Emma Lewell MP: Another year to campaign on the issues that matter to us in South Shields
Happy New Year to everyone in South Shields. This week, I returned to Parliament.
Over coming weeks and months I will continue to campaign on the issues that matter to us in South Shields, as well as scrutinising the Ministry of Defence as part of the Defence Committee and ensuring that those who serve us, and our veterans, are properly equipped, supported and protected.
After last year’s success in pressuring the Council to introduce measures to curb the overwhelmingly high number of HMOs in South Shields, I am now waiting for the Government’s formal response to my petition – that hundreds of constituents signed – asking the Government for new legislation around HMOs, including planning consent, registration, regulation and improving transparency via published local authority HMO policies.
Hundreds of you have already written to me regarding the ongoing WASPI scandal. Last year, I was one of a very small number of MPs who voted against my party’s wishes. I voted in favour of compensation for the WASPI women. Since then, the Government has agreed to reconsider the issue and a decision is imminent. I can assure the thousands of WASPI women in South Shields that my support has not wavered.
As Chair of the All-Party Group for Child of the North, I will build on our successes so that no child grows up in poverty. Since the General Election, we have seen progress in the expansion of school breakfasts, extensions to the Holiday Activity Fund, a scrapping of the two-child benefit cap, an extension of Free School Meals and increases to Healthy Start payments.
I will continue to campaign for lower business rates and a VAT cut for our valued hospitality industry, as well as opposing the tourist tax. I will not sit back and allow businesses to close and jobs to be lost from this vital industry that contributes so much to our local and national economy.
If you are interested in these, or the many other issues I campaign on, please do get in touch or sign up for my regular newsletter, via my website, social media or my office.