Westminster Diary (David Rendel)

Westminster Diary

March 29, 2005 12:00 AM

Last Tuesday, the Government published its proposals on skills training. I intervened in the House of Commons to stress the importance of education in prisons. HM Prison Service says that re-offending will be cut by 10-14% if we invest more in prisoner education. The Secretary of State agreed with me that the issue is important, and promised to publish a Green Paper on the subject.

Prisoner education was cut back when the Conservatives were last in power. During that period, violent crime increased by 168%. Investing in prison education, and putting an extra 10,000 police officers on the streets, as the Liberal Democrats propose, will make a real difference to the fight against crime.

In contrast, the Chief Constable has been critical of the misleading and irresponsible use of statistics by the Conservatives locally, which appears calculated to increase the fear of crime and to make the job of the police even harder.

Skills and adult learning were back on the agenda on Thursday at Education Questions in the Commons. I was on the front bench, speaking for the Liberal Democrats, and urged the Secretary of State to view adult learning as a "quality of life" issue. Learning a foreign language so that you can participate better in town twinning, for example, enhances your life as well as your employment prospects.

Earlier in the week, I was in the House to back new legislation to regulate the activities of private parking companies. The aim is to prevent unlicensed firms from imposing unfair parking charges or using bullying tactics.

Other events in London included taking part in a debate on education at the London School of Economics. I put the case for scrapping all university tuition fees. I also pointed out that giving parents free rein to choose whatever school they liked for their children would inevitably lead to the closure of many of our rural primary schools.

Back in the constituency, I visited Falkland School on Monday. On Saturday, there were a lot of very excited children at the re-opening of the Dickens Walk playground in The Nightingales.