Monday
On Monday I will return to Parliament where I will be meeting with Labour’s Brexit team to discuss our position on ongoing events. I will then be attempting to ask a question in DWP questions about the use of HMRC real time information in calculating universal credit payments. The income will appear under the current date in Real Time Information regardless of when it was actually submitted. I’ve recently received reports that late submissions, some from up to 4 years ago, by employers have led to claimants losing out on money that they badly need now because of money they earned a long time ago. I will be arguing that this issue needs to be looked at again if Universal Credit is to be a system that is tailored to the individual claimants’ needs.
Tuesday
On Tuesday, the Education Select Committee will be holding a further session into Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). Children with SEND have lost out massively under the school cuts that this government have imposed since taking power in 2010 and I am particularly about how cash strapped local authorities are struggling to meet their statutory duties to children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. At a previous session, one health professional told me that children were being given support based on resource rather than their need. I will be using this session to gather more information from witnesses about how the SEND system is working in practice. I will then be speaking in a debate on the subject on Wednesday where I will raise these concerns directly with the Minister.
Later in the day, I will be attempting to raise the issue of Grotto Hire UK with the Business Secretary. Staff working insecure hours for the Hull based small business Grotto Hire UK, which operates Santa’s grottos, have still not been paid. Many are owed thousands of pounds. The company owner offered to put the company into liquidation so that staff could claim through the insolvency fund but his appointed liquidators have now pulled out leaving the company still running. I’ll be asking the Minister whether he will meet with me to discuss this director’s appalling betrayal of his staff and look at how the company can be wound up in the public interest. If I am not successful in being called by the Speaker then I will seek to raise a point of order with him afterwards on the issue.
Wednesday
On Wednesday, as well as attending and speaking in the SEND debate that I mentioned in the Tuesday entry above, I will be meeting separately with the
Immigration Minister and a Minister from the Department for Work and Pensions to discuss individual constituent cases with them.
Thursday
On Thursday, I will return to the constituency. My meetings for the day will include the Hull Veterans Support Centre, Hull and East Yorkshire Mind, the Principal of Ron Dearing UTC and Hull York Medical School.
Friday
On Friday, my meetings will include the Community Development Worker Refugee Council and Aspire Academy. I will spend the rest of the day in my constituency office meeting with constituents and working on assisting constituents with their casework requests.
