Today is the opening Parliament for the first day in over three weeks. The TheyWorkForYou website informs us of what will take place this week but there is no listing of Sussex MPs contributing. There is an event in the House of Lords which involves a Sussex representative the Green Party member Jenny Jones the Baroness of Moulsecoomb who is organising “Carbon Capture and Storage Infrastructure Fund contracts to companies involved in the oil and gas industry” A very important subject.

During this week there are a number of committee’s taking place but only one of them involves a Sussex MP Henry Smith from Crawley who has organised “Foreign Affairs Committee: Follow-up to Afghanistan inquiry Oral evidence” which is taking place at 2pm on Tuesday. This Friday there will be a day session for MP’s to submit their personal bills to Parliament which is the first time since the summer break. There are a total of twenty one Bills that are being introduced, nineteen of them submitted by Conservative MPs, one Labour and one Liberal Democrat. None of the submissions have come from Sussex MPs and surprisingly there are only two Conservative MPs involved in presenting the nineteen Bills as eighteen of the Bills are from Christopher Chope who is the Conservative MP for Christchurch in Dorset. It is clearly very disturbing that his contribution is so significant and that there are so little items from anyone else.

Over the last four weeks while MPs have been attending Conferences there have been several Petitions that have arisen a considerable number of signatures during the same time period. It would be very positive if our local MPs would be willing to engage these for future discussions because many have signed from Sussex.  One of them is “Call an immediate general election” which has arisen to over 260,000 signatures just over the last week. There are other petitions that have passed 100,000 during the last few weeks or that will do so in the next few days.

Last week there were several events that took place at the Party Conferences. During the Labour conference in Liverpool Lloyd Russell-Moyle, the Brighton Pavilion MP raised a couple of comments via twitter. One was “Labour will pursue every pound of public money that has been lost under the Tories from dodgy pandemic contracts, fraud and waste.” The other was “We need to restore our NHS run not for profit free at point of delivery coordinated regionally, with a long term workforce plan, with a laser focus on patent experience being first. With greater patient flexibility and cutting waiting lists. We did it in 1997 we can do it again!” The other Sussex Labour MP was Peter Kyle the MP for Hove and he commented via twitter which was provided by another Labour MP who stated “Fantastic speech from Peter Kyle at #LPC2023 outlining how a Labour government will help all British people to ride a new wave of innovation. We will create certainty with 10-year R&D budgets, allowing the relationships with industry to build and long-term partnerships to form.” He also stated “So much talent is shut out of our economy’s most exciting jobs. Labour will unleash a new wave of innovation led by science and technology. These great jobs will be reachable to everyone from every background.”

On the same weekend the Green Party Conference took place in Brighton. The Party referred to a range of themes which included items from Caroline Lucas. On Saturday 7th October at 13.30 there was a session entitled “Fringe: Our shared commons – from land to sea” and the public document stated “From ownership and access to justice and our fundamental rights, this fringe will examine how connecting with and restoring our natural world must go hand in hand with understanding how our historic shared commons have been captured, exploited and eroded. It will also be a call to action – a chance to discuss why it’s so critical to reclaim for the common good the resources that sustain life, and how we can be part of doing so.” Then later on Saturday at 17.15 the event was referred as “Fringe: Green Greats – Caroline Lucas MP” and the published text was “Caroline Lucas joined the Green Party as press officer in 1986. As she prepares to step down as the country’s first highly influential Green MP, she discusses her career, achievements and hopes for the future with Roger Harrabin, energy and environment analyst and former BBC award winning correspondent. After the interview, there will be an opportunity for questions from the audience.”

Another source from the “Left Foot Forward” website published a session from Green Party co-leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay who delivered their speech to the party’s autumn conference and referred that to what Adrian said “Private water companies are dumping sewage into our rivers and seas, while taking on billions in debt to fund dividend payments to shareholders.” Carla said “The Green Party believes in an NHS that sits fully in public hands, free at the point of use for all – including dentistry – and with four Green MPs in Parliament, we’ll never let the other parties forget it” In their speech, Adrian and Carla also confirmed the party’s target parliamentary constituencies at the next general election. The Greens will be seeking to get four MPs elected, with Brighton Pavilion, Bristol Central, Waveney Valley and North Herefordshire.