Thank you to all those who have emailed me with their views about a ‘party’ that is said to have taken place in Downing Street.
I am as cross and infuriated as you are. Like many others, my mother had to spend Christmas by herself as we had 'bubbled' with our doctor daughter, who was finding working in the Covid wards in a London hospital very traumatic.
I hope that the Cabinet Secretary’s investigation will be published as soon as possible and people must be held accountable if the rules were broken.
The Government is bringing in Plan B to help prevent the spread of the omicron Covid variant. I have been wearing my mask consistently throughout, as I think most people have, so it will not make much difference to me. I will look into the details of the motion on Tuesday to make sure I agree with everything. I have been getting emails about vaccine passports – I will pass those views onto Ministers.
On a more positive note, I had 10 Scouts from Cheriton and Alresford visit me in Parliament on Monday morning. They were very interested in the building and learning more about how it all worked. Monday mornings are a good time to visit as we can go around the back of the House of Lords and Commons before it gets closed to the public for the working day.
MPs finished at 11pm on Monday which was slightly later than the usual 10pm vote but we managed to get several pieces of legislation through, including a 10-year drug strategy. Since my stint as the deputy Police and Crime Commissioner I have been very concerned about the county lines drug traffickers as they use vulnerable people to help them.
I also think that some of the middle-class drug takers don’t realise the impact their drug taking is having so this will be very helpful to raise awareness of the issues. There are more than 300,000 heroin and cocaine users in the UK.
These drugs shatter the lives of many families so I am very pleased that we now have this strategy in place. I am hosting a local conference on this in January.
On Monday we also passed the Dormant Assets Bill - legislation that allows bank and building society accounts that have not been used for over 15 years to be closed and the proceeds go to charities.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, we debated the Nationalities and Borders Bill. I had raised a couple of concerns with the Minister beforehand concerning safe passage to the UK for those who are suitable to offer asylum rather than paying huge sums of money to unscrupulous traffickers. Many of those arriving on our shores in small boats and in lorries are economic migrants but there are some from war torn countries like Afghanistan, or those that are persecuted for religious or political reasons.
We need to make sure that we take our fair share under the 1951 Refugee Convention. We have taken in over 20,000 Syrians and now are looking after Afghans under the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme, so we are doing our bit. The Bill will now go to the Lords where there could be further amendments.
On Wednesday morning I had my booster so I am feeling better protected, although my arm is still painful after two days.
Have a great weekend.
