Today is the first opening day and week of Parliament for MPs to contribute this year. It will be interesting to see if there will be any discussions calling for this year’s General Election today or in the next few days. Based on the TheyWorkForYou website there are not as many scheduled discussion subjects as they often include and during this week there are no debates that are organised by Sussex MPs. However, there are some Committee events that will involve some local MPs. On Tuesday the Education Committee which includes Caroline Ansell, the Eastbourne MP will discuss “Screen Time: Impacts on education and wellbeing”. There are two other Sussex members involved in Committees on Wednesday with a session at the beginning of the day which involves the Home Affairs Committee including Tim Loughton for East Worthing and Shoreham. That sitting is about “Police and Crime Commissioners: 10 years on”. In the afternoon there will be a debate for the Public Accounts Committee which includes Jeremy Quinn the MP for Horsham entitled “Cabinet Office functional savings”.

There are no e-petition events due to take place this week but the website has indicated that in the next two weeks there will be suitable subjects presented as the current items for this year so far. Next Monday there is a discussion for the petition “Review and increase foster care allowances and tax exemptions” which has been organised by Martyn Day who is a SNP MP. That e-petition only has just over thirteen thousand signatures although there are a few people in each area of Sussex included. The following week on Monday there is a session about the “Reform the Grocery Supply Code of Practice to better protect farmers” organised by Christina Rees who is an Independent Labour MP from South Wales. That petition is still active until the middle of March and so far it has more than one hundred and twelve thousand signatures. There have been a number of signatures from all parts of Sussex so it would be interesting to see if any of the Sussex MPs will participate in either of these events in the next two weeks. It was disappointing that the e-petition that took place back in Parliament on the 18^th December which is called “Hold a parliamentary vote on whether to reject amendments to the IHR 2005” did not involve any of the Sussex MPs although a significant number of MPs did take participate. It was also very strange that the person who was planned to organise it Scott Benton the Conservative MP for Blackpool South was not involved and instead it was Cat Smith, the Labour MP for Lancaster and Fleetwood who had organised the event the week earlier.

Since the closure of Parliament at the end of the 19^th December there have been some public contributions directed to the Government from some Sussex MPs involving written questions. Inevitably with these sorts of items the responses from the Government are sometimes significant but they are also often only very vague contributions. Of note, the TheyWorkForYou website does provide opportunities for the public to respond to any observed questions and responses, by using a comment box format “Does this answer the above question?” There is also a request for “Would you like to ask a question like this yourself? Use our Freedom of Information site.” These responses are often interesting as references to the questions that our MPs have raised and the answers that members of the Government have published. In terms of the Sussex MPs from Wednesday 20^th December through to the end of the year there were a number of questions and responses from the public. Caroline Lucas from Brighton Pavilion asked three questions on 20^th December, eight on 21^st December and one on 27^th December. Tim Loughton and Henry Smith from Crawley each asked two on the 20^th December, Lloyd Russell-Moyle from Brighton Kemptown asked one on 20^th December and Peter Bottomley from Worthing West asked one question on 21^st December. There were no other Sussex MP contributions at the time. The twelve questions that Caroline asked included four with no responses, one endorsed by one person, another endorsed by two people, three were approved and rejected equally by two people. The other three were opposed by one person, three people and four people.

I was pleased to read from the National Autistic Society which published an updated report

You might remember our disappointment last year when our Let Every Autistic Child Learn Parliamentary event had to be cancelled. We can’t afford to give up the fight, so we’ve rescheduled the event for the end of this month. Our education system is in urgent need of reform, sowe need your help to make sure that the room is filled with as many MPs as possible.  

Another statement published by one of our local MPs after the New Year was from Peter Bottomley who started his comment with

Virginia and I send best wishes for the coming 2024 New Year to you and those you love. Thanks go to all of those involved in our essential public and community services. This is an important time of the year for Christians. The Nativity’s spiritual message of hope can resonate with people of all faiths and none. The coronation of King Charles III in May was the first time many had witnessed such an occasion.