It’s been a long week in Westminster as we head into half-term recess.
On Monday I met with the Secretary of State for Education, Gavin Williamson as part of a ‘virtual visit’ to Hopwood Hall College. A few weeks ago I asked him to meet with the team at the college to discuss T-Levels and how we make them a success. It was great to talk about these fantastic qualifications and how they’ll enable people in Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale to access quality jobs in the future.
Tuesday and Thursday were spent in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill Committee as line-by-line scrutiny began. The process is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin, as a group of MPs from various parties go through the detail of the Bill clause by clause to understand its workings in detail and if necessary, make changes to avoid unintended consequences. A very dry, but very important part of the job. This is my third Bill Committee since being elected and it’s fascinating to see how the legislative process works in detail.
Wednesday was the stand-out day of the week with a large amount of press coverage for the Science and Technology Select Committee’s hearing with Dominic Cummings into ‘lessons learned’ from the pandemic.
Mr Cummings is a controversial figure to say the least and made some very bold claims which he has promised to back up at a later date – whether he does is another matter altogether. The hearing was planned to run for three hours and lasted just over seven in the end – I was proud to have played my small part in questioning a key player in the early response to COVID-19. As to the quality of his response, I'll let you be the judge.
On Friday I was back in the constituency and had a series of meetings, including a visit to Mantra in Middleton to talk about the challenges facing the logistics sector which is a significant employer in the area – I also met with the team from Veterans into Logistics who are looking at ways to get more service leavers into the sector.
This week I also met with the new leader of Rochdale Borough Council. It’s fair to say my relationship with the previous leader was poor at best. I’m pleased to say the new leader is a lot less partisan and was only too happy to talk about ways we can work together to improve things locally for the people we both represent.
Parliament isn’t sitting next week so I’m looking forward to seeing some of you out and about in the constituency over the few days – looks like we’ll have good weather for it!
