2019

On Tuesday 9 July 2019 Parliament debated the third reading of the Northern Ireland Executive Formation Bill. The Bill was a Parliamentary measure to maintain the Government in Northern Ireland which has not had an executive since March 2017.

What chaos: a future Prime Minister refusing to support his own ambassador in the face of verbal abuse. It is disgraceful that there was a malicious leak of emails. Sir Kim Darroch was doing his job. The Secretary of State for International Trade vowed to apologise to the President’s daughter, an unelected representative. What on earth is he doing meeting the President’s daughter, and why is he apologising to her and not to Sir Kim Darroch?

I responded to a Business Statement to the Commons on Monday 8 July 2019, thanking the Leader of the House for providing more time for the debate on Northern Ireland. Important issues, including abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, were to be discussed in the debate.

Since 2010 the number of cases assisted by legal aid has dropped from 900,000 to 15,000. This is about the rule of law and access to justice. If the Leader of the House could ensure that the Government will automatically fund legal aid for the families of victims of terrorist atrocities—a subject that I raised with him last week—that would be a nice way of celebrating the anniversary of the Act.

On the weekend of Saturday 29 June 2019, I attended several summer events in Walsall. These events were part of the Mayor’s Community Weekend and were realised with the help of the National Lottery Community Fund, which awarded £85,000 to 170 groups across the West Midlands.