CAROLINE ANSELL MP: Help on way for low income families in Eastbourne

Healthy Start payments will soon rise, another £16 million will go to help food banks and East Sussex County Council is receiving nearly £1.6 million to help support these families with food and bills until March through the Covid Winter Grant Scheme. I welcome all of these measures and it is excellent news that the holiday food and activities programme will come to Eastbourne next year for the first time and is to run over Easter, summer and Christmas in 2021. This is a massive expansion of the programme which has been successfully delivered in a number of areas in summer pilot schemes. More to follow on this and something our generous and caring town can rally to.

Remembrance commemorations were much changed this year but those who fought and died for our freedom were not forgotten. Commitments meant I had to be in Parliament on November 11. But, over Remembrance weekend, I spent a quiet time at our town centre War Memorial to lay a wreath, to pray, to pay my respects and to honour the sacrifice of generations past.

I was delighted to be able to speak to veterans over this time, including the wonderful Eric Deach who served on the HMS Implacable in 1945 and who I met with learners from the Eastbourne campus of the Military Preparation College supporting the local branch of the Royal British Legion in town.

I also stood up in the House of Commons on Tuesday to ask the Home Secretary to give a shout out for Sussex Police and she duly did. In a recent operation to tackle anti social behaviour, officers uncovered an instance of ‘cuckooing’, where a vulnerable person had been targeted and their home used as a base for further criminal activity, a truly abhorrent crime. Our local police are doing a fantastic job during the pandemic and they are saving vulnerable people from criminals in our town too.

We have just marked Parliament Week. In different times, I would have welcomed a host of young people from Eastbourne and Willingdon to The House of Commons. The reality was a very lively Zoom evening from my little office above the Chamber!

The Scouts challenged me with a run of important questions, notably the government’s support for homelessness. On transport I shared my hope to trade in my car for an electric moped and a crazy dream of a water taxi from Meads to Sovereign! I was asked how long my longest debate had been. “Three years and ongoing - with one of my sons!”

There is hope on the horizon with news of the vaccine. We remain relatively low here in cases of the virus but need to remain on high alert these next three weeks of lockdown so we emerge on the December 3 to the very lowest tier and Christmas.

We will meet again and until then, take care.