents is strongly linked to positive parenting and better outcomes for children. Family stability is key for children. Sustained parental relationships are associated with a range of positive childhood, adolescent and adult outcomes, including in respect of cognitive development, education—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State himself said that in his speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research in 2008—better job prospects and less propensity to commit crime, as well as in relation to health. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) raised important points about how health outcomes could be improved with the right support for relationships, and measures that we know help to achieve that. I will take away her comments about the health outcomes framework and the role of the health and wellbeing board, and I will discuss the matter with Ministers in the Department of Health to ensure that it is properly considered as those aspects of the health system develop further.

On attachment, which is a vital part of understanding whether a relationship is positive or not, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence will for the first time produce guidelines on what constitutes a secure attachment, which will be an extremely useful addition. Conflict between parents is detrimental to children’s outcomes, hence the high priority we are giving to supporting all couple relationships, particularly those of people who are married. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot told us, evidence shows us that the children of married parents do better than those of cohabiting parents, particularly on measures of social and emotional development at the ages of three and five. We need to ensure that all under-fives receive the best possible support, so such evidence is important.

Centre for Social Justice reports, which many hon. Members have brought with them, have starkly illustrated the considerable emotional, social and economic costs associated with the breakdown of families. As my hon. Friends the Members for Aldershot, and for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham), have reminded us, those costs amount to an astonishing £46 billion a year, which is not far off the total annual budget for educating all our children.

Important life events, including the transition to parenthood, relocation or changes in employment, can contribute to relationship stress. We must do what we can to encourage couples to take up support at an earlier stage—the early prevention that hon. Members have mentioned in this debate—to ensure that they get through difficult events in their lives. My time at the family Bar has shown me the devastating consequences of not doing so, not only for adults but, perhaps even more importantly, for any children involved. To bring that about, and by virtue of the strong prime ministerial steer, the Government have committed £30 million over the spending review period 2011-2015, which puts funding for relationship support on a much more stable long-term footing. That gives us greater encouragement that we can get couples to use relationship support services.

The Department is funding a range of providers to deliver relationship support services, including one that my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) highlighted: the Parents as Partners evidence-based intervention programme delivered by Family Action, which works with couples who are particularly likely to face relationship stress or be at risk of relationship breakdown. There is also a series of campaigns and culture change messages aimed at employers, new parents and young people to raise awareness and encourage them to seek help on relationships. There is training for early years workers and managers, to help them to encourage positive relationships between parents, and to engage better with fathers, in particular, on relationships and parenting. The public policy agenda is being developed—a point made by my hon. Friend—through the formation of the Relationships Alliance, which I know he has been instrumental in helping to bring together.

I take on board the point that my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire made about the need to scale up some of those excellent services, and the Relationships Alliance is well placed to help achieve that. In my ongoing discussions with the alliance—I am meeting representatives next week—I am sure that that will be on the agenda. All those valuable services are provided by expert organisations. Many hon. Members have praised the work done by such organisations, which include Relate, Marriage Care, the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships and OnePlusOne. Those four organisations, which launched the Relationships Alliance in the House of Commons in November, will be key in helping to establish a much more coherent and cohesive message on what is available to those who need support.

Fiona Bruce: I thank the Minister for his constructive personal concern and his comments so far. We have heard today that the issue straddles many different Departments: education, local government, the criminal justice system and health and well-being. Would it not be helpful to appoint a dedicated Minister to tackle this issue? Care for the Family has said that it feels as though there is no one in government waking up every morning thinking about this key social policy as a priority. After all that we have heard today, should not there be?

Mr Timpson: As the Minister with responsibility for children and families, I have sympathy with the need to raise the issue across Government and to ensure that all Departments play an active role in establishing what works and delivering it, but as my hon. Friend will acknowledge, I am not in a position to start appointing new Ministers or Departments. Forums are available to bring the topic together across Government; in particular, the social justice committee, which is chaired by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, has a strong interest in the subject and is well placed to hold such cross-government discussions.

