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The post An Update from your Local MP – 14th March 2025 appeared first on Bell Ribeiro-Addy.
Following my letter to the Minister for Services, Small Business and Exports regarding the potential closure of Didsbury Village Post Office, I have now received a response. I understand how important this service is to residents and local businesses, and I will continue to engage with stakeholders to seek a positive outcome.
You can read the Minister’s response here:
George Freeman tells MPs that UK agriculture is at a critical moment. With the world needing to double food production in 25 years using the same land but less water and energy, the UK—home to 10 of the top 30 research institutes—could lead this effort. However, he warns that current policies could abruptly shrink the UK market for these innovations, threatening an emerging industry poised to become a global leader.
I rise as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on science and technology in agriculture, the deputy Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, and a former Minister for agritech and UK trade envoy. I am also from a farming family and I have no interests to declare other than a deep interest in my family’s ability to continue farming their farm in Suffolk.
Most of all, I am the Member of Parliament for Mid Norfolk, a fabulously rural constituency. I do not need to tell the Minister that, because he had the privilege of being the Labour party’s parliamentary candidate there three times. He knows what the House needs to know, which is that it is magnificently rural, with 130 villages and three towns. It is the absolute engine room of food, farming and food processing. From Banham Poultry to Cranswick, right through to the Goat Shed, Rosie and Alex Begg growing blackcurrants for Ribena, Carrick Farms, which supplies all the food to Darbys pub, and Novo Farina developing gluten-free flour, it is an engine of some of the most exciting activities and technologies in UK agriculture. It is that engine because for 50 or 60 years it has enjoyed a relatively stable framework of support. But history shows us, friends and colleagues, that if agriculture does not have that support, it is vulnerable. We had agricultural depressions at the end of the 19th century, in the 1920s and 1930s, and in the 1940s and 1950s.
We are at a most extraordinary moment for UK agriculture. We could be incubating a fabulous agritech industry. Across the world, there is a wall of money to invest in agricultural science and research. The world has to double food production in the next 25 years on the same land area, with half as much water and energy. We are home to 10 of the world’s top 30 research institutes—we are an engine room for those technologies. I say to the Minister that current policy will, overnight, massively reduce the market in the UK for those innovations. It will remove a great industry which is beginning to get off its feet and tackle the opportunity it has to be a global engine of innovation.
If we are not careful, we will sleepwalk into it, despite the warnings of the pandemic, global supply chain shocks, the Ukraine war and now President Trump’s trade wars, as others have said. In the interests of food security, affordability and sustainability, we need to support our UK agricultural industry and show the world how to deliver more from less. That is why the all-party parliamentary group on science and technology in agriculture, of which I am chair, has called for a tyre-screeching 180° U-turn to support the sustainable intensification of agricultural productivity. We need to produce more.
I can tell the Minister that in my beloved constituency, which he knows well, with the impact of the farm tax, the small business attack, the abolition of SFI and the massive subsidies for solar farms, it is beginning to look as though the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, with its 50% increase in housing targets, are trying to get farmers off the land to make way for solar farms and badly designed housing. This is a disaster for one of our most exciting industries—UK agritech—and I beg the Minister to take a stand for it.
Portsmouth MPs Amanda Martin and Stephen Morgan met with Defence Minister Luke Pollard in the Ministry of Defence to discuss their objections to the Aquind interconnector project.
In August, the city MPs welcomed a Ministry of Defence (MOD) intervention calling for the Aquind project to be blocked on national security grounds.
In a submission to ministers, the MOD said the Aquind project would “clearly and unacceptably impede and compromise” operations in and around Portsmouth Naval Base.
In the meeting with Minister Pollard, the Portsmouth MPs discussed their local campaign against Aquind, working with local campaigners to oppose the project.
Commenting, Portsmouth South MP Stephen Morgan said:
“I have long raised national security concerns as part of the representations I’ve been making on behalf of constituents regarding the proposed Aquind interconnector project.
“I was pleased to meet with the Defence Minister to discuss the concerns of Portsmouth people, and I will continue to make the case, alongside local campaigners, for this project to be refused.”
Commenting, Portsmouth North MP Amanda Martin said:
“I oppose the Aquind project due to the environmental damage, murky financing, and severe disruption it would cause for my constituents.
“However, all of this pales in comparison to the national security risk the project poses, as identified by the MOD. I welcome the opportunity to meet the Minister for the Armed Forces to discuss these issues and represent my constituents’ concerns.
“I will continue to stand with my community in our dedicated fight against Aquind.”
As local MPs, Stephen and Amanda have been active representatives of the STOP AQUIND campaign, tabling questions in Parliament and contacting Government departments on this issue. In the last Parliament, Stephen was dedicated in his scrutiny of the Conservative government on this and launched a petition with over 6,000 signatures.
