John Cryer has responded to the news that two of his constituents have been found guilty of drug off...
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30th Apr 2013 14:05
John Cryer has welcomed news that the Royal British Legion Branch – Dunton Road, Leyton will remain ...
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26th Mar 2013 16:19
John Cryer has responded angrily to confirmation by the Met that Wanstead Police Station will be clo...
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26th Mar 2013 15:05
Latest News
Tuesday 30th April 2013 - 14:05
Dubai Case
John Cryer MP said:
“Obviously I cannot give an absolute view on whether the three are innocent but I can say that there are so many doubts about the convictions to give any fair system enough grounds for an acquittal. All three were tortured, denied legal representation and forced to sign documents in Arabic, a language which none of them understand.
“I have held meetings with the families and have been in regular communications with them about this case. I have met with Foreign Office officials and Minister Alistair Burt making very strenuous representations on behalf of Karl and Grant.
“This this case has shone a light into the working of a legal system and what we can see looks pretty bad. The cases of these three British men are riddled with inconsistencies and doubts, more than enough for them to be released.
“In light of the pending State visit by the UAE President Sheikh Khalifa I have urged the Prime Minister to raise these concerns at the highest possible level.
“The UAE authorities failed to investigate the men’s torture, or produce a report on that investigation – in line with the UAE’s commitments under the international treaties to which they are signatories.
“The Prime Minister must continue to press for evidence for a full, impartial and independent investigation into the allegations. The absence of an independent medical examination remains a concern.”
Tuesday 26th March 2013 - 16:19
Good News for British Legion Club
The branch has been battling to stay open for many months after the RBL Club ceased trading late last year.
John Cryer MP said:
“I have been actively working with the branch members to find a solution to the matter. I have made several representations toe RBL HQ and also took the case to Parliament – including a parliamentary Early Day Motion.”
“I then requested an urgent meeting with Chris Simpkins, Director General at the RBL. I met with him and members of the branch in Westminster (20 March 2013).”
“The meeting was productive and there was agreement that RBL HQ will take steps that will address the concerns of Branch member. This included allowing them access to their trust fund and to pay the bills”
“I will continue to work with my Branch members to seek a long term solution to keep the branch open for many years to come.”
Dave Cooke, Leyton Branch Chairman said:
“We are very grateful for John Cryer MP’s constant support. We are pleased that the meeting went well and that at least one of our problems has been resolved, and look forward to working with RBL HQ further regarding the other matters arising.”
Tuesday 26th March 2013 - 15:05
Anger at decision to close Police Station
John Cryer MP said:
“The loss of Wanstead police station is a real loss to the people of Wanstead, who have campaigned to keep it open for many years – with good reason.
“Without a local station, response vehicles will often have to come from Ilford, across the A406. That is a long journey and a very busy one.
“This state of affairs is a green light to criminals who will be aware of it – it is worth noting that the last time Wanstead closed burglary rates shot up.
John Cryer MP added:
“I feel very badly let down by Boris Johnson and the Metropolitan Police who have all approached this issue with a staggering lack of concern. They have clearly failed to listen to local people and I am really getting hacked off by well-paid, so-called public officials treating the people who pay their wages with contempt.”
Tuesday 5th March 2013 - 16:33
733 Houses Affected by Bedroom Tax
The Bedroom Tax will hit 660,000 households, two thirds of them home to someone with a disability at exactly the same time as the government gives a massive £100,000 tax cut to 13,000 millionaires.
John Cryer MP said:
“David Cameron’s Bedroom Tax will hammer families in our area who already struggling to make ends meet, and could actually risk costing local tax-payers a fortune in higher private rents and covering the cost of driving people out of their homes.
“Two thirds of the households hit are home to someone with a disability, and the families of soldiers and foster parents will also be hit. Yet at the same time prisoners get off and millionaires are getting a massive tax cut. How can that be right?”
This tax plan is simply not fair. The plan is such a shambles that someone who's been to prison on a short sentence won't have to pay. How unfair is that? Millionaires and prisoners are looked after but vulnerable people, carers and armed forces families get hit.
