Today is at the opening of the Parliament following the Party Conferences. The Conservative Party Conference closed last Wednesday in Birmingham.

Three Sussex MPs published some comments #CPC24 Andrew Griffith MP

“I’ve now finished off my #CPC24 panels with a packed @ukonward event on The British Entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is the bedrock of a Conservative economy. We must diagnose where we let down small enterprise, and how we get the state out of their way as they create wealth.”

Mims Davies MP said,

“An outstanding morning in the hall as we concluded a remarkably positive-despite a tough backdrop party conference- #CPC24 -thank you to all our outstanding candidates who have been put through their paces & done us proud. I’m confident we’ll make a strong choice for who is next”.  

Nusrat Ghani MP introduced

“to #Paris2024 & back with a Gold Medal! Great to join our communities at a wonderful local celebration of our very own @TeamGB Olympic Gold Medallist Emily Craig & congratulate her on this incredible achievement! She’s a great inspiration”.

The Conservative Party will announce their new leader later this year on November 2nd.

On the 12th of September Alison Bennett Liberal Democrat MP, from Mid Sussex made a significant contribution to the debate “NHS: Independent Investigation” which included two Conservatives. She received a response from the Labour “Secretary of State for Health and Social Care” Wes Streeting. Alison:

“I welcome the announcement of the Secretary of State about the shift from hospital to community care. My fellow Liberal Democrats and I fully believe that fixing social care is part of the solution in getting the NHS back on its feet, so I also welcome the announcement of a national care service. Part of care in the community is of course the hospice sector. I recently met the chief executive of St Catherine’s hospice, which is in the constituency of Mims Davies. He highlighted to me that, although the hospice has 24 beds, it is currently using only 12 of them. What assurance can the Secretary of State give me, and people right across the country, that fixing the hospice sector will be part of the solution as we take the NHS forward?”

Wes:

“I am so grateful for that question, not least because it gives me the chance as a constituency MP to say a huge thank you to St Francis hospice and Haven House children’s hospice for the care they provide to constituents, like so many other hospices around the country. I know that the sector is under real pressure. We look forward to working with the sector throughout the period of the spending review and the 10-year plan, not only to support our hospices but to improve end-of-life care, which is pertinent to debates that I know this House and the other place will have about how we ensure a good death for everyone, in every part of the country”.

At the moment the public e-Petition system in Parliament is waiting to open. If 10,000 people sign an e-petition a government will respond by making a statement in the House of Commons. If 100,000 people have signed it, MPs will potentially debate the subject although some MPs have debated subjects with smaller numbers of sections. The very first comment on e-Petition in Parliament occurred on November 1999 mentioned by Alan Duncan, the Conservative MP from Rutland and Melton who was Shadow Spokesperson (Trade and Industry) and he was speaking in “Orders of the Day — Electronic Communications Bill” He stated “The Minister was kind enough to refer to the e-petition that I electronically signed this morning.” From then on in 2005 in Parliament it was a clearly established process within the Labour Government at the time. So far there have been more than 662,000 e-Petitions. The last time they were referred was towards the end of May 2024. The General Election meant that the e-petitions website and all e-petitions closed on Thursday 30 May. The e-petitions site will open again once the House of Commons sets up a new E-Petitions Committee. It would be fantastic if Sussex MPs would be willing to persuade the Government to offer them again.

The significance of Early Day Motions is another important theme that could emerge. They are described on the UK parliament website as

“EDMs are used to put on record the views of individual MPs or to draw attention to specific events or campaigns. Topics covered by EDMs vary widely. By attracting the signatures of other MPs, they can be used to demonstrate the level of parliamentary support for a particular cause or point of view.” … “Who will not sign EDMs? Ministers, Whips and Parliamentary Private Secretaries do not normally sign EDMs.”

Peter Kyle is the only Labour Minister and because of his role as “The Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology” will therefore be unable to respond on. Sian Berry, the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion has signed 52 items including for Beccy Cooper, Labour MP from Worthing West and Jess Brown-Fuller, Liberal Democrat MP from Chichester but not Helena Dollimore, Labour MP for Hastings and Rye. Currently 173 EDMs have been achieved with 94 during July and 79 in September. There were only 18 days that MPs were active in Parliament from July and September, it will be interesting to see how many EDM’s are raised in the last three months of this year.