And its organisations from our region which are leading a major new £2.4m European project which could help establish the East Midlands as an international leader in traffic management research.

THE ISSUE (transport health environment intelligent solutions sustaining urban economies) is aimed at delivering green traffic management systems in European cities and towns.

The project will support scientists and engineers from the different regions involved (two from France and one each from Italy and Poland, in addition to the East Midlands) to work together, using the latest space and information technologies, to develop more effective methods of easing road congestion and improving the urban environment.

Funding for THE ISSUE will come from the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).  “Regions of Knowledge” promotes knowledge exchange and joint working between European regions to stimulate economic growth and job creation.

The Framework Programmes for research and development (FP8 will take over in 2013) are one of the best kept secrets of the European Union.   It’s a great pity they receive such little publicity because substantial amounts of money over the years have gone into research and development, shared across the regions of the EU, to the benefit of us all.   Universities are particularly adept at accessing these funds, but so are other research establishments, as well as a number of private firms and other organisations.

It can take a while to get your head around the vast array of really worthwhile projects funded with EU money, but have a look at the Cordis website to see just how many organisations, across a wide range of sectors, are making the most of opportunities in Europe.   This is vital work, enabling our industries, whether in Nottingham or Nantes, Derby or Danzig, Leicester or Lisbon, to keep ahead of the game.

It is one of the most militarised areas in the world. India and Pakistan both claim the state as their own, while many locals want an independent Kashmiri state. There are regular exchanges of fire between the forces of the two nuclear powers across the Line of Control. There are regular – often disputed – claims of atrocities.

I spoke last weekend at a meeting in Derby organised by the Jammu Kashmir Self Determination Movement, an organisation I’ve worked with for over three years.

Kashmir is complex, but certain principles are clear for me and for my Labour colleagues in the European Parliament. We condemn all acts of violence and the abuse of human rights which brings such suffering to the population, and we call for an end to all external support for violence in Kashmir.

We are clear that a durable settlement in Kashmir must be based on democracy, the rule of law and respect for fundamental rights. We are also clear that a solution in Kashmir must involve the wishes of the peoples who live there, a principle enshrined in the United Nations Resolution of 1948, which stated that “both India and Pakistan desire that the question of the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India or Pakistan should be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite.”

Europe can help, based on our own past experience of successful conflict resolution in a multi-ethnic, multi-national, multi-faith context. Our own values of respect for regional identities, and taking decisions as close as possible to the citizen, are relevant to Kashmir.

Later this year, the Socialist & Democrat Group in the European Parliament will be organising a key conference in Brussels to try and progress some of the key issues. The conference will include representatives from Jammu Kashmir itself as well as the wider Kashmiri community. In addition to Parliamentarians we also intend inviting Cathy Ashton, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs.

The conference is expected to focus on EU funding to Jammu Kashmir, present human rights violations and how the EU can help, and the future for Kashmir – how the EU can promote democracy and self-determination.

There are many places in the world which compete for international attention; Syria, Iran, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, North Korea. These are all, of course, important, but we must not let them push Kashmir either out of the public gaze nor off the world’s political agenda.

The EU has funded a lot of research into childhood and adolescent cancers, and has legislation in place for paediatric medicines, clinical trials and treatment of rare diseases, all relevant for children with cancer. But whilst we have made a lot of progress, we must continue to improve the situation, starting with the Clinical Trials Directive.

Because there are so few patients with certain types of cancer we need to be able to carry out cross border trials with other EU countries. That’s why we have the Clinical Trials Directive, but at the moment it isn’t working. EU countries are still using slightly different standards for clinical trials, which means researchers have to apply multiple times for a clinical trial, with different applications. Some countries might approve the trial, others might reject it. This makes the whole process time-consuming, expensive, and sometimes futile. That’s why we want to make sure all EU countries are playing by the same rules.

We need to do everything we can to encourage more research and more clinical trials, specially designed for children and adolescents. There is no known treatment that can save a child with some types of brain tumour. We need new clinical trials to provide hope to these children and their families.

We also need more expertise and awareness of childhood cancers, because the earlier the cancer is diagnosed, the higher the chances are that the child can survive. I am lucky to have the excellent Nottingham Children’s Brain Tumour Research Centre in my constituency which is an example of the best way to care for children with cancer. Through the centre I have been working with Jimmyteens.tv, the website where young people can share their experiences of cancer. Yesterday we watched the moving story of Charlie, which you can watch here.

