As usual it has been a busy month and I have been looking forward to updating you on what I have been up to since my last news letter. 

Parliament   

30th October was a historic day with Rachel Reeves becoming the first woman to deliver the budget, I am extremely proud of my sister for breaking through this glass ceiling. 

I am also proud of our transformative budget which has set out how Labour will fix the foundations to deliver the change we need while ensuring working people don’t face higher taxes in their payslips, you can see me discussing this on Politics Live ahead of the Budget here. 

In Cabinet Office Questions this month I spoke about the importance of our mission based Government, and how our approach with departments and agencies working cross departmentally will deliver the tangible changes needed after 14 years of decline. 

Part of this cross departmental work includes my work sitting on all of the mission boards as well as working on the Child Poverty Taskforce, to tackle the scourge of child poverty and my work on the board to halve Violence Against Women and Girls over the next decade. 

In addition, this month I led the committee stage for our Bill to reform the House of Lords, delivering on our manifesto commitment to end the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. You can find this here. 

Party Chair 

In my capacity as Party Chair, I continue to meet with Party stakeholders, including Trade Union political officers and regional and national Parliamentary Labour Party Groups to update them on my work. 

Since our last meeting the Conservative Party have finally concluded their leadership election and Kemi Badenoch has been elected leader after a campaign full of infighting. Kemi was part of the chaos of the last 14 years and you can see my comments to Sky News here.

You can also read my op-ed on this in the Sunday Mirror, contrasting between the chaos and infighting on the Conservative benches, with this Government’s hard work to deliver on our mission-based priorities. 

I also continue to lead on key aspects of the Labour Party’s campaigning including overseeing our Local Authority By-Elections and our National Campaign Weekends.  

Community 

While my Ministerial role is certainly keeping me busy, I continue to do as much as possible in the community. 

I was delighted to visit the Greenvale School and the onsite SeeAbility clinic which provides sight tests, glasses and ongoing support for the children and young people. It was amazing to see the positive impact this had on the pupils. 

I was also able to call in at Forest Hill Fire Station to meet members of White Watch and to hear about the training they are undertaking on tackling fires in high rise buildings. I was also very impressed to learn of the community work they undertake including providing the vulnerable with food at Christmas. 

It was wonderful to meet with pupils from Holy Trinity Church of England School when they visited Parliament recently, I hope they enjoyed their visit! 

I have also recently visited the Forest Hill Job Centre, and met with staff there where we discussed their innovative partnership programmes with local employers and the training they are able to provide. It was also useful to hear from them about the challenges both they and the job seekers they are supporting face. 

Finally, as always it was a great honour to lay a wreath on Remembrance Sunday in memory of those who served our country. I was also able to place a Remembrance Stake in the Constituency Garden of Remembrance in Westminster to pay tribute to the fallen. 

Thank you for your continued support. 

Best wishes, 

Ellie 

Ellie Reeves MP