Nominate Seema Malhotra for Conference Arrangements Committee

Dear Constituency Member

I have been attending Labour Party conference for 20 years since I joined the party as a teenager. I am writing to ask you to consider nominating me at your next CLP meeting as a constituency representative on the Party’s Conference Arrangements Committee.

Nomination details have been sent to CLPs secretaries. CLPs can nominate up to two candidates. CLP delegates at conference will vote for two constituency representatives. Nominations must be received by the Compliance Unit of the Labour Party by June 24th 2011.

Not many members know about the work of this important committee that oversees organisation and debate at Annual Conference. Conference is and must remain our sovereign decision making body; when we really debate the issues that matter. It is when voters see Labour members speaking up for their communities and for Labour values. Debates at conference show voters what we stand for. Ordinary members must have their voices heard.

Conference will be vital in opposition to expose the betrayal of this Tory-led Government and the impact of their policies, while setting out a progressive and fair alternative that goes back to our roots. The engagement of members from across the UK will be critical, including the South where we lost many MPs and councillors, and the devolved administrations which see elections this year.
Our party is renewing itself. Through outstanding, informed debate at Conference we will show Britain we are ready for Government once again.

And to succeed, conference must be inclusive for delegates and visitors; all too often it is confusing especially for new members. I believe better communications are vital, and increased training and support for members and CLPs.

I bring wide experience as a CLP and union conference delegate. I have Party experience as a Constituency Chair, GC and EC member, and Labour candidate. I grew up in Hounslow, west London and have lived in the North and Midlands. I have campaigned across the country including in Scotland and Wales. I am a Unite union branch chair, active member of Coop Party, a former National Chair of the Fabian Society and Young Fabians. I founded and run the Fabian Women’s Network. I hope you will support me.

Please do feel free to contact me at any time. I look forward to hearing from you.

Seema Malhotra
Twitter: @SeemaMalhotra1

AV is not the issue on which Progressives should be Conservative (and why I’m not #Meh about #Mehs)

