Chuka Umunna MP

Lambeth’s Your Borough, Your Budget, Your Choice consultation allows local residents to decide how the council spends £250,000 inviting ideas from local community groups across four different categories.

Wellfield Community Centre in Streatham, nominated in Band 2, has applied for funding for substantial repairs ensuring that the centre can continue its fantastic work  such as skills classes for children, homework clubs for young carers and support groups for disabled people.

The Music4Children project, based in Streatham, is seeking funds to develop a programme of free after school arts and media projects for young people and is nominated in Band 3. This project would create a new community radio station, an organic community roof garden and new shared meeting spaces for local groups.

Please vote in support of these two excellent projects by voting online here.

Chuka Umunna, Member of Parliament for Streatham, has co-launched a campaign to stop loan sharks this week as a signatory to the End Legal Loan Sharking coalition.

In the Streatham constituency there exist high street lenders charging rates as high as 400% APR despite the Bank of England base rate having remained at just 0.5% since March 2009.

Mr Umunna was signatory to a letter published in The Guardian this week alongside academics, campaigners and other MPs calling on the government to introduce interest rate caps and increase access to affordable consumer credit.

The campaign cites strong evidence that interest rates which companies charge on short-term loans are not subject to competitive pressures because of a lack of alternative sources of credit and borrowers’ urgent need for ready cash.

Local organisations such as the London Mutual Credit Union which serves Lambeth and Southwark and of which Mr Umunna is a member, provide an alternative to loan sharks by lending small amounts of money while encouraging people to save.

Although the government has said it will regulate excessive interest rates on credit and store cards, it is not taking steps to regulate interest rates charged by lenders which most major European countries already do including France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Holland, and Italy.

Mr Umunna, who is a member of the Treasury Select Committee, is also joining the call for all retail banks to be legally obliged to provide people with a bank account and other financial services.

Mr Umunna said:

“Irresponsible lenders prey on vulnerable people in difficult financial situations, trapping them in cycles of debt through extortionate interest rates, and this is why we are calling on the government to cap the interest rates which consumers are charged on short-term loans.

“It is a scandal that there are predatory lenders on our doorstep here in Streatham charging such exorbitant rates of interest.

“London Mutual Credit Union is a great example of the kind of initiatives which the government should be supporting – increasing access to credit and helping people put savings aside.”

Recently, Chuka took part in an event with Save the Children’s Global Children’s Panel at Dunraven School in Streatham.

The panel brings together young people aged between 12 and 19 from around the world, including Bangladesh, Colombia, Nigeria, South Africa and the UK. Its members have taken part in events across the country, highlighting the issue of child poverty and making sure children’s voices are listened to.

Joining with students from Dunraven School, the Global Children’s Panel engaged in a question and answer session in which Chuka took part, focusing on issues facing children in the UK and overseas.

In the video above, members of the panel discuss their views and aspirations during their visit to Streatham. Follow this link to find out more about the crucially important work which Save the Children does.

UpRise, which has campaigned to save Rise Festival, is now aiming to stage a free music festival this Summer in the spirit of Rise, taking a stand against racism.

If all 100,000 people who attended Rise in 2008 pledge just £1, the organisation will be on target to fund the event.

London’s annual anti-racism festival, which first took place in 1996, was cancelled by Mayor Boris Johnson in April 2009. Chuka is a supporter of the campaign to save Rise. Thousands of people have signed the petition to save Rise and joined the UpRise Facebook group.

To find out more about the campaign and donate visit www.uprise.org.uk

Sustainable Streatham will be screening Food, Inc. at the Streatham Odeon this evening at 8pm. The documentary, which was directed by Robert Kenner, examines the food industry in the United States and its environmental impact. Entry to the screening is priced at £5.

To find out more about Sustainable Streatham and its work, follow this link.

This week, Chuka spoke at the annual Campaigns Conference of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO).

He also took part in a panel discussion on the upcoming general election and its impact on the community and voluntary sector chaired by Liz Atkins, the NCVO’s Director of Public Policy, alongside Oliver Letwin MP and Danny Alexander MP.

Having been active in the third sector as a trustee of youth charities including the 409 Project, the Anthony Bourne Foundation and the Generation Next Foundation, Chuka told the audience how Streatham has one of the most densely populated community and voluntary sectors in the country.

Emphasising the importance of the upcoming general election, Chuka described it as a choice between very different approaches to the economy, society and the third sector.

He praised voluntary organisations’ ability to help “groups which the state, local authorities and statutory bodies often have difficulty in reaching”.

In his speech, Chuka also questioned purely monetary measures of happiness and also took issue with the Tories’ ‘broken society’ rhetoric.

