Last Friday, I visited Hurstpierpoint College and faced an excellent set of thoughtful and challenging questions from a highly engaged group of A Level Politics on topics as varied as the voting age, Covid-19 restrictions, Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership, how I became an MP and quantitative easing. It was encouraging to see such interest in current affairs by young people, and I left the school much more optimistic about the country’s next generation than we sometimes hear from the impression given by some in the media.
This week, we took another step forward in the post-Covid roadmap. Friends and family are once more allowed to meet indoors in groups of up to six. Schools, universities and colleges are finally fully open, flights have resumed to Covid-safe destinations, and events including live performances, sports and business conferences can resume with capacity limits.
It has been a long haul to get to this point and the Government, NHS and vaccine volunteers all deserve our thanks for their efforts. Nationally, over 37 million people have received at least one dose of the lifesaving vaccine, of whom 1.3 million are in Sussex. So far, concerns about the ‘Indian variant’ appear to only extend to those who have not received or have refused a vaccination.
This week the guest limit of weddings also increased to 30 attendees. This is a welcome development and I hope all restrictions lift from 21 June. This week, I joined other MPs to launch a new All-Party Parliamentary Group on Weddings, for which I have been elected as Vice-Chair. We will work together to ensure that the industry’s voice continues to be heard in Westminster.
Another much-missed venue for many has been their local pubs. I want to support community pubs however I can, and last month I announced the launch of my Pubs Guide – www.southdownspubs.com – to help promote them to new customers as they open up once more. I am delighted to announce that even more pubs have since joined.