“My colleagues and I will continue to pressure this out of touch government until Ministers see sense, admit this policy is totally unfair and think again.”
Tuesday 5th March 2013 - 16:32
Save the British Legion
John Cryer MP said:
“I have been working with the members at Dunton Road over several months to bear pressure on RBL to keep the club doors open. Now after meetings it appears that RBL HQ wants to push the branch to the brink of full closure.”
“The club in Dunton Road, Leyton, supports around 80 ex-servicemen and women as a place to socialise with people who have had similar, often disturbing, experiences of war.”
“I am member of the club and the proposed closure will have a massive impact on the lives of all those who need it and use it on a regular basis. I will continue to campaign to save the RBL Dunton Road as it is a major community resource and for what it means to our armed forces and their families.”
The club secretary Roy Darvill’s said:
“The organisation has no right to do this because the venue was bought with £305,000 raised by club members in 1996. It’s outrageous, it really is. The effect on veterans will be awful, they’ll become depressed because they’ve got no-one else to talk to. When there’s one person in need we should be there for them, but we won’t be now."
Thursday 28th February 2013 - 17:01
Food Bank Britain
John visited the Unite food bank at a time when reliance on food support is rocketing. The number of people supported by food banks has grown from 2,800 in 2005-06 to over 128,000 in 2011-12, while Britain’s largest network of food banks, the Trussell Trust, predicts that they will need to support in excess of 260,000 people over the next year.
On Monday (25th February) the Department for the Environment announced that it was going to examine why there has been a surge in the demand for food support.
People turn to food banks in times of desperation – usually because of an unexpected bill, or the miscalculation of welfare cuts, but more and more because of shrinking wages and rising living costs. John Cryer MP warned that further benefit cuts, due to impact from April 2013 on people both in and out of work, will force ever greater numbers to rely on emergency food support.
The pop-up food bank appeared as the Welfare Benefits Uprating Bill is being debated by the House of Lords. This Bill seeks to place a real terms cut on all benefits, by capping annual rises to a below inflation 1 per cent. Some 60 per cent of those households affected by this cap will be in work.
The influential Institute for Fiscal Studies predicts that as many as seven million working households will be hit by the uprating cap, by an average of £165 per year. These factors are set to significantly increase food and fuel poverty, leaving growing numbers of people reliant on food banks.
Speaking at the event John Cryer, MP said:
“The work carried out by food banks - like The Trussell Trust – in giving vital supplies to people both in and out of work is invaluable. They provide a lifeline to people in dire need. A new foodbank is opening soon in my constituency.
“However, it is appalling that this level of support is needed in 21st century Britain and at the same time this government is set to give huge tax breaks to millionaires from April.
“Growing poverty is now a real issue in this country, so where is the sense in the government making ordinary people more poor and scared for their futures, which is what their cuts hatchet does. People need a government that is on their side during this terrible recession, not a government for the super rich.”
Thursday 14th February 2013 - 16:58
Thousands of local people hit by Bedroom Tax
Thousands of people are vulnerable to this change including:
> separated parents who share the care of their children and who may have been allocated an extra bedroom to reflect this
> couples who use their ‘spare’ bedroom when recovering from an illness or operation
> foster carers because foster children are not counted as part of the household for benefit purposes
> families with disabled children
John Cryer MP said:
“With this tax due to come in to effect in April for tenants of working age, people in Redbridge and Waltham Forest are getting understandably concerned about how they and their families will be affected.
“This tax will cut the amount of housing benefit that people receive if they are deemed to have a spare bedroom in their council or housing association home, potentially affecting thousands of local people.
“The Tory-led Government is targeting hard-pressed local families living in social housing, with those affected likely to lose an average of £728 per year. This bedroom tax is unfair and the Government needs to think again before it’s too late.”
