This week in Parliament there are a few public items that involve several Sussex MPs and also one theme that it would be interesting to see if any Sussex MPs will participate.

Today the Public Accounts Committee meets this afternoon with the Sussex MP contributing Jeremy Quin. The group is focusing on “Progress in implementing Universal Credit”.  Tomorrow the Education Committee which is taking place in the morning with Caroline Ansell contributing and the session is “Screen Time: Impacts on education and wellbeing”. There is a session taking place in the afternoon “Information on support available for parents and carers of infants” which is being arranged by Sally-Ann Hart. On Wednesday Jeremy Quin is again involved in the same Committee in the afternoon, debating, “DHSC Annual Report & Accounts 2022-23” which refers to the Department of Health and Social Care and how it has spent it has funded its activities and used its resources. On Friday Sally-Ann Hart is due to organise her “Support for Infants and Parents etc (Information) Bill” which, if there is sufficient time for it to be included is a really important Bill.  This week includes an e-petition planned for this afternoon entitled “e-petition 608237 relating to prescription charges for people with chronic or long-term health conditions” organised by the MP Tonia Antoniazzi. The petition, “Free prescriptions for those with a long term and/or chronic condition” which was ended on 9th August 2022 and it only obtained 20,258 signatures across the whole of the UK. However, all areas, across Sussex did involve, the largest area for signatures was Brighton.

Recent activities include meetings that Mims Davis held last Monday. She writes

I joined fellow Sussex MPs in meeting with Royal Mail in Parliament to discuss residents’ concerns. It was good to meet with their Regional Operations Director, John Doyle, and Head of Public Affairs Fiona Hamilton to discuss the challenges, including its future size and shape as the needs of our Sussex communities evolve but most importantly to hear their plans to improve the services they deliver. I know from my recent meeting with the local Haywards Heath sorting office team just how hard they are all continuously working, along with their colleagues in the BH and EG sorting offices, and how stressful the current conditions are for everyone.

Two weeks ago, there were several discussions across the UK Parliament with interesting contributions from Sussex MPs.  On Monday 26th February Sally-Ann Hart endorsed a very significant Early Day Motion that was created by a Conservative MP William Wragg, at Hazel Grove in the South of the Manchester. He had created the EDM in the previous week entitled as “No confidence in the Speaker”, the motion text is very limited with the words “That this House has no confidence in Mr Speaker.” The session currently records Ninety Five MPs which includes forty six extra Conservatives, 42 SNPs and all of the 3 Plaid Cymru’s. Only one Sussex MP has signed it so far, but it is significant that Sally-Ann signed it because she has never participated any EDMs before. I hope she will consider signing EDMs in the future. On Tuesday 27th February there was five opportunities to vote across the whole day about the same subject.  They were contributions connected to the “Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill”, listed as “Insolvency of certain persons with an interest in higher-risk and relevant buildings” None of them were successful because the Government opposed all of the sessions and indeed most of the Sussex Conservative MPs voted against them as did the DUP members. The first point, “New Clause 1 – Estate management services” there were only fourteen votes, mostly Liberal Democrat and Plaid Cymru MPs. There were votes from both Caroline Lucas and Peter Bottomley. The rest of the four points received more significant support in favour of them, even though they were not successful. The Labour Party endorsed the remaining four aspects with Lloyd Russell-Moyle from Brighton but he and his group ignored clause 1 and Caroline Lucas voted for all five items. Peter Bottomley ignored three of them but he supported “New Clause 39 – Rights of first refusal on disposal of freehold homes” which included votes from Peter and also Bob Blackman who is a London Conservative MP and six DUP MPs.

The final day of that week, Friday of 1st March with contributions from local MP’s. The first item was entitled “Prayers” with a vote named “Motion for the House to sit in private”. Sixty two MPs voted ‘No’ and literally no MPs voted in favour. The people who voted ‘No’ were mostly Conservative and Labour MPs including Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Maria Caulfield and Nusrat Ghani.

The second item was the bill that Lloyd Russell-Moyle published on Friday, entitled “Conversion Practices (Prohibition) Bill” It is the second reading item of the Bill. Lloyd spoke to 26 items in the discussion. Caroline Ansell spoke briefly and Maria Caulfield from the cabinet office spoke several times. There were 68 in Agreement, 11 Conservatives, 51 Labour and a few others from Sussex, Lloyd and Caroline Lucas. Fifteen MPs rejected the Bill and only one was not a Conservative. The only Sussex MP who rejected it was Caroline Ansell. At the end of the session, it was stated that there would be a further discussion for that Bill which is scheduled for Friday at the end of the next week.