David Reeves

THE NHS AT 60: BETTER WITH LABOUR

Since 1997, Labour’s investment in the NHS has trebled to £100 billion. This has paid for 38,000 more doctors, 80,000 more nurses, over a hundred new hospitals, new community health centres and the shortest waiting times since records began.

Sixty years since we founded it, Labour is changing the NHS. Our mission is to make the NHS a more personal health service, fitted to the needs of families and focused on preventing ill health as well as curing it.

By 1997, 18 years of Tory government had brought the NHS to its knees. Labour has turned the NHS around by investing the money it needs, employing more doctors and nurses and paying them fairly, cutting waiting lists and building new facilities.

PROTECTING THE GREENBELT

I am deeply concerned about the proposals for potential housing development in Mid Beds.  The council claims that only a small number of sites will need to be developed to meet Government targets to ensure quality affordable homes for future needs. If this is the case then why have 400 sites been submitted?

The council appears deliberately vague on the true number of homes to be built, merely quoting the Government target of 4,400. Will the council confirm that if more than the required numbers of sites are identified as suitable for housing, that they will not be developed in addition?

We need quality affordable homes to meet future needs but we must take only our fair share of the burden. Villages should grow and change over time not over night. Sometimes we need to say enough is enough.

The council consultation can be found at http://www.talktomidbeds.co.uk/

HONOURING THE MILITARY

Today I supported calls for a new public holiday honouring the military.

An E-Petition on the Downing Street website has so far attracted 388,000 signatures. It calls for the creation of a new public holiday, the National Remembrance Holiday to commemorate The Fallen and our Nation, with the holiday falling on the second Monday in November each year, the day after Remembrance Sunday.

As soldier in the Territorial Army who has served on operations in Iraq, I know that soldiers will be called upon to make personal sacrifices, including the ultimate sacrifice, in the service of the Nation. I do not believe that the military covenant is broken, but making sure the covenant is upheld by the Government and the Nation is extremely important at a time when we ask our Armed Forces to do so much.

The petition can be viewed at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/remembermonday/

JOINING THE FIGHT AGAINST CHILD OBESITY

I am calling on supermarkets in Mid Bedfordshire to join the fight against child obesity by taking sugary and fatty foods away from checkout queuing areas.

All parents want to make healthy choices for their children, but it isn't always easy. We all know that modern society can sometimes encourage us to get into bad eating habits. Everyone has a role to play in tackling obesity - we all need to work together to ensure that children eat healthily and get proper exercise.

One way for supermarkets to contribute is for them to avoid displaying sweets and chocolates at checkouts where parents and children queue. I have written to the Manager of the Tesco store in Flitwick and the Manager of the Waitrose store in Ampthill to ask them what they are doing to help families to beat pester power and make the right choices for their children's health.

The England-wide strategy Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives, launched on January 23, sets the government’s plans to tackle obesity in five key areas: preventing weight problems in childhood, promoting healthier food choices, building physical activity into people's lives, supporting health at work and providing incentives more widely to promote health; and providing effective treatment and support when people become overweight or obese.

HONOUR THE COVENANT

As member of the Territorial Army who has seen action in Iraq, I welcome the Royal British Legion campaign to honour the covenant. The campaign calls for the Government to review its guidance for compensation, provide a greater commitment to support the physical and mental health of Service people and their families while also offering more support for bereaved Service families.

The Covenant states:

Soldiers will be called upon to make personal sacrifices - including the ultimate sacrifice - in the service of the Nation. In putting the needs of the Nation and the Army before their own, they forego some of the rights enjoyed by those outside the Armed Forces. In return, British soldiers must always be able to expect fair treatment, to be valued and respected as individuals, and that they (and their families) will be sustained and rewarded by commensurate terms and conditions of service.

It has perhaps its greatest manifestation in the annual commemoration of Armistice Day, when the Nation keeps covenant with those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, giving their lives in action.

I do not believe that the covenant is broken, but making sure the covenant is upheld by the Government and the Nation is extremely important at a time when we ask our Armed Forces to do so much.

For more information and to see how you can support the campaign, visit http://www.poppy.org.uk/