As the Parliamentary term aligns itself with the school holidays, we are now on recess at Westminster but I continue work in the constituency. I hope that all the teachers and school staff have a good fortnight off to recharge their batteries.
The big news from Parliament this week was about the review of the Coronavirus regulations. I spoke in the debate and I supported the introduction of amended regulations for the remainder of the roadmap period. You can watch my speech here.
The review does not alter the roadmap for the end of lockdown - it was a requirement written into the original legislation that we review it every six months - but the amended regulations enable retired medical staff to continue working and allows the government to provide financial support for businesses and people. No one wants to be in lockdown forever, but I feel that it is too early to lift every restriction, and we should keep to the roadmap.
One idea which has been discussed involves "vaccine passports" as a potential way of certifying who has been vaccinated so that restrictions in some areas of life could be lifted more quickly, or to enable freer international travel. I am interested in your views on this issue, and there is a brief survey on my website.
We are seeing a rise in cases again and the vaccination programme is slowing down while we wait for more vaccines to be made. We need to ensure the most vulnerable to get their second dose.
The science suggests that there is significant cover after the first dose so I hope that we can keep this virus under control. Of course, the longer that we have an unvaccinated population, the more likely that there will be mutations of the virus so we need to continue to be cautious.
Finally, the situation in Europe is not good with a third wave taking hold, so I hope that with our border controls, we can keep any further variants out.
Please continue to be cautious but I am looking forward to sitting in my mother’s garden next week. It will be very nice to see her in person even from a distance.
Also in Westminster, we had a statement from the Foreign Secretary about putting Magnitsky rules restrictions on Chinese officials in the Xianjiang region. The Government has been very concerned about the treatment and repression of the Uighur population in the province and has identified four Chinese government officials who have investments overseas.
China has now banned some of my colleagues from travelling to China in retaliation. I asked a question in the statement about how the UK, US and the EU can work together as open societies confront authoritarian regimes. You can see the video here.
I also spoke to a leading member of the Aghan Parliament to learn more about the peace process there. I am chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Women, Peace and Security and I am very concerned about women in Afghanistan.
You will have read about how the Taliban is executing leading figures in Kabul and this has included female judges, teachers and politicians. I asked for more women to be involved in the peace process. I was also pleased to talk to the Saudi Ambassador this week on the peace process in Yemen. These two fragile states need our attention as the humanitarian impact on the population is huge.
On more domestic issues, I met with Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney from the teachers’ union the NEU this week to talk about the future of assessment and the curriculum in our schools. I am concerned that too many of our young people are not being given the skills for the modern world and too many are dropping out. I am working with many educators to look at how we can change our education system.
Lastly, I was pleased to sign Donna Jones’ nomination paper for the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) candidature. She is an experienced politician and magistrate and I know she will be a fine and approachable PCC.
Because of recess, there will be no weekly roundups for the next two weeks, but I hope you keep safe and well.