It’s a long story. The Hodgkinsons purchased property and land in Norway in 2006 from a Norwegian citizen. They planned to start their new life at Fyresdal, in the Telemark region, running their own organic Cashmere goat and tourism business including the use of Clydesdale horses.

But their dream has been shattered as a result of a long-running dispute over land ownership, and what I regard as the “disgraceful” behaviour of a Norwegian public authority.

Having bought the land, they erected the wooden fence poles necessary to keep the goats and horses in, but subsequently received a letter from the Statens Vegvesen, the equivalent of our Highways Agency, saying the fence posts were on publicly owned land and to remove them. Hundreds of posts were subsequently removed and smashed up.

However, I have seen documents proving that the sale of this vital strip of land was completed after it had already been sold to the Hodgkinsons, and approved in the Norwegian Land Register. Statens Vegvesen have also seen this evidence. The sale of the strip of land to them cannot be legal.

Paul & Andrea enlisted my support in October 2009, and, for well over two years I have been pursuing various avenues – more complicated because Norway is not a member of the EU – to try and help.

They have so far failed to get Statens Vegvesen to relinquish the land. Instead, this large, powerful, public authority has told the Hodgkinsons that they must take expensive legal advice to pursue the matter.

In an awful Catch-22 situation, the Norwegian Agricultural Authority is now forcing the sale of the property, saying the Hodgkinsons are not farming the land as originally agreed.

In addition to the Highway authority, I have written to a variety of Norwegian officials and MPs. I’ve met the Norwegian Mission to the EU, and Norwegian observers to the European Parliament. We’ve been trying to get the Norwegian media to take up the matter, and I’ve now written to the Prime Minister as a last resort to ask for his intervention.

Even now it’s not too late for action. There is a petition and much more information on the Hodgkinson’s website. Public pressure, whether from Norway or elsewhere, could still bring a resolution to this sad story.

The European Commission yesterday published all the evidence they have gathered on the risks of the faulty PIP implants, and recommended that all women who are worried should go and see their surgeons.  Commission scientists will continue their work, and the European Parliament will start revising the Medical Devices Directive this year with stricter provisions for authorising implants.

“The British Government should force the private companies to remove faulty implants at no cost,” said Glenis, who is Leader of the British Labour MEPs.

“Women all over the UK are suffering huge anxiety on this issue. There has been serious fraud here.
 
“The Commission is drawing up a list of measures that countries can follow under the current rules, and I welcome this.  
 
“Five countries have now recommended removal – France, Germany, the Netherlands, Czech Republic and Belgium.

“Belgium issued their advice after receiving the Commission’s report – but the UK Government still isn’t doing enough and is leaving thousands of women in limbo,”  she said.

We’re facing a crisis in antimicrobial resistance and desperately need new antibiotics. We need to find new ways to fight non-communicable killers such as cancer, diabetes and COPD, and life-threatening infectious diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis. But none of this will happen without new research.

The UK is traditionally a world leader in clinical research, but we’re losing out to trials undertaken in the emerging economies of Asia. We can never compete with their low prices, and we will never compromise on patient safety, but what we can do in the UK and the rest of Europe is provide high levels of expertise, efficiency and reliability.

Right now, though, we’re struggling. Clinical trials can be difficult and costly to carry out, and researchers often have to jump through unnecessary bureaucratic hoops. That’s why this year the European Parliament will be revising the Clinical Trials Directive to make sure that we can continue to be world leaders in finding new ways to treat diseases.

We also want to ensure the laws are the same across all EU countries to allow cross-border trials to be easily achievable. This is especially vital for rare diseases where there just aren’t enough patients in the UK to make a trial feasible. I’ve been working with children suffering from rare brain tumours who desperately need more clinical trials to be carried out in conjunction with our European partners.

It is also important that trials can be undertaken by numerous stakeholders working together. Whilst clinical trials are of course important for big pharmaceutical companies, it is vital that academics, professional bodies and the NHS can also sponsor or co-sponsor them. When the European Parliament starts work on this next year I will be making sure all these points are covered.

We need to make sure the UK can, with the rest of the EU, lead the way in medical research. Jobs in research and development should be being created, not cut. It’s not just about finding new ways to treat diseases, it’s about our economic health as well.

