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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...

The alleged killing of the royal court insider turned journalist Jamal Khashoggi has rightly triggered a diplomatic crisis for Saudi Arabia, but it would appear it has not jeopardised any of the multibillion-dollar arms deals between the US, Britain and the House of Saud. Many journalists...

Despite the danger of sounding like a broken record, it will be no surprise to colleagues that I intend to speak about what has happened to youth services since then, and the problems that that has led to in our communities. Despite the Government’s plan, a 2016 study—these are the latest...

I am not surprised by the statistics, since asylum seekers are not allowed to work and are forced to rely on state support of just £36.95 a week. I would be unable to live on that and I suspect that many people present would be unable to live a decent life on that, either. When claiming asylum,...

As a campaigner for women’s suffrage, Margaret was part of a broader labour movement with other working-class suffragettes, fighting for all women to have equal rights with men. This year, of course, marks 90 years of the equal franchise, but it is also the centenary of the unequal franchise for...

It enhances the readiness for learning in the classroom and learning in life, but it does not only help young people in the classroom; it also helps them to develop the skills and attitudes that are needed for the employment about which the Prime Minister was so boastful today, and, of course, for...