(This blog has been adopted by the Brighton Argus today on the 22nd January 2024 which is published in the OUR MPS IN PARLIAMENT theme on page 30)

Today in Parliament there is an opportunity for a number of Sussex MPs to assist with an e-petition discussion that is being organised by Christina Rees, a Labour MP for the South of Wales. She has published the event as “e-petition 643216, relating to the Groceries Supply Code of Practice” and the public document is listed as “Reform the Grocery Supply Code of Practice to better protect farmers” which was submitted by Guy Singh-Watson. So far it has nearly 113,000 signatures across the UK which includes 500 people in Wealden and Chichester and nearly 500 in Arundel and South Downs but currently in Crawley there is just under a hundred signatures. The first few words from the petition are

“We want the Government to amend the Grocery Supply Code of Practice (GSCP) to require retailers, without exception, to:

– Buy what they agreed to buy
– Pay what they agreed to pay
– Pay on time

We believe the current GSCP is inadequate and doesn’t protect farmers from unfair behaviour.”

With this amount of signatures the Government must pay attention to the food supply that effects everybody everyday.

It was evident that last week the session organised by the SNP MP Martyn Day on the “e-petition 625515, relating to allowances and tax arrangements for foster carers” sadly did not involve any of our Sussex MPs and the number of signatures for that was far less even though the content of that petition was really very important.

Another theme that is essential for the Government is the decision when the General Election will take place. So far none of our Sussex MPs have raised it in Parliament but interestingly next Monday there is a session organised by Tonia Antoniazzi who is another South Wales MP for Labour. She is organising “e-petition 641904 relating to the next general election” the petition is still active and so far, it has already acquired 283,000 signatures with the Brighton and Hove areas having gathered many signatures and much of the rest of Sussex have also endorsed it. The content for that petition which is shown in the document is

“The Prime Minister should call an immediate general election to allow the British public to have their say on how we are governed, we should not be made to wait until January 2025.”

During this week there is a session on Tuesday in the Westminster Hall which is being organised by Tim Loughton, the MP for East Worthing and Shoreham. It is “Future of human rights in Hong Kong” so it will be interesting to see what this will involve and also if any of our other Sussex MPs will contribute. Also this week there are a great many number of Parliament Committees which includes Jeremy Quin, the Horsham MP and today he is in Public Accounts Committee which is referred as

“The Equipment Plan 2023–2033” and on Wednesday he is the Chair member of the Defence Committee. That session is dealing in “Future Aviation Capabilities”.

The Brighton Pavilion MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle is participating on the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee which on Tuesday is responding in “Civil Service Leadership and Reform”. On Wednesday there are two Committees taking place at the same time that both include Lloyd as members. There is a session with the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee although it is not published. At the same time the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee is operating with the “Keeping the power on: our future energy technology mix” session. I will be keen to see which one of them will be contributed  by Lloyd. There are two other Sussex MPs this week on Committees. On Tuesday Henry Smith from Crawley will be joining the Foreign Affairs Committee and on Wednesday Caroline Lucas from Brighton Pavilion will be involving in the Environmental Audit Committee which will deal with “The role of natural capital in the green economy”

Last week several events took place in Parliament with many contributions from our MPs. On Monday afternoon at the same time as the Petitions were presented for discussion a session was entitled “Defending the UK and Allies” which was set out the Prime Minister. The first person to respond was Jeremy Quin from Horsham followed by Caroline Lucas from Brighton Pavilion, Tim Loughton and later on Henry Smith from Crawley. Jeremy included these words

“Will we encourage them to redouble their efforts to interdict arms smuggling from Iran into Yemen and therefore help to degrade further the military capacity of the Houthis?”

On the first day last week on Monday there were three votes, the first was Animal Welfare Bill with Clause 1, most people voted opposing this, but the three none Conservative MPs voted for Aye. The only person who did not vote for that session was Henry Smith and he was also one of the two Sussex MPs who debated in the session. The other MP who contributed was Tim Loughton who spoke four times. The other two votes related to the Delegated Legislation and all Conservatives voted in support for the two items, and only about fifty people rejected against these two sessions. The only Sussex MP that did so was Caroline Lucas. It is clear that last week’s activities in Parliament showed several voting differences between politicians from the same political parties. I am always interested to know the reason why.