West Briton column 27 February - February Recess activities

I am now back in Parliament following the recent week of Recess. It was good to spend some time here in Truro and Falmouth meeting with local people and businesses to discuss the challenges you face and how I can best represent you as your Member of Parliament, as well as spending some time with my family.

Last week I was pleased to meet with a number of local groups to discuss environmental concerns.

I met with Rob and Emily Stevenson, a father and daughter duo who founded Beach Guardian CIC, a Community Interest Company whose mission is to Engage, Educate and Empower Against Plastic Pollution.

Over the years Beach Guardian has organised and promoted regular beach cleaning to collect and remove rubbish from the beaches; mainly plastics washing in from the ocean on the tide, as well as organising community beach cleans and conduct educational workshops with schools and other groups to connect people with the environment, to improve health and well-being of both people and planet.

These goals are all things I can heartily support and it was good to meet with them and North Cornwall MP Scott Mann to discuss how we can all work together to further drive the need to cut down on plastics, particularly single-use plastics, in the future.

Speaking of single-use plastics, on Saturday I was delighted to join Plastic Free Falmouth for their mass unwrap at Sainsbury’s.  Originating from St Agnes-based Surfers Against Sewage, mass unwraps see groups of people working with supermarkets to discard all single use plastic packaging from goods purchased at the point of purchase.  They are a great way to visually show the sheer scale of plastic packaging.

Just to put it into perspective, 59 billion pieces of plastic packaging are distributed every year. That’s 112 thousand pieces every minute! So it’s absolutely vital that we do everything we can from community grass-roots action such as this, up to the policymakers in Government, such as we are seeing come forward with the Environment Bill in Parliament at the moment.

It was good to see so many people joining in at the mass unwrap, a powerful statement of community action, and thanks also to Sainsbury’s for hosting it.

Last week it was also good to meet with the St Agnes Chamber of Commerce to discuss issues ranging from Brexit and EU funding, to tourism, waste collection and broadband infrastructure in rural areas. It was good to have such a robust and wide-ranging discussion and I look forward to working with all of St Agnes in the future to ensure their concerns are met.

This week in Parliament we have got stuck in on the Environment, and as of writing this column I am hoping to give my Maiden Speech – my first proper speech in Parliament, during the course of the debate on this Bill this week. Once I have done this I will be able to contribute more regularly in Parliament and look forward to continuing to do so in the coming years for the residents of Truro and Falmouth.