We are doing a significant amount to support families but we must recognise that, sadly, parents separate. When that happens, it can be a difficult time in which families need support on a range of issues. That is why we are improving the information, advice and support available to separated parents outside the court system to help them focus on their children’s needs and to agree workable arrangements for post-separation parenting. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) rightly said, the Children and Families Bill, which is currently in the other place, includes provision to highlight the importance of a child having a relationship with both parents following family breakdown, provided that to do so is safe and in the child’s best interests. The welfare of the individual child must be the court’s paramount consideration, but, subject to that, the parental involvement clause requires courts to presume that the child’s welfare is furthered by the involvement of each parent who can be safely involved. By making clear the basis on which the court makes those decisions, that provision is intended to encourage parents to reach agreement themselves about their child’s care without recourse to the court.

Sir Gerald Howarth: Before my hon. Friend the Minister sits down, may I thank him for the serious attention that he is paying to the issue? We hope that we can support him in raising it up the Government’s agenda. Before we conclude, may I also thank you, Mr Streeter, for all that you have done in this field?

Mr Timpson: It is remiss of me not to have directed similar praise to you, Mr Streeter, and I concur with the words that have just come in your direction.

The Government have commissioned two key pieces of work that will inform future policy makers and commissioners, because problems often start with poor commissioning decisions. That will help in areas such as Mid Derbyshire that want to move away from short-term, spot-purchasing solutions towards something more sustainable. Those two key pieces of work are an independent evaluation of relationship support interventions and a cross-government review of the family stability indicator of the social justice strategy.

Although significant evidence points to the importance of the quality of adult couple relationships to child outcomes, we know from various reviews of literature that there is limited evidence from within the UK about which relationship support practice has the most positive impact on adult and child outcomes. My Department has consequently commissioned research to test the effectiveness of several relationship support interventions, some of which we have already heard about—“Let’s Stick Together”, which my hon. Friends the Members for Congleton, and for South West Bedfordshire, have mentioned, as well as marriage preparation and couple counselling—to evaluate whether they are as effective as we would like. That report is due at the end of the month.

The debate has been informative, passionate and serious. Although the Government have done a lot of work in this area, we recognise that there is still work to do, not only on the ground to improve relationship support, but in the messages that come from Government about how we build strong relationships across society. The past 50 years have seen a seismic shift in the structure and composition of families in this country. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot rightly acknowledged, we should respect many of the reasons why that has happened, but we cannot accept the erosion of marriage and the many well evidenced benefits that it brings to society. That is why the Government are committed to supporting marriage. The marriage tax break is a step in the right direction that will help to ensure that all the attributes marriage brings with it flourish and do not wither.

Sex Selection Abortions

Abortion law must now be revisited’ says Fiona Bruce MP

Following reports today that the illegal abortion of female foetuses solely to ensure that families have sons – so called ‘family balancing’ - is increasingly practised in Britain and has resulted in shortfalls in the proportion of girls born in some communities, Fiona Bruce MP Co-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Pro Life Group said today:

“The law as it stands does not permit abortion on the ground of gender. As the figures released today show, however, there is grave cause for concern that sex selective abortion is now happening on an increasing basis in this country. Evidence released this week confirms what many of us have been saying for some time – that the abortion legislation in this country needs to be revisited to clarify and confirm specifically that abortion on the ground of unborn child’s gender is illegal.

Legislation as currently drafted does not specifically prohibit abortion on the ground of an unborn child’s gender - in so many words - since this was never envisaged when the original Abortion Act was passed.

A review of the abortion legislation is now needed; it is the role of Parliament to undertake this and I am pressing for it.

We cannot allow the concept to take foothold that expecting a child of a particular gender is a sufficient cause of stress as to justify an abortion on the grounds of the danger to the mother’s mental health. This is quite simply discrimination, and we must ensure that no pressure is brought to bear on women to have a child of a particular sex and that this is confirmed as completely unacceptable in this country.

