On Friday I began by meeting with borough police commander Simon Letchford.  We discussed the recent progress against brothels in the borough, closing as many this year as the entire rest of London combined.  I then visited the Priory Park community centre to meet with a group of concerned ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) students.  We discussed coalition plans to cut funding for ESOL, which would leave only one in ten of the current set of students at Priory Park receiving the tuition for free.  It will mean many giving up their courses.  I agreed with the students that this would be very damaging, when being able to speak English is so important to people becoming properly part of Britain.

I then spent some time at Richard House Hospice, where I am a patron, and heard from chief executive Peter Ellis about plans, including a proposed fundraising cycle ride to Amsterdam in September.  I had hoped I might take part, but it unfortunately clashes with parliamentary sittings.  I then met with Baljit Banga, Director of Newham Asian Women’s Project (NAWP), who gave me a tour of their premises in Barking Road, introduced me to staff and treated me to a Gujarati style breakfast and some masala tea.  We discussed their work.

From here I travelled to 1000 Dockside for a meeting with Jackie Belton, Newham Council's Director of Housing.  We talked over ideas being trialled at the moment to improve housing conditions and standards in the private rented sector, and discussed some long running problems from my casebook.  Finally I ended my day as usual by meeting with constituents at my Friday surgery, held in the Beckton Globe.