St Mungo’s, London’s leading homeless charity, is fighting to save
Europe’s largest work and learning service for homeless people. St Mungo’s European funded training and employment services, which helped more than 600 vulnerable men and women last year, are under threat of closure due to an 86% slash in available funding. 

Karen Buck MP visited St Mungo’s Bridge Training centre on 24 January to see for herself how vital this service is to London’s homeless and vulnerable men and women.

St Mungo’s have now got the backing of local MPs to back their call for action against such a huge reduction in available funding for services that help thousands of socially excluded people every year. (more…)

On and around Saturday 27th January, schools, local communities and faith groups from across the UK will join together to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. Thousands of events are being held across the country and many in north Westminster and Kensington to commemorate all those who suffered at the hands of the Nazis during the Holocaust. Holocaust Memorial Day also provides the opportunity to reflect on more recent genocides such as Rwanda and Kosovo, and the lessons relating to prejudice which still need to be learnt today.

There will be, for instance, a concert held at the St. John’s Wood Jewish Liberal Synagogue on 28th January from 5:30pm.  January 27th marks the anniversary of the liberation in 1945 of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the infamous concentration and extermination camp. It is the seventh year that the anniversary has been officially commemorated in the UK. In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the day passing the Holocaust Memorial Day resolution. (more…)

Karen Buck calls for help in pushing take up of the Child Trust Fund

New figures show that 81% of parents are taking up their Child Trust Funds in Wokingham- but this falls to just 69% in Westminster. We should be doing better- and the Council could really help, using ‘Westminster Reporter’ to promote useful information such as this, as a contribution to helping to tackle poverty in the borough, which is, after all, far worse than in neighbouring Camden, Hammersmith or even Brent” (more…)

For the last three weeks Karen has been sitting on the committee considering the bill that will define what powers the London Mayor and Assembly are given.  She tabled an amendment to the Bill that would have moved control of waste in the City from regional Waste Authorities and the boroughs to a single London-wide Waste Authority.  The amendment was not accepted but could go through at a later stage of the legislative procedure in today’s Guardian Hugh Muir considers the wider ramifications of the introduction of a single waste authority for London.

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Far more needs to be done to ensure London’s housing tenants have a voice when decisions are being made about their communities.

That’s the key message from the London Councils-led Community Engagement Taskforce which reported to the Mayor of London’s Housing Forum today.

The Community Engagement Taskforce (CET) was established in early 2006 after London Councils argued that, with various changes occurring in housing provision in London, it was an ideal time to set up a special body to examine the role of community engagement in the capital.

Led by London Councils and chaired by Karen Buck MP, the taskforce was set up as a sub-group of the London Housing Forum (now the Mayor’s Housing Forum). It was charged with investigating the state of community engagement in the capital, and to identify how best to improve tenant and resident engagement in London-wide issues. (more…)