The last couple of weeks Parliament has been on the Easter recess, giving me an opportunity to swap the weekly commute for a bit more time up here at home. That’s always valuable to me, because one of the things I love most in this role is getting out and about and speaking to people.
A couple of topics are coming up a lot now, and so they’re the focus of my work. The first is potholes and the state of the roads. We all know the reasons – we’ve had very wet weather, the cars are heavier, and more. But what we all really want is the money being spent to make things better.
That’s why when the PM made the decision to cancel HS2’s phase 2 work, he reallocated the money that would have been spent there into transport projects in places like ours. As a result, Lancashire County Council is now going to be spending more than £50 million this year on maintaining the highway network, almost £10 million more than the last year.
I’ll continue to feed in roads that need doing and would encourage residents to do the same.
But there are other areas that come up too. And it’s fair to say on illegal migration, there’s a lot of frustration, which I share. Next week the House of Commons will be back to considering the legislation needed to get the partnership with Rwanda in place, after it’s been in the House of Lords. Disappointingly, the House of Lords has continued to amend the legislation to try and make it unworkable, but with the Commons overturning previous amendments I am sure we can do the same again. Once that’s done, it looks likely that the legislation will be in place and approved by the end of this month.
Once in place, those entering illegally will be detained and deported either back to their home country or, if that isn’t safe in their view, to a safe third country – Rwanda. It is a clear deterrent and will fundamentally hit the ‘sales pitch’ sold by criminal gangs.
Finally, next week will also see the introduction of legislation on vaping and the sale of cigarettes, including the proposal to prohibit the sale of tobacco which would rise each year – meaning for some (those currently aged 14 and under), smoking will always be illegal. This is a very novel approach to cigarettes, and will be a world-first, so will be listening closely to the debate before making up my mind.
