Thank you for electing me a second time to be your voice in Parliament.

There is no greater honour than serving in Parliament as your representative and it is genuinely humbling to have been given this opportunity a second time.

I will continue to be an outspoken champion for Thurrock. And while my job is to be your representative in Westminster, making laws and scrutinising the Government, I will continue to challenge the local council when it is not performing as well as it should be.

While we are on the subject of the council, it generates more than half my casework, and the same is true of other colleagues. It actually is not our job to deal with council casework, that should really be undertaken by councillors, after all they all get an allowance, too.

Inevitably, MPs end up taking these cases on, but it seems ridiculous to me that we are paying out for office staff for MPs just because some of our councillors are falling down on the job.

The most frustrating thing is that I have no more power to get redress from the council than any other person.

My privileges extend to the national Government only.
Good council officers will respond constructively to my challenge, but others are dismissive.

I can make requests to the council, but ultimately if it chooses to dismiss them, there is nothing I can do about it.

Ultimately, it is not the job of MPs to be an extension of the council’s complaint-handling service and we really need our councillors to step up to the plate and deliver more challenges to the operational effectiveness of our local authorities.

If anyone fancies having a go, come and see me.

Let’s make Thurrock the best it can be.

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