My Older People's Fair took place in Wickham today, which is Friday if you are reading this over the weekend. I took a "team photo" above with the organisations who came, and I know many people found it helpful and made new connections.
As someone who is in that category - although refusing to believe how old I am - I think that calling it an Older People's Fair is ok. I held one in Portsmouth when I was the MP there and will never forget the 83-year-old lady who came up to me and said she had not spoken to anyone for three weeks.
This shows me just how important it is to help those in retirement. The great thing about village life is that people do look out for each other but larger towns and cities can be lonely places to live in.
I was delighted to welcome constituents to Westminster on Monday. Our February coach is already full and I am looking at a date in June for the next one. Email me if you are interested. You will get a professional tour and then a meeting in one of the committee rooms afterwards. Otherwise, you can come up another time and get my version of the tour which is a little more personal
We passed the remaining stages of the House of Commons part of the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) and it will now go to the House of Lords where I suspect there will be a lot of amendments. Many other countries have a similar law and it will ensure a safe level of basic services. We do need to protect the right to strike, but we must balance it with the right of the public to access safe public services.
We have accepted in full the recommendations of the independent Pay Review Bodies giving two million workers the highest uplift in nearly 20 years. We know that inflation is causing a lot of problems with the cost of living. This is why we are giving so much money in energy support. It is also true that public sector workers were protected during covid and have very good pensions compared to many working in the private sector. For example, the average salary of a teacher is £39,500 with a starting salary of £28,000 or £30,000 from September this year. They get good holidays and a pension employer contributions of 23.6%.
Academies have the power to set their own pay bands and bonuses. I am campaigning to reform schools which should help with the workload (another issue) and I know that the Secretary of State is listening.
On Tuesday we had a statement from the Environment Secretary about clean air and water. Reporting on sewage discharge has improved from 5% to 90% and will be 100% by the end of the year so we can be confident that we have an accurate picture of what is being discharged into rivers and seas. I have been to several Wastewater Treatment Works and seen how water is filtrated so that water discharged is almost clear before it is discharged in an overflow. 93% of bathing waters meet the highest standards of good and excellent.
However, we must be sure that our infrastructure can cope and there is a massive programme in place to replace ageing pipes and we have introduced stringent targets in storm overflow reduction. The opposition parties tried to put amendments about sewage discharge into the UK Infrastructure Bank Bill on Wednesday but we already have incorporated most of what they were saying.
A cynic might say one Lib Dems amendment was put forward so they could wrongly tell the public (again) that Conservatives voted to put sewage in our rivers and seas. They are still peddling this mistruth and I hope that no one is still believing it.
On Tuesday we launched the Education Select Committee’s inquiry into childcare. We have had over 1700 submissions and it is being keenly followed. I hope that we will come out with some recommendations that are good for parents, providers and the taxpayer. We put large amounts of money into childcare but it is still a huge cost for parents, mostly because it comes out of net income. There are many ways of solving this and we need to get to the bottom of it soon
Yesterday, we discussed the Restoration and Renewal Programme of the Palace of Westminster in the Public Accounts Committee. Having had a basement tour, I am very concerned that water pipes are next to electricity cables and substations alongside gas pipes. We could have a catastrophic issue with our UNESCO world heritage site going the same way as Notre Dame or Windsor Castle, not least that people only have 10 minutes to get out of the building. This needs to be dealt with quickly and I hope that the new body looking at this will come back with a programme by the end of the year. It is going to cost a lot of money but I think it is important for the country that we sort it quickly. It is such a tourist attraction.
Last week I had a good street stall in Waterlooville with constituents asking myself and Cllr Gwen Robinson about the future of the town centre. It is still a top priority for us and the new owners of Wellington Way are hoping to open shops soon. I was on Times Radio on Sunday evening talking about Nadhim Zahawi, the strikes and transgender prisoners, an interesting combination.
And finally, I popped into the Denmead community café in the church hall and it was lovely to see so many people there. The WI made delicious cakes and it was an opportunity for anyone feeling lonely to meet up with others. A great initiative.
Have a good weekend.
