Westminster Diary
THIS week I joined six-year-old Alfie Dingley and his family to deliver the 370,000 strong petition to allow Alfie access to medical cannabis to 10 Downing Street. Alfie is the only boy in the UK with his extremely severe and rare form of epilepsy and one of just seven in the world.
Having met with representatives of Alfie’s family just a few weeks ago, I wrote to the Home Secretary to urge special dispensation to allow for medical cannabis to be brought into the UK through a special licence from the Home Office. Several MPs, including myself, signed a joint letter in The Times to contend that Alfie and his family have enough stress to deal with as a result of his illness. We urged the Home Secretary to expedite the issuing of the licence and to help to ease the burden of worry on Alfie and his family.
Last Thursday, I organised and chaired a Housing and Homelessness Summit where over 20 local homelessness organisations, charities and stakeholders came together to discuss the local situation and a strategy for helping those in need. We discussed the need for housing first policies Representatives from national organisations such as Shelter and Crisis travelled from London to attend and contribute their expertise on the causes of homelessness and what we can do to solve it.
Also last week I challenged the Government on the current crisis in local government funding. With council tax rising significantly, while central Government grants are reduced and services are cut. The public are paying significantly more for a lot less and this is clearly not right or fair. As I raised in Parliament, the Conservative leader of Warwickshire County Council has written to the Government to say that the current model for local government funding is unsustainable.
Elsewhere I was pleased to attend a very useful Whitnash Town Council meeting as well as being able to attend recent Community Forum meetings in Warwick and South Leamington.
To contact me visit ‘mattwestern.org’, or email‘[email protected]’ or call the constituency office on 01926 882006.
