Paul Blomfield Former MP for Sheffield Central
After joining yesterday’s Remembrance Sunday ceremony at Sheffield Cenotaph I headed down to Westminster last night where my week starts today with a briefing from Labour Friends of Yemen on the latest in the appalling war in the country. I’ll then be meeting with Aviation Minister Robert Courts MP on the case of a constituent who was wrongly prevented from boarding a BA flight because of inadequate guidance on post-Brexit arrangements – which I raised in the Commons a few weeks ago.
Tomorrow I’ll be at the Westminster Hall debate initiated by Tulip Siddiq to press Ministers on the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, having joined her husband Richard during his recent hunger strike recently. I’ll also be attending a meeting of the Gambling Related Harm All-Party Parliamentary Group to discuss the review of the 2005 Gambling Act and the upcoming publication of the Gambling White Paper.
I’m catching up with Officers for the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Students on Wednesday ahead of our planned inquiry on the autumn return of students to campus after the lockdown, and then I’ll be hosting an online event with the UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA) to mark International Students Day.
On Thursday I’ll be chairing a meeting of the UK Trade and Business Commission, considering the impact of the Brexit deal on the services sector, and then meeting with the Chair and CEO of Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Trust. I’m also looking forward to the first in-person meeting of my Sheffield and Westminster teams since the start of the pandemic (although we’ve met almost daily online).
My Big Conversation meetings continue on Friday with an event for small businesses, organised with the local Federation for Small Businesses and Make UK, for which you can sign up here, and meeting with Sheffield NHS Clinical Commissioning Group. Over the weekend I’ll be taking the Big Conversation out to doorsteps in Nether Edge with a team of volunteers – and heading down to Bramall Lane to see if the international break has provided the chance to sort out the Blades’ form.