Whilst most of us have long since left behind our formal education, the understanding that today is the beginning of the School year for many people who live around us is hard to ignore, with increased traffic on the roads, particularly around Schools and at the times of day when children are being transported to their first lessons, or being collected after the first day of their new terms. The impact on the rest of society goes much deeper than a few busier roads, but for many families whilst the return to School brings with it many new challenges, it does ensure that the pressure on parents throughout the long Summer begins to diminish. In another few weeks the Higher education establishments such as our various University sites will also return to their normal arrangements and so the Autumn term will get into its full stride. As it happens this week is a special week at the two largest Universities in Sussex. They are both playing host to the British Science Festival 2017 which is an important and exciting event, being held here in Brighton & Hove for the first time. It is Europe’s longest standing science festival and social media followers can keep in touch by using hashtag #BSF17. The festival begins tomorrow and runs until Saturday.

Tomorrow is also a special day for a small body of people outside of the world of education as our MPs return to the House of Commons for the first time since 20^th July. The idea that people of such importance should take such a long break from their law making role is a hark back to the time when MPs were also land owners, and they would need time away from Parliament to ensure their crops were being harvested effectively. Of course some are still land owners but I suspect few if any will actually have participated in the harvest over the last 7 weeks. Equally few would be prevented from attending the House of Commons because of their involvement in the world of Science. Our MPs are mostly people who live lives that are some distance from matters such as crops or scientific experiments. This does raise the question if the way in which our political year is organised makes any sense. The truth is we need our MPs to spend time in their constituencies on a regular basis, not in way that reflects educational terms. It may well be the case that a totally different set of dates would be better for constituencies and better for our MPs. However such things are so traditional that like Big Ben chiming, MPs would be horrified if there was an end to the way things have always taken place.

Another odd tradition in the year of our Members of Parliament is that no sooner have they begun to return to Westminster, that literally two weeks later they will have yet another break for three weeks- whilst the various parties hold their conferences. This seems a very strange way of operating. Surely it must be possible to ensure that Parliament either follows a more regular routine with several weeks in Westminster followed by a break of a week or two and then a return to Westminster or at least to ensure that the annual party conferences take place during the Summer so that when MPs return in early September, they do so in a manner that ensures that they really get their act together and focus on making laws and holding the Government to account. As the MPs return to the green benches, they will have a mere 570 days left until we lose our connection with the EU. Their focus over the next year and a bit is going to be in large part on the departure from the EU. As I have written before, one of the elements of Brexit as promised by the Government is that they will both inform us of their intentions and also take our points of view into account. I have seen precious little evidence of this being the case, whether through the business I am involved in or the charities I have links with. There has also been no communication receive in my household. When the two sides were arguing about the reasons for leaving or staying, we seemed to get no shortage of communication in the run up to 23^rd June 2016. As the clock ticks down to the end of March 2019, let us hope that the MPs who are about to return to their London Offices will begin to think about ways of gaining consensus amongst us. Their two weeks before they break up again are plenty long enough to come up with a cunning plan to listen to us!