I write this from Westminster this week as I stayed in London to see my Private Members Bill on a Register of Not in School Children through today. There was no debate, it had cross-party support but I was still nervous that someone might object at the last moment. I have spent the week talking to MPs, home educators and the media about the Bill to make sure that everyone was happy. Some home educators are concerned that this might be a draconian bill that enforces a curriculum on them. This Bill will not do that but it will help identify those children that are being home educated and make sure that they have a suitable education. There is no statutory requirement at present for a register so we don’t know how many are being home educated or what they are learning which most people cannot believe. It will also put a duty on local authorities to provide resources and help where requested. I will now take the Bill through committee stage and third reading and have a friend in the House of Lords who will help take it through there.
We spent the first 4 hours of today debating a bill to ban puppy, cat and ferret smuggling which has become a big profitable criminal industry. This took so long because the Labour MPs were out in force to make long speeches so that the third Bill due to be debated today from Liz Truss was not allowed to be discussed. They then had the cheek to say that it was Conservatives talking out the Bill to the press. It was a shame as she had every right to speak on her Bill on single sex safe spaces and they could have voted it down later. I was the fourth Bill so it went through ‘on the nod’ which meant there did not have to be a debate. This is the opportunity when people like Sir Christopher Chope shout 'object' but I was ok.
Monday started with showing the amazing Gary and Sarah McCullogh around Westminster with members of the local Huntingdon’s Disease support group. Those of you who know Gary and Sarah will know what I mean when I say they are extraordinary people doing an incredible job in our villages. They know a young lad who needs some help and I was able to refer them to an alternative provision which does great work with young people who have gone astray.
I had a meeting with Vodafone in the afternoon to see whether we can extend mobile coverage in some of the villages. The company got back to me this afternoon to say it has moved the masts to help cover a wider area but Hambledon and Ashton are not covered by the masts so I will approach other providers. I know how irritating it is not to have a signal as I drive around. I also attended a meeting on female veterans to hear about the abuse and rape that many women have encountered in the Armed Forces. It was very shocking and my colleague, Sarah Atherton MP - a fellow Intelligence Corps veteran although she was a regular - has been working hard on this.
A busy education day on Tuesday talking about mobile phones and screen time in schools, meeting with home educators to hear their views on my Bill. The best bit of the day was taking West Meon School’s Headteacher, Julie Kelly, around Parliament and to No 10 as an Education Champion. Julie does a huge amount of work on rural schools and works with the Portsmouth diocese on church schools, so I wanted to thank her. West Meon School is a lovely school but like all rural schools, are worried about falling birth rates and having to merge with other schools. This would be very sad for our villages.
I whizzed around some of the drop-ins including a Natural Flood Management event and heard from volunteers how they are working to decrease flooding using nature-based solutions to help biodiversity and water quality. I talked about how I had been given bad publicity about not using washing machines, flushing loos etc during heavy storms and they agreed this was actually helpful advice. They called it the ‘accumulation of marginal gains’ which was a nice technical term to say every bit counts!
Other things this week included meeting a very well-known Israeli lawyer, Michael Sfard and the person who set up Breaking the Silence, Yehuda Shaul. Michael talked about the rage and sadness over October 7th but said that Israel was breaking international law in Gaza and the West Bank. We agreed that it is not in Israel’s best interest to continue and we need the release of the hostages and a ceasefire with a peace process going back to 1967 borders. We also heard that the end of the war would mean the end of Netanyahu’s government and it may be replaced by a far-right alternative. I hosted an event for charities working in Gaza and the West Bank and there were a wide range there.
We also got the Budget through and the reduction in NI. It has been a busy week and I have only highlighted a few events.
I will be out campaigning all day tomorrow with our Police and Crime Commissioner Donna Jones.
