Letter from Parliament - Tony Lloyd

Tony Lloyd MP

In Northern Ireland this week, I attended one of the annual Orange Lodge parades, organised by the largest Protestant organisation in the region. The parades mark the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne, where William of Orange defeated the Catholic King James II in 1690. I am pleased to say the parade was without trouble.

An emergency budget bill was also raised there, giving legal authority for the Northern Ireland Executive to spend money.

Closer to home, a new all-party group has formed in Parliament to look at protecting whistleblowers. There is currently some legal protection but it’s not strong enough. Of course, whistleblowers are vital for a free media, who rely on these sources of information to expose wrong-doings, but they must be protected.

I met with Highways England to ask why it is taking so long to finish the smart motorway. The west side of the M60 is well overdue for completion as it was supposed to be finished over a year. The new timescale estimates it to be completed by summer 2018, but there’s only a month left.

Labour has started a drug policy reform campaign as our present drug laws are not working. This is an opportunity for an open-ended adult discussion where people can put forward ideas without them being discredited or shot down.

I am very happy to be backing the Woodland Northern Trust. I attended a reception of theirs where they revealed plans to create a new northern forest along the spine of the M62 from Liverpool to Hull via Rochdale and the Pennines. It is a 25-year plan to plant 50 million trees, which are important for air quality, controlling floods and filtering carbon. I am pleased to be supporting this.

This week saw the anniversary of Srebrenica, a massacre in Bosnia and Herzegovina which took place in 1995. During the war there, over 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were murdered by the Serb Army. The general was later convicted for the crime of genocide after a tribunal.

The Labour party proposed an unusual motion calling for Esther McVey to be sanctioned to see that Universal Credit isn’t working. An awful lot of people are sanctioned where they have all or some of their pay docked for whatever reason, and it is a serious issue that does matter.

I also attended a national democracy week event with Year 6 pupils from different schools in Rochdale. They were being taught about why elections happen and the importance of people making decisions and how these decisions affect their lives, but also about why voting matters.

This weekend I will be attending an event about the ongoing violence in Kashmir and attending a family fun day for a Down’s Syndrome support group. I will also be looking forward to the England and Belgium game in the World Cup.