Campaigns

Ongoing campaigns supported by Jason McCartney:

Yorkshire’s Children’s Heart Surgery Unit

Jason has campaigned to keep the Children’s Heart Surgery Unit at Leeds General Infirmary open.

On March 27^th 2013 SOS Save Our Surgery won its High Court challenge to the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trust’s decision to remove children’s heart surgery services from Leeds. The ruling found that the Trust’s process and decision was unlawful. However, on April 18^th 2013 NHS England announced that it would seek leave to appeal the ruling.

As of Wednesday 10^th April 2013 Children’s Heart Surgery resumed at Leeds General Infirmary.

The Independent Reconfiguration Panel has reviewed the decision to close the unit and this advice will be made public soon.

For more information about the campaign, please visit www.chsf.org.uk.

Rail Investment

Jason is a strong supporter of rail investment. He is a vice-chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Rail in the North and recently joined the Secretary of State for Transport, Rt Hon Patrick McLoughlin as he officially opened the Institute of Railway Research (IRR) at the University of Huddersfield.

Jason campaigned hard to help get the green light for the £560m ‘Northern Hub’ rail project, which could add up to 30,000 new jobs and be worth £4.2Bn to the northern economy. He secured a well-attended debate on the Northern Rail Hub on 18^th January 2012 and the project was approved in July 2012.

Jason is fully behind High Speed Rail. HS2 is about making Britain a stronger and more prosperous place through the generation of hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of pounds worth of economic benefits and perhaps as importantly, the creation of extra capacity and better services on our crowded existing rail routes.

Jobs and Apprenticeships

Jason’s priorities include supporting local businesses and apprenticeships. In March 2013 he gave a key note speech in Parliament calling for us all to celebrate the successes in our community. He called for everyone to back business, back enterprise, back entrepreneurs and back Yorkshire.

Jason is a strong supporter of local apprenticeships, and in March 2013 in support of National Apprenticeship Week Jason visited Holmfirth Vineyard to meet with apprentice Helen Craner.

In the academic year 2011-2012 there were 1,220 new apprenticeships in his Colne Valley constituency. That is a 74% increase compared to the last year of the previous Labour government.

Holmfirth Adult Education Centre

Jason campaigned to keep the Adult Education Centre in Holmfirth open. Jason believes that the centre is a wonderful community facility and is delighted that Kirklees College found a way to keep the centre open.

Empty Homes Campaign

Channel 4′s programme “The Great British Property Scandal” featured Jason’s involvement in the campaign to tackle the problem of thousands of properties being left empty at a time when so many families are struggling to find suitable accommodation.

Facts and Figures:

The two George Clarke programmes (broadcast Mon Dec 5th and 6th at 9pm) achieved high audiences of 2m and 1.9m respectively, showing that people who watched the first programme thoroughly engaged with the campaign.
The online campaign reached 100,000 signatures within a week and the online petition now has 112,048 signatures.
There is a reporting tool and app allowing people to report empties in their local area to the council – 6,124 empty properties have been reported so far and over 20 of these houses have already been brought back into use (or are about to be) since they were reported. They’ve also received several hundred emails and letters offering help, support, volunteer services and ideas.

Jason led an Adjournment Debate on Empty Homes on 29th November 2011:

Metal Thefts

Jason has become involved with the widespread issue of metal thefts. He visited J B Schofield and Sons in Linthwaite to hear the views of a local scrap metal merchant and also raised the matter the Prime Minister during PMQs on 2nd November 2012: