Webchat with Deputy Labour Leader Harriet Harman MP; THURSDAY 12 FEBRUARY 12-1pm

[RowanMumsnet]

Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman MP will be joining us at MNHQ on Thursday 12 February between 12 midday and 1pm.

Harriet is Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and Shadow Deputy Prime Minister. She was first elected as an MP aged 32 when she was 7 months pregnant, and her long-term campaigning interests include gender equality, better maternity pay and conditions, and women-only shortlists.

Come and chat to Harriet this Thursday at 12 midday, or post a question in advance on this thread if you can't make it on the day.

Thanks
MNHQ

"we'd ensure that 200,000 homes would be built each year"

Why do we have to build over the whole country? Is this because the pop has increased due to immigration? If so, not pleased.

@VeryThelma

As a life long Labour voter I am not sure how you can convince me as a Married working Mother of two primary school aged children what difference voting Labour will make to my life.

A bit about me

I struggle to juggle living in the south east and buying a house with a bedroom for each child, childcare costs for after school and holidays.

My husband pays over £2500 per year for a poorly run train service to London 20 mins away and we are not able to budget for the increases as we don't know what they might be?

I am a school governor and am concerned about funding for the next 3 years and how we are to manage the school budget without reducing the head count and affecting ALL of the children's ability to progress their learning (not for Ofsted for themselves)

I look forward to hearing what Labour might be able to do for me.

OK Thelma....The NHS, a freeze on energy bills, and ensuring job opportunities for your children by staying in (a reformed) EU not cutting ourselves off. There's loads more but my answers have been too long!

'Re scotland we've got a great new team leading Labour in Scotland - Jim and Kezia - and with our Labour MPs, councillors and MSPs they are working hard to speak up for people in Scotland and the concerns they have.'

No Harriet, you've got Jim Murphy skipping votes to pose with football clubs.

TheHoneyBadger - I've previously felt that Labour were the best option for compassion for the disabled. I hope that's still true. But I don't have that faith anymore.

This Rotherham thing has really upset me. Nothing should outweigh keeping children safe from abusers. It's not politics, it's just basic humanity.

answer some of the yes/no q's then - that'd be quick.

some examples -

would labour try to ban HE again?

will you be taking the 11% pay rise?

would you reverse the decision to charge children for getting maintenance and take a cut of that maintenance out of their mouths?

etc.

with respect - the yes/no ones are really quick to answer.

i'd always 'assumed' so cfs BUT the silence has been deafening over this term hasn't it? IF they did care and disagreed forcefully they would have said so surely because it was such an easy vote winner and oppositional stance (as have many things been that they've stayed conspicuously quiet about). i'm left confused and somewhat cynical and like you wondering who on earth does represent my political and ethical stance nowadays.

"What's wrong with red for the bus?"

I can answer that one, slug. Red is traditionally the colour of socialism and left wing politics, and is therefore entirely inappropriate for the modern Labour party.

"we think employers should pay a"living wage".

Well that's lovely. Will you ensure they do by increasing the minimum wage to the level of a living wage?

@LucyGransnet

Hi Harriet, we've got a few questions that our members over on Gransnet would like to ask you. Here they are...

This one is from Gracesgran:

"If Labour is in government (with or without another party), will they keep the triple lock on pensions?

This is the only way that the poorest of those who are losing the Pension Savings Credit will creep into the Pension Guarantee Credit. If this doesn't happen, yet again while pensioners with capital will benefit from the new savings bond for the over 65s, it will be paid for by those who are one step away from the poorest pensioners who are only getting 87p increase in pension payment this year and, it appears, for some years to come until they lose it all."

Another from Grannytwice:

"I'd like to know how on earth 'Granny Bonds', free bus passes, TV licences, winter fuel allowances, can be justified for all pensioners regardless of income? Will you continue with them all?"

And this one from weaselywood:

"I'd like to ask you about your role as chair of the Commission for Older Women. What did you learn from this role and what changes would you like to see implemented?

"Do you agree that older women often get a raw deal because of the way they are portrayed in/treated by the media?"

Hi weaselywood. It was great to chair the Commission for Older women. What I learned was that all over the country there are older women (over 50) who are working, and expecting to work till they're 67; who think they are good at their job but too often are regarded as past it!; who are invaluable in caring for their grandchildren and older relatives and who feel ignored by politics. So for a start I want us to implement the Equality Act clause which protects against "double discrimination" because you are older AND a woman which is on the statute book but which the Tories have not brought into force. It would send an important message about older women.

The NHS is the biggest issue for me. Without our health we've got nothing.

Harriet - is there honestly a real commitment in the Labour party to halt NHS privatisation?

