Today is the first day of Parliament that has opened since it closed down on Thursday the 20^th July. It has been a very long six week holiday break for all of our party politicians and MP’s. Today marks the beginning of the Autumn period albeit that in three weeks’ time Parliament will close down again for three more weeks to enable the Political groups to hold their annual Party Conferences. This week our MPs will all be absorbed by the usual business of Parliament some of which is public knowledge although no doubt there will be a number of issues that will be discussed but are yet to emerge.

On Wednesday morning the Crawley MP, Henry Smith is organising a discussion called “Duty on shopping at UK entry points” and it would seem very reasonable for some of the Sussex MPs and perhaps at least one of the Sussex Ministers to contribute into this discussion. As it happens there is also one Committee published for this week which will involve a Sussex MP which is the “Foreign Affairs Committee: The UK’s engagement in Central Asia Oral evidence” that is taking place tomorrow afternoon. Interestingly the person for that group is also Henry Smith and he is the only Sussex representation personally listed on the documents for this week’s activity in Parliament.

Another discussion that is due to take place this week is a session this afternoon which is explained as an e-petition event entitled “relating to assessments for disability benefits” which is being organised by a Conservative MP, Elliot Colburn from South London for Carshalton and Wallington. He is organising a discussion that is focused on three petitions two of which have ended this year and one from a previous year. The first one is entitled “End assessments and consider disability benefit claims on medical advice alone” which achieved almost 30,000 signatures by the end of January 2023 and the second one is “Full review of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) application process” which achieved nearly 17,000 signatures at the middle of February this year. The third e-petition was established at the end of January 2022 with almost 30,000 signatures and it is described as “End reviews of PIP and ESA awards for people with lifelong illnesses”. Although none of these petitions got anywhere close to 100,000 the vital number for any petition document to be discussed in Parliament the three petitions were supported by the whole of the UK and there has been some support from all areas of Sussex

The local individuals that endorsed these petitions significantly were primarily based in constituencies for non-Ministers including Crawley for Henry Smith, both Worthing representations for Peter Bottomley and Tim Loughton, Eastbourne the location for Caroline Ansell and Hastings and Rye for Sally-Ann Hart. Brighton and Hove are also significantly represented so they could inspire Caroline Lucas, Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Peter Kyle to take part in this afternoon’s event. In one of the three petitions there was also a significant number of people from the Bognor Regis and Littlehampton area which is represented by Nick Gibb who is a minister and I would hope it would seem appropriate for him to participate. It will be meaningful to identify how many of the Sussex MPs could take part in the discussion this afternoon given that a number of the people they represent have endorsed these e-petitions.

There are three other e-petitions that are due to take place next week that have been organised by Marsha de Cordova the Labour MP for Battersea. The three e-petitions that she has selected are much smaller than the other three e-petitions today. Although both of these events have smaller numbers of formal signatures that are proposed for recommended discussions it indicates their importance that they have been selected for discussion. It would clearly be very significant for MPs to arrange discussions based on the petitions that have achieved signatures of at least 100,000 people. It is also very important for them to take part in the discussions if their residents have endorsed a significant proportion of these petitions or if they agree on the them.

The non-Minister MPs are entitled to become involved in a Parliamentary system known as Early Day Motions which was organised back in 1989 by the then Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The EDM was intended to draw attention to any given issue event or a campaign often in the media or public domain. Any MP can raise an EDM subject and it shows the level of Parliamentary support if the MP’s sign a motion. In some ways EDM’s and e-petitions are similar given that some of the documents are endorsed by a significant number of MPs. Here in Sussex, there are sixteen MPs of which eight are Ministers for the Government and there are another five Conservative MPs that are not formally part of the Government and there are two Labour representatives and Caroline Lucas who is the only Green MP in this Parliament. On the last day of Parliament before it closed down for its summer holiday four MPs submitted EDM items, three were from Scotland SNP and the fourth person was Peter Bottomley from Worthing West who submitted a document entitled “Holocaust Memorial and Victoria Tower Gardens”. It will be very interesting to see how many MPs will support his document and sign it in the next few days.