Esther McVey

Last week I wrote a letter to Ken Clarke, Sec of State for Justice, after members of victims groups complained that Ian Huntley was seeking compensation for an attack in prison that could see him receiving £100,000-00, nearly 10 times what the families of his victims received.

My point,  any money he might receive due to this attack should be taken from him under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and given to the families of his victims to do with as they wish.  Quite simply no criminal should benefit from their crimes. He was in prison for a crime he’d committed and attacked because of that crime.

It\’s a Knockout video

The Overton Team – Jean in the Centre is team captain and organised the event

The It’s a Knockout day is a fun day and funraiser at the Overton Community Centre Overchurch – with teams from Wirral Partnership Homes, the Police  and the local community taking part.

The whole of the Overton Team with me and Cllr Tom Anderson

Today I visited the Families Fighting for Justice team,  it was an exciting day, OLLY’s  (a new group set up through FFFJ by the children who’ve had their parents or siblings killed) are having their first day out tomorrow at Chester Zoo.

Often children are overlooked when a parent, brother or sister has been killed.  Set against the tragedy of the murder, the pain and loss of a loved one, is the very real day to day realities of arranging the funeral and going to court, amongst all this, children can be left behind, missing love and affection and normal days out, with no one to turn to and no one to talk to. But not anymore – OLLY’s the first group of its kind is here to help children come to terms with what happened as well as to try to fill in some of the gaps of a missing mum or dad, allowing children to grieve and grow in their own time and way.

I can harldy believe so much time has passed since I last wrote on my blog. But it has been a time filled with debates, speeches, emails, letters, surgeries and visits, most of all, lots of visits to schools, where I have met some of the most wonderful children.

Some might know that my Maiden Speech was inspired by Class P of  Hayfield School, Upton – who broke up today for their summer holiday, so happy holidays to them. Well, I also received some wonderful letters thanking me for my visit and for getting them mentioned in Hansard, followed by… ’so does this mean we’re famous?’ and ‘will you visit us again’. The answer is yes – ofcourse I’ll see you again – September time and I’ll bring a photo from my office where their letters are about to hang in a frame on my wall.

After class P I met with the Chief Exec of the Chemical Industries and have agreed to chair the All Party Political Group for the Chemical Industries – why? Because …

It’s the UK’s number 1 manufacturing exporter – it contributes £30M a day to the UK’s balance of payments whilst the rest of the mnaufacturing is in a £300 M deficit

It’s worth £60B anually to the UK’s economy

It employs 600,000 workers – a vast majority of them being in the north west.

The topics I’ll be covering whislt chair  of the Chemical Industry over the next year can be summed up as the 4 E’s : Energy, Economy, Enviroment and Education.

Yesterday I was one of the speakers taking part in the NW debate, if you’d like to read it click here