Political opinion with Andrew Griffith MP: Congratulations to all those elected to West Sussex County Council

I want to congratulate every councillor elected to West Sussex County Council in last week’s local elections. It was pleasing to see that in many areas, turnout – though still a lot lower than in a general election – was up to around 50%.

My commiserations to the many excellent candidates who put themselves forward but did not win this time. Representing a community that you live in any elected office is a privilege and a great responsibility. It’s also a genuine public service as we all know in an age of social media people – often without the courage to use their own name – are quick to criticise but slow to make their own contribution to society.

I look forward to working constructively with all the newly elected county councillors of any persuasion to protect our rural communities from unsustainable over-development, ensure good quality public services and keep the council tax low. Above all, I hope that last week’s result – which saw the governing Labour Party share of votes cast fall to fifth place – is the end of the top-down, proposals to smash of our historic county into multiple pieces.  The last thing we need are two authorities with two town halls, two sets of expensive officers, two fragmented school catchment areas and years of disruption to services. Perhaps that is something all our new councillors and parties might agree upon?

This week in Parliament is the Kings Speech whereby His Majesty The King reads out the speech written for him by the Prime Minister about the Bills which it is planned we MP’s debate and pass over the coming 12 months.

At the time of writing these are not yet published but given that most of the challenges our country faces are either too many bad laws which ought to be repealed – or good laws which, such as theft from shops, are inadequately enforced – it seems unlikely that this new crop will make a huge difference.