We have all seen what has happened in China over many years of sex selective abortion – as a result of the one child policy - and the distortion in the number of young men and young women there. We cannot stand by and allow this to happen in communities in this country.

It simply cannot be that an unborn child who is a girl is of less value than one which is a boy - or vice versa.”

Fiona presses the BBC to broadcast the World Service into North Korea

Fiona Bruce MP presses the BBC to broadcast the World Service into North Korea

Fiona Bruce MP is chairing a Parliamentary Inquiry into human rights atrocities in North Korea, the purpose of which is to press the British Government and International Authorities to do more to address the desperate plight of the North Korean people.

Fiona Bruce said:

“This must be taken out of the ‘too hard to do box’. The fact is that human rights atrocities in North Korea have gone on for three generations – far too long.”

On Wednesday 18^th December Fiona Bruce called a meeting of the North Korea Parliamentary Group to call on the BBC World Service broadcasting into North Korea.

At the meeting James Burt, of the European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea, presented his policy paper, An Unmet Need: A Proposal for the BBC to broadcast a World Service in the Korean Language.

Fiona Bruce MP, Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea commented:

“I was delighted to host this meeting as part of my ongoing campaign for a Korean language BBC World Service.  The excellent policy paper presented by James Burt provides some much needed and thorough research that this is perfectly possible. One of the reason the BBC has given to date for not broadcasting into the Korean Peninsula has been their stated lack of suitable radio transmitters – however, James’ research has ascertained that suitable transmitters are sighted in other countries such as Thailand, Russia and South Korea.”

“History has shown, in Soviet Russia, Eastern Germany and more recently in Burma that the people listening to the BBC World Service under repressive regimes are inspired and strengthened on hearing about how democratic societies work, to take action. The BBC World Service has a key role  in promoting universal values—human rights, the rule of law and democracy—and, at its best, the BBC World Service is a beacon of hope and a voice of freedom for the oppressed throughout the world. Broadcasting into North Korea would enable the people there who are victims of the most egregious and repressive regime in the world to know that they are not forgotten.”

This meeting followed an Urgent Question Fiona asked the UK Government Minister for North Korea in the House of Commons on Monday 16^th December following the recent summary execution of the Leader of North Korea’s uncle, Chang Song-thaek, one of eighty such recent executions. Some of the people killed were executed merely for owning a Bible. During the Urgent Question Fiona asked the following:

“Given that a major weapon in ending Stalin’s reign of terror was the role that this country played by broadcasting the BBC World Service and breaking the Soviet information blockade—the same has been done more recently with the Burmese information blockade—and given the Foreign Secretary’s role in setting the World Service’s strategic objectives, will the Minister consider extending the BBC World Service to the Korean peninsula?”

Speaking after the debate Fiona said:

“I was delighted that so many other MPs supported my request – the voice in Parliament on behalf of the persecuted North Korean people is getting louder and am encouraged that there is a groundswell of support building for a BBC Korean World Service. I shall continue to press both the BBC and the Government for this. For some six decades, the North Korean people have suffered intolerably. People are incarcerated merely for their beliefs, or for speaking a few words that the leadership objects to. Children are treated as prisoners from birth and those who try to escape the regime risk not only imprisonment or worse for themselves but punishment for up to three generations of their family. An incalculable number of North Koreans have been, and continue to be, worked to death, frozen to death, burned to death, gassed to death or tortured in the most unimaginable ways – by their own Government. In short, the North Korean people are the most persecuted on earth and we must do more.”

Restorative Justice

Fiona Bruce MP lobbies Prisons Minister on Cheshire Restorative Justice in Project

 

On Monday 9^th December Fiona Bruce MP hosted an event she organised for over one hundred people including MPs, Members of the House of Lords, the Minister for Prisons (Jeremy Wright MP), prison officers, prison governors, charity workers and volunteers to discuss Restorative Justice.

