Aylesbury MP Rob Butler: "If I can help you please get in touch"

Aylesbury MP Rob Butler writes about his own experiences, and how the life of an MP has had to change dramatically...

The rapid learning curve of becoming an MP in a snap election quickly became faster and steeper, as the coronavirus pandemic saw constituents turning to me for help in the most desperate situations.

Casework about difficult neighbours or potholes was replaced by urgent appeals for assistance accessing the government’s grants to save jobs, or get home when stranded overseas.

Face-to-face surgeries have been suspended and replaced by phone calls.

I haven’t been to my parliamentary office for more than a month and instead am working from home, as are all my team. The normal flurry of meetings has been replaced by Zoom, Skype and Microsoft Teams calls.

We can now ask ministers questions online too – it will be a very odd sensation to speak directly to the prime minister via a laptop perched on a pile of books on my dining table, I’m sure. And remote voting is also about to start, breaking the tradition of hundreds of years of having to pass through the lobbies in a division.

The camaraderie of the Commons has been replaced by WhatsApp groups which have come into their own, as we share suggestions, ask questions and provide moral support to one another.

Teamwork has been the key – whether with my own staff, some of whom hadn’t even started to work for me when the crisis began; with fellow local MPs, each of whom brings different insight and experience; or with the local council, which has been phenomenal in its work, not least as it transformed into a unitary on April 1st, in the midst of the emergency.

And I’m enormously grateful to local keyworkers in so many areas including the health service, care workers, teachers, shopworkers, posties and refuse collectors; each and every one playing a key role to get us through.

If there is anything positive to come from this crisis, it is the astonishing part played by volunteers in our communities. I have had the privilege of joining groups collecting for the food bank, delivering groceries and dropping off prescriptions across the constituency.

Whether in Berryfields or Bedgrove, Stokenchurch, Wendover or Hughenden, there are amazing acts of kindness being shown by residents to their more vulnerable neighbours.

Let’s hope that this spirit survives well beyond the end of the virus.

It is not the start to my parliamentary career that I, or anyone else, would have wished for.

But it has shown what we as a country can do when faced with such a dire emergency, and how members of parliament can play even a small role in helping their constituents get to the other side. What we will find there is likely to become another steep learning curve, but I am optimistic that together, we will climb it and become strong again. If I can help you, please email me on [email protected]