Over the last few months I’ve had the opportunity to talk across the country and make the case for AV. It’s understandably been an issue on which a lot of people haven’t felt that “bothered”, but that doesn’t mean the outcome is not going to make a difference.
Many have felt aggrieved by the lies and innuendo paraded by the No campaign. I found the first poster of Clegg based on an Obama image one that verged on racist. That may not have been intended – but bad taste has come to dominate their campaign. There must be something deep that the right particularly fear losing – and it can only be power.
Indeed the issue of the cost of AV was rebutted by Lord McNally this week in the Lords who said that the costs of AV would not be significantly higher than First Past the Post. I also remember one event I was speaking at – and being extremely surprised to hear the No speaker argue one way (“Its not enough so just say No”) to supporters of PR, and then argue the merits of FPTP to others. I had no idea by the end of the meeting as to what the speaker actually believed in.
Less than a week after the Royal Wedding – which was a symbol of how the monarchy is modernising - we all have a chance to make a decision that will be a small step in the modernisation of our politics. A great Progress piece talked about AV as a marriage of principle and practice – and it was right.
Let me be clear. Whilst I support AV, I do not support PR. I believe we weakened accountability of our MEPs by removing the constituency link and I wouldn’t want a system that gave fascist parties seats in Westminster.
But what I do believe is that the public still want our politics to change. As the expenses crisis lingers as a painful memory, people have not lost an interest in politics. The evidence is there that in fact people want to feel closer, more connected and more influential in our political decision making.
Whilst we could have chosen another variant of reform for the Referendum, this is the one we have got and it is a sensible next step for our parliamentary reform. It is not a big complex change as the No campaign make out. In fact it is a system used by political parties – for internal elections. Every Labour party member who voted in the leadership elections last year used AV. The change is a simple one. It simply is a change from putting a X to either putting an X or ranking candidates 1,2,3.
When I was initially thinking about which way to vote on AV, I found myself coming down to a very simple question. If the Tories aren’t supporting it as Cameron’s has clearly stated, ask yourself why. If the BNP are against it, ask yourself why. The reason is that FPTP or PR entrenches the self interest of each of those parties. However the decision on AV should not be about your own party’s particular interest; it should be about a fairer voting system. This is a change that gives away a bit more power and choice to people. That’s why it’s important. That’s why the Tories are putting up a smokescreen. They know it is a system that could make them have to work beyond their comfort zone and natural supporters – and rather than change themselves, they’ll fight tooth and nail to keep the status quo.
Secondly, the very act of changing something in our national politics is symbolic of the fact we can change more. A spirit of change could bring other changes in its wake. I’d like to see a lot more be different. Reform to working hours of Parliament. A reduced recess. Job share MPs. Much more is possible, if people believe change can happen. So I believe that this will be the opening to changing our political life more fundamentally, and it’s a side of reform that Progressives should be on. This is not the issue on which Progressives should be conservative.
This referendum, our first in 36 years, isn’t about Nick Clegg or the Coalition.
It’s about the people of Britain. It is a change that matters, and it saddens me that we have so many people across parties – perfectly comfortably about being ‘Meh’ – undecided. Well on the issue of a change that improves voter choice and fairer democratic outcomes that doesn’t bring other problems in it’s wake, I’m not meh, and I won’t be meh about mehs. And if you worry about coalitions under AV – just remind yourself that FPTP produced this coalition – and there’s no reason why it couldn’t happen again.
If you think it doesn’t really matter what happens, take a quick look into the future. The boundary changes, reduction in seat numbers and issues around registration could result in Labour losing the chance to ever have an outright majority again. AV, as a fairer system that keeps the constituency link could be the Progressive’s best chance of ever holding power after the constitutional reforms (which are likely be biased in favour of Conservative forces) have gone through. With all the different changes underway, the future is never going to be the same as the past. Today’s vote has to be about the future.
A few days ago, I voted YES. And I urge you to do so too.

Seema Malhotra (@SeemaMalhotra1)

Are women being hit hardest by Pension reforms?

This article was published today at ProgressOnline.

Pensions reform may not be the sexiest of topics in Parliament, but you can be guaranteed that if we live to retirement age it is one area that will directly affect every one of us. Today, the Fabian Women's Network is holding a public debate on the Coalition's pension reforms and their impact on women. Speakers include pensions minister Steve Webb, shadow pensions minister Rachel Reeves, Baroness Patricia Hollis and Michelle Mitchell from Age UK.

The debate could not come at a more important time. Today the government is publishing proposals for a ‘universal state pension' which could make a positive difference to women and carers' pensions. But last week when the Pensions Bill went through report stage in the House of Lords, an amendment tabled by Lord McKenzie of Luton which aimed to stop the increase in the state pension age from 65 to 66 before 2020 was narrowly lost by 12 votes.

The pensions bill plans to raise the state pension age to 66 by 2020, and brings forward the timetable to equalise men and women's state pensions. Under the Pensions Act 2007, secured after Turner Commission and the establishment of a consensus on the principles of pension reform for a long lasting settlement, the increase was due to take effect between 2024 and 2026. The bill will bring forward the increase for both men and women so that by 2020, both men and women will be retiring at age 66.

This means that women's state pension age must rise from 60 to 65 by 2018 - just 7 years from now, rather than by 2020 as planned under Labour. The additional year's rise - to 66 - will be phased in between 2018 and 2020.

The coalition has said the changes are ‘necessary' because the current system is not sustainable in an ageing population. Certainly we are playing catch up on pension provision - projections show we will see a rapid increase in the dependency ratio over the next 30 years (i.e. number of economically active people supporting non-economically active). The Turner Commission summarised four choices that society and individuals need to choose from or balance for reform: a) pensioners will become poorer relative to the rest of society; b) taxes/national insurance towards pensions will need to increase; c) savings must rise; d) average retirement ages must rise.

