Including children and young people I have over 91,000 constituents living in East Worthing & Shoreham. Certainly many of you are not shy in coming forward and that is what makes my job so interesting and at times of course challenging. Subsequently I am never going to please all of the people all of the time but I try my hardest to respond to everyone in as efficient and effective a way as possible. The only exceptions are those few people who think they need to be abusive when communicating with their MP and that is not necessarily because they have different political affiliations. Some of my best interactions have been with members of other parties and as many of you know I am always up for a good debate which is why I like to hold so many public meetings and get out there on the streets with my regular street surgeries.
I also ask that all emails include your full name and home address so I can be sure you are a constituent as I have my time cut out dealing with my own constituents without having to be answerable to all sorts of other groups and people from around the country. Typically at the moment I receive something like 250 emails a day when Parliament is sitting, all of which I see first before passing on certain of these to members of staff for a more detailed reply. Regular senders of circular emails from lobbying groups such as 38 degrees will know that I do not regard this as the most effective form of communication or best use of my time.
The most powerful ammunition an MP can have when standing up in the House of Commons is to be able to refer to detailed cases from individual constituents setting out why proposed legislation wil have an important impact on their circumstances or why the Government needs to act in a certain way. Standing up and holding a clutch of identical letters from subscribers to a certain lobbying organisation I am afraid just not cut the mustard in the same way. It also creates lot of additional work when a mailbox gets flooded with hundreds of template emails and in some cases we have found this is done by a lobbying organisation without the individual constituent even knowing. 38 Degrees have been told this repeatedly by my colleagues yet continue to ignore more effective ways of dealing with MPs
Subsequently when faced with a circular campaign we have to issue a generic response which I post on my website rather than respond individually. Otherwise we would just not have enough time to deal with the really important individual cases where often urgent help is needed. We have been doing some research recently to make sure we are working as efficiently as possible when writing to you all and we have found that when I have replied individually to circular campaigns in many cases over half of my responses are not even opened. I hope you agree therefore that this is not the best use of Parliamentary time. Having said that we are always pleased to respond to individual lobbying where appropriate.
On major local and national campaigns I am also increasingly using short podcasts to get a message across. This week I have just posted footage on my website and Facebook page about the WASPI campaign, animal welfare and baby loss all of which have featured in the news recently. In those cases I will also sometimes use the Facebook boost facility to make sure they are reaching as many constituents as possible as well as Tweeting about them.
I use Facebook primarily as a way of communicating with constituents on topical issues of national and local interest and occasionally things that might inject a bit of humour too, as with my Twitter account. Inevitably this attracts a lot of comments back from readers and in some cases I will try to respond further if there are specific points which need addressing or clarifying. I welcome constituents taking issue on political policy issues again as long as it is done respectfully without the need for abuse and it has been necessary to block or mute a small numbers of people. It is also not meant to be a political soapbox for politicians of any party and for those who do try to use it as such I would suggest they investigate setting up their own site’s or channelling their ‘rage’ through their own party’s Facebook page locally. When there are legitimate concerns being raised you can of course always email me directly without having to play to an audience and I am happy to reply to genuine constituents.
I have also been asked why I do not more regularly respond to posts on other Facebook pages particularly when I am being accused of various things. The simple answer is that I just do not have enough hours in the day.
However I do try to monitor some of the excellent community Facebook sites that we do have operated by residents across the constituency and the administrators have welcomed my interest. In one case however I have tried and failed, namely the Lancing & Sompting Facebook page, on which I have apparently come in for a lot of criticism especially since the packed public meeting I held on the New Monks Farm development. Much of this criticism is plain wrong and I have requested a right of reply to put the record straight. Extraordinarily the administrators have rejected my application 5 times despite having said they held a poll of an unnamed electorate to approve my becoming a member. The administrators are given as Ray Hamblett, Lydia Schilbach and Jacqui Herrington so if you know any of them please do ask why the only person excluded from engaging with constituents on their page is the MP! Apparently there is no bar for all manner of councillors of all parties from Lancing, Sompting and well beyond geographically.
Do take time to have a look around my website to find out what information is available there which may pre-empt any enquiries you are planning to send my way. You can also find a series on ‘How Parliament Works’ which I included in earlier newsletters to explain in layman’s terms how the parliamentary process works, although after 20 years in this place it can still prove a bit of a mystery to some of us!