On Tuesday afternoon in Parliament following from the Presentation by the King Charles III setting out his first session there were a number of MPs who spoke in response. One of them was Caroline Lucas from Brighton Pavilion and the only other one in Sussex was Peter Bottomley from Worthing West. However another person who spoke during the session did mention Brighton and Hove. It was Theresa May, the previous Prime Minister and she did refer to Alistair Strathern who is the Labour MP for Mid Bedfordshire and she then focused on Brighton & Hove because apparently her cousin was a Liberal Democrat colleague in our City! The text is from here and of course she has been to our area in the past when the Conservatives had run their Party Conferences in Brighton.

I draw the House’s attention to two entries in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am director and chair of the Global Commission for Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, and I chair the Aldersgate Group, which brings businesses, non-governmental organisations, academics and others together to champion a prosperous, net zero emissions, environmentally-sustainable economy. Both of those roles are unpaid.

I am sorry that Alistair Strathern is no longer in his seat. I wanted to take the opportunity to welcome him to the House, despite the fact that I worked to make sure he did not get here. The reason I wanted to welcome and congratulate him is that he is my first cousin once removed. I am not sure whether that connection will do more damage to his career or mine. In case hon. Members are wondering about the family, we share a relative who, I am told, toyed with communism in his youth and another relative—my cousin, the hon. Member’s uncle—who was the former Liberal Democrat leader of Brighton and Hove City Council, so we cover all bases