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I am a vocal and public backer of the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home's #NotFunny campaign. Raising minimum sentences for animal cruelty was a Labour manifesto pledge I was proud to stand on in June, and I welcome the government's decision to finally listen and pledge the same. My overall...

Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson, is not a martyr of free speech. He is a convicted fraudster and former football hooligan who broke strict reporting rules which exist in court cases for a very good reason: if they are broken, that can lead to the collapse of trials of those alleged...

Universal credit was ostensibly designed with three goals in mind – to reduce costs, simplify the benefit system, and to make work pay. Whilst many of these aims at first glance seem laudable, they were designed by people without any understanding of welfare, benefits or low pay. Moving to a...

Those that reach old age have done so much for us; they've worked hard, put money into the economy, paid their taxes, played a role in their local communities, and contributed to our society in countless other ways. The very least they can expect is to be able to grow old with dignity,...

I am enthusiastic about beer and believe that pubs should be cherished institutions and vital community hubs that must be protected. I believe strongly in supporting the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) and local pub owners. This includes backing a reduction in beer duty and I have raised this with...

The recently announced changes to TV licensing fees is a deeply disappointing development. Free TV licences for up to 3.7 million pensioners are being scrapped, with over 75s forced to start paying £154.50 per year to watch live television and BBC iPlayer as of June 2020.   As far as I am...

In his first Commons statement as prime minister, Boris Johnson gave ‘unequivocally our guarantee to the 3.2 million EU nationals now living and working among us... I can assure them that, under this Government, they will have the absolute certainty for the right to live and...

A new campaign called the Hands Off Moulsecoomb Primary School campaign, has recently come to my attention and I feel it is we must all get behind. You may have already heard that the Government is trying to force Moulsecoomb Primary School to become an academy school and join a private...

The Queen will be asked by the government to suspend Parliament days after MPs return from recess - just weeks before the Brexit deadline. Make no mistake about it: what we’ve witnessed today is nothing short of the start of an anti-democratic coup worthy of a tin-pot...

500 extra border guards, £434m to ensure medicine supplies, £108m to keep businesses afloat and £138m for an ad campaign. These are just a few headline figures from Boris Johnson’s £2.1bn no deal planning package revealed earlier this week. These announcements are nothing but a slap in...

Every day, the Brexit process delivers something more unbelievable than the last.  Sometimes this takes the form of living satire, like yesterday when the House of Commons is forced to suspend its sitting because it is literally raining inside. Sometimes it takes a more alarming form. If we...

Last year in the House of Commons, I came out as one of the 100,000 people in the UK living with HIV. While there has been huge progress in treating HIV, it remains just one of many issues which disproportionately affects gay men. Gay men like me are also more likely to earn less, be diagnosed with...

More than 100 years ago Ambrose Gorham set up a fund to support primary education in Telscombe Village. He did this because he knew that education is at the heart of community. It is often schools that bring generations together, that transform communities and help our children achieve their...

From today,  EU citizens in the UK must apply to stay in your homes. My message to Europeans in my constituency is, this is your home and you are welcome here. This is a difficult day for all EU citizens, and it is shaming that you must apply to remain our friends, colleagues, family, and...

East Sussex County Council, which covers just over a third of my constituency, is following a similar path. It has declared that it can make only a core offer to meet its basic statutory duties to the very vulnerable, thereby undermining the principle of universality and its social contract with...

Viscerally, something had been taken from me, and not for others to gain from, but to be destroyed and torn up. My rights, my citizenship, my culture—all had been ripped away from me and many of my constituents. On my way home on that miserable morning, I of course went to my local shop. I...

Last month, I became the first MP to disclose in the House of Commons that they were HIV positive. Of course, there were personal reasons for my decision to make such a public announcement, but my primary motivation was to help destigmatise the conversation around HIV and to point out the...

Our country has arrived at a moment of profound political significance. For some time, the prime minister knew her deal would not pass in parliament, and all along she has mocked members of all parties with her blathering blandishments. A good deal. The only deal. A deal that is in the national...

Such events are also deeply personal to me, because next year I will be marking an anniversary of my own —10 years since I became HIV-positive. It has been a long journey from the fear of acceptance to today and, hopefully, advocacy, knowing that my treatment keeps me healthy and protects any...

This year, as we mark the centenary of the Armistice that brought the First World War to a close, I find myself thinking of the countless soldiers, many still in their teenage years, who left home and never returned. Victims of a senseless war waged by rulers who didn’t care about the working...