I attended the Vaisakhi celebrations in Parliament on Tuesday 18 April 2017 organised by Pat McFadden, Labour MP for Wolverhampton South East. Sikhs from the Black Country and across the country attended Mr Speaker's apartments to celebrate Vaisakhi, one of the most important dates in the Sikh calendar. It is the Sikh New Year festival and it also commemorates 1699, the year Sikhism was born as a collective faith.

Parliament returned after the Easter Recess and I responded to a statement made by the Leader of the House, Rt Hon David Lidington MP, on the motion for a Early Parliamentary General Election. My speech is below:

I attended the funeral service of PC Keith Palmer 1968-2017 at Southwark Cathedral on 10 April 2017 to remember PC Keith Palmer who was stabbed whilst on duty and protecting Parliament.

On 5 April 2017 Joseph Leckie Academy’s application to the Condition Improvement Fund (CIF) 2017- 2018 was approved.

We live in a free, democratic society which is something we take for granted. Yet the events of last Wednesday remind us sharply that we sometimes have to defend these values against attack. The cost can be high - PC Keith Palmer losing his life in the act of protecting Parliament and all of us who represent you there, and all the staff who work there. We mourn too Aysha Frade, Kurt Cochran and Leslie Rhodes who were killed whilst crossing Westminster Bridge.