An article in a recent Daily Mirror struck a chord with me. A journalist called Kevin McGuire pointed out that 4.7 million families receive working tax credits, averaging about £3000 per year. The Conservatives have said they would scrap these tax credits, they call them wage subsidies, if they won the next election.

That money makes life a lot more comfortable for a lot of people on low or modest incomes and it makes work pay better than the dole. Before tax credits, a lot of hard working families not only struggled to get by but they were faced with the unfairness of knowing they were working hard but could be just as well off out of work and claiming benefit. Those are the days the Tories want to return to and the journalist pointed out that while it is right that the Government gets a ‘kick’ for the things it does wrong, it ought to be given credit for the things it gets right.

So in the spirit of trying to make sure the Government gets the credit for things it gets right let me point out some more differences between the Labour Government and its predecessors that are of direct benefit to people in Thanet.

Take the National Minimum Wage, for example. We forced it on to the statute books in the face of concerted Tory opposition and even now there are Tory MPs trying to get legislation through Parliament that would effectively scrap it. Thousands of Thanet workers now benefit from it.

The Government is currently taking more than its share of the blame for the controversy over MPs expenses, even though MPs of all Parties have been caught up in the allegations. But give the Government credit for this at least, without the Government bringing in the Freedom of Information Act you would never have known anything about it. And if you are worried about organizations storing information about your life then today you can find out what they know about you because this Government brought in the Data Protection Act.

And if you are a local worker in a science based industry, perhaps at Pfizer, Sericol or one of the local universities, then remember this. Before 1997 Science in this country was on its knees. Universities were starved of cash and many of the best scientists had to go abroad. Labour has more than doubled the science budget over the past ten years, from £1.3 billion to £3.4billion and is committed to seeing it rise above inflation to reach almost £4 billion by 2010/11 with spending on medical research increasing by 30% over the next 3 years.