Thursday 14th February 2013 - 16:53
Boris needs to abandon reckless cuts
The Mayor across London wants to close 12 fire stations, remove 18 engines and slash 520 frontline firefighter posts in an attempt to save £45m. Both Leyton and Leytonstone fire stations will lose one pump each; both are currently two-pump stations.
In an unprecedented move, the mayor recently overturned a democratic decision of LFEPA, taken at a meeting on 21 January, to reject the cuts. Mr Johnson then instructed the fire commissioner, Ron Dobson, to ignore the vote and begin a public consultation exercise on the cuts.
However, at today’s emergency meeting of the authority, called in response to the mayor’s intervention, the commissioner conceded that he did not have the legal power to act on the mayor’s instruction without the approval of the authority and recommended that the authority delegate the required powers to enable him to begin consultation on the cuts. However, authority members voted by a majority not to accept the commissioner’s recommendation, meaning that the mayor’s cuts are again blocked.
John Cryer MP said:
“Authority members did the right thing, and I support their stance. Hostility to the mayor’s planned cuts is growing by the day. The fire authority, the workforce, the public have all expressed opposition to the cuts.
“In my own constituency 50 per cent of the fire cover will be lost. We’re talking about an area which includes a lot of high-density housing and a very large number of businesses.
“This is reckless in the extreme and it’s down to one thing – government cuts by ministers who do not give a damn about public safety.”
Monday 28th January 2013 - 16:55
Toddler Tax to hit local families
Next year working parents in Redbridge and Waltham Forest with one child who are expecting a new baby will have their household budgets squeezed on average by £688, with a further squeeze of £1,041 the year after when their second child is born – amounting to £1,729 over two years.
These new mums will lose out from changes to tax credits, Statutory Maternity Pay, the Health in Pregnancy Grant and Child Benefit.
Lone parents with two children will have already lost £1,500 a year alone from the cut in the Childcare Element of Working Tax Credit which took effect in 2011.
John Cryer MP said:
"This will be a major blow to working parents in Redbridge and Waltham Forest. At a time when my constituents are already facing rising bills, including inflation-busting hikes in childcare costs, they are now being hit by David Cameron’s toddler tax.
"Instead of punishing local mums who go out to work, we need to ensure that we provide affordable and quality childcare. That would be good for parents and also good for the economy – a quarter of unemployed parents say the cost of childcare is putting them off going back to work.
"This government promised to make sure it always pays to go to work but this is a kick in the teeth for working mums already struggling to make ends meet."
Tuesday 22nd January 2013 - 17:31
Stop the "disreputable" payroll companies
John Cryer MP said:
“ Some payroll companies operating in the construction industry encourage companies to reclassify employees as self-employed in order to avoid paying employer national insurance contributions of 13.8% and who then can avoid paying holiday pay, sick pay, redundancy and pension contributions.”
“This seems pretty disreputable to me, but what then happens, if the employer decides to go down the route of using a payroll company to transfer the work force into self-employment, is that the work force are asked to sign a contract with the payroll company.
That is often sweetened slightly by a small rise in pay, but that will never compensate for all the other benefits and rights at work that in the meantime have been lost.”
John Cryer MP added:
“It is a perverse situation the way in which construction workers after signing a self-employed contract with a payroll company don’t in theory have any formal relationship with their employer, while in reality that building firm still issues directions and engages with the workforce.”
During the debate Ian Murray MP Labour’s Shadow Business Minister also called on the Government to launch an inquiry into bogus self-employment.
He said: “It is incumbent on the Government to launch a full inquiry, through the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, into this, not only for the sake of the employees and the Treasury, but because of issues in the construction sector such as blacklisting. People who work in the construction sector deserve an awful lot more from this Government.”
Steve Murphy, General Secretary of UCATT, said: “This was a very important debate. It is vitally important that MPs and Ministers understand the murky affairs of the construction industry, which blight the lives of hundreds and thousands of construction workers.”
John Cryer MP added:
“The Government must stop turning a blind eye to these ‘disreputable practices’ and take firm action to ensure that construction workers are not denied even the most basic employment rights and construction companies stop evading paying billions to the Exchequer”.