Neil Coyle Newsletter Article

Last Friday ,as part of our school celebrations for Parliament week, we were very privileged to meet and question our local Member of Parliament Neil Coyle, who is part of the Labour Party and has to represent our views to the back to the government. The event took place in the Assembly Hall and was full with over 50 students from Year 10 and 12 keen to seek knowledge.

Mr Coyle took the opportunity to talk about life as a MP, how he is representing this constituency at Westminster. Mr Coyle first was interested in politics because he grew up early life with a sick mum and a Brother who did not get all the support they needed. At times he had to take time off school to help at home, this led to a passion to make changes to help improve people’s lives by being and MP and working to help lots of Mental Health Charities and campaigns so that “No one would have to go through this.” He later went on to become a councillor in Southwark for Labour. Mr Coyle told us that one of the biggest steps in becoming a Labour MP was convincing the local party that he was up to the job!

In 2015 Neil Coyle was elected the local MP and Old Southwark emerging victorious against a popular Liberal Democrat incumbent (), the party who had help this position for over 32 years!

His work includes helping local residents who can attend his office on Jamaica Road for help on any issues they need, he informed us are mainly “housing and immigration” and these issues tend to be resolved quite efficiently through his hard work and dedication for the community most noticeably how he and his team have to deal with problems till late at night.

We asked questions on , it was fair? , Mr Coyle said we should have a second vote , something his boss doesn’t agree with but a lot of the students seemed to like the sound of. There were also questions about the rise Knife Crime, Mr Coyle said they were working with the police to try and reduce crime in the area but with “tory cuts to policing” it was difficult. Some pupils also asked about Stop and Search and if this was sometime racist. Labour spending and prosecutions were also raised. These topics aren’t the only matters of the past but also contribute to our future such as Brexit and a reduction in the police workforce which he had explained could have been a detrimental factor towards an increase in crime.

I definitely took away a sense of community through this session with us and despite not being a resident at this Constituency it is certainly a pleasure to know that they’re people who take our issues very seriously and work hard in order to ensure our issues can be dealt with and we can live safer, happier and together within the local area.

Bless Ngoma