I was honoured to attend the installation of the Bishop of Winchester last week. He has already made his maiden speech in the House of Lords and I expect will be contributing greatly to amending legislation.
The media this week was dominated by the vote on Rwanda but normal work went on behind the scenes.
It was lovely to see so many people on the coach tour which left from Bishops Waltham on Monday to come to Parliament. Although the traffic meant they were late, they still had the full tour and some time to talk to me in the historic Committee Room 14.
This committee room is the biggest in Parliament and both parties use it once a week in the evening to hold meetings. Labour have Monday evenings and the Conservatives Wednesday when Ministers come and talk to us. We also announce the results of leadership elections in this room.
During the day, all committee rooms are filled with Bill committee meetings – the Criminal Justice Bill is being held in Committee Room 10 and 17 MPs are attending. People often comment that the Chamber is very empty but many MPs are working in committee rooms around the estate either on Bill committees or in Select Committees.
My Monday morning had started early in Lancaster House to listen to the Defence Secretary outline his strategy. As the Foreign Secretary said last week, the world is becoming increasingly dangerous and we need to protect ourselves. Later in the week, I had a personal meeting with Grant Shapps to outline some of my concerns about how careers in the armed forces are managed and other issues which affect our serving personnel. He listened carefully and I hope that will bring some changes.
The ceilings in Lancaster House are amazing - it is managed by the Foreign Office, and like the main Foreign Office building it is often open to the public during the annual Open House Festival in London - keep an eye on https://open-city.org.uk/open-house-festival-2024
The Animal Welfare Bill went forward to the next stage this week too. I hope it will be in law soon. Last week, I met some farmers and they are very concerned about food imports and whether they have the same stringent high welfare standards that we have in the UK. It is important we look at the origin of our food and I am pleased that most supermarkets are now labelling British food and that includes online. It is also important for our food security. I saw in the Hampshire Chronicle recently that Westlands Farm shop is urging people to support local shops and that helps ensure that local produce is bought too.
On Tuesday, I was able to slip out of the Criminal Justice Bill to the Education Select committee where we were finalising the report on Ofsted. As you may know, I used to work as an Ofsted lay inspector so I have always had a lot of interest in the progress of the watchdog. We had a lot of submissions and I was able to talk to some of my local schools about their thoughts on inspections.
Small rural schools do find it difficult as the small number of staff means no one can help Ofsted inspectors if the head is out of the school that day for a visit or training course. I do believe we need inspections to hold schools to account but we have recommended some changes, and the report will be launched on 29th January. The new Chief Inspector is already working hard and will be looking at our report with interest.
The Criminal Justice Bill committee continued in the afternoon for three hours and that will be the pattern until the end of January with all Tuesday and Thursday taken up going through the Bill line by line. As I mentioned, I have concerns about sending prisoners to prisons outside the UK and I was not reassured during that clause as we were not given the detail I think is needed for such a major policy change.
On Wednesday, I met with the Solent Cluster, headed by Exxon. The aim is to make Fawley a centre of green energy including blue hydrogen and sustainable aircraft fuel. The cluster will put a huge amount of investment into doing this but need a licence from the government and local MPs and myself will be talking to ministers as this will provide jobs and investment into an industry which is going to be important now and for the future.
In the afternoon, I met some human rights defenders from various countries with my co-chair of the Women, Peace and Security group, They came from Myanmar, Kashmir, Jordan (a Palestinian), Somalia and Iran. All had been in prison at some point and were spending their lives supporting others at great risk to themselves and their families.
Following that, Open Doors had its annual report launch that lists the countries most at risk for Christians. You will not be surprised to see North Korea is at the top of the list. We heard from Christians around the world who had been persecuted and it is very disappointing people of any faith are still persecuted. You can find out more on this link: https://www.opendoorsuk.org/
The Rwanda Bill went through as you will have heard and is now in the Lords where I suspect it will be for some time. I hope that when it is finally enacted, it will be a deterrent, but we will wait to see.
Today the Prime Minister visited the High Street in Winchester. Because of security issues, we are not allowed to publicise the visit so I am sorry if people are cross that they were unable to meet him. I am sure he will be back another time, but these visits are completely out of our hands and we are only told at the last minute. Many of the Ministerial visits get organised by their departments without any recourse to the local MP and this can be very upsetting for local people as well as us.
I am out every weekend campaigning and just hope the cold weather finishes soon.
Have a good weekend.
