My day began with a morning visit to Walton Road Post Office. There I met the Postmaster, Mr Shah, and spoke to him about the welcome government announcement to award a new contract for the continuation of the Post Office Card Account directly to the Post Office.

Afterwards, I travelled to Beckton where Prince Charles, on the day of his sixtieth birthday, launched Youth Week, as President of The Princes Trust. Newham’s Mayor and local Councillors were there too.  Youth Week is a national campaign and follows a report by The Prince's Trust that 60 per cent of press coverage on young people is negative. The aim of the week is to change the public’s negative perceptions of young people and to renew the focus on how organisations, such as The Prince’s Trust can help in doing this.  It was great to meet young volunteers that The Trust has helped. The Prince’s Trust has turned many young lives around and everyone involved in the organisation should be very proud of the work that they are doing!  One of the volunteers accompanied me as a work shadow for the rest of the day.

From there I travelled to Newham College where I met staff and spoke briefly with Jackie Reeve about Train To Gain which was launched nationally in August 2006. This programme enables companies and employees without any level 2 qualifications (or equivalent) to work towards, their first full level 2 NVQ qualification without any cost to the employer or employee.

Later in the afternoon, I attended the London Oriental Academy Awards Ceremony at East Ham Town Hall where I gave a short talk and presented some of the awards. The Academy was founded in 1996 and this was their eighth Awards Ceremony. Jackie Reeve attended too.  The students worked hard to achieve their awards in a wide variety of subjects ranging from book keeping and computing to health and social care.

I then finished the day with my regular surgery at Beckton Globe.