He said: “I have serious problems with the ‘Broken Britain’ mantra, which feeds into the negative images of young people portrayed by the media.

“David Cameron’s talk of ‘Broken Britain’ is part of a broken political strategy.”

The NCVO is an umbrella body and advocate for the community and voluntary sector. First set up in 1919, it has more than 7,000 members.

To find out more about the NCVO and its work, follow this link.

Congratulations to our local residents whose contributions on a local and national level were recognised in the Queen’s New Year Honours list.

To find out more about their fantastic achievements, follow this link.

The contribution of four local residents has been recognised in the Queen’s New Year’s Honors List: Lesley Morrison CBE, Gloria Bailey MBE, Ilene Ming-Deans MBE and Jean Roberts MBE. They are truly inspiring people who have made a real positive impact both locally and nationally.

Ilene Daisy Ming-Deans has been made an MBE for her services to Clapham Youth Centre. The centre is part of the Knight’s Association of Youth Clubs, which have been pioneers of youth work in South London.

Aiming to inspire and help develop young people in constructive and innovative ways, the centre works on projects such as the ‘Summer Uni’, which raises young people’s aspirations.

Lesley Morrison, Headteacher of St. Martin-in-the-Fields High School for Girls in Tulse Hill has been made a CBE for her contribution to education.

Mrs Morrison, who has been head of the school for seventeen years, has overseen the launch of a new and successful sixth form and excellent exam results across the board.

Interviewed in the Streatham Guardian she said: “It is a real honour, but it feels bizarre getting something for just doing your job.” She added “no man was an island” and that her success was because she had a “great team of staff helping her”.

Mrs Morrison’s positive ethos “values all our individuals. It places emphasis on high expectation and the fact that if our pupils believe they can do it, they can. We want our pupils to fly and they do fly,” she told BBC News.

Gloria Bailey is well known for her work with the Streatham Darby and Joan club where her Make a Difference Group is based – she has been made an MBE for her services to the community in Lambeth.

As well as fostering more than 100 children, she has run recruiting drives for foster carers in Brixton and also launched the Godparents initiative to provide opportunities for local youngsters.

Jean Roberts, a ministerial messenger for the Department for Transport, also becomes an MBE.

Congratulations to all those who received honours – we are truly proud to have such inspiring local citizens.

Minister for the Third Sector Angela Smith MP joined Chuka in a recent visit to Lambeth Voluntary Action Council (LVAC).

The Minister’s visit to Streatham recognised the important work being done by the voluntary and community sector in the local area, with Angela Smith making a speech highlighting the role of LVAC and organisations like it.

This was followed by a roundtable discussion chaired by Chuka with representatives from the local community organisatons which make up LVAC, including Volunteer Centre Lambeth, Park Hill Housing Co-Operatives and Emmanuel Youth & Community Centre.

The visit was arranged by Chuka, who recently met with the director of LVAC Conrad Hollingsworth and thought it would be useful for both the Minister and LVAC representatives to meet and discuss the issues facing the sector.

As well as showcasing Lambeth’s thriving third sector, the event provided an opportunity for representatives of local groups to ask the Minister questions and provide a view from the front line to help inform government plans for helping community groups.

LVAC is a membership organisation which represents, supports and develops Lambeth’s voluntary and community sector and promotes cooperation with public bodies.

The Streatham Constituency has one of the largest voluntary and community sectors in the UK, and LVAC plays an important role in coordinating different bodies to create a more powerful voice for its members.

The government has recently announced plans to set up a new national bank to fund community groups. Cabinet Office Minister Liam Byrne, who announced the new policy in a lecture at think tank Progress, argued that local civil society needs to be supported centrally by the state.

Commenting on Angela Smith’s visit to Streatham, Chuka said:

“The Minister’s visit is testament to our area’s thriving community and voluntary sector, and provided a fantastic opportunity for representatives from local organisations to feed their ideas and concerns directly to the top.”

“Since 1997, the government has made unprecedented investment in community and voluntary groups, and in doing so has strengthened local society.

“I welcome the proposal to set up a new bank for funding community and voluntary groups, which would give organisations like LVAC and its members even more freedom to do what they do best.”

A coalition of community groups led by the Scout Association has succeeded in campaigning against new water company charges which would have seen their running costs soar.

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn recently announced that the government will prevent water suppliers from putting in place the new rules, under which community organisations and churches would have been charged on the same basis as commercial premises.

Chuka strongly backed the campaign against the ‘Rain Tax’. At the Labour Party conference last month he attended attended a youth forum event organised by the Scouts Association to discuss their concerns and applaud the huge contribution scouts make to local communities. More than 5,000 youngsters belong to scout groups in South London.