None are palatable, and any change will see winners and losers. All parties were beginning to be warm towards the view in the Pension's Commission final report that supported the principle that the State pension age should rise over the long term as life expectancy increases - but do so as part of a package that is fair. The devil is likely to be in the detail - and today's Green Paper is seek views on plans for a mechanism to automatically increase the state pension age in line with average life expectancy.

Bringing forward the increase in SPA to 66 by 6 years is estimated to result in a total net saving of approximately £30.4bn between 2016/17 and 2025/26. The argument is that those reaching SPA before 2026 would gain from rise in life expectancy but would not carry a fair share of the costs.
But reaction to the Bill has rightly focused on the impact on women who have been disproportionately affected. It is estimated that half a million women will be waiting longer to receive their state pension under the new timetable, and for some women this will amount to losing £10,000 of pension payments. Shadow Pensions Minister Rachel Reeves said "Women born in 1954 have already had to adapt to one major revision as women's state pension age was increased from 60 to 65 between 2010 and 2020 and they now face another with little time to prepare." Ros Altmann, the DG of Saga, said the acceleration in timetabling was "clearly discriminatory" - "Women accept the need to equalize pension ages, but the timetable is unfair."

Age UK, who are supporting tonight's seminar have pledged to step up the campaign to halt the speeding up of the SPA increase to 66 before 2020 on the basis, according to Michelle Mitchell of Age UK, that "if given the green light these changes will deny millions of people the chance to plan properly for their retirement and will condemn the poorest to even more hardship".

With this being yet another reform that hits women the hardest, and at a time when unemployment is set to rise, implementing pensions reforms fairly is something that should concern us all and which needs far more consultation and cross-party consensus building than the Government has shown to date, and which characterized the process of reform over the last 5 years.

Seema Malhotra is director of the Fabian Women's Network

The Banker's report on top 500 Islamic Institutions

Fascinating report (well, to me anyway) in the Banker - "Islamic finance has continued to grow over the last few years despite a loss of confidence in global financial systems. The 2010 survey of financial institutions practising Islamic finance reveals that assets rose by 8.85% from $822bn in 2009 to $895bn in 2010. Islamic finance has held a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.46% from 2006 to 2010. Many sharia-compliant institutions remain unscathed from the direct impact of the financial crisis."

Inspiring day at TUC Women's Conference

I spent the afternoon & evening at the TUC Women’s conference in Eastbourne today, ahead of speaking at the Electoral Reform Society’s reception tonight. I’ve not spent much time at the TUC Women’s Conference before and I came to the conclusion that it is something we should promote more widely and treasure. The debates that were had in the time I was there were quite short debates, but meaningful and rich with delegates showing their real experience of the issues and challenges. Just some of the issues debated were violence against women, abortion rights, free schools, public services, safety on transport. Issues debated by women from the point of view of women. The TUC brings together working women from a far greater range of backgrounds which made this a people’s debate beyond a political debate, in a conference where people were much more free to connect the personal and political. The discussion at the reception this evening also addressed women’s political representation. I have been making the argument in speeches recently that political equality is not just a consequence that follows from social equality, but in fact is something we must now see as a pre-requisite to social equality. If you don’t have the voices of men and women more equally in political decision making we'll continue to be making decisions from the narrow perspective of a minority.

