Happy May Day!
Parliament is now prorogued pending the State Opening on the 10th, so this will be the last update for a couple of weeks.
Last week in Westminster we were very heavily focused on getting final pieces of legislation passed into law before the end of the term and that meant a lot of late nights!
Whilst 22 new laws have now been passed, the big ones are The Nationality and Borders Bill which will enable us to enact our New Plan for Immigration, creating a fairer system for dealing with illegal migration and the Elections Act which will introduce voter ID to combat fraud in our democracy.
That doesn't mean that there hasn't been a lot going on besides.
This week I had a catch up meeting with the Coalition for Global Prosperity on the subject of and funding, particularly how our aid programmes can be used to support Ukrainian after the war.
On Tuesday I chaired a meeting of the APPG on Local Government to launch a new report on the integration of Health and Social Care. The cross-party group works to make recommendations to Government on important topics. With an aging population and the NHS under increased demand, it's important we look properly at the future of care so that the system is fit for future generations.
Also this week I had the privilege of co-sponsoring a Bill to create an Office of the Whistleblower, introduced by my college Mary Robinson, the MP for Cheadle. As we saw with the Rochdale grooming scandal, there needs to be a better way of highlighting institutional failings and I hope this Bill can do that.
I managed to get a few meetings in this week on topics of personal interest too. One of these was meeting with Bowel Cancer Awareness. Bowel Cancer is the second most common cancer in the UK and has affected my family as well as man others.
On Thursday I was lucky enough to get a spot in the Lords for the formal prorogation of Parliament - no one does this sort of thing quite like us and it was wonderful to watch this ancient tradition in person.
Back up in the Constituency, I had a meeting at HMP Buckley Hall to discuss the status of prisoners still on IPP licenses - in some cases people have served seven or eight time their original tariff and have no clear route to get themselves back into the wider world. It's a series failing in our justice system and I want to see if I can do something about it.
I also had the very lovely experience of visiting St Gabriel's Primary in Middleton. The best questions always come from children and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting staff and students.
It looks like we'll have good weather for the Bank Holiday so get out and enjoy it, and don't forget to vote on Thursday!
