Backing Bills which will make a big difference

I have been supporting two major Bills in Parliament this week which both have the potential to make great changes for the better. I spoke in the House of Commons in support of the Minimum Service Levels Bill.

In a nutshell, this Bill will crack down on the sort of scenes we have been seeing of young people being unable to get to school or college, or workers unable to get to work and earn a day’s pay. Another major step forward comes in the Online Safety Bill which is also being debated this week. In particular, I was one of 37 MPs to sign and support an amendment to

Politics

this Bill. This amendment proposes to give Ofcom the power to prosecute individual executives from tech companies if they were proven to have ‘connived or consented to breaking the elements of the Bill designed to protect children’s’ safety’. It would also give power to judges to send such individuals to prison for up to two years.

I was very pleased to welcome Sherborne School for Girls to visit Westminster. It was great to meet the students and to discuss the issues that matter most.

Back in West Dorset, I also met with South Western Railway at Dorchester South Station to urge them to go even further with their plans to refurbish the station by demolishing the derelict parcel building and finally resolving properly the disabled access issues which I have at every opportunity outlined in the House of Commons. I wrote to the Transport Minister shortly after this to urge him to support a vital ‘Access for All’ bid to install a new lift at the station It was great to speak to so many from in and around Thorncombe at a Parish surgery at the village hall, and on the following morning, warming up with tea and coffee at Bradford Abbas to discuss another wide range of issues with local people there. I would finally like to express my thanks to all those who have been supporting my campaign to finally crack down on the unsustainable consumption of single use plastics. In January 2021, I went so far as to propose new legislation to mandate clear targets on cutting this sort of waste which blights our beautiful Jurassic Coast and countryside. I was therefore delighted to hear on the that there will now be a ‘far reaching ban’ on most single use plastics from October this year.

Don’t hope for common sense when they spend funding

Where to start locally?

‘We’ as in Weymouth have supposedly received £19.5 million in levelling up funding. I say supposedly, as it was Dorset Council which bid for and gets the money in their coffers with the intention to spend it on Weymouth.

Where will it be spent?

Well, I understand some of it is to go towards ‘leisure’ facilities – with possibly the peninsular site being the best option for such facilities. Those of us in Weymouth will remember the disastrous plans that a previous elected member was keen to punch through. Thankfully, they failed. Seeing what was proposed,

By CHRISTINE JAMES Independent, Weymouth Town Council

I for one am sure we have residents with plenty more imagination – not to mention skills and expertise, to actually come up with plans that truly reflect what the residents want – not what an elected member or three from over the Ridgeway and far away think is best.

All I can say is, don’t hold your breath or hope for common sense.

Shall we see how much is spent on consultants who will sit around a large table and discuss some really daft schemes? (I’m being polite in my wording).

Some of this money is, so we are told, earmarked for new housing. The old bowling alley site being an option.

Great, we need homes. But we need homes for young, local people who work, for veterans who have fallen by the wayside and a pet desire of mine is two-bed homes for single dads who share custody of children. Single mums will get appropriate housing, but alas a single dad is not entitled.

And the cherry on the icing of this fund is, I hear, to be used to sort out the eyesore that is the old council offices. A building that should have either been demolished years ago when it was vacated, and a chance for locals to have a go with the wrecking ball (as I’m sure many would have loved to do), or renovation where possible. If the building is riddled with asbestos as we are told, then demolition is surely the answer. If not, then refurbishment should happen ASAP. But who am I to have such opinions?

I’d just like to see common sense and fairness applied. Not everything is about climate change, you know...