A number of support groups are available across North East Lincolnshire to help mums with breastfeeding. 

Breast milk is a natural way of giving babies the nutrients they need and it also helps protect them from a variety of infections and diseases, including reducing the risks of some ear, chest and stomach infections, for example gastroenteritis.  

It benefits not only babies but also mothers too. Breastfeeding burns around 500 calories a day and also the uterus will return to its normal state more rapidly in response to a baby suckling. 

The Department of Health recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of a baby’s life and suggests that it can continue to benefit babies who are also eating solid foods for many months after.  

Kathy Holmes, infant feeding coordinator for the Care Trust Plus, said: “Breastfeeding is a cheap, economical, ‘environmentally friendly’ and safe way to feed your baby.  

“We have a number of breastfeeding support groups in our communities, they are informal and friendly groups where you can meet other breastfeeding mothers, get support and find out more about breastfeeding.” 

For details of all the support groups visit www.nelctp.nhs.uk and search ‘breastfeeding’. Alternatively health visitors, midwives and GPs can also offer professional support on breastfeeding.  

Breastfeeding Support Groups:

East Marsh Children’s Centre, Victor Street, Grimsby. Tel: 01472 326860 (Mon: 10am-11.30am)

Nunsthorpe and Bradley Park Children’s Centre, Sutcliffe Avenue Grimsby. Tel: 01472 326600 (Tues: 9.30am -11am)

Healing Children’s Centre, Healing School, Ford Avenue, Grimsby. Tel: 01469 514848 (Wed: 10.30am -12pm)

Immingham Children’s Centre, Margaret Street, Immingham. Tel: 01469 514848 (Thurs: 10am -12pm)

Highgate Children’s Centre, Trinity Road, Cleethorpes. Tel: 01472 324323 (Fri: 10am-11.30am)

Central Children’s Centre, Edward Street, Grimsby. Tel: 01472 326830 (Wed: 2pm-3pm)

Queensway Children’s Centre, Binbrook Way, Wilows Estate, Grimsby. Tel: 01472 325737 (Tues: 9.30am-11.30am)

Beacon Health Centre, St Hughes Avenue, Cleethorpes. Tel: 01472 721333 (Thurs: 10am-11.30am)

Diana Princess Wales Hospital, Antenatal clinic, Scartho Road, Grimsby. Tel: 01472 874111 (Sat: 11am-1pm)

  “He has tried to hoodwink the Cabinet, Parliament and the British people in his cover-up,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Foreign Secretary, Edward Davey. 

  Commenting on today’s appearance by Jack Straw at the Iraq Inquiry, Edward Davey said: “Jack Straw has failed yet again to explain or apologise for his actions as Foreign Secretary in the run-up to the Iraq War.

“He showed no contrition for misleading Parliament over the nature of the legal advice. Nor did he show any regret for conspiring to prevent the Cabinet from seeing that advice, in contravention of the Ministerial Code.

“He has tried to hoodwink the Cabinet, Parliament and the British people in his cover-up.

“How can any judge or lawyer, let alone the British people, have confidence in the minister in charge of our legal system when he has apparently shown such reckless disregard for such sensitive matters?

“It is time for Jack Straw to consider his position as Secretary of State for Justice. He has breached the Ministerial Code and his case must now be considered by the Cabinet Secretary.”

“The Liberal Democrats will change the way the NHS works so that money goes further and patients come first,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Secretary, Norman Lamb. 

Commenting on Number 10’s refusal to answer questions about the £63bn PFI bill facing the NHS, Norman Lamb, said: “Labour’s scandalous mismanagement of the NHS has left many hospitals facing PFI bills they simply cannot afford.

“Gordon Brown’s speech contains even more spending commitments but he has yet to explain how on earth he intends to pay for the damage he’s already done to the future of the NHS.

“Despite the enormous amounts of money we owe for these hospitals, many of them will never end up in public ownership. Hospitals all over the country are mortgaged to the hilt and there are serious concerns that these repayments will lead to cuts in vital services.

“We need a new approach to public services in this country. By setting up an infrastructure bank the Liberal Democrats will ensure that key projects get access to the funding they need to revitalise our economy.

“The Liberal Democrats will change the way the NHS works so that money goes further and patients come first.”

