Mims's September News Letter

afdy · 5 September 2019 18:08

Hello from Mims

It’s September! How did that happen! The children are back at school and there is a chance to look back at summer across the Eastleigh constituency. It has been one filled with many exciting and important announcements from our new Prime Minister and not to mention some cracking weather at times which I hope many of you have been out enjoying! I have just returned from Japan at the G20 in my new role as Minister for Employment sharing our knowledge and best practice around jobs and the Labour market on flexible working, supporting the disabled, skills and retraining, those with care responsibilities balancing the youth job opportunities and older workers more about this later in the newsletter. Yesterday the new Chancellor Sajid Javid also brought forward the Spending Review, announcing extra funding for our schools, colleges, NHS and towards our defence, with specific funding towards further education, special educational needs as well as social care, and £750 million to deliver 20,000 more bobbies on the beat. I’ll be sending out a separate newsletter focussing on this soon! Meanwhile, there is always much to look forward to and it’s Eastleigh Pride this weekend and I am looking forward to a great day! Here’s hoping the sun shines for the celebrations!

Recent Announcements :
This summer, the Government announced plans to boost our healthcare with a new vaccine strategy and investment into our hospices plus in the new spending round, a new £1,000 personal development budget over 3 years for every nurse, midwife and allied health professional. As Eastleigh’s MP, I have spent time visiting local hospices including most recently, the Countess Mountbatten Hospice , and meeting with many of their dedicated staff and volunteers, and I know how vital these commitments are. You can read more about these announcements and many more below.

Over the past year, I have received a growing amount of correspondence from my constituents over policing across my Eastleigh constituency, across Hampshire and across the country. I am thrilled to see that the Prime Minister has announced the recruitment of 20,000 new police officers . Read more here.

As many of you will know, and have taken the time to write in about, the Prime Minister will prorogue Parliament in September. I firmly agree with this decision and therefore understand his request to the Queen to end the current parliamentary session next month and then hold a new Queen’s speech on Monday 14th October. We urgently need to get on with the domestic agenda – helping our NHS, fighting violent crime, investing in key infrastructure and vitally cutting the cost of living for people up and down the country, including making progress on cutting the cost of living for people in work, something I am focussing on as the new Employment Minister. There are also vital Bills that need to be carried over in to a new Parliamentary session, including the Agriculture Bill and Fisheries Bill that so many constituents have written to me about.

I welcome this chance to set a new agenda and renewal of a much overdue Queen’s speech and I would urge my constituents to read the Prime Ministers letter in full. You can find this below.

As we returned and business resumed this week, lots of constituents have emailed in about the Animal Sentience Bill and as you will see throughout this newsletter, animal welfare continues been a big topic locally and as we mark International Dogs Day, I am looking forward to continuing my support for animal rights and working with Ministers to campaign for this cause.

In addition to the Animal Sentience Bill, I’ve also had lots of emails about the Beer and Pubs and EU rights . I provide regular updates to key policy matters on my website, you can find my response here and here.

Thank you to all of those who have taken the time to write in and as ever, please get in touch if you’d like to be added to my mailing list or do contact me if there’s anything else you would like to have a chat about.

Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill

The Animal Welfare Sentencing Bill returned to the house this week and I am proud to have worked alongside Ministers at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and I know how important it is that we protect our environment and care for the animals around us.

You can read more about my involvement with the bill here.

New measures for Home Ownership

A new package of measures aimed at helping people on lower incomes to get onto the housing ladder - including changes to the Shared Ownership scheme meaning people will be able to buy their home in 1% chunks, rather than being forced to save up 10% at a time has been introduced this month.

The new measures will also make it easier for people to take out a mortgage through the Help to Buy scheme, and build upon the cut to Stamp Duty for first-time buyers.

Find out more here

One Community Annual Meeting

Our voluntary organisations play such an important part within our communities. As former Charities Minister they’re so close to my heart! Please note One Community are holding their annual meeting on 24th September at The Point in Eastleigh.

It’s open to public & more volunteers are always most welcome!

Pavilion on the Park

Opened in 2008 and managed by Eastleigh Youth & Community Trust, a charity formed by Cllr Godfrey Olson in 1962, The Pavilion on the Park community centre is situated within the heart of Eastleigh and serves the community by offering a range of indoor and outdoor activities for all ages and abilities. With the Blackbird Café serving food and refreshment seven days a week and several halls and meeting rooms available for use, this busy centre is run by a small team of staff and a dedicated team of willing volunteers.

I was absolutely delighted to visit and catch up this month with Daisy Robinson, the Executive Director for Eastleigh Youth & Community Trust to hear about the exciting plans that are currently underway both inside and outside of the centre.