Westminster Report - Leigh-on-Sea

Share this story!

Leigh On Sea News: Westminster Report – BY David Burton-Sampson MP for Southend West & Leigh.

Westminster Report – BY David Burton-Sampson MP for Southend West & Leigh.

BY David Burton-Sampson MP for Southend West & Leigh.

The end of the year is upon us and what a year it’s been!

This time last year we were waiting and hoping for a general election, to end the Conservative chaos. When it came, the message for change was echoed across the country and we won a thumping majority.

It is an honour to be your MP for Southend West and Leigh and I will not let you down.

The final week in the Commons proved to be a busy one and at the late hour of 9 pm, while most of you were winding down for the evening, I spoke about the scourge of sewage in our constituency as part of the debate introducing the Water (Special Measures) Bill in parliament.

I raised the shocking increase in the number of sewage spills in the waters off our coast.

The Government is forcing water companies to double compensation for service failures and the Bill will give regulators new powers to take tougher and faster action to crack down on Anglian Water damaging the environment and failing their customers.

Under the previous Conservative government, £41m in bonuses, benefits and incentives were paid to water executives since 2020, while we are banning the payment of bonuses to water bosses if they fail to meet high standards to protect the environment, their consumers and their company’s finances.

After 14 years of Conservative failure, raw toxic sewage is still being pumped into our constituency waters and that is why the Labour government has acted immediately.

This Bill is a major step forward in our wider reforms to fix the broken water system. I know that this is very important to a lot of you because you have told me so!

I hope you are happy with the news and remember we will be holding our next Water Summit in Southend early in the new year and calling for action locally.

We also had an announcement of the new devolution plans. The government has announced changes to shift power, decision making and money away from Westminster and rebuild local government.

I am really excited at the plans and I will push to ensure Southend and wider Essex are at the front of the queue to get the investment that we deserve.

This will end the ‘Whitehall knows best’ mindset and give us the power to make local decisions ourselves. We’re transferring powers from Westminster and putting decision making back into local hands where it belongs.

We pledged devolution in our manifesto and that is just what we are delivering.

about author

Editor