I am pleased to report that one of the discussions that took place last week in Parliament was the 30^th anniversary of the murder of Stephen Lawrence. On Monday Michael Dobbs in the House of Lords stated that

My Lords, Saturday was the occasion of Stephen Lawrence Day. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence, who is in her place, for all the dedicated work she has done to build on the memory of her son.

This was in a session called “Hate Crime – Question”. On that day two MPs spoke about it during a discussion of Clause 11 of the Public Order Bill which is entitled “Powers to stop and search without suspicion”. The first person who mentioned it was Sarah Jones who is the Labour MP for Croydon Central. She stated

Here is a chance for the Home Secretary to keep her word. It will not change anything in terms of who can be stopped; it will just make the process more transparent and better for everyone. On the 30th anniversary of the murder of Stephen Lawrence, wouldn’t that be a good thing to do? I urge Members across the House to back the Lords amendments and reject the Government’s motion tonight.

The other person who spoke was Conservative MP David Davis from Yorkshire who commented

Let us be clear: no Government of any persuasion have managed to get the Met to behave—and not just the Met; other police forces, too—in a manner that is acceptable to the public, bearing in mind that there have been Governments of both orientations since Stephen Lawrence.

It was fascinating that the Conservatives with one exception endorsed Clause 11 despite Sarah Jones comment. The one Conservative MP that voted against it was David Davis who had also spoken about Stephen Lawrence. Most of our local Conservative MPs voted in favour of Clause 11 but Caroline Ansell from Eastbourne did not do so. Most of the other MPs voted against it although sadly Lloyd Russell-Moyle from Brighton Kemptown did not so two of our local MPs did not vote at all. It would be interesting to find out why.

On the following day a group of MPs were involved in a debate called “Motorways: Litter” sadly there were no Sussex MPs involved but fascinatingly a government minister Richard Holden stated

I would like to give a shout-out to a few local authorities. I will mention a couple of other examples later, but North Lincolnshire Council, Newark and Sherwood District Council and North West Leicestershire Council are three that National Highways has said it works very closely with. In the majority of cases, they do prosecute when information is passed on. National Highways is also working closely with Brighton and Hove City Council and East Hampshire District Council too, and I will come on to East Hampshire again.

Given that the very few Motorways in Sussex are many miles away from Brighton and Hove it is interesting what this relates to and perhaps the Government could explain what they mean by this?

Another conversation that took place was called “Gender Dysphoria: Waiting Times” which involved the Labour MP of Exeter Ben Bradshaw and Maria Caulfield the Lewes MP and a government minister. She stated

The four new pilot services are now operating in Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Merseyside, East of England and London, and a new clinic will be opening in Sussex later this year. The four pilot studies have already removed 3,400 patients from the waiting list and I am hoping the fifth clinic will go further.

It will be very interesting to find out where that will be established here in Sussex? On that day there was also a session called “Water Quality: Sewage Discharge” and two of our MPs took part. Caroline Lucas from Brighton Pavilion stated

Not one English river is classed as being in a healthy condition, none meet good chemical standards and few meet good ecological standards. The Conservatives have been in power for 13 years. That is a record of failure. In addition, dividends now average £1.6 billion a year, which is money going out of the system altogether.

Later Sally-Ann Hart from Hastings and Rye included

I stand with the people of beautiful Hastings and Rye, who are all quite rightly angry about the extent of water companies’ excessive use of overflows. Only the Conservatives have come up with a proper, fully costed plan, and I am proud of and support the work that the Government are doing to deal with this issue, as well as the work that I do engaging with Southern Water and my constituents, to improve water quality and resources locally and to reduce sewage flooding.

At the end of the debate there were two votes and while the Conservatives endorsed two divisions, Labour and other MPs opposed one but they did not vote at all for the other division and it was interesting to read that the final call was

That this House calls on the Government to set a target for the reduction of sewage discharges, to provide for financial penalties in relation to sewage discharges and breaches of monitoring requirements, and to carry out an impact assessment of sewage discharges.

It will be vitally important to find out how this debate event will impact the area of Sussex and indeed the whole of the UK.