12/06/2008 by Steve Barclay.

A visit to McCains provided a fascinating look behind the scenes as to how the famous oven chip is prepared and packaged.  First stop in the morning however was to Wisbech for another of our working meetings on the issue of homelessness in the town.  With help from the Ferry Project, we are pulling a paper together to give greater visibility to this issue together with some options for what might be done.

Then it is off to Whittlesey where local dignitaries had assembled for the switch on of their new wind turbines which can be seen dominating the landscape.  The switch went perfectly to plan - had it already been working? After the fun of the reception, it was down to business with a meeting with the management at McCains and a tour of the plant. An issue of frustration raised was how another unelected Government quango, in this case setting food guidelines in schools, is failing to reflect the health evidence on food and simply applying catch all rules. Rather than assessing the specific differences between the fat in an over chip and that of fried food as a whole, all chips are treated the same. After the meeting, we put on hair nets and white coats before heading into the heart of the plant to see the end to end process, from watching the arrival of a lorry load of potatoes and their quality being tested at one end to the more familiar pack you see on the shelves at the other.

Then a change of issue as I head to a meeting in March with a group of young carers.  It is good to see a facility where young people carrying out so valuable a role caring for family members can have a break and come to play and have fun with those of the same age.  The discussion about the challenge of looking after those with illness or a disability puts my later evening’s discussion in context, as I head to London to chair a meeting in Soho Square of the Governance Committee of Dimbleby Cancer Care, a key aim of which is to provide support to ease the suffering of those fighting.

Visiting the McCain plant in Whittlesey

Meeting Young Carers in March

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01/06/2008 by Steve Barclay.

A varied brief is one of the interesting elements of being a Parliamentary Candidate, and the last few days has been no exception. Yesterday included a wide range of meetings, including our Homeless Action Group in Wisbech which continues to make good progress.

This group was set up in response to a plea for help from Church leaders having to cope with a number of homeless people being brought to them by the local police when they had no where else to go.  We met again at the Police Station in Wisbech, with the group comprising experts on the subject of Homelessness from the Ferry Project, the police, Citizen’s Advice Bureau, a local councillor, and the Catholic and Protestant Church representatives.  If nothing else I am determined that the issue of homelessness is not ignored or swept under the carpet.  The real test though is whether more help is available for people sleeping rough next winter.  There are no easy answers, and it is a complex issue - not least as there are different types of situation behind the homelessness from those hitting some temporary personal hardship at one end to those with more serious additions and complex problems.  Our proposals should help push this issue up the agenda of political priorities and I feel that is itself important.

By contrast tonight I was in the beautiful setting of March Golf Club for a much happier subject - presenting the golf prizes.  A great day’s golf involving over 100 competitors was generously supported by Selby & Taylor, our local pharmacist based in March.  The club has a particularly welcoming atmosphere and the members kindly went out of the way to make Karen and I welcome.  I think the secret of presenting prizes at such events is to keep the speech very short (after a long day on the golf course I cannot imagine much appetite for speeches), before dishing out the well deserved silver.  With such a hot day and large field, winning the awards was no mean feat.  Afterwards Karen and I headed over to the home of Geoff and Judith Harper in Doddington for a lovely dinner and a catch up.

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