Good evening john,

Last week was a busy week, my weekly newsletter includes the Farming Surgery I held with the NFU at the Hexham Mart, a welcome refurbishment to Ovingham CofE First School, a public meeting we held with our Ukrainian guests and their sponsors and news on a Government ban on single-use plastics.

As ever, if you have an issue you would like to raise with me as your local Member of Parliament, please email: [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) .

Farming Surgery with the NFU


On Friday, it was great to be at the Hexham Auction Mart for meetings with NFU North East, local farmers and a drop in surgery working with Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs officials.

Anna and the NFU team on the ground, and my Constituency team are here to answer any questions or issues you would like to raise. If we missed you at the Hexham Mart on Friday, please get in touch.


** Ovingham School refurbishment
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I was delighted to visit Ovingham First School again to catch up with the Headteacher, Andrew Hudson and look at the refurbishments that have happened over the summer.
The school received a funding boost of £658,449 from the Department of Education to support improvements to the school building.

The exterior of the school required refurbishing, as well as replacing windows and doors to improve the school's energy and heat efficiency.

It is a great school and I was delighted to help secure the funding, which will improve the learning environment for local children.


** Public meeting with our Ukrainian guests and their sponsors
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Last week, we held a meeting with over 100 of our Ukrainian guests, many of their sponsors and supporters in Hexham.

Massive thanks to Wendy and the many other organisers and helpers, and Phil from Northumberland County Council who came along to help answer key questions.
Many answers on issues as varied as work, skills, language training, kids education, references, housing, Ukrainian qualifications, cars, the rise in sponsor support and visas were able to be given on the night, even if only in part.

Our key project is to create an FAQ website on the Northumberland County Council website in English and Ukrainian. This will have all the key updated links and information and will also be linked on my website and for use across Northumberland to the many hundreds of guests, sponsors and supporters.

Our hope is that this is resolved and publicly available in the next two weeks. As explained at the meeting, my office continues to provide assistance on a whole host of issues: email in and we will help: [email protected].


** Government ban on single-use plastics
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The Government has announced a ban on single-use plastics.

The ban will include single-use plastic plates, trays, bowls, cutlery, balloon sticks, and certain types of polystyrene cups and food containers. This ban will be introduced from October 2023, allowing businesses time to prepare.

According to estimates, England uses 2.7 billion items of single-use cutlery — most of which are plastic — and 721 million single-use plates per year, but only 10% are recycled. If 2.7 billion pieces of cutlery were lined up, they would go around the world over eight and a half times (based on a 15cm piece of cutlery).

From October, people won’t be able to buy these products from any business - this includes retailers, takeaways, food vendors and the hospitality industry. Over 95% of those who responded to the consultation were in favour of the bans, the Government’s response, published last week (Saturday 14 January 2022), reveals.

Plastic pollution takes hundreds of years to break down and inflicts serious damage to our oceans, rivers and land. It is also a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, from the production and manufacture of the plastic itself to the way it is disposed.

We all know the absolutely devastating impacts that plastic can have on our environment and wildlife.

I am proud of the government's record in this area: it has banned microbeads, restricted the use of straws, stirrers and cotton buds and the carrier bag charge has successfully cut sales by over 97% in the main supermarkets.

Guy Opperman MP

Member of Parliament for Tynedale and Ponteland

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