Karen is seeking a keen and resourceful individual to work her busy constituency office as her Parliamentary Caseworker.

Details of the job are advertised online.  Please note that the deadline for applications is 20th June.

MPs are calling for movement on the Doha Development round of the World Trade Organisation talks.  Karen has joined others in asking for progress which could lift 35 million people above the $1 a day levels that so many around the world survive on:

That this House welcomes the continuing efforts at the World Trade Organisation to revive the Doha development round; notes that the US President’s fast track authority to negotiate the Doha round expires on 30th June 2007, which makes this the last opportunity to ensure that developing countries benefit from freer and fairer, rules-based multilateral trade that, according to estimates, would lift up to 35 million people above $1 a day were the Doha round achieved; believes that failure on the Doha round would undermine the achievements on aid and debt at the G8 summit at Gleneagles; further believes that it is time for members of the European Union to practise what they preach, by opening up markets unilaterally to developing countries’ exports, abolishing all remaining production-linked and trade-distorting subsidies on the Common Agricultural Policy, eliminating import tariffs, removing all export subsidies and meaningfully delivering on the Aid for Trade agreement at Gleneagles, including an incremental increase of trade-related aid from the EU to 2 billion euro by 2010; and calls on the United Kingdom Government to put pressure on the EU, US and others to deliver on the Doha development round to ensure that current imbalances in trade rules are effectively addressed and that policy space is an integral part of all agreements, so that trade leads to the uplifting of millions of poor people in Africa and other developing continents.

Karen has backed calls for stricter scrutiny of where British Arms exports are ending up following her signing the below Early Day Motion:

That this House welcomes the publication of the Saferworld report The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; notes that the UK is the world’s second largest exporter of arms; acknowledges that the Government has tightened export controls on arms sales since 1997; nevertheless believes that the current arrangement is failing properly to ensure that arms exported from the UK do not find their way to conflict zones; notes that in the three years up to 2006 arms exports were approved to 19 of 20 states identified by the Government as countries of concern; believes that not enough is being done to trace arms exports once they leave the UK; and calls on the Government further to tighten export controls and introduce new and more stringent checks on the end-use of arms exports from the UK.

Karen has joined many other MPs in expressing their growing concern about the humanitarian in Somalia by signing the below Early Day Motion:

That this House deplores the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Somalia; notes that there were estimates of over 1,000 deaths and 4,000 wounded civilians in Mogadishu caused by heavy fighting from 29th March to 1st April 2007, which included indiscriminate shelling by Ethiopian forces on civilian areas; understands that this has prompted 1.4 million persons to flee their homes, representing over 50 per cent. of the population of the capital which, according to John Holmes, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, has now surpassed the displacement crisis in Sudan; further notes that the Kenyan border remains closed to refugees fleeing the fighting, and whilst recognising their own security concerns notes that this is in contravention of international humanitarian law; further notes that humanitarian aid is failing to reach almost two-thirds of those who have been affected and displaced by the heavy fighting in Mogadishu; and calls for African members of the African Union to reassert their commitment to troops in the region; and further calls for UN intervention and an immediate increase in unimpeded humanitarian aid assistance before the seasonal rains aggravate the crisis.