I have had one of those nice parliamentary weeks when one of the issues I have been campaigning on finally comes to fruition and success is achieved. This time it was on the matter of tipping and the all too frequent situation which results in business owners retaining customer tips, rather than passing them on to their staff. Some of the big national chains such as Pizza Express have been guilty of this in the past.
As readers may remember, I previously tried to introduce legislation, with the support of Martin Vickers, to ban this practice. Many people working in tipping jobs are on low wages and the tips are a welcome top up. Moreover, customers probably assume, like I did, that any tip left goes to the staff who have provided the good service. Anyway, the pressure has won out and the Government has announced plans to put an end to this shameful practice. I always like it when a campaign comes to a fruitful end and I am pleased to have played a part in this one.
Another campaign I was able to raise in Parliament last week was the provision of local train services, especially on under-utilised lines such as the Brigg-Gainsborough-Sheffield Saturday only line! The new Northern rail franchise is going to see improvements in rolling stock on our other local routes but I do want to explore what opportunities there are to get improvements on lines such as this one in the constituency. I don’t pretend for a moment that will be easy, but I shall be sitting down with Northern’s new franchise operator shortly to discuss.
Last week I was also delighted to host the Environment Agency in Parliament for one of our regular Humber MPs Flood Plan meetings. We are all working cross-party and cross-estuary to ensure that our area receives the highest level of protection from flooding. The Government is spending about £350 million on flood and drainage improvements across the Humber region. As a group of MPs we are keen to continue this investment and get a 10 year funding deal from Government so that residents and businesses can be assured for the future. We will continue to work together on this.
MPs spend a lot of time working with charities on various matters and that is why I organised for Crohn’s and Colitis UK to meet with the Disabilities Minister, Justin Tomlinson MP, last week. We wanted to talk to him about the difficulties many of these sufferers have accessing work and how more can be done to support them into work. My own Mum has Crohn’s so I grew up very close to the issues this illness can bring.
Parliament can be a great place for achieving things for the public good as I think the last week has shown. Sadly, I ended my week on a low by choosing to leave social media, due to increasing levels of personal abuse, including from some local Labour activists. I’ve let the twitter bullies win as I have just decided that there is only so many times I am prepared to be called fat, ugly, corrupt, a liar, a Nazi and evil on public fora. Most of the saddos who post such comments aren’t local and I’ve just concluded that social media is now becoming an increasing hateful environment.
Photo - Andrew meeting with the Minister for Disabled People, Justin Tomlinson MP, and members of Crohn's & Colitis UK
