(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 29th May 2023) 

Last week Parliament closed down on Thursday afternoon for the whole of this week and it will reopen a week on Monday so our local MPs may work in Sussex within their constituencies. During this period, it is also possible for MPs to work together across Sussex this week. It will be very interesting to observe if any of them do so.

In the meantime, we can review what took place last week in Parliament. One of the significant themes was a number of votes that took place on Monday to Wednesday. Inevitably most of the votes that took place involve the dominant Conservative Party sometimes with the DUP MPs voting in one direction and many of the other political groups voting in the other way.

Sadly, there are very few occasions when voting results emerge in Parliament that are not determined by the dominance of the Conservative party and that are opposed by the other political groups. Although last week was not significantly different in most of the results, there were some other aspects which are worth observing to enable us to review what took place and potentially for some of us to ask our local MPs why they acted in an unexpected manner.

Last week there were eleven votes that took place which involved most of the members with the majority of them participating as usually takes place. However, there were a few Sussex MPs who did not take part in any of the voting and it is not clear why they did not do so. Two of the Conservative MPs who are not members of the Government did not vote at all last week. They were Caroline Ansell who is the Eastbourne MP and Tim Loughton who is the East Worthing and Shoreham MP. However, there was also one other Conservative MP that did not vote last week which was Nusrat Ghani who is a government minister and she is the MP for Wealden. The fact that all three of these MPs did not vote at all seems very surprising.

There are a total of thirteen Conservative MPs in Sussex and eight of them did vote in the same way as their colleagues in every session. Two other MPs did select a case when they chose not to vote with the rest of their other colleagues.

The first of these was Peter Bottomley who is the Worthing West MP and he decided not to vote to oppose the “Safety of School Buildings” proposal which his colleagues prevented last Tuesday. Sadly, the impact from Peter did not enable the proposal to be approved but it was clearly significant for him along with the other 3 Sussex Conservative MPs to not approve the opposition from the other Conservative and DUP MPs. One of the other significant aspects for that vote was that the SNP did not vote in favour of this request because it was not involved for Scotland.

Then on the following day one of the clauses that was voted in favour of the “Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill” was the Clause 16 item which was entitled “Environmental protection and food standards”. Most of the Sussex Conservative MPs voted in favour of that case which was opposed by the other political groups. Significantly along with the three Conservative Sussex MPs who did not vote at all last week, one of their other colleagues did not vote for that clause. The addition MP was Maria Caulfield the Lewes MP who is one of the Government Ministers so that was a significant opposition.

Along with these five Sussex Conservative MPs who acted differently to many of their colleagues in the group, there was also one of the Labour based Sussex MPs who voted differently to most of his group members. On Wednesday Peter Kyle who is the MP for Hove did not vote for any of the four divisions directed towards the “Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill” that took place that day.

There was one other vote that took place last week which was very significant. On Tuesday there was a division for “Leasehold Reform” which is explained as “Levelling Up, Housing and Communities” The only Sussex MP who spoke during that debate was Peter Bottomley. Fascinatingly the division was endorsed by 172 voters from Labour, the Liberal Democrat and our Green MP and also one of the senior DUP MPs. The strange aspect was that there were no Conservative MPs who voted at all for that division so there were no oppositions.

The initial comment from Peter was

I am glad that the official Opposition have raised this issue, but if they force this to a non-binding vote, it will show the party politics. That is no criticism of a political party. The key issue is how soon life can be made better for those who deserve a better life in their own home, and how soon those who are screwing them can be unscrewed.

A few minutes later he stated

I also pay tribute to the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, for previously co-chairing the all-party group on leasehold and commonhold reform

Many of the words from Peter and the content of this division that was approved by three of our MPs was very significant and it will be fascinating to find out how this proposal could benefit our local Sussex communities.