Most of an MP’s work is out of sight, working on individual constituents’ battles with some faceless agency of government, or in meetings to discuss some detail of legislation. But you are also frequently required to take a public position on questions of enormous global or moral significance.
Like every MP I’ve been lobbied hard about Gaza. Most constituents write to object to the continued Israeli operation, with entirely understandable distress at the humanitarian catastrophe being inflicted on civilians. I also want to see a ceasefire and I am glad that the British Government is playing a leading role in arranging for aid to be delivered to Gaza by sea. But the ultimate responsibility for the unfolding tragedy in the Middle East rests with the terrorists who inflicted the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust, and who remain committed to the extermination of the state of Israel. I have written more about the conflict - and about the strange events in the Commons on 21 February, when the Speaker yielded to pressure from the Labour party and from violent extremists - here.
The other big moral question I have debated recently was the proposal, from the Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle and backed by a number of Conservatives, to criminalise so-called ‘Conversion Therapy’ - a terrible threat, according to campaigners, best described as the attempt to change someone’s sexuality or gender identity by talking to them. I think the proposed ban is unworkable, unnecessary, impossible to frame in a legally meaningful way, and liable to lead to prosecutions of counsellors, religious leaders and even parents who do not subscribe to the prevailing orthodoxy on LGBTQ+. I took part in the debate on Mr Russell-Moyle’s bill, which was fortunately defeated when not enough MPs voted to meet the threshold for it to proceed.
A more meaningful threat to the safety of the country is currently waging war in eastern Europe, and threatening to attack NATO. I am proud to represent the largest concentration of soldiers in the UK, with 20,000 forces personnel based in the camps and garrisons on Salisbury Plain. I went up on the Plain recently with Colonel Matt Palmer, the Commander of Army South West, who showed me them all with a sweep of his arm. We toured the different camps and met soldiers, officers and their families. As ever I was impressed with the cheerful resilient spirit that keeps the Army going, and ultimately keeps us safe. But I am also aware of how tough life is for Army people, with a multitude of challenges over kit, accommodation and deployments.
Some of these I can help with, and I do what I can - raising the issue over contaminated water at Trenchard Lines in the Commons (here), for instance, and lobbying against the planned changes to the accommodation offer that would have broken the agreement that officers (and their spouses) signed up under (success on that, I’m glad to say: see here). But more profoundly I see my job as lobbying the MOD and the Treasury to enhance the overall defence budget.
It is a good thing that the armed forces have had a major uplift in spending since the Ukraine invasion. We have, indeed, spent over £7bn on Ukraine overall, in addition to the transfers of weapons from the UK’s stockpile. This money is all well spent, in my view, but the British army, navy and air force needs at least that much every year more than it currently gets. I regret more was not committed to defence at last week’s budget and I will continue to make the case for urgent increases. If you ask where the money should come from, I point to the expected £10bn a year we are forecasting for additional spending on out-of-work benefits; or the £3bn likely cost of the new Stonehenge tunnel, within sight of the garrisons where soldiers are making do with 40-year old vehicles and a recruitment crisis.
Speaking of the budget, I made a speech welcoming the cuts to National Insurance and some other important announcements around household support, savings and investment - but suggesting more profound changes are needed to fix our economy, and asking for more money for defence. See here.
If the Army and its training area take up a lot of Wiltshire farming takes up most of the rest. The Prime Minister spoke at the NFU conference last month and made some important commitments to support agriculture in the new world of food insecurity - see here. I met with a group of Wiltshire farmers at the NFU office in London - my note on the meeting is here. Speaking of the NFU, my thanks to their insurance wing, NFU Mutual, whom I have heard praised a number of times as I visited households and businesses affected by the recent floods in Marlborough and thereabout - see here.
I also took part in a debate on the threat to horseracing - a major sector for our local economy - from the bizarre proposals to regulate betting in a way that could decimate the industry. See here.
Princess Anne came to Devizes for a charming ceremony to bless - yes, seriously, with a priest in full rig performing a prayer over the bonnet - a new ambulance for St John’s Ambulance. It was a great pleasure and honour to meet the volunteers, many of them NHS workers who give their free time to the charity, and to see HRH in one of the innumerable, unsung acts of service the Royal Family perform. The day after her visit it was announced that her brother The King is fighting cancer, and she will be taking on more of his work. We are in good hands.
I joined my predecessor Claire Perry O’Neill at the funeral of our friend Ann Merrett, former President of the Devizes Constituency Conservative Association, in Enford church. Ann was a great supporter of my Party through the lean and the fat years. But above all she was a patriot and a traditionalist, with a love of our country and its institutions. I think she would have been proud that throughout the service, at irregular intervals and unnervingly close, the guns on Salisbury Plain made their booming crumps.