Fiona Bruce MP commented:

“I was delighted to host such a powerful and moving here in Parliament. I was inspired to organise this event following various visits I have made to Thorn Cross Young Offenders Institute in Cheshire and seeing the Sycamore Tree Restorative Justice Programme run by the Prison Fellowship in action. The impact of this programme is astounding. It is a six week course which is run in around a third of prisons around the UK and most prisons have a waiting list of more than a year for inmates to get a place on the course.”

Fiona continued:

“The program demands real commitment and engagement from offenders, who are enabled by volunteer facilitators to explore the emotional and practical impact of their crime. Prisoners learn there is no suhc thing as a victimless crime. The offenders meet a victim of crime and hear the story from a victim’s perspective, before being invited to take part in a “symbolic act of restitution,” which includes offenders writing letters of apology to their victims, their family and society.”

The Minister, Jeremy Wright MP, speaking at the event, said:

“Fourteen months ago I knew very little about restorative justice, but the more I learnt, the more interested I became….it’s most important that victims of crime have access to it…restorative justice has the capacity to change lives for the victim and the persecutor, to turn people around from the wrong path to the right path.”

Fiona Bruce MP chaired the discussion at the event. The panel was made up of Prison Fellowship’s Penny Parker, Ian Telfer (Governor, HMP Gartree,) Rev Shawn Verhey (Chaplain, HMP YOI Thorn Cross), and Will Brown, a former inmate at HMP Wandsworth.

Penny Parker from the Prison Fellowship commented:

“It is remarkable to see the difference the Sycamore Tree programme makes in the lives of men and women in prisons and we are wanting to extend this to every prison in the country. We are enormously appreciative of everything Fiona Bruce is doing to bring this to the attention of the Minister for Prisons and we are very much hoping some of the recently released £29 million of funding for Restorative Justice can be obtained by the Prison Fellowship for this purpose. We believe that Sycamore Tree is a powerful and effective tool and can be used to spread the impact of Restorative Justice throughout our prisons.”

Quote from Shawn Verhey

"It is my experience as Managing Chaplain at HMP YOI Thorn Cross that the Sycamore Tree restorative justice course brings a revolution of hope and transformation to both victims and offenders through the uncompromising journey together towards understanding & forgiveness. For this reason it is of the utmost importance that the 'Sycamore Tree experience' is firmly established in every prison in the UK in order to transform the lives of victims, offenders and our communities".

Will Brown a former inmate at HMP Wandsworth shared about the impact Sycamore Tree had on his life and how having left prison he is determined not to reoffend:

“I had faceless victims, but I never confronted them. On the Sycamore Tree course I met a lady named Christine, and she had her house robbed, and I thought, that could have been me. Sycamore Tree gave me a conscience, it was really emotional. I used to burgle people’s houses and then go home and sleep soundly at night. I’ve committed some horrendous crimes and but the Sycamore Tree course has changed my attitude, my life and my family’s life. Thanks to Sycamore Tree.”

Lyn and Mick Connolly, whose son was murdered eleven years ago in a motiveless attack, spoke of how they had forgiven the men who were convicted of the killing. Lyn and Mick take part in the Sycamore Tree course, and to date, have re-lived their story more than seventy times. Lyn Connolly said: 

“I walked into the prison and I didn’t know what to expect, and as I began to share my story, I sobbed my way through. I thought maybe I’ll get angry, but as I looked out I saw broken people…these people (the inmates) were victims as well..I felt overwhelmed with love for them..I felt like everyone’s mother…we’ve lost our only son, but we’ve gained hundreds of others. In the eleven years since Paul died, the prison has been the place of most comfort.”

Following this event, Fiona Bruce MP had the opportunity to ask the following question of the Minister for Prisons in the House of Commons on Tuesday 17^th December:

Fiona Bruce: How is his Department’s funding for restorative justice being disbursed.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright): We recently announced funding of £29 million over three years for restorative justice, at least £22 million of which is going to police and crime commissioners for victim-initiated and pre-sentence restorative justice services. The remainder is being used to boost capacity so that good-quality restorative justice is available at all stages in the criminal justice system.

