Week 14 - The Summer's Over

The first few weeks of Parliament have been a mix of weeks when the House is sitting, or in recess for various things – most recently for party conferences.  Now we have a sustained session of Parliamentary business, and it kicked off with the Renters Rights bill.  

This week, I was delighted to welcome constituency visitors who had asked for a ticket to Prime Minister’s Questions this week.  I have a limited allotment of requests and the house operates a random selection scheme to pick the lucky winners.  

During recess I’ve been busy recruiting a team and pushing forward on getting a physical office sorted out.  I’m delighted that we are now starting to work through the backlog of emails that I alone couldn’t keep up with.  Thank you for your patience. We will be prioritising the emails where people need immediate help.

This week’s most frequent emails have covered Gaza, winter fuel allowance and other issues in the news.  Thank you for letting me know how you feel about such important matters.  Thank you too for your continued patience as we deal with thousands more emails and letters if we haven’t managed to get back to you yet.

I have started doing on-line surgeries and will do in-person surgeries by appointment when we move into our offices.  

The big item of Government this week has been the Renters Rights bill.  This proposes a number of changes including the end of Section 21 ‘No Fault’ evictions, longer notice periods for tenants, a once-a-year limit on raising the rent, and provisions to make it easier to have pets.  

I have received very many emails, both now and previously as a councillor, from desperate families who had lost their rented home under a section 21 eviction.  It is a mechanism that has been used too often by rogue landlords and has given the many responsible landlords an undeserved bad name too.  Whilst I understand concerns from responsible landlords, I do welcome the abolition of Section 21 having seen the desperate condition it can put families into.

What we really do need is more affordable housing.  I will continue to do everything I can to encourage local housing associations and Teignbridge District Council to build more.  I would like to see changes to how these are funded in the October budget.  Available funding would unlock many opportunities, some of which already have planning permission, but are yet to be built.

Back in the constituency, I have been showing the Environment Agency the state of the Brook in Dawlish.  We need a solution, and an agreed way forward to balance the need to prevent flooding, have it look attractive, and to provide a wildlife and waterfowl haven.   I very much welcome the WADE approach from Dawlish Town Council that will have a vital part to play in that balance working well.

I also took part in a water quality testing event in Shaldon with the Friends of the River Teign group.  Taking water samples from the Teign and monitoring the results is key to holding South West Water and local developers to account.  

A couple of weeks ago I was delighted to welcome the Lib Dem Leader, Sir Ed Davey to Teignmouth.  We visited our local NHS services and discussed their wider financial constraints, and Teignmouth Hospital in particular.  We also spoke to river swimmers on the Teignmouth back-beach and heard how important clean water was to them.  I will be meeting with South West Water in the next few weeks to hear what they are doing to improve, and no doubt I will be asking them to go faster!