Casework - Key Information

As a Member of Parliament, I receive many hundreds of emails per day, so please bear with me as you await a response. The below information sets out how you can help me to respond as quickly and effectively as I can.

We may not be able to resolve everything, but we will always try and respond to your enquiry quickly. Across the team we will do our best to advocate on your behalf.

If you are an individual, please make sure that you have confirmed your full name, full address, and telephone number. Without this information you will not receive a response. Please note that I can only engage with people living in the Buckingham and Bletchley constituency. You can double check who your Member of Parliament is here.

If you ask me to pursue a matter on your behalf, my office will use your information to assist you. We may share your details with relevant agencies (e.g. Department for Work and Pensions, the Home Office, or Buckinghamshire or Milton Keynes City Councils) where necessary. Click here to read my privacy policy in full.

As a rule, my team and I aspire to respond to emails within the following timeframe:

• Urgent casework requiring an immediate intervention – as soon as possible.

• Specific individual casework – within 10 working days.

• Government policy casework – within 25 working days.

Please read carefully the below information on what is required for different types of casework.

Cases relating to services provided by either Buckinghamshire or Milton Keynes City Councils

If your query involves local council issues such as parking, roads, rubbish, bin collections, trees, or housing, please state which Ward Councillors from the relevant Council you have already communicated with, so that the team does not duplicate investigations that have already been undertaken. The team will only intervene if no satisfactory conclusion has been reached after contacting the Council/Ward Councillors.

Planning

We will not intervene on any individual planning application save for exceptional circumstances. This is because planning is generally a reserved matter for a local authority. An individual Member of Parliament holds no sway in the final decision of whether an application is approved, or whether an appeal is successful. This is decision that lies solely with the local authority’s planning officers or planning committee (which is comprised of elected local councillors). We will only engage on planning matters that are deemed Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs).

Immigration and visa cases

If your case relates to an immigration case, please provide any Home Office reference numbers or other relevant documents. Please also make sure that you have provided the nationalities, dates of birth and passport numbers of all those concerned in the case.

If you are emailing on behalf of someone else, please make sure you have provided a Letter of Authority (LOA), giving you and my team consent to act on the other person’s behalf. This LOA should be signed and dated by this person. Without this letter we cannot provide support on the case.

Benefits cases

If your case relates to benefits, please make sure that you have provided your National Insurance number, any reference numbers for tribunals and information on the progress of your case (i.e. have you applied for a mandatory reconsideration, have you appealed the decision of the Department for Work and Pensions etc).

Housing cases

If your case relates to housing, please make sure that you have provided information on who your landlord is, how many people live in your property, your current priority banding and whether you receive housing benefit.

Policy cases

I receive hundreds of model letter campaign emails through petition websites regarding the Government policy on just about every domestic and foreign issue. As these emails are sent to me in a template format, please expect any response to be personally written but also standardised. They also often come in large waves, so please bear in mind that it might take a while to prepare and send back a response.

Please mark your email as ‘Urgent’ if you require immediate attention, so that the team can prioritise its workload.