David Winnick

Hello, and I hope you find the information here of interest.

I have been in politics virtually all my adult life. I was first elected a councillor in 1959, and in 1966 was elected to the House of Commons for a Croydon constituency. Since 1979 I have been Member of Parliament for Walsall North.

I have always been a full-time Member of the House and have campaigned over the years on a whole number of issues, including housing, aspects of social security, civil liberties and anti-discriminatory legislation. Apart from this, I have been particularly concerned that there should be a full declaration of interests by Members, and welcome the changes which have occurred in more recent years.

In January 1987 I had a Private Member's Bill which would have exempted all pensioners from the television licence fee. This was defeated by twenty-one votes due to strenuous Tory opposition. It was good news when the Labour government introduced the exemption for seventy-fives and over.

Another campaign in which I was actively involved, with others, was compensation for former Prisoners of War of the Janese, and I had debates and questions over this for a number of years. It was certainly excellent news when it was announced on 7th December 2000 that such compensation was to be paid. The sum was £10,000, tax free and not subject to any social security or housing benefit regulations.

Another of my interests has been , and I was from 1997-2005 the British co-chair of the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body. The Good Friday agreement is undoubtedly the best opportunity for both communities in .

Apart from this, you will see other matters in which I have been actively involved.

From the mid nineties I warned at sessions of the of the threat of terrorism; more recently, I was not surprised by the murderous attack in July 2005. When the Government decided to increase the number of days detention for terror suspects from 7 to 14 days, I agreed this was necessary in view of the acute terrorist threat. This was agreed by both Houses without a vote. However, when the 14 days had been in operation for less than two years, and the Government then proposed increasing the period of detention without charge to 90, I did not believe this was justified, and hence my amendment that the increase should be from 14 to 28 days. This was duly carried on 9^th November 2005. No-one has suggested that 7/7 would have been prevented by the legislation over detention, no matter how many days were involved.

I am strenuously opposed to the Private Member's Bill put forward by an ex Tory chief whip, which would exempt Parliament from the Freedom of Information legislation.

I made my views clear in the Commons on 20th April 2007, and again on 18th May, and urged in a speech that the Bill be rejected since there was no justification for it, and it would bring Parliament into disrepute. Unfortunately it was carried by 96 votes to 25.

On 6th June I raised the issue with the Prime Minister, and said it was unfortunate that both front benches were supporting the measure when in fact the Bill should be thrown into the dustbin. It is now with the Lords, and hopefully will either be rejected or substantially amended.