Joan provides members of the Labour Party with a regular briefing on what she has been doing as MP for the Deptford constituency and, since returning to a government position, her Ministerial responsibilities.  I hope she won’t mind me sharing what she’s written this time:

Constituency 

At the end of September I visited the Job Centre on Deptford High Street. They are doing excellent work and have helped over 800 people to get into work over the past year.

I also visited Pepys Community Forum waste recycling project. This is a really innovative local project. The group collect food waste from the Pepys estate and take dry recyclables and the food to an accelerated composter at their nearby facility. The compost produced will be used in the community in future. I t’s an excellent example of how we can turn everyday waste into a useful resource, rather than simply dumping it.

On 30th September I visited the Lewisham Somali Community Organisation in Deptford. I spoke with staff and pupils about the supplementary school classes in Maths, English, Somali and Arabic run by the organization to help the Somali Community integrate into the local society. They also hold classes to specifically help women in the Somali community.

Ministerial 

On 14th September I was in Nottingham as part of the Government’s Act on CO2 roadshow talking to the public on how we can all act to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

During the same visit I toured an Eco Houses project illustrating new technologies to reduce the carbon footprint of housing. We will need to fully embrace technologies such as these if we are to avoid the worst effects
of climate change and I was delighted to hear Gordon Brown announce during Conference the doubling of the number of ‘eco towns’ which will be built.

I was invited to London Fashion Week to tour the stalls promoting sustainable clothing on 17th September. I was amazed to see beautiful garments made of flax and bamboo – much better even than organic cotton
because less water is added and they grow in cooler climates. Defra has a whole section dedicated to sustainable consumption and production which is doing very interesting work.

I met with Ken Livingstone to discuss waste issues in London on 19th Sept. London’s waste is a major issue and I’m very keen to progress on this issue by working with Ken.

In September I launched the Climate Change Champions competition. This is a nationwide search for 9 young people to spread the message about the challenge of tackling global warming and what people can do to reduce
emissions. The winners of the competition will spend a year ‘in office’ communicating their ideas and leading their own regional public awareness campaigns.

On 2nd October I’m in Paris discussing carbon capture and storage technologies. These technologies could limit our CO2 emissions by capturing the carbon released from burning fossil fuels in power stations and storing it to prevent it escaping into the atmosphere. The meeting is a Defra EU-China event and so quite a responsibility!