The post Portsmouth MPs meet with Defence Minister to discuss objections to Aquind Interconnector appeared first on Amanda Martin MP.
The post February Newsletter appeared first on Mohammad Yasin MP.
The much-awaited Independent Review into Additional Learning Needs Education in Llanelli has now been published.
Written by David Davies, an experienced and well-respected expert in this field, the report is thorough and comprehensive. He has obviously taken the time to understand the situation fully, and has not been afraid to make his thoughts clear on what should happen next.
The conclusions contained within the report completely vindicate the campaigning of pupils, parents and local communities to save Ysgol Heol Goffa. Carmarthenshire County Council now really need to step up and make significant long-term improvements to education provision in Llanelli for children with additional learning needs, as well as those with autism.
Whilst Mr Davies has presented six different options to move forward, it is now imperative on the Plaid Cymru run Council to make the right choices and deliver the support and education that these children and young people need.
Nothing less than a new school for Ysgol Heol Goffa will do.
It is sad that it has all come to this. The Council Cabinet’s decision to renege on its long-held promise of a new school, the fear and uncertainty that it created by a lack of leadership and poor communication and their inability to accept responsibility for their actions will never be forgotten.
Families have had to fight passionately tooth and nail for what should have been the basic entitlement for their children to be treated fairly and properly. That surely cannot be right.
However, at long last, we are finally in a position to move forward.
All eyes will now be on Plaid Cymru councillors in charge of Carmarthenshire County Council to do the right thing in the coming weeks and months and create the provision that these children so richly deserve.
After fourteen years of Tory failure, our town centres and neighbourhoods are plagued by anti-social behaviour. Whether it’s street drinking, harassment or vandalism on the high street or noisy and intimidating off-road bikes, people in Leicester are fed up.
This action is long overdue, especially the Government action on shoplifting and supporting shopworkers, which cannot come soon enough.
The flagship Crime and Policing Bill is a vital step towards the safer streets for Leicester promised in this Government’s Plan for Change.
The post Labour Introduces Plan to Make Leicester’s Streets Safer appeared first on Liz Kendall.
Here in Bassetlaw, most people work hard all their lives, pay their dues and want to live comfortably. What unites many in anger is the known benefit fraudster, who lives down the street.
With billions of public money lost last year, it is time at long last for real action against the fraudsters. Those who are milking the system, be it the workshy or those feeding the coffers of organised crime. I have lost count of the number of times that I hear from local people that benefit fraud is happening and nothing seems to be being done about it.
I welcome the government’s new Fraud Bill, which will allow for the seizure of luxury goods, bags of cash, and mobile phones as evidence of fraud, and stronger powers to go after those who receive money they are not entitled to. Where there is an outright refusal to repay, it is right that their driving license should be taken away.
Banks and building societies will be able to flag when they spot fraud, such as expensive holidays aboard, or a wage going in whilst benefits are also being claimed. These powers will include strong safeguards, protecting the real vulnerable and the sick.
I cannot abide the thought of the hard-earned money of Bassetlaw people funding the luxury lifestyle of the fraudsters. Labour is the party of working people, and this is our values being put into action. I want to see the first raid take place in Bassetlaw.
This is also why I back the additional powers in this Bill that will pursue those who ripped us off during Covid pandemic, including the previous government’s greedy friends who grabbed the PPE contracts and the fake company owners who took the business loans. We cannot allow time limitations to act as a barrier. We want our money back, the thieves jailed and anyone who lined the pockets of their mates also feeling the long hand of the law on their collars.
The post Worksop Guardian Column 05/02/25 appeared first on Jo White MP.
An abridged version of this article ran in The Times on 3rd February 2025
In 2007, in the pages of this newspaper, I argued that Britain should seize the moment and move Heathrow to the Thames Estuary, freeing up the congested west London site for much-needed housing while creating a world-leading transport hub fit for the 21st century. It was an ambitious plan—perhaps too ambitious for a nation that has lost its appetite for grand infrastructure. Seventeen years later, what do we have? The same tired debates, the same dithering, and now, a third runway proposal that represents the absolute minimum of what could be done. It is not a vision; it is a concession to stagnation.
Throughout history, Britain built infrastructure that transformed cities and continents. The Victorians laid thousands of miles of railways across India and Africa. British engineers built the world’s first underground railway in London, the great docks of Hong Kong, and the vast shipping hubs that made global trade possible. Ours was once a nation that saw scale and complexity as challenges to be overcome, not reasons to prevaricate. Today, while China constructs floating airports in Hong Kong and Dalian, we are still arguing over a few extra miles of tarmac at an aging airport hemmed in by suburban sprawl.
