Commons Sense
As an MP, one of the most important aspects of my job is correspondence with constituents – letters, emails, phone calls or surgeries.
For example, I receive hundreds of emails on a daily basis. In my fourand-a-half years as the MP for Slough, I’ve been contacted by thousands of residents – helping them with their problems on housing, welfare, immigration, assisting with school admissions, parking and much more besides.
Some who need immediate assistance, others simply want my view on a certain issue. All are hugely important to me.
That is why my small team and I devote a significant portion of our time and resources making sure constituents are responded to and helped.
However, since the start of the pandemic, the volume of correspondence we receive has almost tripled, with people inevitably needing more urgent help. In 2019 we opened a total of 2,720 cases, but in 2020 alone that number was 6,733. In 2021 this trend continued: 6,889 cases opened with still another month to go.
The impact of coronavirus has been unprecedented for many and for my office it has meant extremely high casework levels. However, the amount of time we have and the resources we have available to us has not increased by much. Additionally, cases often have varying degrees of complexity, urgency and risk, requiring a constant careful balance of time and resources.
For example, when the Afghanistan crisis began, we were inundated with urgent requests, meaning we pivoted our staffing resource to handle this extremely complex and pressing situation, working against the clock to do everything we could to get as many stranded people out as possible.
My team and I work incredibly hard to help as many individuals as we can. I will, of course, continue to be a strong voice for Slough in Parliament and press Government on the issues that matter to my constituents. However, the current situation means that I must ask those who contact us to be patient.
Whilst urgent cases will be seen to as quickly as possible, we’re sorry that for other enquiries it may take more time for our response. Please be assured, we will continue to do all we can to resolve this, and in the meantime, I appreciate your understanding.