3 years ago, I raised with HMRC a couple of reasons behind the rising demand for food banks. First, it was taking them around 2 months to process changes to tax credit claims, after families had sent off the necessary paperwork. This left all too many parents short of money [1/5] Since then, HMRC has set in hand a new telephone service which has cut the average duration of this process, from 2 months to a little over a week, thereby preventing any loss of income for families. 55,000 families benefitted from it in 2017 and 129,000 did so in 2018 [2/5]

A little over a week since the Duke and Duchess of Sussex visited Birkenhead, here in the following Tweets are the contents of a message I've received which sums up just how much it meant, in particular, to children in our town: "I was able to organise for a group of our Visually Impaired children to visit Hamilton Square on Monday when Prince Harry and Meghan came to Birkenhead. For the children I support and the many others that came down to welcome them truly is a once in a life time opportunity [...]