If Labour form the next Goverment will you pledge to investigate properly the extraordinarily high Serious Adverse Reactions reported in teenage girls following HPV vaccination. Japan has taken a precautionary stance on this but so far all the UK politicians seem to do is to stand behind the MHRA who are doing nothing. Will this very serious issue be properly investigated by a Labour government

Please help sort out the mess that is schooling. Teachers are on their knees with the overload of data analysis, planning, assessments etc. I get paid for 3 days a week but work 6 days and feel like I don't have any time or energy left for my own dcs. Teachers I know have left in droves and the ones remaining are broken, planning to leave or just so dispirited. Our heads cannot recruit and the whole system is creaking to a standstill.

"we'd ensure that 200,000 homes would be built each year"

HOW do you "ensure" that, and why didn't Labour follow the recommendations of their own commissioned report in 2004, just before we opened the door to Europe and had the government money to ENSURE it happened?

“Britain is facing a housing disaster as it is one million homes short, warns new report”

www.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-2589483/Britain-facing-housing-disaster-warns-new-report.html

“Britain is now one million homes short of meeting its housing needs – a decade on from the flagship Barker Review of Housing Supply.”

“The 2004 report by Kate Barker, commissioned by the then Labour government, found that 210,000 homes needed to be built each year to prevent a housing crisis.”

“The economist also set a more ambitious target of ‘improving the housing market’ and making property more affordable by building 260,000 homes a year.”

“But a follow-up report shows that an average of just 115,000 homes a year have been built since then – meaning the country is 953,000 homes short of one target and 1.45million short of the other.”

“The chronic shortage of homes has locked many youngsters out of the housing market with 3.35million 20-to-34-year-olds living with their parents – 790,000 more than when the Barker Review was published.”

I know you've already touched on the national minimum wage and the living wage, but isn't it time to scrap the NMW and replace it with a statutory living wage for all?

I was a huge supporter of the NMW when it was introduced and I think it's served a great purpose, but even with it we have so many working people relying on tax credits and food banks and are generally just struggling to get by.

TheHoneyBadger - a Labour MP did speak up about benefit sanctions the other day, so maybe we should look at our individual local candidates. Likewise there are some Tory MPs supporting a child abuse inquiry, I would want to keep them in the house.

Hello Harriet, I've never voted Labour but I think you would make a better leader than Ed. As a voter I just don't get him and don't feel he'd make a credible PM. This morning's announcement that Labour would limit class sizes to 30 made me laugh out loud. It's all well and good restricting the numbers but where do the extra children about the 30 threshold go to school?? The whole catchment thing needs revisiting.

I see someone asked you about sending your children to selective state schools. Not sure why your kids should have to go to non-selective schools if they are good enough to go elsewhere? All parents do the best for their kids...

Seriously, you need to work on your response speed. I've managed to produce half a report for work during this web chat, and I joined late

I think the response speed is no accident slug.

@slug

Personally, I would like a party with Left wing policies to vote for. Labour's swing to the right has left me feeling abandoned.

We're not swinging...we've got radical policies to deal with the problems of today. In 1997 we brought in the minimum wage, started a programme of Sure Start Centres, doubled maternity pay and leave,rescued the NHS and built loads of new schools and put a levy on the privatised utilities to pay for a youth jobs programme. That was progressive and necessary! Now, with pay stagnating while costs rise we're pledging to freeze fuel bills, bring back the 50p tax rate for people over £150K and abolish the bedroom tax. So we've got progressive policies which are good for the country.

Harriet's on the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 in 7 minutes....

Here's my idea for the pink bus - repaint it red, with a big "female" symbol on the side (you know, the one with the circle and the cross underneath). This would a - give even more publicity to what is in essence a good idea for a campaign, and b - show that you're listening and responding to the people.

i don't know - do you think individual mps (bar the truly courageous backed by social media based journalism - you know who i mean) can make much difference these days? i'm ending up thinking that the true ruling club doesn't even have party affiliations but business ones. i sound terribly cynical but i'm afraid being rational and basing your views on long observations rather than faith leads to it. institutional politics and the established political 'class' seems to have ceased to be representative of anything other than it's own interests.

it seems sad that a politician can't answer simple yes or no questions (i am not singling out HH and i've defended her multitudes of times on MN because i feel she's been attacked frequently for being female and having opinions in the past though i'm not seeing opinions so much nowadays as party lines) and even a supposed opposition party won't openly criticise and stand against inhumane practices of a government in power.

sadly i can quite understand the 'don't bother to vote' movement now. at what point of non turnout does a government not have the mandate to rule?

Abolishing the bedroom tax is great, but are Labour also pledging to sort out the PIP/Disability assessment fiasco and make it easier for the disabled to get their entitled support?

The mansion tax has been very poorly explained. Why is the threshold at £42,000 for being allowed to defer payments when the threshold for child benefit payments being taxable is £50,000?

It feels like it is a tax on the South East and London as you can buy a much larger house in the North that looks like a Mansion but get a terraced house in London for the same amount of money. Why isn't there a higher threshold for the South East when there is such a large discrepancy in house prices?

If you'd frozen fuel bills this year we'd all have been paying more than cost as the oil price dropped!

And they say that the energy companies aren't passing on all the savings now because they're worried about labour freezing energy bills if they win, and then the l price might rise again.