Fiona Bruce: I thank the Minister for that reply. Will he join me in affirming the excellent work of the Prison Fellowship’s restorative justice programme, known as the Sycamore Tree project, and will he be good enough to meet me and Prison Fellowship representatives to discuss how the project can be extended beyond the third of prisons in which it currently works to prisons across the country?

Jeremy Wright: As my hon. Friend says, the Sycamore Tree project is already available in some 75 prisons. I certainly support what my hon. Friend says about the good work it does, as was showcased at the excellent event she hosted last week, which I had the pleasure of attending. I will certainly meet her to discuss it further.

Power to Change - Big Lottery Fund

Fiona Bruce MP encourages local charities to apply for funds

Fiona Bruce MP is urging charities and community led enterprises within her constituency to apply for a new funding opportunity following the launch of the Power to Change Fund.

“I have often said that if people want to see the Big Society in action they should come to this Constituency, I am consistently impressed by the community spirit, cohesion and commitment I see demonstrated by such a large number of community and voluntary organisations. I urge all those who can do so to take advantage of the upcoming ‘Power to Change’ fund as I can think of no area more deserving of funding to continue their excellent work.”

The Big Lottery Fund recently announced Power to Change, a new £150 million investment which will fund and support community-led enterprises across England.

A community led enterprise is on which is ‘endorsed by, or engaging directly with, local people’. The lead partner should be a charity, social enterprise, not-for-profit or co-operative organisation. The enterprise must be inclusive of all the community and benefit a specific geographical locality, responding to a local social and economic need and have a sustainable business plan to have a long term viability without the aid of grants or public funding.

The £150 million fund is intended to unlock millions of pounds more of local resources, such as volunteer hours, in-kind support, local donations and the support for community enterprises to generate their own income and be self-sustaining for years to come.

Funding will be made available to communities through an independent Trust, which will be established in 2014. The Power to Change fund will then open for applications in the second half of 2014.

You can get stay up to date on Power to Change and get involved by visiting their website for further information www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/powertochange

Fiona Bruce MP supports development of UTC in Alsager

Fiona Bruce MP supports development of University Technical College in Alsager

 

On Monday 9^th December Fiona Bruce MP arranged a meeting in Parliament with Lord Baker, National Parliamentary Spokesman on behalf of UTC’s, with whom Fiona has been working with for some time to promote a University Technical College in the local area, and the Alsager Residents Action Group.

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the potential for a University Technical College to be developed on the site of the former MMU College Campus at Alsager, alongside the retention Community Sports Facilities there, which Fiona has also been campaigning for since her election.

Fiona Bruce MP commented:

“I was delighted to organise and host this important meeting in Parliament and it was clear that Lord Baker was listening very attentively to the constructive comments made by ARAG who have put in a great deal of work on these proposals. I have long enthusiastically championed a UTC on the former MMU site in Alsager which is being so ably promoted by ARAG who have already done so much work to connect with local, regional and national businesses and education sectors which is so important for any UTC to succeed.

Such a use of the excellent buildings developed on the MMU site, with public money, alongside the Community Sports Facilities which I know so many people in and around Alsager want to see would really augment Alsager community life.”

Chas Howard, Chairman of ARAG commented:

“Together with our MP Fiona Bruce, who is championing our proposal, we had an opportunity to discuss our proposal to establish a University Technical College on the Alsager MMU site and receive comments and insights from Lord Baker, which will serve to inform our future development.  This proposal is distinctive because it has been developed from within the very supportive local Community. Regional, national and internationally-recognised employers have also offered strong support as has Staffordshire University.

The benefits for Alsager and the surrounding areas would be very significant, providing employment, exciting new opportunities for children and re-establishing the Town as a significant provider of education.

This was a productive meeting providing a unique opportunity to discuss the proposal with the Chairman of the Baker Dearing Trust, Lord Baker, who was very supportive and provided excellent advice on how to take the proposals further.”