Following a heart-felt plea from a constituent who sadly lost her mother to pancreatic cancer, I have pledged my support for Pancreatic Cancer UK’s ‘Campaign for Hope’.  As well as educating people about the disease, the campaign marks the launch of Pancreatic Cancer UK’s ‘Study for Survival’ report.

The report has found that the majority of patients are not receiving acceptable standards of care and treatment.  Pancreatic cancer has the worst survival rate for any cancer in the UK, with only three per cent of people diagnosed with the disease surviving beyond five years; shockingly, this statistic has not improved significantly in the last 40 years.

I have written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt Hon George Osborne MP, ahead of his Autumn Statement to ask him to reconsider the proposed cuts to the winter fuel allowance and the Warm Front home insulation scheme.

In the letter, I note that the Winter Fuel Allowance used to cover a third of a dual fuel bill – it now only covers a fifth.  With 25,700 excess winter deaths last year attributable to people’s inability to keep warm, we cannot afford these cuts.  Restoring the winter fuel allowance to the level it reached under the Labour government would cost £695m; by contrast, the impact of cold housing on people’s health already costs the NHS over £850m a year.

At the heart of the Government’s new housing strategy (published in the document ‘Laying the Foundations: A Housing Strategy for England’) is a mortgage indemnity scheme which will enable lenders to provide mortgages of up to 95% of the value of newly built homes, supported by government guarantees.  A typical first time buyer will be expected to have a deposit of around £10,000.

I asked Housing Minister Grant Shapps MP whether he would accept that, in an area such as Lewisham, which has below-average levels of income, a lot of unemployment and very high house prices, finding a deposit of £10,000 is absolutely impossible.  I also asked him to clarify what time frame would he put on housing the 17,000-plus families currently on the borough’s housing list into affordable and decent homes.

Today I spent the morning with the staff and pupils of St Saviour's R.C. Primary School on Bonfield Road, Lewisham.  The visit was arranged as part of Parliament Week, a new national initiative which aims to raise awareness of Parliament and encourage people to engage with the UK's democratic system and its institutions.