(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on the 15th January 2024 which is described within the OUR MPS IN PARLIAMENT theme on page 29)

Today is the beginning of the second week of Parliament but last week on Monday there was a session about “Horizon: Compensation and Convictions” which involved three of our local MPs, Peter Bottomley, Tim Loughton and Lloyd Russell-Moyle. Peter Bottomley was the first Sussex MP who spoke

I also refer my hon. Friend the Minister to the article in The Sun about my constituent Cheryl Shaw, who gave up in 2008. Having lost £400 week after week, she brought in the Post Office investigators, who claimed that they could not find anything to explain what was happening. She had to sell out, she lost her home and she took on work as a carer. She is illustrative of those who were convicted and those who gave up before they were prosecuted. Many people now believe that the Horizon system was set up for one purpose and adapted to another, for which it did not work. When people started entering things twice, there was apparently a loss where the Post Office did not actually lose any money. If the Post Office did not lose any money, how could people have been properly prosecuted? The titanic error was the belief in technology.

Later on in the discussion Tim Loughton commented as part of his speech

I am aware of only one sub-postmaster in my constituency who was pursued by the Post Office and not convicted, but it struck me that that is because I have very few sub-post offices left. Are there grounds for investigating whether the Post Office used this dodgy accounting to mismanage the profitability of individual branches to accelerate the closure programme of many of those branches, which left us, in many cases, with very few post office branches left for our constituents to use?

Towards the end of the session Lloyd Russell-Moyle spoke,

In 2018, my local post office was subject to an armed robbery. Those who ran the post office were hauled up to the regional office, where they were interrogated. They felt like criminals. They were not allowed to bring their reps from the Communication Workers Union; they were told they could bring reps only from the National Federation of SubPostmasters, which they had no trust in. In the end, although of course they were found not to have given over the money willingly, they left and handed over the post office to someone else.

This afternoon in the Westminster Hall session there is a planned discussion for a public petition event organised by Martyn Day the Scottish National Party MP for Linlithgow and East Falkirk.  His session is entitled “relating to allowances and tax arrangements for foster carers” and it involves the e-petition 625515, “Review and increase foster care allowances and tax exemptions”. The petition was established in October 2022 until April 2024 and was published by Amanda Mogan-Wilson. Unfortunately, it only achieved 13,310 signatures across the UK. However, the petition content is memorable and entitled

We want the Government to review and increase allowances paid to foster carers, and also tax exemption levels for foster carers, so they reflect the true cost of caring for a child.

It included the additional item

FosterTalk’s Cost of Living report shows: – 43% of carers may leave fostering in the next 2 years – 56% of carers haven’t received an uplift in allowances and those who have, 90% felt it doesn’t cover the cost of caring for a child – 38% of carers have experienced mental health issues due to the crisis The number of carers is declining and it’s expected there’ll be a deficit of around 25,000 foster care families by 2026 in England alone. The cost of living crisis is worsening the situation.

Only sixteen people endorsed the petition in Martyn’s constituency and I was disappointed that some areas of Sussex had even less signatures than that but there were thirty-two people in Crawley and more than twenty in East Worthing, Bexhill and Hasting areas. There is also a lot more support from other parts of the UK including Kent and Hampshire groups.

Along with the focus of this petition this week there are two Committees that are taking place in Parliament that involve Sussex MPs. Today there is the “Public Accounts Committee” which includes Jeremy Quin, that will be debating “Levelling up funding to local government”. On Wednesday there is a session for the “Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee” which involves Lloyd Russell-Moyle and another session for the “Public Accounts Committee” which is debating “Lessons for government: monitoring and responding to companies in distress” that will involve Jeremy Quin again.

During the last week there have been a number of comments from MPs about this year’s General Election. So far no Sussex MPs have spoken about it but the first person who raised it last week was Wes Streeting the Labour MP at North London who stated last Monday

Patients are sick and tired of waiting—waiting for ambulances, waiting for a GP appointment, waiting for their operation and waiting for a general election that cannot come soon enough. Why do the Conservatives not get out of the way and let Labour fix the mess they have made?

It will be interesting to see if any of our local MPs will raise the requirement in the future. Many of us are very keen for the General Election to happen in May this year!