Another interesting week that included me joining two parish council meetings, one at Middridge and one at Fishburn. Both, of course, virtual. Whilst very different places they both can have similar problems, typically things like planning and traffic. I like getting to these meetings when I can as the Parish Councillors are properly in touch with their local issues and at the moment it is difficult to get into communities to listen myself. As I have said before the range of subject areas I engage in is beyond interesting and this week included meeting an energy efficiency company; a round table discussion on vaccine misinformation; a discussion on getting to zero and a briefing from the Department for International Trade on the continuity deals from leaving the EU.
The Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, joined us at the virtual 1922 Committee. As a reminder this is a committee formed from all the back bench Conservative members of Parliament. I also had a meeting with Save the Children who wanted to discuss the work we are doing in the Left Behind Neighbourhoods APPG. Our next meeting of the APPG is on the 26th January when we will be discussing infrastructure under the heading of Buses, Broadband and Beeching. I recorded an interview for Radio 4 on Sedgefield, the red, now blue, wall and the Northern Research Group. This should be broadcast in the next week or so. I am a member of the NRG who are working to support the government in identifying the policies that are particularly important to the north.
Other discussions included with East Durham Running; EMAG (who are campaigning on the Equitable Life scandal). I also had sessions with Nadhim Zahawi, the Vaccines minister; Mark Spencer, the Chief Whip, Therese Coffey, the Secretary of State for DWP and education ministers Vicky Ford and Nick Gibb. I had the opportunity to talk with Wingate Nursery School about the pressures they are facing and to then raise these with the Secretary of State for Education in the chamber as I had drawn a question. In case you didn’t know, when it comes to questions in the House of Commons to ministers we put our names forward and there is then a draw to see who gets to ask a question. As these are mostly virtual now, demand is high and we don’t get as many opportunities as normal. As you can see I have real engagement opportunities despite the constraints of Covid so if you have something you want raising with ministers please get in touch.
Monday was brew Monday where we met representatives from Samaritans and had a virtual cuppa with them on line to both promote their work and to hear how the pandemic was impacting them. For the first time for a few weeks I was able to go and volunteer with the Play Cafe crew at the Big Club. It’s a pleasure to help them and it also gives me the opportunity to hear the sort of issues they are trying to help. Monday ended with a meeting with the rail minister where I once again promoted the need to support our local infrastructure needs in Ferryhill station and the Leamside line.
BEIS select committee this week had us questioning Alok Sharma, President of COP26, on progress and planning for this critical event before then questioning the new Secretary of State for BEIS, Kwasi Kwarteng, on the Energy White Paper and other issues. These included Brexit, Covid 19 and the Mineworkers pension scheme. If you would like to watch them, these sessions are live on Parliament.tv or you can go to watch later on catch up.
Our next few weeks Sedgefield virtual surgeries, all held at 3.00pm on Thursdays, are to cover Covid19 specific enquiries; Education; Benefits assistance; Council Services; Crime; Community issues; Housing and Broadband. If you want to talk to us on any of these please call or email the office and we can book a slot. If the time doesn’t suit you please call anyway and we will sort something for you.
I am delighted that the North East are leading the way on the vaccination roll out and, of course, that the UK to is one of the best in the world at getting vaccines into arms. As I write we seem to be seeing a start to the infection rates falling which, hopefully, will then manifest itself in reduced pressure on our NHS. It’s great that we are seeing the vaccine rolling out at pace but remember it takes a couple of weeks to get immunity in your system and we don’t know yet whether, even if you are immunised, you could still carry and transmit Covid to others. So whether you have been immunised or not please continue to follow the rules:
Stay Home, Save Lives and Protect our NHS
Paul Howell, Member of Parliament for Sedgefield