A Moving Remembrance for Indian Political Great Dr Lekh Raj Sharma

On Saturday I was lucky enough to be able to attend a moving tribute to Dr Lekh Raj Sharma, an Indian political great and father of Virendra Sharma MP. At a packed Gurdwara in Southall, politicians and community leaders lined up to pay their respects to Dr. Lekh Raj Sharma, and their condolences to his family. I had never really met Dr Sharma, whose political activism went back to the days of Gandhi, but at the remembrance service it was clear that the spirit of this great man shone through on Saturday with tributes from British MPs and MEPs, Hindu, Sikh and Muslim leaders, the Tamil community and others.
His story, his values, his integrity and strong sense of service made an impact on me in more ways than I expected. He was one of the architects of modern India, part of the movement that created a country, a constitution, a secular Government alongside an inclusive community politics. He had been a prominent Congress leader in the Punjab, a freedom fighter and a politician. It became quite clear what had driven Virendra Sharma MP to be the man of integrity that he is, and an important voice in British politics. Both men see the importance of the ongoing relationship between Britain and India, and both espoused the secular politics so vital to making sure all religions are treated equally and fairly. I was honoured to be there this weekend, and it has left me feeling far more inquisitive about the personal stories of the men and women of the last two generations who paved the way for modern Britain and modern India, and in doing so left such an important legacy for us today.

Shelter Associates - A story of social housing in India

If you want to be blown away by the tenacity of a social entrepreneur, look no further than Pratima Joshi, architect and co-founder of Shelter Associates, India. Our #Dishaa group had the privilege of meeting her and understanding more about the NGO today, the challenges it has faced in working with, empowering and improving the housing of slum dwellers in Pune. The "before" and "after" shots on the website are a real testament to one of their most successful stories, that of a community relocated when their slum was going to be destroyed 12 years ago. The families that lived in homes made of tin sheeting with only loan sharks to fund them now live in Coop housing, running their community, managing budgets, holding down jobs. The children are at school learning multiple languages including English and clearly showing signs of aspiration of their own. This is a community that designed its own housing, the women literally made the beams that hold the flats together and year by year the progress of those families is a testament to the work of an NGO that has been fearless in its pursuit of better housing for the poor. We learnt directly from those women about how their health has also improved with less sickness than before. However as we left and drove past more tin shack slums on the hillside and roadside I couldn't help feeling that whilst what was achieved was a triumph of human spirit and solidarity, it was but a drop in the ocean of the change we need to see in the rest of India, which I hope we will see in my lifetime. And it brought home to me that behind every door made of tin sheeting is another family hoping for a better home that can be a base from which they can start to give themselves and their children a better life.

Dishaa and the Healthcare challenge

Day 1 of #dishaa began with an early morning pre-breakfast walk with a fellow participant around the grounds of the training centre. It’s a fairly common thing for Indians to go for an early morning walk – and indeed a wonderful way to start the day. It allows you to see much of what is around you with more time to absorb. Perhaps most fascinating was the beautiful trees with amazing roots (will post a pic tomorrow!) – trees that have been here for generations and around which has grown the Tata Management Training Centre, a place that grows human talent and is now exporting that expertise around the world. Some highlights of today were discussions around @CommonPurpose principles, a sharing of thoughts on the week’s strategic question of how we can reduce the cost of heart surgery around the world to less than $1000.
Characteristics of great leaders and levels of listening were ongoing themes of the day, culminating in a wonderfully insightful discussion with Dr Shetty, who spoke to us via video link in between surgeries. He has conducted over 70,000 heart operations in India and is constantly innovating around different and new forms of sustainable funding particularly to increase access to surgery and cardiac care for people in remote and rural areas. The discussion around this developed into thinking about the extent to which one country can bring down its health costs on its own, and indeed the extent to which an international strategy for global healthcare could have a bigger impact on reducing costs of R&D, production and provision of drugs and healthcare. Technology has brought down the costs of cars, mobile phones, computers and much else – what about the cost of healthcare?
Looking forward to tomorrow when we’ll be visiting hospitals and related charitable practices in the Pune area to understand more about challenges and costs of local health care provision.

The Dishaa experience

The sound of crickets outside in the evening, fresh coconut water available from the street stalls and an amazing group of 40 "leaders" from UK and India coming together in Pune bodes well for a stimulating and challenging week networking with people minded to social change. It's the first round of the Dishaa and a few hours in I'm already feeling humbled by the achievements and drive of those I'm meeting. Journalists, consultants, social entrepreneurs, corporate financiers, industrialists - just sharing stories of who we are and what we are doing is itself truly inspirational. Over dinner we talked about life as an Asian in London, tackling poverty in Bihar and how Bihar is a next great unfolding story of Indian progress, innovative vocational education programmes being run by Lend-a-Hand India in rural schools, textile industry across the world and legacy of decline of UK textile base, infrastructure bonds and their use in India and potential applicability to UK. And the week hasn't even yet formally begun.

