(This item was published in the Brighton Argus on 11th September 2023 with their document “MP leads session on airport duty-free shops“) Last week was the first week of Parliament after the end of their summer period. The “TheyWorkForYou” website which provides a range of the text and some of the proposals yet it has not provided a comprehensive list for this week although they did add a few items last week. One of these was a contribution from Tim Loughton, the MP for East Worthing and Shoreham who will set out a session in Westminster Hall tomorrow afternoon under the theme of “Flying schools”. This session is intended to run for 90 minutes and so there will be an opportunity for several other MPs to contribute during that session.

Last week there was a session that had been initially listed as taking place on Wednesday morning which the Crawley MP, Henry Smith which was an MP petition entitled “Duty on shopping at UK entry points”. It was very unexpected that the debate did not take place till the very end of Wednesday and sadly no other Sussex MPs took part. However the initial few words began with

I rise to speak as the Member of Parliament for Crawley, a constituency that proudly includes Gatwick airport within its boundaries, and as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the future of aviation, for which I declare an interest. It is in those roles that I have been determined to support the aviation, travel and tourism industries as they continue to recover from the covid-19 pandemic, and I call on the Government to introduce duty-free shopping on arrival at airports and international rail and ferry terminals in Great Britain.

A Liberal Democrat MP stated at the beginning of her short statement “I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman’s argument. My own local airport, Edinburgh airport, would benefit greatly from duty-free arrivals” and the government minister ended with

In conclusion, I thank my hon. Friend for his speech. I reiterate that we have considered this matter carefully, but we must prioritise our responsibilities for the public finances. That is why we do not feel able at this point to agree to the suggestion, but I am happy to keep the issue under review, and to meet him to discuss it further.

The other contribution for this week that relates to our Sussex MPs is a discussion on Tuesday that involves the Parliament Education Committee which includes Caroline Ansell who is the Eastbourne MP. The Committee is talking about a session entitled “Teacher recruitment, training and retention Oral evidence” so it will be very nice if Caroline can explain what takes place in her committee. As it happens Henry Smith was the only Sussex MP to contribute in Committee’s last week so that was very positive.

Sadly, last week none of the Sussex MPs took part in the e-petition discussion entitled “relating to assessments for disability benefits” even though there had been many Sussex people who had signed the three items that were discussed. This afternoon there will be another session focused on e-petitions and it is entitled “relating to pay and financial support for healthcare students” which has been organised by Marsha de Cordova who is a Labour MP. The three documents are not significantly signed, but a few people in all of our Sussex constituencies have signed them and the Hastings and Rye had a large signing for two of them and on the other Worthing West signed in bigger numbers. It would be interesting to see if Sally-Ann Hart or Peter Bottomley will take part in the discussion to reflect the comments from their locations.

Last week Parliament involved a number of voting sessions. It was engrossing to observe how some of our Sussex MPs responded. The first group was on Monday and it was a theme of the “Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill” which included five votes that involved three clause items. They were all endorsed by the Government and the Conservative voting was significant but interestingly three of our MPs did not vote at all. They were who were Nick Gibb and Jeremy Quin who are Ministers and Henry Smith. The Labour and a number of other groups voted against all of these five votes, although Peter Kyle from Hove did not vote against one of the items. I am intrigued to find why he did not vote for it.

Then on Tuesday there were six voting for the “Energy Bill [Lords]” of which the first five were Clauses and the Government and Conservative MPs opposed all of them with many of the other mutual groups supporting them. The final vote was entitled “Part A3 – Petroleum Licensing (Exploration and Production) (Seaward and Landward Areas) Regulations 2004” and the Government and many Conservatives voted for it. Interestingly a small group of well known Conservatives including Henry Smith voted against it. However no other political groups voted on that theme at all for it. Interestingly Mims Davies and Nusrat Ghani did not vote for any of the elements on Tuesday. I am curious as to why one clause which is entitled “New Clause 39 – Duties of the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority in respect of off-grid fuels” was not voted by Lloyd Russell-Moyle or by Sally-Ann Hart. Yet they both voted for all of the other clauses and Sally-Ann voted for the final item.

We need to understand why the Sussex ministers are not voting with the Government.