The Constitutional Affairs Committee has published its report on the Freedom of Information Act, which criticises a government plan to make it easier for public bodies to turn down requests for information on the grounds that they are too expensive to answer. Members of the Select Committee are calling on the government to abandon its "unnecessary, unpopular and undesirable" reforms of the Freedom of Information Act.
Local MP, Tim Farron has revealed figures obtained by the Halifax Bank that show that the level of Council Tax for an average sized property across the country has almost doubled in the ten years since Labour came to power in 1997. The burden on homeowners has therefore increased massively, and the rise is more than three times the level of inflation.
Local MP, Tim Farron used Health Questions in parliament today to ask the Health Minister Ivan Lewis the Department of Health's opinion on the regulations designed to prevent elder abuse. Mr Farron asked the Minister if in light of a Help the Aged report which claims up to half a million pensioners are being abused, the Department consider the guidelines to be stringent enough to prevent such abuse.
The July Focus for St Peter's Ward is now being delivered across the Ward. You can fin a PDF version of this Focus in the 2007 section of St Peter's Ward Folder in the Down;ad area of this site.
Leading local health campaigner, Serena Tierney has written to Gordon Brown asking him to make good on his pledges as he becomes Prime Minister.
Tony Blair will today reject Tory calls in the Commons to stage a referendum on the proposals agreed by EU leaders on Saturday. In his last full statement to the Commons, Mr Blair will claim Britain achieved all its aims at the summit. The Prime Minister has given ground on some aspects of the fourth of his four red lines, a foreign policy in which a foreign affairs 'high representative' will have access to the Commission's civil servants. Mr Brown and Mr Blair reportedly had several last-minute telephone conversations after the chancellor expressed his unhappiness at a concession to France which had removed a treaty objective of "free and undistorted competition".