EMA – Cost effective intervention or waste of taxpayers money?

Hot on the heels of the Tuition Fees fiasco, the Conservative-led Government looks set to go through with its pledge to abolish the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA). Many do not fully understand exactly what the EMA is, or realise that it is means-tested for students from the poorest families in Britain. Launched in 2004, the EMA scheme directly pays eligible pupils up to £30 a week, depending on family income, to stay on at school after compulsory education – i.e aged 16. Entitlement rules are that for family income up to £20,817 per year, a 16-18 year old who stays on in education can get £30 per week, for household income of £20,818 - £25,521 per year the payment is £20 a week, and for £25,522 - £30,810 per year it is £10 a week.
At a speech to IPPR in 2008, Michael Gove claimed the scheme “fails the poorest families and costs too much money”. He also argued there had been an “overcentralisation” of education, saying “the capacity of local communities to set their own autonomous goals, to pilot their own strategies, to develop the relationships they want is constrained and curbed by central government's nationally-set targets, challenges and protocols.”
I have been quite interested in the question of whether indeed as an intervention it has made any difference – particularly to educational outcomes – and indeed whether that indeed represents value for money. It is right that policies come under scrutiny and that tough questions are asked. The additional point to ask is that if it has had an impact, what is the reason for it?
I have to say I was rather blown away by the findings of one of the most robust evaluations to date of what is still a relatively new policy, conducted by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). Because not only did it show an increase in ‘participation’ rates, i.e. staying on in education compared to a control group, but it showed an increase in attainment rates. Pupils on EMA – and in particular from ethnic minority backgrounds – black females and males – were achieving higher grades than they would have otherwise. Generally results were more impressive for we find achievement among females, though interestingly with black females seeing a greater improvement than white females. The report goes on to suggest that even more impressive is the impact among black s males – the impact roughly translated into a one-grade improvement in an AS Level subject across all black males in the pilot areas.
This suggests two things. Firstly that there is a gender and ethnicity penalty that is set to result from the abolition of the EMA. Secondly that when Gove suggested it wasn’t working as a policy for those in the most deprived areas, he was using statistics misleadingly. There is some debate about whether it has the same impact for pupils in least deprived / fairly deprived / most deprived areas and what other factors may be critical to consider. However overall the IFS report, which offers a “conservative” estimate of benefits and it actually suggests could be twice that stated, is incontrovertible in support of the policy achievements.
What we should perhaps pay more attention to then are the other comments that Gove raises (the “overcentralisation” of education and “ the capacity of local communities to set their own autonomous goals, to pilot their own strategies”) which offer a hint as to the politics of this decision, rather than the economics. The achievement of poor – and often black or Asian, but not exclusively so – in deprived areas is a matter for local authorities who may wish to choose which children to invest in and which to not. An aspiration for all children is not what the Tory-led education policy appears to be about. And indeed the findings of the IFS report are supported by anecdotal and qualitative data – such as case studies collated by the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/dec/17/students-ema-bribe-necessity). But more importantly for me is a conversation I had with a young black man from East London who had recently finished studying, and had had EMA and whose brother was currently on EMA. His view was that it made a big difference to how much time you actually had to study, and for him had resulted in better grades that had enabled him to go to a good university and achieve much more. Indeed, an amount (means tested) of £30 equates approximately to one full day’s work on the minimum wage.
This is an argument to which I am very sympathetic, and in fact I feel hugely saddened that such a targeted investment for some 600,000 of the poorest children at a critical stage in their life, an investment that has had a positive early evaluation, is to be taken away without any clarity of what is to replace it, and indeed why it will be any better.