  “Liam Fox’s brand of neo-con, anti-European thinking puts ideology above the national interest,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Defence Secretary, Nick Harvey. 

  Commenting on Liam Fox’s call for the UK to fight alone, without allies, Nick Harvey said: “These are desperately undiplomatic comments on the eve of a major allied operation in Afghanistan.

“Liam Fox’s brand of neo-con, anti-European thinking puts ideology above the national interest.

“His views on defence look hopelessly unrealistic when he refuses to say where the money will come from. Just like Labour, the Tories’ refusal to consider the renewal of Trident in a future defence review makes a mockery of the whole process.”

Is your family ready for a Ghoulish half-term break? If your children are looking for the best in fun, excitement, sports and crafts this holiday, North East Lincolnshire Council may have the answer!

The February Half Term Holiday Activity Booklet is now available and should have been distributed to all local pupils through their schools. The booklets contain a comprehensive list of activities, day trips, events, fun and education taking place throughout the Borough this season.

Remember these activities are incredibly popular and you’ll need to book your place to make sure you’re not disappointed. If you have not yet received your booklet, please contact your local school. Alternatively you can contact the Family Information Service on: 0800 18 303 17. 

We hope you all have some freakish fun this half-term!

To view the Havelock Collective Holiday Programme, click on the picture above.

“It’s now clear that the Tories would simply swap one form of central diktat with another,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Schools Secretary, David Laws. 

Commenting on today’s proposals to transfer school planning powers from local authorities to central Government, David Laws said: “This shows that the Conservative commitment to ‘localism’ is only skin deep. 

“David Cameron keeps on pledging an end to the era of Whitehall Knows Best Government, but it’s now clear that the Tories would simply swap one form of central diktat with another.”

Figures released today by the Liberal Democrats have revealed that the NHS is facing a £63bn bill for PFI hospitals which are only worth £11bn.

The figures also reveal that:

Ø       The first payments for hospital PFIs began in 1999 and the NHS still owes £58bn on 106 PFI contracts over the next three decades

Ø       The NHS will have to pay back £7.3bn in PFI payments over the next Parliament alone (2010-2015)

Ø       The most expensive PFI contract was for Wythenshawe Hospital where the NHS will pay back 16 times the original capital value

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Secretary, Norman Lamb, said: “These figures reveal the disastrous reality of Labour’s stewardship of the NHS.

“We’re entering into one of the most difficult financial periods in the NHS’s history and this Government’s legacy will be a mountain of debt.

“Despite the enormous amounts of money we owe for these hospitals, many of them will never end up in public ownership. Hospitals all over the country are mortgaged to the hilt and there are serious concerns that these repayments will lead to cuts in vital services.

“We need a new approach to public services in this country. By setting up an infrastructure bank the Liberal Democrats will ensure that key projects get access to the funding they need to revitalise our economy.

“The Liberal Democrats will change the way the NHS works so that money goes further and patients come first.”

  Nick Clegg will today challenge the other two party leaders to agree an emergency programme of political reform. 

  Speaking at an election summit of parliamentarians and parliamentary candidates today, the Liberal Democrat Leader will challenge Gordon Brown and David Cameron to sign up to the programme of political reform as a first step to restore public faith in politics.

Nick Clegg will say: “In the light of the charges brought by the DPP against a number of MPs and peers, Gordon Brown and David Cameron are suddenly falling over themselves to talk about political reform. Nobody should be fooled.

“Gordon Brown has been the obdurate obstacle to almost every attempt at political reform over the past 13 years, while the double-speak of David Cameron – who even now refuses to divulge the tax status of one of his party’s biggest donors – is simply breathtaking.

“Listening to the two of them anyone would think they were powerless backbenchers rather than the leaders of the two parties in Parliament which have proved to be the real roadblocks to reform. It’s like a couple of cowboy builders coming back to your house to tell you how bad their workmanship is.

“If they genuinely want political change, it is in their power to deliver it. So I challenge them to cut out the speeches and the rhetoric and get on with the job. They can do that today by signing up to five basic principles of reform.

“If Gordon Brown and David Cameron can’t even sign up to these most minimal commitments, the public will see their rhetoric for the opportunistic party point scoring that it is.”

Commenting ahead of Jack Straw’s appearance today at the Iraq Inquiry, Liberal Democrat Shadow Foreign Secretary, Edward Davey has set out three key questions that must be answered. 

