Alex Norris MP's Weekly Newsletter

Welcome to the latest issue of my weekly newsletter.

So, there we have it – we now have a new Prime Minister, a new Cabinet, and it is Parliamentary recess. It has been a hectic week, and  we don’t know an awful lot about how things are going to unravel just yet – expect things to become clearer over the Summer – but there are some things that are blindingly obvious. 

As well as having a reckless Prime Minister whose chequered history I don’t need to go into, we have a team behind him which has been built to pursue Brexit at whatever cost, despite the long list of outdated views, incompetence, and scandal which comes with them. Indeed, we have a Home Secretary who was not only recently forced to resign in shame but is also not concerned about wrongly sentencing people to death in a misguided attempt to deter people from committing crimes. The new Education Secretary was recently fired for leaking state secrets, and we have a Foreign Secretary who isn’t a feminist. The list goes on and on.

Once Parliament returns, the Opposition and I will be focused on preventing a disastrous No-Deal Brexit and replacing this disastrous Government. In the meantime, I have a busy Summer planned, which I’ll outline in more detail next week.

For now, read on to find out how I’ve spent this week... 

As I’ve said before, I will strive to send you a newsletter like this each Friday to keep you updated on the work I’m doing in Parliament as well as in our community, and to inform you of any interesting events taking place in our area. To help me with the latter, if you are running or know of anything that you think may be of interest to others, feel free to drop me an email at alex.norris.mp@parliament.uk and I will include it in future issues. Please also forward it onto anyone you think may be interested.

Summer Survey

As we head into the summer Parliamentary recess, I'm looking forward to spending much more time in the constituency.

While I’m there, one thing I will be doing, is asking you to have your say.

Like I did last year, I'm therefore running a survey so that I can hear your views about some of the work I've been doing in Parliament and across the constituency as your local MP. I'd also like to hear about your political priorities for the year ahead to help inform my work in the coming weeks and months. 

Please complete the survey by visiting the link below.

www.NottmNorthSurvey.com

I look forward to reading what you have to say. Thank you!

Nottinghamshire Transport Links

On Tuesday, the Conservative MP for Mansfield Ben Bradley, led a Westminster Hall Debate on Transport Links in Nottinghamshire. As you know from my own recent Westminster Hall debate and other work, this is something I think is vital for our region.

Through projects like HS2 at Toton, the containing success of Nottingham East Midlands Airport, and the redevelopment of the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station site, we have a real opportunity to deliver tens of thousands of new, skilled jobs across our city.

During the debate, I called on ministers to do all they can to help us deliver this aim. It was clear from the debate that there was wide cross-party agreement on many of the issues we discussed. The East Midlands spoke with one voice and it's vital that these calls are heard.

We're ambitious about the significant benefits national level transport infrastructure can deliver for our city and it's vital that any new infrastructure is properly linked up to our towns and cities across the East Midlands so that it works for the communities who use it.

I raised all of this, and again pressed ministers to support the proposed Midlands Rail Hub. Colleagues from both parties and I will also soon be writing to the new Prime Minister and Chancellor to make the case further.  

This project would deliver real economic and social benefits for our city - as well as have a much wider impact across the East and West Midlands.

It's therefore vital that this project gets off the ground and I will continue pushing for this, both in Parliament and across the constituency. 

You can watch some clips from the debate here, here and here.

In Parliament

With all Summer in Nottingham ahead of me, I didn’t have much time in the constituency this week, but here is how I spent my time in Parliament:

• Yesterday, I asked the new Prime Minister if his premiership will involve publicising the long-awaited Government review into safe standing, but he wouldn’t give me a straight answer. You can watch this here.
• I took phone calls with constituents about Strelley Health Centre, which as you may know, was closed down by the Care Quality Commission last week. I can’t comment further at this time, but rest assured I’m staying on top of any developments.
• On Tuesday I met with David Barnard from the Musician’s Union to discuss music education in schools – something that is far too often a victim of education cuts despite the incredible benefits it has for children and society.
• On Wednesday I met with Jon Date, Head of Government Relations at Oxfam, to discuss their International Development work, and discuss recent controversies surrounding their field work. 
• And yesterday I met with Ibrahim and Niall from the Centre for Turkey Studies. In line with my International Development role, I have recently taken over from the Shadow Secretary of State Dan Carden as Chair of the APPG for Turks and Kurds, for which the Centre act as the Secretariat.

Looking Ahead to Next Week

As I mentioned before, next week’s issue will be something of a Summer Preview, and I’ll fill you in on all I’ve been up to in the constituency the week after.

Please do spare the time to fill in the survey, found here, if you can!

What's On

I want these emails to be as interesting as possible. That means there’ll be some politics – it’s important that I am held accountable. But I also want to offer information about what’s on locally. So, if you have an event you’d like me to advertise, let me know.

If you would like your events advertised here, or further information on those advertised, please email me at alex.norris.mp@parliament.uk.

That’s all for now! Details of how to get in touch or to have a look at the things I’m doing are below…

All the best,

Alex