The case for expanding Heathrow is undeniable. The airport operates at near capacity, with any disruption causing delays that ripple across the global aviation network. Additional capacity is needed. But the third runway is not a bold leap forward—it is an unimaginative compromise. The design is a relic of a bygone era when Britain was still willing to approve large infrastructure projects but had already begun its slow descent into cautious incrementalism. Surely for a solution we should be looking beyond the immediate horizon, daring to create something transformative.
Compare this to the grand infrastructure ambitions of Asia. Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok, which replaced the legendary but perilous Kai Tak airport in the 1990s, was built on reclaimed land. It was a marvel of engineering (mostly British), completed in just six years. Now, China is taking the concept even further: Dalian is constructing a floating airport, pushing the boundaries of what is possible. This is a country that doesn’t simply accept geographic limitations—it overcomes them. Britain, meanwhile, is paralysed by protest groups, endless consultations, and political hand-wringing.
A floating airport in the Thames Estuary—an idea proposed and swiftly dismissed—would have been a statement of ambition. London could have had its own Chek Lap Kok, a world-class hub unencumbered by the constraints of Heathrow’s location. Instead, we are left with a piecemeal expansion of an outdated site, in a project that will take decades and still leave Britain trailing behind.
The environmental argument against expansion is often cited as a reason for delay, but it is a red herring. Modern aviation is rapidly advancing towards lower emissions and greater efficiency. If the concern is air pollution and carbon footprints, the answer is not to stifle airport expansion but to embrace new technology, support cleaner aviation fuels, and invest in modern air traffic management. Britain should be leading these efforts, not using environmental concerns as an excuse for stagnation.
The economic cost of our hesitation is immense. Aviation is a key driver of trade, tourism, and investment. Heathrow’s constraints mean we lose out to European rivals, with airlines shifting long-haul routes to Paris, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt. The third runway, even if built, will do little to reclaim lost ground. By the time it is operational—assuming it even survives the judicial challenges that will inevitably come—other nations will have long since surpassed us.
What Britain needs is a fundamental shift in mindset. We must stop viewing major infrastructure projects as necessary evils to be endured and start treating them as national priorities. This requires reforming our planning laws, streamlining approval processes, and fostering a political culture that celebrates engineering excellence rather than recoiling from it.
The third runway at Heathrow is not the answer—it is a symptom of our decline. Instead of an afterthought tacked onto an aging airport, we should be considering radical alternatives: offshore airports, high-speed rail integration to regional hubs, and a renewed commitment to infrastructure that places Britain at the forefront of global connectivity. We were once a nation that built the world’s most advanced transport networks, that pioneered engineering breakthroughs others only dreamed of. We can be that nation again—but only if we stop settling for mediocrity and start daring to think bigger.
The world is not waiting for Britain to catch up. While we squabble over a single new runway, China is building entire new airports on water. The contrast is stark, and the lesson is clear: boldness breeds success, hesitation ensures decline. If Britain truly wishes to remain a global player, we must abandon the timid incrementalism of the third runway and embrace the kind of audacity that once made us great.
Kit Malthouse 1st February 2025
It was a pleasure to catch up with Leanne and Steve recently at Classic Cuts on Brownhills High Street with Brownhillsfirst Councillor Kerry Murphy.
I was pleased to learn that they have been serving our community for over 36 years and the business continues to thrive.
We had a good chat about all things Brownhills, and I also enjoyed gaining insights into the hairdressing industry while sipping on a lovely mug of tea.
If you’re in need of some pampering, be sure to check them out.
Christmas is a very special time. It's when we come together with friends and family to take stock, and give thanks for what we have.
Some years – in the best of times, this is cause for celebration.
Other years – it's more complicated if we're missing loved ones,
affected by illness, or facing money worries, homelessness, or loneliness.
Sometimes – let’s be honest, for many reasons, Christmas can just be about getting through it, and that's ok!
Because regardless of the year that’s been, or the circumstances you find yourself in, Christmas offers everyone a precious gift – hope.
Rushanara Ali MP statement on the anniversary of Bangladesh’s Victory Day 2024.
Today, I voted against the assisted dying bill. Here's why...
First and foremost, I want to thank everyone who has been in touch with me about the Assisted Dying Bill today. This was an incredibly important debate, and I am very grateful to my friend and colleague, Kim Leadbeater, for bringing it to the House.
I write to explain why, having listened to the debate very closely, I decided to vote against the Bill and instead recommend that the government establish a commission to urgently review the issues at stake and propose ways to radically improve palliative care.
I have been genuinely moved with sadness and compassion by the stories that people have shared with me. Of course, like everyone else, I have stories of my own. I lost my mum to a terrifically painful pancreatic cancer that took her life when she was just 52. I then experienced the long journey of supporting my dad through his subsequent struggle with alcohol addiction in the wake of losing the wife he loved so much. Inevitably, these experiences profoundly shaped the way I considered today’s vote.
