Last week was a bitty week in many ways. Lots of voting in the Commons to get various clauses of the Finance Bill through. This is the piece of legislation that enacts the measures announced in the Budget, so is crucially important. Whilst there were no further 2am finishes – like the notorious example the week before – there were plenty of ‘getting home at midnights’.
Now this isn’t a complaint, so much as an attempt to illuminate the schedule of an MP. Whereas most people start work at 9am but finish at 5-6pm, the working day of an MP keeps going for another 5-6 hours. I know a handful might go to a bar for a while, but the vast majority are sitting in their offices going through their e-mails! MPs aren’t alone in this, as I know trainee lawyers and the like work just as long hours, but it maybe isn’t something most people are aware of. It means you need to be mentally tip-top at just the hour in the evening when many people are sitting relaxing in front of the televisions. And doing this 4 days a week, on top of usually having a full day on Friday in the constituency and appointments on a Saturday and Sunday , means being an MP is not for the faint-hearted. You actually have to love what you’re doing.
Last week also saw me move on to what I call ‘stage 2’ of some of my projects. I was pleased to meet with union representatives from the MOD site at Norcross where the Service Personnel & Veterans Agency is based. We had a good discussion about how services could be brought to the site from elsewhere in the country to take advantage of its low cost-base. With these ideas, I can now put proposals forward to the Defence Ministers.
The ‘how’ of that is quite interesting though. Access to Ministers occurs in a number of ways, and the most effective way to influence them is usually not the most obvious. People might think standing up and asking a question in the House is the best way. But if you’ve not warned them in advance, you probably won’t get the answer you want. You can write, certainly, but writing alone is often not enough. The personal touch, as with so much in life, often makes so much more difference. So walking a corridor with them having a 30-second discussion on the issue as a lead up to a letter is often a highly productive use of 30 seconds. But it isn’t the sort of confidential discussion I am going to record in this newsletter each and every time I have one!
Probably the best – and least-known way to the public – is to find the Minister in the voting lobbies. Voting in the House of Commons is not done in full view of the cameras. The moment the Speaker shouts “Division”, the cameras switch off. Members then have eight minutes to get from wherever they are in the building to the voting lobbies either side of the Commons chamber where the votes are recorded. The doors are then shut behind you, and if you’re late by so much as a second, you’re late and you’re locked out and can’t vote. Once inside the voting lobby, voting takes about 20 minutes start to finish so you have plenty of time to spot the Minister you’re looking for, sidle over, and engage him or her in pleasant conversation about whatever issue concerns you. Once again, there may be no documentary record of it – but often it changes or focuses minds in a way putting them on the spot in front of the cameras does not. Part of the skill of being an MP is knowing how to get what you need most effectively – and that doesn’t always mean you issue an APB each time!
One example of this might have been the brief conversation I had with the Chief Executive of Visit England at a Visit Britain reception last week who will now be paying Blackpool a visit because of it. In other examples, I met with the unions at BAE Systems who were down for a mass lobby with local MPs – we discussed just about every aspect of the defence industry you could imagine, and we mutually reinforced the point that export promotion matters every bit as much as the UK ordering Typhoon.
The Transport Select Committee met officially for the first time as well, and I was able to speak up at a few other related All-Party Groups: improving regional connectivity in the North was a theme at the Rail in the North Group, and the slowness of SatNav companies to reflect changes in road rules such as weight limits came up at the Highway Maintenance Group. Such Groups are another example of where you can bring issues to the attention of a Minister – as I did in this case with the lorries through Thornton.
On Friday in the constituency, I met with the planning officers of Blackpool and discussed issues such as the holiday zones once again as well as some of the other developments such as Tesco in Layton. I had another visit to St Mary’s to update them on my work to get the BSF project the go-ahead. We then had a tour of the City Learning Centre, which is constantly evolving. I had a look around the archaeological dig on site, and saw how enthused the students from St George’s were about getting some hands-on experience. I also met with the Civic Society to discuss how the widest range of issues imaginable – from protecting the historic tram vehicles to trying to reflect Blackpool’s civic heritage in our tourism offer.
I also appeared last week on “Party People” – Granada’s weekly political show. I will confess to having never heard of it nor having ever watched it. It apparently goes out at 11.30pm on a Thursday – which if you read the first paragraph of this letter you will realise is likely to be well-past my bedtime!

Regards,
Paul
Paul Maynard MP
Blackpool North & Cleveleys