Commenting, Edward Davey said: “Jack Straw has systematically hidden the truth about the advice he received from Foreign Officer Legal Advisers and the Attorney General over the legality of the Iraq war. He’s tried to hoodwink the Cabinet, Parliament and then the British people in his cover up.

“How can any judge or lawyer, let alone the British people, have confidence in the Minister in charge of our legal system when he has apparently shown such reckless disregard for the legal advice he’s given, the Ministerial Code he’s supposed to keep to and the demands of the Freedom of Information Act he piloted through Parliament.

“Unless he can provide the Chilcot Inquiry with some plausible explanation for these actions, he can surely no longer remain as the Secretary of State for Justice.

“Sir John Chilcot and his colleagues therefore must be fair today to the Secretary of State for Justice – they must allow Jack Straw this final chance to clear his name.”

Despite the Government’s pledge to give away 1 million free theatre tickets over 2 years, 10 months into the scheme just 177,000 tickets have been made available, research by the Liberal Democrats has revealed. 

The latest statistics on the Free Theatre Scheme for under-26s released by Arts Council England show that:

Ø       10 months into the scheme just 177,345 tickets have been made available – 17,735 a month

Ø       Only two thirds (121,345) of the tickets offered have been taken up

Ø       At this rate of take-up it would take nearly seven years to reach the Government’s original target for the scheme

Ø       The pledge was subsequently downgraded to 600,000 tickets – at the current rate the Government will be way off this target as well  

Commenting on the figures, Liberal Democrat Shadow Culture, Media and Sport Secretary, Don Foster said: “These figures are a disgrace and the Government ought to be ashamed. It is no wonder they were buried in a little visited area of the Arts Council’s website.

“The resources and forward planning needed to make a scheme like this work were never there.

“This money could have been much better used supporting youth theatre groups or providing drama in schools.

“Sadly, it seems ministers are more interested in making wildly optimistic promises to grab headlines than actually broadening access to the arts.”

  “Voters deserve a real choice – between the discredited status quo and a system where every vote matters and there are no safe seats,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Justice Secretary, David Howarth. 

  The Liberal Democrats have tabled amendments to the Government’s proposals for a referendum on electoral reform that would:

Ø       Offer voters a real choice between first-past-the-post and a truly proportional system (Single Transferable Vote), rather than AV

Ø       Bring forward the date of the referendum to next May

Ø       Close a loophole allowing the next Government to kill the proposals without an Act of Parliament  

Commenting, David Howarth said: “Voters deserve a real choice – between the discredited status quo and a system where every vote matters and there are no safe seats.

“The Alternative Vote system is a very small step in the right direction, but it is not proportional and it does not give voters enough power over the party and the person elected as MP.

“It is also unacceptable that Labour’s amendments would make it childishly easy for the next Government to kill a referendum without further legislation.

“By acting purely out of naked self-interest, the Conservative Party has long been a roadblock to electoral reform.

“It would be far too easy for them to abandon a referendum if they win an election, which is why the Liberal Democrats have taken steps to Tory-proof the Bill.”

“We need to restore immediate control of our borders,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne.   

Commenting on today’s announcement by Alan Johnson on the student visa system, Chris Huhne said: “The biggest hole in the student visa system is caused by the Tory and Labour abolition of exit checks, which means we do not know if someone has left once their visa runs out.

“We need to restore immediate control of our borders.”

  “This survey shows that teachers need a lot more advice and clearer guidance in dealing with violence in the classroom,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, David Laws. 

  Commenting on a survey by The Association of Teachers and Lecturers showing that nearly half of new teachers asked felt they have not had enough training to deal with violence in the classroom and that almost two-thirds felt they had received no clear guidance on restraining violent students, David Laws said: “This survey shows that teachers need a lot more advice and clearer guidance in dealing with violence in the classroom. This is particularly important because this government is bringing in a raft of new laws which will make it even more bureaucratic for teachers to break up fights and will require parents to be notified whenever force is used.

“There is a risk that if teachers are both untrained and concerned about the consequences of taking action to prevent violence, then they will be tempted to stand back rather than intervene to maintain a safe and well ordered environment.”

“The housing shortage is one of the biggest crises facing Britain today and tackling it must be a priority of any future government,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Housing Minister, Sarah Teather. 

