I had the pleasure of visiting Ravenstone Primary School for their Inspirational Wednesday. It was heartwarming to hear what the Year 6s were taking away from the morning: that you can achieve anything as long as you set your mind to it. There were plenty of tricky questions too: from local fly-tipping issues, to Brexit, and I wish them the best of luck going forward into their secondary schools later this year.  

​This week I voted against a third runway at Heathrow. We need to expand our aviation capacity - but I don't believe this should be done at Heathrow. Together with the Mayor of London and Wandsworth Council I have backed calls for the Government to reconsider its position. Like them, I will actively seek to prevent a third runway being built, and will support their proposal to launch joint legal action against the plans. The environmental impact would be disastrous in an already polluted city and would harm generations to come. I've always supported expanding Gatwick - it's cheaper and greener.

Today I was delighted to form part of the British Embassy team attending the Kongres Kobiet (The Congress of Women) in Poland.

I spoke about issues facing women, in particular, gender equality and UK legislation aimed at addressing the pay gap. This is something I feel  extremely passionate about and actively campaign for.

I look forward to continuing to support the fight for equality in our country.

Today it was my pleasure to welcome fan representatives from across England and Wales to discuss safe standing.
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Safe standing is a hotly debated subject amongst the footballing community. A petition was set up by Owen Riches (an excellent campaigner that I have had the pleasure of meeting) which received over 112,000 signatures and now the motion is to be debated in Parliament on the 25th June.

Ahead of this debate, I launched an online survey and today held a roundtable discussion with football fan groups and supporter’s trusts representatives to canvass opinions on safe standing at football matches. This allowed points to be raised by the people that know their stadia the best: the fans. Over 60 supporter’s trusts members attended the roundtable and my online survey received over 5000 responses.
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From making football matches more inclusive experiences to improving atmosphere and fan safety, fans made clear that they believe there are significant advantages of safe standing. I look forward to continuing to consult across the footballing community on this issue as we approach the Parliamentary debate on 25th June.