Frank Dobson MP has criticised London Mayor Boris Johnson’s decision to hike public transport fares.

The price of a single bus journey paid for by an Oyster card will rise by a massive 12.7% from £1 to £1.20. Tube fares will be hiked by nearly 4%.

Frank said: “Boris Johnson is hitting Londoners at the worst possible time. He said recently that fares were too low to be ‘reasonable’. Well that may be the case when you’re paid £144,000 a year as Mayor augmented by a £250,000 second salary from the Daily Telegraph, which the Mayor described as ‘chicken feed’. But for most ordinary people, many of whom are struggling with the recession, fares are high enough already.

“Boris Johnson boasts that he’s freezing the GLA’s council tax precept this year, but this will only save people 12p a week – or £6.24 per year. For someone catching the bus to and from work every day, his fare hike could add up to more than £100 per year.”

Camden is to become one of the first local authorities in England to train specialist maths teachers thanks to a Labour Government initiative.

Following a successful trial last year, Camden is to be one of the first authorities to roll out the Government’s Mathematics Specialist Teacher Programme which aims to train 1,000 maths specialists a year nationally for the next ten years. By 2019 every primary school in the country will have access to one of these specialists.

Frank Dobson MP said: “Camden has some of the best state schools in the country, thanks to the excellent work of teachers, governors and a local education department built up during the many years of Labour control of the Council prior to the 2006 elections. It comes as no surprise to me that Camden is to be one of the first local authorities to train specialist maths teachers.

“The Labour Government’s investment in education has delivered great improvements in maths results in our local schools but work is still needed to raise standards further, particularly for children from the most deprived backgrounds. Ensuring that every primary school has a maths specialist combined with a new nationwide programme to provide one-to-one maths tuition for the 30,000 lowest achievers will boost standards even further.”