Last week saw the Full Council meetings take place at both Crawley Borough Council and West Sussex County Council. Both Councils discussed and voted on whether to support the draft Gatwick master plan, which sets out Gatwick’s proposals for long-term growth. After the current consultation period, Gatwick Airport will publish a full master plan in 2019, with Government approval required for implementation.

New figures show that the south east of England exported more than £46 billion worth of goods and services in the year to September 2018. This is an increase of 2.7 per cent from the year before.

Henry Smith MP has welcomed figures which show wages have risen at their fastest pace in 10 years as employment reaches a record high, with nearly 32.5 million people currently in employment in total.

Henry Smith MP has visited Zoe’s Florist to congratulate them on being named the winner of his Festive Crawley Christmas Shop Window competition.

Crawley MP Henry Smith has congratulated local school pupils who drew the winning designs in his Christmas card competition for 2018, and has presented certificates to each of the winners and runners-up.

This year we commemorated the 100th anniversary of women first gaining the right to vote, but it is a sad fact that even in 2018, being female in much of the world is a serious disadvantage in society. In some places, repression and fewer rights than men are seen as the norm with progress being painfully slow. I am however proud that the UK does promote gender equality across the world and achieves much through foreign aid, for example in helping to make education available for more girls who would otherwise have access to none.

Henry Smith MP joined The Climate Coalition at a parliamentary event last month (Wednesday, 21st November), calling for increased ambition to stop climate change.

It is concerning that crime has risen in the last year, although this rise is set against the backdrop of the fact that crime is down by over a third since 2010, and it did fall to a record low during this decade. I’ve always taken the view that any amount of crime is too much and to quote a soundbite from the 1990s, we really do need be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime.

5 things the Conservatives are doing to help small businesses

The next couple of weeks will be crucial in deciding what happens with our exiting of the European Union. After very long and arduous negotiations, an agreement on exit terms has been agreed between the UK Government and the EU. Whatever you think of the deal, Theresa May deserves credit for getting us this far in difficult circumstances. She became Prime Minister in the aftermath of the referendum and has been tasked with delivering this democratic verdict of the British people.