Last week I travelled to London on the Bank Holiday Monday ready for Treasury Orals on Tuesday. This is the regular session where the Treasury team take questions in the Chamber in the same format as the Prime Minister does during Prime Minister’s Questions on a Wednesday lunchtime. The difference though is that there are 45 minutes of specific questions followed by 15 minutes of Topicals, these are any Treasury related questions but not pre stated on the order paper. I then met with the Treasury Ministers to discuss the Finance Bill which was entering committee stage in the House on Wednesday.
On Wednesday I spent the morning in the Transport Select Committee as usual and then into Prime Minister’s Questions before we then had an Urgent Question and two Statements before the House then converted to its Committee format and the Finance Bill was debated. The House converts to Committee when the Committee Stage of a Bill is debated on the floor of the House instead of it going to a committee room. Mr Speaker then sits in a lower chair and the Mace is removed from its place. Once this was concluded the Bill then moves to further committee stages later in the month. This is the formal process of enacting changes from the Budget. After the votes in the Chamber, I then went to meet the Secretary of State for Transport for a meeting I had arranged between him and other local Conservative MPs who wanted to be briefed on what he was doing to support the challenges Hitachi are facing. They essentially got the same face to face brief that the Unions had had when they visited.
Thursday was an important day as the Back Bench Business Committee had scheduled a debate on Miners and Mining Communities that I wanted to speak in. This debate was originally scheduled a few weeks ago but had to be rescheduled due to a compression of time due to Urgent Questions/Statements that were heavily subscribed. This time there were no Urgent Questions or Statements so there was plenty of time available and many members contributed from both sides of the House but heavily North East biased. After this finished, I dashed for the 16.00 from Kings Cross to arrive in Darlington at 18.22 and headed directly to Hardwick Hall for the Aycliffe Business Park Make Your Mark Awards. These started at 18.30 but thankfully the main business was from 19.30 onwards so I was just okay for time. This was a fabulous evening celebrating the amazing businesses we have on the Business Park, we have so many of all sizes and sectors and it was fantastic to see them applauded and in particular to the Businessperson of the year, Andy Reed of Senstronics and the Lifetime Achievement Award to Ronnie Nicholson of Gestamp.
On Friday there was a community surgery at Chilton before meetings with Virgin O2 nexfibre about Aycliffe Broadband and then a catch up with Durham County Council and Transport for the North. Saturday was an amazing day that started at the Glow Centre where I joined the Eric Knows Charity and Hiyed CIC at a Space Day which is a STEM Day for SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) children and their families. But this was no ordinary Space Day! They had arranged for some of the young people to actually talk to astronauts on the International Space Station which was an amazing thing to experience.
Whilst there I met some other groups one of which was 1st Ferryhill Scout group, which was the one I was a member of when very young. Later in the day I went to Middleton St George Scouts to join the Lord Lieutenant and the Deputy Mayor of Darlington as they opened their new Scout Hall which had been funded by the Government’s Youth Investment Fund.
Monday 13th May saw me at Hitachi for a catch up with the Unions before I headed to London as it will be Transport Orals on Thursday and I wanted to be sure I was up to date with events at the factory. Then it was the afternoon train to Westminster.
As always if you want to get in touch, I can be contacted by phone on Aycliffe 790580, or by email on[email protected]