Commenting on a report by the National Housing Federation which finds that the number of new homes being built this year will fall to its lowest level since 1923, Sarah Teather said: “This is the legacy of decades of underinvestment and neglect by consecutive Tory and Labour Governments which today means people who have been hardest hit by the recession are struggling most to access affordable housing.

“The housing shortage is one of the biggest crises facing Britain today and tackling it must be a priority of any future government. That is why Liberal Democrats would bring hundreds of thousands of empty homes back into use, as well as empower local councils to borrow against their assets and finance necessary investment in housing in their area.”

  “With only months until an election must be called this reeks of yet another desperate pre-election bribe by Labour,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Secretary, Norman Lamb. 

  Commenting on Gordon Brown’s announcement that 1.6 million people who have or have had cancer are to be offered free one-to-one care in their homes, Norman Lamb said: “No one denies that cancer suffers deserve the best possible care and that this is an attractive proposition, but the obvious question is has it been properly thought through and how exactly will it be funded?

“With only months until an election must be called this reeks of yet another desperate pre-election bribe by Labour.”

Last Week, the Government published new figures showing that the annual cost of running quangos has risen to £46.5bn - a rise of nearly £10bn since Gordon Brown became Prime Minister.

Commenting, Jenny Willott, Liberal Democrat Shadow Cabinet Office Minister, said: “Gordon Brown has taken Labour’s obsession with unelected and unaccountable quangos to a new extreme.

“This is the largest sum of money ever spent on running quangos. It is obscene sum of money to spend on bodies that lack transparency and effective democratic control.

“The Liberal Democrats are the only party truly committed to bringing in better politics for less.

“As a start, we would scrap 90 quangos and cap the salaries of senior management. This alone would help save nearly £1.2bn a year in taxpayers’ money at a stroke.”

The Liberal Democrats have accused the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw of misleading parliament and that he breached ministerial code over handling of legal advice on war in the 2003; Mr Jack Straw is due to return to the Iraq inquiry today face these claims.

The Liberal Democrats accuse the justice secretary of “hoodwinking” the British public when he prevented the cabinet from hearing doubts about the legality of the invasion.

Alastair Campbell was an emotional state on TV yesterday and almost down on television today when questioned about Tony Blair’s claim that it was “beyond doubt” that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

He was whether the former prime minister had misled parliament, Campbell, the former No 10 communications chief, but surprisingly stumbled as he said on the Andrew Marr Show: “I’ve been through a lot of this, Andrew, and I’ve been through a lot of that inquiry … You did it again this morning, which is probably why I’m a bit upset – this constant sort of vilification.”

The Liberal Democrats have outlined a three-point charge sheet against Straw, claiming that he:

Ø     Knowingly misled parliament on the legality of the war. On 17 March, a day before MPs voted to authorise British involvement in the war, Straw told them: “There is no question about the legality of the action that we propose to take.” The inquiry has heard that the two most senior Foreign Office legal advisers, Sir Michael Wood and his deputy, Elizabeth Wilmhurst, believed the war was illegal.

Ø     Breached the ministerial code by preventing the cabinet from seeing Goldsmith’s full legal advice. At paragraph 2.12 the code says: “When advice from the law officers is included in correspondence between ministers, or in papers for the cabinet or ministerial committees, the conclusions may if necessary be summarised but, if this is done, the complete text of the advice should be attached.”

Ø     Abused his powers and failed to declare a conflict of interest when he vetoed a freedom of information request to release the minutes of the cabinet discussion about Iraq on 17 March 2003. The Lib Dems believe Straw gave a misleading account when, as justice secretary, he vetoed the FoI request last year. He described the cabinet as “the forum in which debates on the issues of greatest significance and complexity are conducted”.

  The Liberal Democrats Shadow Foreign Secretary, Edward Davey said: “Jack Straw has tried to hoodwink the cabinet, parliament and then the British people in his cover-up.”

  He claimed that Mr Straw should resign if he fails to provide adequate answers.

  Edward Davey said. “How can any judge or lawyer, let alone the British people, have confidence in the minister in charge of our legal system when he has apparently shown such reckless disregard for the legal advice he’s given, the ministerial code he’s supposed to keep to and the demands of the freedom of information act he piloted through parliament.”