Much of an MP’s work is about the bread-and-butter issues that affect constituents’ daily lives, like housing, transport, schools and the NHS. I know many people are struggling to make ends meet. Wages have stagnated and costs have increased, whether that be soaring energy bills, higher food prices or ever-increasing rents. Public services are still recovering from years of austerity and under-funding.
An MP’s role is three-fold:
- Immediate help for anyone who needs it. My excellent team and I are always ready to try to assist, and you can contact us here.
- Pressing for measures to help people more broadly: cutting energy bills and extending the Warm Homes Discount; scrapping the two-child benefit cap; extending free childcare hours, and rolling-out breakfast clubs.
- Making the case for long-term structural change: building homes to address the housing crisis; action on youth unemployment and apprenticeships; taking our railways back into public ownership; giving councils more control over the buses.
In my constituency, I have one of Europe’s biggest regeneration projects, in Temple Quarter. The challenge will be to ensure that everyone benefits from this investment and shares in the city’s success.
I’ve been getting more and more leaseholders contacting me, along with people living in sub-standard rented accommodation or facing the threat of homelessness. This Government is acting, with new legislation to replace leasehold with commonhold and cap ground rents. We’ve already passed the Renters’ Rights Act, which will scrap Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions, and introduced Awaab’s Law, so that landlords have to deal with damp and mould. The Government’s £15 billion Warm Homes Plan will lift 1 million families out of fuel poverty.
I’ve been particularly concerned about vulnerable people in supported housing, who are at risk of exploitation. I introduced my Supported Housing (Regulation) Bill in 2020, which was followed by the Government setting up five pilot schemes, including one in Bristol, and eventually led to the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023 becoming law.