Newspaper Column – The Voice – 24/06/26

• We cannot bank on the Banks to stay — so make sure you use yours. Every town in this constituency has lost its banks, except Penzance. I’ve challenged the 5 remaining high street banks to set out their plans and commit to staying until at least 2030.  

Bank branches are vital to our commercial and community life. This is not simply “use it or lose it”: too many banks are diverting customers towards faceless, centralised systems, even where people still need personal service.  

Lloyds closed despite strong local use. I closed my account in protest — and urge others to consider doing the same.  

  

• Thank you to the many who have welcomed by choice to advance the interests of those in housing need, with my new Private Members’ Bill; which had its First Reading in Parliament this week. It is about putting first homes before second homes; need before greed. It is not the politics of envy, but of social justice — and long overdue.  

 

• I support brave constituent Caroline Eshghi’s campaign. She’s a remarkable survivor of appalling child abuse and is fighting for justice. Justice shouldn’t depend on what year it happened.  

Caroline endured unimaginable cruelty. Yet her abuser served just eight months. We are campaigning to change the law, so historical abuse is treated seriously, not capped at just two years in custody. Caroline is standing up for survivors everywhere.

Please support her:  https://www.change.org/p/justice-for-survivors-reform-sentencing-for-historical-child-abuse  

  

• Alongside these pressing issues, it’s worth looking for hope. Nature recovery remains a deeply important priority for me. Last weekend I managed to spend time out in the field. Completed my weekly midnight glow worm transect — spotting my first of the year. Encouragingly, more volunteers are now joining this monitoring work.  

I also joined a small group observing nightjars at dusk — extraordinary birds whose eerie, mechanical churring filled the evening air. There was time, too, for a butterfly transect, in an area famed for the Silver-studded Blue, We saw hundreds of them, and recorded several other species, including the remarkable Painted Lady, a migrant from Africa. Add to that an 11.5-mile run across our footpaths to review access routes, and a 24‑mile round trip by bike on constituency business.  

The more you see, the more you understand just how rich — and how fragile — our natural world is. The UK remains one of the most nature‑depleted countries on earth. We must do far more, and with greater urgency, to protect and restore the wildlife and landscapes that sustain us all.  

 

• In the Commons this week, I again pressed for action to halt worsening violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The Foreign Secretary’s description of “settler terrorism” reflects a grim reality, but words alone are not enough. With Palestinian land being openly marketed in London last week and hundreds slaughtered by the IDF, during the so-called “ceasefire”, the case for decisive action remains. We cannot just walk by on the other side.