A number of nutrition claims are already allowed, including ‘reduced’, ‘light’, ‘low fat’ and ‘very low sodium’, to name a few. For health-conscious consumers it is already hard to know which product is the best for themselves and their family and allowing yet another claim would have confused people more. When faced with the choice between one packet of biscuits with ’15% less sugar’ and one with ‘reduced sugar’, most people would not know which of those has the least sugar, and might wrongly assume that because the first one is quantified it is the best. In fact, the sugar in the biscuits with the reduced claim has been cut by 30%.

Not only is it a bigger reduction, but that 30% has to be in comparison with a range of similar products. The big problem with the x% less claim is that it compares a product with itself. If you are trying to cut down on your salt intake and you see a bag of crisps with ‘reduced salt’, you know that packet would be the best choice for you. But a bag of crisps with ’15% less salt’ could actually still have the highest levels of salt on the supermarket shelf. This is simply misleading.

There are plenty of examples where this claim could be used to give pretty unhealthy foods a healthier image. There is a well known brand of chocolate spread which contains so much saturated fat that it could be reduced by 20% and still have more saturated fat than any other chocolate spread on the market.

It is for these reasons that I objected to the European Commission allowing this claim. Working together with colleagues from all political persuasions we managed to fight pressure from food manufacturers and national governments to get backing for our objection, first in the Parliament’s Environment and Health Committee, and then by an absolute majority of all MEPs.

Now we have voted against the claim the Commission will have to rethink their approach. Nutrition claims should be used to allow consumers to make healthier choices, if they want to, not as a marketing ploy to improve the image of an unhealthy product. Yes, we want to encourage manufacturers to reformulate their products to make them healthier, but it has to be meaningful, and not misleading.

It can be extremely difficult to fight the power of the food and drink industry in the interest of health and consumers, something I found out when I led for my political grouping of Socialists and Democrats on the Food Information Regulation. But it is our duty to ensure that people have transparent and honest information about what is in the food they buy, and today’s vote was another step towards that.

“Obviously it’s good if the food industry are reformulating their products to reduce the levels of fat, salt and sugar, but it should result in a healthier diet, not an excuse to increase sales of fundamentally unhealthy food.

“Manufacturers need limits on what they can claim, and as food is manufactured and marketed right across the EU in the Single Market, these changes need to come from Brussels.

“Busy parents are bound to want the best for their kids and foods with labels that make them look “healthy” are ruthlessly targeting them.”

The Plenary Session of the European Parliament, meeting in Brussels later this week, still has to agree to the decision of the Environment Committee.

Glenis Willmott formed a cross-party alliance of MEPs on the European Parliament’s Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee to ensure that nutrition claims on food are kept simple and are not misleading for consumers. Watch the video below.

Discussing issues like Britain’s role in the world in the coming years, the situation in the EU and reforms to the banking sector, our local students and other young people impressed and brought forward many original ideas.

I was really pleased, not only to be asked to speak, but to be able to see such hope for the future. This generation is capable not just of building on the successes of its predecessors, but of learning from their mistakes and providing the impetus needed to continue developing the social, democratic Britain we all aspire to.

Even the best and brightest of our youth do however need support, and to be given the chances to get ahead. Their prospects have however diminished under the coalition with youth unemployment rising to 23%, tuition fees set to treble and EMAs [Educational Maintenance Allowances] abolished. While Labour tried to help those families most in need with schemes such as Sure Start, the coalition has been cutting too far and too fast, decimating apprenticeship schemes and youth centres and complicating access to higher education for those from poorer backgrounds.

The daughter of a miner, who moved to the East Midlands for work, I am grateful for the chances I was given and what I have subsequently been able to achieve. These opportunities are however being taken from our own children, their futures being damaged by incompetent and ignorant leadership, which serves only to isolate Britain on the world stage and to undermine her citizens at home.

We all then need to work together to ensure that the future offers the same, and indeed better, openings. On Saturday I met young people who are prepared to do exactly that; a new generation which knows the importance of political activity and works, week in week out, not only to educate themselves within their respective libraries and lecture halls, but also campaigns and organises on issues that concern us all. They are a shining example and one which I hope we can all support to ensure that Britain and its children have a future to look forward to.