Tony said,
‘Until now frontline posts have been protected, today’s announcement is bound to make people ask questions about their safety and the safety of their communities. The pressure the disgraceful government cuts has put on Greater Manchester Police has made this reduction in frontline officers inevitable. People from right across Greater Manchester and particularly in Trafford will rightly want answers from the government about why Greater Manchester Police have been hit harder than almost any other area in the country. Crime will go up under this government as the thin blue line becomes ever thinner.’

An impact assessment provided to ministers suggests that 45% of people on affected courses would be put off by this charging system. At present The Manchester College alone has 6680 students who would be affected by these changes.

Tony Lloyd said,
‘Adult further education is vital to thousands of people across Manchester who for any number of reasons were unable to progress with their education during their teenage years. This charging regime is bound to discourage people from the most vulnerable and disadvantaged backgrounds from venturing back in to education. The coalition must reconsider this policy which will rob thousands of a second chance at education’.
‘If the civil service impact assessment has any credibility we must also worry about the impact these changes will have on colleges themselves. An almost 50% reduction in the number of learners would inevitably lead to course closures and even redundancies.’

‘Anti-social behaviour is consistently raised with me by people across my constituency and now across the breadth of Greater Manchester as a real priority. This kind of behaviour can make individual lives a misery and ruin whole communities. I am pleased that the report reflects that this is such an important issue and obviously welcome the progress that’s been made by the police. But there is still a lot more that’s got to be done if one third of people are not satisfied by the response they get from the police and other public bodies. This must be a wake-up call so that everyone involved reprioritises ASB as the issue that it is. This has also got to be a call to the government to recognise how daft their plans are to insist that five reports to the police are needed before action is taken.’

There is further information on the Amnesty International website and you can sign their online petition here.

On Monday 14th May Tony Lloyd helped to celebrate a unique bit of Manchester’s history – the work done in rocketry by the Manchester Interplanetary Society, founded in 1936 in East Manchester – by unveiling a brass plaque at the Clayton Vale visitors centre.

Tony Lloyd and Lucy Powell are pictured at the Newton Heath Community Walk on 27 May 2012.

Tony Lloyd’s reaction to the Coalition government’s legislative programme.