The first week back to Parliament last week should have been a quite one in comparison to all the hurly-burly on the political scene just before the summer. Then Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee went and did something stupid which ended up being plastered across the press and did little to enhance the reputation of Parliament.
Not surprisingly he had no choice but to stand down from this important committee and as the senior Conservative member I am now the acting chairman. I am grateful for all the congratulations I have received, albeit not in the best of circumstances but unfortunately this is only a temporary role as it is determined at the beginning of the Parliament that this committee has to be chaired by a Labour MP though it has a majority of Conservative members. There will be elections for a permanent chairman later in the autumn but in the meantime by style of chairing will be a little less ‘flamboyant!’
Back in Sussex I was delighted to give the vote of thanks at the AGM of West Sussex County Scouts. I have always been a big fan of the uniformed youth services and even donned a woggle myself back in the 1970’s in Castle Pack Lewes. 2015 was a record year with an increase of 6.7% in scout numbers with almost 10,000 across our county. Scouting is a very different business now though the values, comradeship, sense of service and fun remain timeless and are no less important to today's high-tech, social media generation, who need not spend all their time in cyber space. One innovation in West Sussex is piloting a link up with the ‘Think Family’ programme where scouting is providing a positive distraction to boys in troubled families and helping them on to an even keel.
After an excellent lunch with the Southlanders Friday lunch club in Shoreham, courtesy of organiser and chief cook, Anne Martin, I spent much of Friday afternoon looking down a hole. The hole in question was in fact rather a long trench in Poulters Lane Worthing where the whole road is supposedly to be closed for 3 months for laying new gas pipes. This seems an extraordinary length of time to shut off such a busy road and has been causing no little traffic chaos. I arranged a site visit with SGN gas and the ward councillors to see if this could be speeded up and if better diversions could be put in place.
They are now looking at the latter and if all goes smoothly then 3 months should be an overly cautious estimate. The problem is though that there is one pipe to serve houses on both sides of the road which is why one lane could not be closed at a time to reduce the inconvenience. Let’s hope the sunny weather continues to speed their work.