2023 January

On 26 January 2023 Defence Minister Alex Chalk MP gave a statement to the House of Commons on plans for the UK, the US and Germany to send tanks to Ukraine. I asked a question to the Minister: ‘Does the Minister agree that we should strongly support the comments of the Secretary-General of NATO when he says that this is an important time to end the Russian tyranny and to remind people that Ukrainians are the victims? They did not ask to be invaded and we should support them until the end.’

The House debated and voted for amendments to the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill on the 24 and 25 January 2023. The Bill’s objectives are to prevent organised criminals, fraudsters, kleptocrats and terrorists from using companies and other corporate entities to abuse the UK’s open economy.

I signed the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Book of Commitment, in doing so pledging my commitment to Holocaust Memorial Day and honouring those who were murdered during the Holocaust as well as paying tribute to the extraordinary Holocaust survivors who work tirelessly to educate young people today.

On 23 January 2023, I travelled to Brussels and attended a Joint Meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Interparliamentary Council (UNIC) & Sub-Committee on NATO Partnerships (PCNP), as a Member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PA). We were welcomed by NATO PA President Joelle Garriaud-Maylam, followed by Michal Szczerba, NATO PA Vice-President and Co-Chair of UNIC.

Today I visited the Launer Factory in Walsall. Launer was founded in the 1940s and has provided Her Majesty The Queen with handbags and small leather goods since 1968.