Southend West and Leigh Labour MP's first 100 days

It is the greatest honour of my life and I am working hard to make sure there’s a prosperous future for everyone living in the city. My mission is to see you all have happier, healthier and fairer lives.

Since I have been an MP, we have received more than one thousand inquiries from constituents. I am pleased to say that more than three quarters of those concerns have been resolved already.

I have met with more than 100 organisations and charities, seen the excellent work they do and listened to the challenges they face. Attending some of the local celebrations like Leigh’s Merchant Navy Day and Southend Jazz Festival has been a pleasure. These events are at the heart of our community.

The headteachers of some local schools have also been kind enough to let me visit. I enjoyed my tours and have been impressed with the pupils I have spoken to there. I intend to visit every school in my constituency over the next twelve months as I believe education is the key that unlocks a child’s potential.

Small businesses in the city have joined me at the Indirock bouldering centre to discuss their concerns and I have met with the local Federation of Small Businesses to hear about their members’ views. I shall be pressing their cases in parliament to highlight the importance of looking after our business community.

I have also been to see one of the largest employers in the area, Southend Airport. There I met Director, Richard Hoskins and CEO Marc Taylor who told me how London Southend has achieved several significant milestones lately, including year-round flying, a significant increase in the number of destinations and its successful transition of owners earlier this year.

I have also met with local residents and passed on their hopes that the airport will be a good neighbour and work with them in the future.

I have enjoyed visits to the Southend Mosque, where I sampled some of the excellent food on offer.

I have expressed my sympathy to the members of the Southend and Westcliff Hebrew Congregation on the anniversary of October 7 and I will be attending several of the Remembrance Day Commemorations next month.

I’m also supporting South Asian Heritage Month and have been supporting Black History Month including joining with the Prime Minister in Downing Street to celebrate the contribution the black community have made to this country. I believe in diversity and inclusion. It is something I have always stood up for and I am proud that we live in such a tolerant society.

At the beginning of the summer there was plenty to celebrate when I visited South Essex College on GCSE day.

Students there should be incredibly proud of what they have achieved. It’s a testament to their fantastic teachers. Young people deserve an enormous amount of credit for their success in the face of the huge disruption of recent years.

I also saw the fantastic local support programmes helping young people from challenging backgrounds and their families, undertaken by the Volunteering Matters team and I opened the impressive, newly refurbished premises of the Southend Estuary District Headquarters.

In the good weather we saw visitors flocking to our fabulous coastline to enjoy our seaside. I would like to thank all those who work so hard to keep us safe in the water. Many volunteers give their time and expertise to running our lifeguard stations and I met some of them at Chalkwell.

More recently, I really enjoyed joining mayor, Ron Woodley, presenting certificates to hard working members of the Southend Citizens Advice Bureau. They were celebrating 85 years of hard work here, which is quite incredible. Their teams have helped innumerable people over the years, and they continue their highly valued work today. I would like to thank them for all the support they provide. They are an example to us all.

I have also congratulated the Friends of Leigh Library Gardens on their green fingers, while being shown around the beautiful plot there.

It is a real testament to their volunteering, and I commend them for their efforts. Volunteers are a key part of our community and fortunately here in Southend we are not short of community spirit. Thank you to everyone who gives up their time to help in one way or another.

There is a huge determination among them to change lives for the better. I applaud their efforts and I pledge to work hard to achieve more for Southend.

Tackling sewage

As we all know Three Shells Beach, Jubilee Beach, Leigh Bell Wharf, Chalkwell Beach and Thorpe Bay have all been affected by sewage outflows into the sea. It has got to stop.

We are holding a Water Quality Summit next month to address this critical problem. The aim is to improve our waters as a matter of urgency. Under this government water companies are being fined for failing to manage their wastewater and the fines will be reinvested to improve our water.

Hospital support

I want to see better outcomes at Southend Hospital and I will do everything in my power to help achieve this goals.

I paid a visit to Southend Hospital with my colleague Bayo Alaba and we held a meeting with the leadership team, followed by a tour of the building. Getting NHS wait times down is a big priority for this government so, it was good to get a sense of the challenges ahead and of how we, as MPs, can offer support and work to improve our hospital.

Safer streets

One of my key campaigns is to improve people’s lives in Southend by working with the police and the council to make our streets safer, deal with anti- social behaviour, reduce noise nuisance, deal with parking problems and keep our city free from litter.

I would like to reassure people that Southend is very much open for business and in fact, thanks to the diligence of our police force there have been several recent arrests in connection with these incidents.