It was useful to meet the National Trust in Parliament this week, as part of their "Nature=Future" campaign. I know what great work the Trust does across the country, and of course Mottisfont is one of the nationals favourite Trust properties. However, locally there are some issues with the Trust not being sufficiently proactive about making sure access is maintained to Plaitford Common and I did not miss the opportunity to raise that with them in person. There needs to be a solution to the missing stretches of boardwalk that allows commoners and their livestock to access the common safely. Sometimes it is little understood that the landscape of the New Forest has been established by and is dependent upon continual grazing, and a loss of access for livestock could be a significant problem to the landscape in the Northern part of the Forest.
On Tuesday I was at the University of Southampton for their Electronics and Computer Science Student Showcase, and it was a great opportunity to meet the students and hear about their work. It was incredibly varied, ranging from ways to find humour in the rather dark moments of forensics, to AI tools to help student wellbeing. What really struck me was the enthusiasm the students had to demonstrate their work, and how thrilled they were to be able to explain it to a complete non-scientist. It followed on from a meeting I had in Parliament on Monday with female academics, and it was great to see a good number of female students studying STEM subjects at Southampton. Of course there are never enough, but numbers are steadily increasing.
This week is Carers' Week and there was an event in Parliament on Wednesday to celebrate the incredible work of unpaid carers, with a theme of how we can build carer-friendly communities. I think we already have that in Romsey, and I particularly think of Carers Together and Romsey Young Carers who do such incredible work supporting people in and around the town. I also had a number of constituents in this week, some for PMQs and in particular a GCSE student with additional needs who is an absolute inspiration. It was great to see her and her mother again, they used to be regular visitors to my Select Committee in the last Parliament so it was lovely to give them a quick behind the scenes tour of the Ways and Means corridor.
I am looking forward to a number of carers related events in Romsey over this weekend, an afternoon tea for carers on Friday and on Saturday a fete in aid of Dementia UK.