This week in Parliament includes events for Sussex MPs as published on the ‘TheyWorkForYou’ website. On Wednesday afternoon, listed as “New Hospital Programme” in the House of Commons run by Kieran Mullan, the Conservative MP for Bexhill and Battle. On Friday there will be 15 Proposed Bills from members of Parliament. The 5^th item is “Domestic Abuse (Aggravated Offences) Bill: Second Reading” which is proposed by Josh Babarinde, the Liberal Democrat MP for Eastbourne.  He previously referred to it on 9^th December 2024 which was supported by 11 Liberal Democrat MPs across the UK and Alison Bennett the only Sussex MP based in Mid Sussex. He did reference the “Early Release Scheme” on 10^th December 2024 which stated

“I have introduced the Domestic Abuse (Aggravated Offences) Bill to create a specific set of domestic abuse aggravated offences—a bit like racially aggravated offences—that could be excluded from early release schemes. Women’s Aid is backing my Bill; will the Secretary of State back it, too?”.

Josh commented on “Violence against Women and Girls” on 9^th January 2025, He stated:

“I convened survivors, academics and support organisations to come up with a solution, which exists in the form of a Bill that I introduced: the Domestic Abuse (Aggravated Offences) Bill, which would create a specific offence of domestic abuse in law for the first time. It would work in a similar way to racially and religiously aggravated offences by creating domestic abuse aggravated GBH, ABH or whatever it might be. Beyond giving the means for the Government to exclude domestic abusers from an early release scheme, it would tighten up some of the data, which is very difficult for academics and others to analyse when they are looking into the effectiveness of interventions.”

This afternoon includes the e-Petition of 652602 entitled: “Don’t increase the income requirement for family visas to £38,700” which has had 101,321 signatures since December 2023 and was created by Shannon Korkmaz. In Sussex, all areas had at least 0.1% signatures for this petition with a total of 2,911 and the biggest being Brighton Pavilion and Hove with 926 signatures. It will be interesting to see if any of our Sussex MPs will take part today. Irene Campbell, the Labour MP for North Ayrshire and Arran Scotland near Glasgow is supporting the e-Petition for more MPs to sign for what she refers as “relating to the income requirement for family visas”.

Beccy Cooper, the Labour MP for Worthing West has been debating the Tobacco and Vapes Bill which emerged on 7^th January and several days since including last Tuesday. Across the UK there are 11 Labour, 4 Conservatives and 1 Liberal Democrat MPs supporting the Bill. Helena Dollimore, the Labour/Co-operative MP for Hastings and Rye has been discussing “Water (Special Measures) Bill”, on 9^th January and again last Tuesday. This Bill also has support across the UK from 11 Labour, 3 Conservatives and 2 Liberal Democrat MPs.

The other significant debate was last Monday, created by Alison Bennett, she proposed the “Sixth-Form College Strikes: Sussex”. It was very good to see her comments but disappointing that no other Sussex MPs have been involved although there were comments from other people in Parliament. Her first open comment was:

“In my constituency, our young people are fortunate to have several highly regarded sixth-form options, including three brilliant colleges just over the constituency boundary in Brighton, Hove and Horsham. Varndean is one of only a handful of state-funded colleges offering the prestigious international baccalaureate; students at BHASVIC—Brighton, Hove and Sussex sixth-form college—received over 50 offers to study at Oxford and Cambridge last year; and Collyer’s has the best results in west Sussex and is in the top 15 colleges nationally for value added.

Since late November, those three local colleges have been among 32 across England, including one in the Minister’s constituency, that have held seven strike days—four before Christmas and, to date, three in January. I secured this debate having already submitted written parliamentary questions, the answers to which further frustrated those caught up in the dispute. In my opinion, the Government have dropped the ball on fairly and adequately funding non-academised sixth-form colleges. I feel that teachers are being treated unfairly and that students in Mid Sussex and beyond are being badly failed as a result.”

Alison spoked at the end

“Why would sixth-form teachers take this step and cause more disruption to their students?… In July, the Government accepted the recommendation of the School Teachers’ Review Body to increase the pay of teachers in schools by 5.5%, and £1.2 billion of funding was provided for that pay award, but the Government excluded teachers at non-academised sixth-form colleges, yet they do exactly the same job as those in academised sixth-form colleges and at maintained schools. So far, the Government have provided two explanations for that illogical decision. First, in response to my parliamentary question, they said: “The government is not responsible for setting or making recommendations about teacher pay in further education…colleges, including sixth form colleges.”… I close…. by urging the Minister and the Government to reconsider their approach; to find the small amount of money remaining to ensure that teachers are paid the same for the same job; and to finally put this cohort of students, whose education was most affected by covid disruption, at the centre of decisions made by Government that affect them.”