LABOUR PARTY CONFERENCE  BRIGHTON 26th SEP- 1st OCT 2009  FINAL REPORT

 1.The level of security was intense with a very high police presence.
 Luckily I found time to drop our exhibit material off the day before
 otherwise it would have been a nightmare.

 2. The Brighton Centre, the conference venue was bad from the point of
 view of the exhibitors. It was split over a number of venues, rooms and
 levels.

 3. It was far busier from the outset than the Lib Dem conference. The
 organization for arranging visits by Ministers was excellent.

 4. There was a good presence of Labour supporters, who visited our
 badly located stand. Two points of interest; one was the general
 ignorance of the issue, but strong support once the issue was
 explained, secondly a surprising number of visitors were aware of the
 media coverage on the visit to Strasbourg.

 5. By and large the aspect of the potential savings to the British
 economy that would occur were the 1,000,000 UK pensioners to emigrate
 should pension parity be granted, was understood and agreed by most.
 Ted Henderson added an interesting point to the argument - were these
 1,000,000 to emigrate it would potentially throw up something like
 500,000 homes. The potential benefit of £6.1Bn, coupled with the homes,
 and the potential 1,000,000 votes struck a positive chord.

 6. Key meetings and comments: 
 
 6.1. Fringe event meeting chaired by
 Paddy Tipping on the Labour Manifesto, followed by a brief meeting with
 Ed Milliband, who passed me on to one of his aides for a detailed
 briefing, might possibly (outside hope) result in "UK State pension
 parity for all pensioners" finding its way into the manifesto. I
 re-enforced this later in a private meeting with Paddy Tipping MP.

 6.2. Ted Henderson attended a fringe meeting on pensions at which
 Yvette Cooper MP Sec of State for Work and Pensions was speaking. He
 got a chance to speak with her in detail,subsequently she visited the
 stand and Ted certainly "sold " her the economic benefit argument. He
 had a similar but much shorter session with Angela Eagle MP - Minister
 for Pensions; she later made a brief vsit to the stand.Neither were
 willing to get into detailed discussions on pension parity until the
 ECHR judgement is handed down.

 6.3. Stephen Timms as financial secretary to the treasury visited the
 stand - non committal

 6.4. Jonathen Shaw MP DWP. Visited the stand. Was very interested in
 potential economic savings.

 6.5. Liam Byrne MP Chief Sec to Treasury visited the stand. Was very
 interested in potential economic savings.

 6.6  Phil Hope MP Minister of State for Health visited the stand .
 Indicated his support.

 6.7. I met Jack Straw twice. He was obviously embarrassed and relied
 beind the " we must wait for the ECHR decision" smokescreen.

 6.8. Paul Clarke MP Parliamentary under Sec of State for Tansport
 visited the stand. Very interested and supportive.

 6.9  Ed Balls visited the stand and swept up the brochures and
 expressed his interest especially in the potential of homes becoming
 available. Whilst Ed is Minister for Education, our main interest is
 that he is VERY close to Gordon Brown.

 7 Other key meetings:

 7.1. John Marnett Gen Sec USDAW. Very willing to support us in
 pressurising the Government after the ECHR judgement is handed down.

 7.2. J.Henderson - Sec for retired persons USDAW  		Ditto
 	Ditto

 7.3  Rodney Bickerstaffe UNISON 				Ditto	Ditto

 7.4. I was also given introductions to the Gen Secs of the TUC and NAHT

 7.5  Dr Sylvia Moore ( President) and Lorraine Hardy of Labour
 International, who both gave total support to our activities. Sylvia
 promised to keep pressure on Bussels to promulgate the Paris
 Declaration.

 7.6. Merril Stevenson Britain Editor of The Economist and Robert Watts
 of the Sunday Times both asked for (and received ) copies of our Press
 Release.

 7.7 Mervyn Kohler  Help The Aged/Age Concer, who will provide us with
 advice planning our future Strategy  (from the UK point of view), and
 access to their network of media contacts.


 Summary.

 This was a very active conference. The number of visitor and the
 favourable reactions  were very encouraging. Of course to be realistic
 this support was easy to express by a bunch of Ministers and MPs  who
 may probably not be in power next year and may not even have a seat.

 Looking at the positive side the work that we have done here may well
 be very useful next year to pressure/embarass the Government in power.
 Help The Aged/Age Concern had an incredibly effective interactive
 display; further info on this wll be made available later.

 Our original opinion ( from the Lib Dem conf ) was confirmed; namely
 that we must make it very obvious on our panels that we are not
 covering the EU, we need to display our flags, the question of housing
 potentially  being  freed up were the 1,000,000 ( or whatever number
 leave) to emigrate - is a more powerful and telling argument than the
 potential financial savings, whilst the brochures were well received,
 the panels  were too  busy.

 The conference would appear to have laid down a decent challenge to the
 Tories. We must not write off  Labour - we may well be dealing with
 them albeit with Lib Dem support in the future.