On 30 January Barry Gardiner hosted the All Party Parliamentary Group on the Chinese in Britain in the Jubilee Room in the House of Commons. Barry and the APPG's Secretariat, the BC project, announced the project of an investigation into policing and the Chinese community. Communities and inviduals will be able to respond to a questionnaire that the BC project is devising and to submit evidence.

Barry's remarks stressed the importance for the Chinese community in London and in the UK to engage in British public life and politics by registering to vote and participating in the upcoming local elections.

Representatives of the Chinese community in Britain also attend along with a group of MPs and Peers and the chairs of Chinese for Labour, Conservative Friends of China and Liberal Democratic Friends of China.

This year as always local party members and supporters have trudged the streets with me to deliver more than forty thousand calendars in Brent North. If you haven’t received one or would like to receive an additional copy please email me and I will ensure one is sent to you. Alternatively you can now download the calendar as a PDF from my website’s members area. If you haven’t registered already you can sign up to barrygardiner.com here. – Its Free!

On Wednesday 25 January 2012, Barry Gardiner MP, Chair of Labour Friends of India, delivered a major speech on UK-India Trade in Parliament. During the speech, Barry highlighted the challenges ahead for India if she is to reach her economic potential, criticised the UK Government for policies which made trade with India more difficult and also pushed the Indian High Commission in India to take a more active role in UK-India trade.

For the past 15 years, I have counted myself, and been counted, as a friend of India. In 1999, I founded Labour Friends of India, which I now once again chair. I set up and currently chair the all-party group on UK-India trade and investment. I declare those matters as interests. I have argued the case for, and often defended, India in Parliament. However, true friends do not just tell us what we want to hear, and today I want to be a true friend of India—yes, praising her development and economic progress, but also highly critical of her failure to achieve her full potential for economic growth.

Barry Gardiner was joined by Lord Deben, President of GLOBE International, Pavan Sukhdev, author of the influential report 'The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity' and over 70 leading biodiversity experts in the House of Commons on 16 January to discuss the economic value of biodiversity and ecosystem services, and the key issues that need to be considered when measuring and valuing their contribution to economic growth.

On 11 January 2012, following his campaign against the big six energy companies' doorstep selling, Barry took part in the Opposition Day Debate on Energy Prices in the House of Commons.

Since 2004, gas and electricity bills have increased more than six times faster than household incomes, meaning that a quarter of all households in England and Wales are now in fuel poverty. Increasing energy bills and stagnating incomes also mean that an additional 25% of people now face energy debts and more than 850,000 electricity consumers and more than 700,000 gas customers are now in debt to their energy supplier.

I would dearly love to give the hon. Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) a lesson in the history he so eloquently went into earlier, but I shall defer that to another occasion. I would point out, however, that although he accused the previous Government of not having tackled structural reform in the energy market, they did so on two occasions with the new electricity trading arrangements, or NETA, and the British electricity trading and transmission arrangements, or BETTA. We will save the rest of that debate for another day.

This year I joined hundreds of others in the community at Brent Town Hall to remember the Holocaust and victims of genocide everywhere. A young man from Rwanda gave a most moving tribute to his two friends who were killed during the ethnic violence in 1994 and Anthony Wolfson (the former cantor at Wembley synagogue) led the London Cantorial Singers in sacred Jewish songs of rememberance.

The theme of “Speak Up Speak Out” was joyfully completed by Kensal Rise Primary School’s orchestra playing and singing Viva la Libertad! Later in the week I signed the Holocaust Book of Commitment in Parliament. For more information on the Holocaust Educational Trust, please click here.

On Thursday 12 January 2012 Barry hosted a roundtable discussion on the liberalisation of the legal services industry in India. The event was opened by David Gardnes, Director of Public Policy at KPMG. Barry, in his capacity of Chair of the APPG UK - India Trade and Investment, led the discussion in front of an audience of business leaders. Barry argued the case of a free-trade agreement between the EU and India to disclose the full potential of the services industry to the benefit of both economies.

George Sabaratnam and Mrs. Renu Kaul from the local Sudbury Residents’ Association invited me to attend a meeting to discuss the Association’s ‘Neighbourhood Plan’ and the ongoing problem of Paan spitting on the streets of Sudbury and Wembley.

Following our discussions, local Councillor Mary Daly and I have worked to get Brent Trading Standards to implement a substantial programme of enforcement visits to ensure that shops in Brent that sell Paan are operating legally as Paan often includes an element of tobacco.

We are asking all shops to issue small spittle bags to customers to remind them that it is illegal to spit on the street. A number of shops have now sourced and purchased pouches to be supplied with every Paan sale. Officers from Brent and Harrow Trading Standards made a number of test purchases with under age agents and at least one supply took place and resulted in the trader being prosecuted.

I would like to invite residents to email me the name and address of any shop in Brent not handing out spittle bags when they sell Paan to customers so that we can follow this up with them.

“200 days to drop Dow from the London Olympics”, that was the message we gave out in Trafalgar Square on January the 9th as I joined campaigners in Chennai, Bhopal, Nicaragua, Michigan and Vietnam to protest against Dow’s involvements in the London Games.

In London we gathered in front of the Olympic Countdown Clock in Trafalgar Square and challenged Lord Coe, Chair of the London Organising Committee, to share a glass of "B’eau Pal": contaminated water from the Bhopal site which local residents are still forced to drink every day. Labour Friends of India campaign to kick Dow out of the London Olympics gained huge momentum when Meredith Alexander, one of the 13 sustainability commissioners for the Games resigned.

Mrs Alexander said she had resigned because she felt the Commission had been used to justify the partnership with Dow. She also raised serious questions over the openness and validity of the report. Following Mrs Alexander’s resignation, Chief Minister Chouhan, of the State of Madhya Pradesh, called for a boycott of the Games if Dow was not dropped.

The petition on change.org has over 17,000 signatures. There are only 200 days left to kick Dow out of the Olympics. Please help and click here to sign the petition.

Left Foot Forward: 200 days to drop Dow