(This article was published in the Brighton Argus today – 13th November 2023) Today is the first full week for Parliament following the very significant opening of Parliament with King Charles III first event last Tuesday. Last week only two Sussex MPs, Caroline Lucas and Peter Bottomly, contributed to the discussions taking place after the Kings Charles speech. Caroline also took part in the third discussion on Thursday at the end of Parliament last week. I find it very disappointing that no other Sussex MPs contributed. There may have been public comments from other Sussex MPs but they certainly did not contribute in Parliament last week.

There are of course several themes that many of us and some MPs would like the Government to promote now and in the near future. One of these issues is the question of when will the General Election take place? There are many people who would want elections to take place in May next year and there are many people who want an election well before December 2024 which is the fifth-year deadline. Six weeks before Boris Johnson left his post at number ten, Darrin Charlesworth set up a petition, entitled “Call an immediate general election to end the chaos of the current government”. In the first few weeks prior to Mr Johnsons departure about 12,000 people signed it. However, once Mr Johnson had left the number extended to nearly 900,000 people in a month. This petition is the second largest petition in the list of 50,000 petitions ever created.  The only other larger petition raised in the same time frame relates to “End child food poverty” which achieved more than one million signatures.

It has been encouraging that Parliament has continued to discuss the situation in Gaza during the frequent opening and closing periods. There have also been three public petitions about the ongoing conflict in Gaza which have achieved many signatures in the last few weeks. The largest is “Seek a ceasefire and to end Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip“ with 230,000 public signatures so far, the “Urge the Israel Government to allow fuel, electricity and food into Gaza” receiving 194,000 people and “Remain neutral in Israel-Palestine conflict and withdraw support for Israel” with 147,000 people.

A Labour MP for Leeds, Richard Burgon, published an Early Day Motion entitled “Protecting civilians in Gaza and Israel”. During the two weeks of parliament prior to the Kings speech, 93 MPs signed it and now that Parliament has re-opened, one more MP has endorsed it. Initially a significant number of Labour and SNP and Plaid Cymru people promoted this EDM which included, from Sussex, one of the Labour MPs Lloyd Russell-Moyle, the Green MP Caroline Lucas and one of the Conservative MPs Peter Bottomley. Last Tuesday Richard Burgon published an identical EDM entitled “Protecting civilians in Gaza and Israel” and so far 95 MPs have signed it including the same three Sussex MPs that signed the first EDM.

There are a number of organisations that have made the Government aware of their important views on a range of subjects. The National Autistic Society explained a few days ago that on Tuesday the Government dropped its promised Mental Health Bill. They expressed

“its hard to see what could be more worthy of Parlimentary time than addressing that autistic people are being inappropriately detained abused in mental health hospitals, often for years on end”.

They went on to say

“We really hoped that Tuesday’s King’s Speech would be used as an opportunity to finally bring the crucial measures in the Bill before Parliament. But despite a massive 18,234 of you signing our open letter to Rishi Sunak demanding the outdated Mental Health Act is urgently reformed, we’ve been let down, again. It will remain legal for autistic people to be detained just because they are autistic.”

They then explained that a young ambassador called Zaynab submitted a document to the Prime Minister on the 26 October and the document included the text

“Today’s news means countless more autistic people are put at risk. We’re in a crisis of autistic people being stuck in hospital where the average stay is five and half years. We need change now. Four years of inpatient care changed me and I can’t get that time back. We deserve to be empowered and understood. We deserve human rights. I want to see a world where mental health treatment is personalised and appropriate. I want to see autistic people being supported in their community, by people who understand autism. Today the Government has ignored our voices and delayed this crucial change for even longer.”

The National Autistic Society finished their expression with the statement

“Despite this we must find enough hope and determination to keep going for the more than 2,000 autistic people and people with a learning disability who are still stuck in mental health hospitals. We can’t afford to give up now and we are going to need your help to make sure this human rights scandal is not forgotten. We need some time to think about our next move, but we’ll be back in touch to ask for your help as soon as we’ve come up with a plan. The volume and speed of the support for our open letter is a great example of our shared power. Together our voices can and will create change.”

These are views within Parliament and the Nation and the Government must consider them.