Herald Express: Parliament's back - here's what to expect

And just like that, parliament is back. In the time since MPs left London for summer recess in their constituencies, Andy Burnham has become Prime Minister and announced all sorts of policies from bus fares to ending rough sleeping.

Now we’ve returned to Westminster, we will get the chance to properly scrutinise his ideas – and press him on other issues which he’s been conspicuously quiet about this summer.

Near the top of my list is water. Sandwiched between last week’s announcements on Ukraine and housing, the government quietly shelved plans to put Thames Water into a special administration regime, throwing doubt over Burnham’s repeated pledges to bring utilities into public control.

Water – or rather the lack of it – has dominated the headlines during an exceptionally dry summer, shining a light on the pernicious issue of leaks that plague companies like South West Water.

In 2024/25, the company lost 39,347 million litres of water – that is the equivalent of 107.8 million litres every day, enough to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool 43 times over. Every single day.

To make matters worse, SWW is not even the worst offender. Eight other companies, covering the length and breadth of the country, are leaking even more water, which shows how systemic the issue is across the water industry.

The Met Office has made it clear we are likely heading into the wettest, stormiest winter on record, so questions over water capacity and sewage discharge are not going anywhere.

I want to see the Prime Minister show the ambition he had on the Makerfield campaign trail and reform our water industry, so it actually delivers for customers.

Parliament is not alone in returning from a summer break this week. Across the country children are returning to school, but how many teachers will not be going back at the start of term?

I recently looked into the issue of teacher retention with an England-wide survey, and what came back was deeply troubling, painting those who educate our children as overworked and under supported.

A shocking 76% said they felt frequently or constantly burnt out, with the average working week hitting 54 hours, much of which it is spent bogged down in admin.

These figures are a direct symptom of the chronic neglect our education system has suffered for far too long. Dedicated teachers are working themselves into the ground as school budgets and support staff are cut year on year.

As Lucy Powell enters her first term as Education Secretary, I’ll be pushing her to resolve this crisis, starting by enforce legally mandated hours for teachers and introducing flexible working to bring the profession into the 21st century.

Another issue on the Education Secretary’s in-tray is social media. Last week, Meta shelled out billions of dollars in a court case brought by various US states and territories which accused the company’s platforms of harming children.

Clearly, the company was determined to keep the evidence out of court, thereby hiding the scale of harm perpetrated by platforms like Facebook and Instagram from the public.

We all know what happens when addictive algorithms and harmful content are fed to our children. So, if a US court can pressure Meta into making significant changes to its platforms to protect kids in the US, why is our government still relying on option curfews, strongly worded statements, and unworkable bans? What about our kids?

If Ministers continue to sit on their hands, we are leaving another generation of children exposed to platforms designed to keep them hooked. We need a film-style age rating to incentivise platforms to remove addictive features and make one thing clear to Big Tech: if your products aren’t safe, you don’t get access to our children.

It’s going to be interesting seeing how the new Prime Minister handles Westminster on his return. He’s made a lot of promises as a fledgling PM – how many of them will he be able to keep? I’ll be doing all I can to hold him and his government to account and ensure the King of North doesn’t forget about us in the South West.