Please find below an update of my work in February. Please do get in touch if you have a case you wish me to raise or would like to let me know your views. My contact details are listed below.  Please ring or email for details of my advice surgeries – or visit my website here: https://www.jessicamorden.com/advice-surgeries. For updates on my work please follow me on twitter @jessicamordenmp or facebook.

St David’s Day debate

In the annual St David’s Day debate I spoke about recent flooding in South Wales; help for our steel industry; and positive developments in Newport including the new CAF rail factory in Llanwern. You can read my speech in full here.

Funding our Police

Over the last decade the Conservative party has presided over drastic police cuts. Gwent Police has seen it’s budget cut by a staggering 40% over that period. This week I spoke in the debate on the police grant and raised many of the issues our police forces are having to deal with.

The Government’s police recruitment programme will only take officer levels in Gwent back to 2010 levels – if that – and there is still no indication of how the scheme and related pension and training costs will be funded in the long-term.  Here’s a link to my speech in the debate.

Benefits for terminally ill people

I have also raised the issue of access to benefits for terminally ill people, calling on the Government to scrap the rule that only those with a life expectancy of 6 months or less can access benefits without having to fill in long forms and attend assessments. I am calling for reform of a cruel benefits system that’s not fit for purpose and is letting down the terminally ill. We owe it to everyone living with such a diagnosis and their families to reform a benefits system that is currently insulting and inhumane. You can read more about the issue here.

Debate on Wales’ contribution to the UK Armed Forces

The debate on Wales and the armed forces gave me an opportunity to pay tribute to those who have served, both past and present, from Newport East and across Wales. I also spoke about the need to reflect on what more can be done for veterans in Wales and across the UK on behalf of campaigners and my constituent Anthony Lock. You can read my contribution here.

Windrush debate

Members of the Windrush generation in Newport East have told me they have little trust in the Government’s compensation scheme for those affected by the shocking injustices of the Windrush scandal.

Labour has criticised the compensation scheme for falling ‘woefully short’ of its expectation and what is fair, whilst highlighting that British citizens have been wrongfully detained and deported, or have lost jobs and been prevented from returning home. You can read the report of the debate and my contribution here.

Some of my other recent work in Parliament:

• Welsh question on the need to maximise the benefits of HS2 for Wales through the procurement of UK and Welsh steel and trains built in Newport
• joined with Welsh Labour MPs to send a letter to PM on South Wales flooding relief
• raised the issue of litigants in person and legal aid cuts
• spoke on UK under-investment in Welsh rail infrastructure
• continued to raise the issue of IR35 contributions here and here
• called for justice for sub-postmasters
• attended the report launch for the Woodland Trust Emergency Tree Plan
• supported ‘Making Ends Meet’ letter to Chancellor calling for measures to end food poverty
• attended the Welsh regiments reception in Parliament
• re-elected Vice-Chair of the APPG Haemophilia and Contaminated Blood

• Surgeries in Lliswerry, Caldicot and Clarence House constituency office
• Met with Lord Burns for an update on work of the South East Wales Transport Commission
• Newport East Litter Pickers session on SDR
• MPs and AMs meeting with Newport City Council leader Jane Mudd
• Caldicot Musical Theatre Society Oscars Night
• Liaised with police and local authority on anti-social behaviour and dangerous driving issues at Spytty Retail Park
• Raised issues around the future of Caldicot Leisure Centre squash courts with Monmouthshire County Council
• Raised problems with rail services from Severn Tunnel Junction with GWR
• Met with Magor Action Group on Rail and Community Union