My starting point is a fundamental belief in the dignity and sanctity of human life.
All cultures and societies recognize this, which is why almost every nation has such tight constraints around the legality of suicide.
At the core of today’s Bill was the question of whether these constraints should be relaxed and, if so, how.
My conclusion from today’s debate about the Assisted Dying Bill is that the proposed safeguards are not strong enough, not least because the condition of the NHS and the legal system simply could not support the demands that the Bill would place on them. Additionally, the Bill could have several unintended consequences that would significantly impact not only those in the last weeks of their lives but crucially their families, who live with the decisions long after their loved ones have left this earth.
Let me explain the five key issues that led me to my decision.
The dignity and sanctity of life are fundamental starting points for me.
This has long been a rock-solid belief in our society, as it is for nations around the world. For many, this is rooted in religious teachings that regard life as sacred and a gift from God. But there is also a long philosophical tradition that underpins our legal system, teaching us to protect human life as a fundamental value. The question at the heart of today’s Bill is: “In what circumstances should it be permissible to depart from these principles?”
The unbearable pain of chronic illness and the desire for the dignity of a ‘good death’ is completely understandable. Indeed, the moment for this Bill was always going to come because the extraordinary advances in medical technology mean that many more people are able to live longer with chronic and terminal illnesses. Confronting, indeed, confounding these advances in science and technology is in many ways the core demand of the Bill.
2. The Bill provides for several safeguards to protect the individual seeking to end their life. However, having served in public life for twenty years, including many years as a minister in the Department of Health, the Home Office, and the Treasury, my judgment is that the proposed safeguards are irreparably inadequate.
Someone who is terminally ill and seeks to end their life must obtain the approval of two doctors.
However, Section 4(5) allows a patient to seek a second or even third opinion if a doctor refuses to approve their request.
Combined with the chronic shortage of GPs in our NHS today (consider how hard it is for most people to get an appointment), I am convinced this proposal will lead to both “doctor shopping” and the emergence of “specialist doctors” who become well known as the “place to go” to get the sign-off to end one’s life. This has, in fact, happened in Canada, where assisted dying is legal.
This challenge is compounded by the vague definition of “terminal illness” used in the Bill. I fear it is so vague that it could be interpreted to include situations such as mental health conditions.
3. Second, there are merely weak safeguards against coercion.
Section 15 of the Bill allows a proxy to sign the paperwork if the patient is unable to do so. But what is to stop someone from doing this when a relative is so ill or paralyzed that they cannot act to stop it?
In theory, a judge must certify that no coercion has been involved. But, where will these judges come from? The backlog in the courts is already years long. We do not have enough judges to deliver a basic justice system as it is. Where will new judges appear from? And how will they have the resources to genuinely investigate whether coercion has taken place?
4. Finally, I deeply fear the unintended consequences for those in the last months or years of their lives, who worry that they are a “burden” on their loved ones. If assisted dying becomes legal, I fear that many will self-sacrifice not because they want to end their own pain, but because they wish to end the pain of others on whose love and care they depend. And that cannot be morally right or good.
5. There are a host of other issues. I fear that if assisted dying becomes legal, we will completely undermine the incentive for governments to invest much more in palliative care and hospices. We will fundamentally change the relationship between GPs and patients. Evidence from Canada and the Netherlands indicates that legal cases multiply quickly, expanding the scope of those who can apply for an assisted death because they cannot bear the burden of living. There is also confusion about what lethal drugs should be used and how they should be administered. The reliance on today’s definition of mental capacity is problematic and in my experience as the child of an alcoholic, may not be a strong enough safeguard for those struggling with addiction.
This has been an important debate. Because of advances in medical technology, the debate is not going to go away; it will become more acute. That is why I believe the right outcome is the in-depth commission that some have proposed, to ensure a proper study of these questions.
Thank you once more to everyone who has taken the time to write to me. I appreciate many will disagree with the way I voted today, but if there is one thing I owe my constituents more than anything else, it is my judgement.
Last week I was sworn in as the MP for South Shields for the fifth time, and each time it strikes me how incredibly honoured I feel that you have put your faith in me as the first female MP to represent you in Parliament. It was a truly historic night as the UK elected […]
The post It is the honour of my life to be re-elected as your MP for South Shields appeared first on Emma Lewell-Buck.
The post Toby Perkins MP supports Chesterfield Hedgehog Rescue and Rehabilitation appeared first on Toby Perkins Labour MP.
Entries for submitting your photographs for the Rhondda Calendar are now open.
The top twelve entries will be show cased in the 2018 Calendar with prize money for the top three entries.
Proceeds from the sale of the calendar will go to local charities.
Deadline 31st August 2017!
The post Rhondda Calendar 2018 appeared first on Chris Bryant.