As we enter the festive season, it brings to a close a huge year for me personally, and for our community. After many months of relentless campaigning across the constituency I entered the Houses of Parliament as the MP for South Suffolk and the hard work truly began! The final weeks of this year have been no exception. The Autumn Statement revealed great news for our schools as the Chancellor committed the Government to reforming the unfair funding formula which penalises Suffolk’s pupils. Alongside this, Parliament voted on whether to extend the bombing campaign we are conducting with our allies against ISIL in Iraq over the border into Syria. It was an extremely difficult decision and one I took with great deliberation, but whilst I opposed the original Iraq war because I did not feel our country was genuinely under threat, I felt that the events in Paris served to highlight the clear and present danger we face and I supported giving the RAF a mandate to hit specific terrorist assets in the country where ISIL’s headquarters is based. There has been no evidence of civilian loss of life as a result of our bombing against ISIL in Iraq conducted since last September – without which all of Iraq may have fallen to brutal terrorist control - and I hope and pray that with the high precision hardware of the Royal Air Force we can continue to minimise collateral damage whilst degrading an enemy that we know is planning to murder UK civilians. Alongside global events, the day to day focus on the home front continues. For example, I recently hosted a South Suffolk Food Day in the Houses of Parliament. This event gave producers from across the constituency an opportunity to promote their products to nearly 500 visitors including other MPs, local Councillors and the Secretary of State, Liz Truss. Among those who exhibited their wares were Jimmy’s Farm, Giffords Hall Vineyard, Hadleigh Maid and Suffolk Food Hall. We are fortunate to have so many fantastic food and drink producers in South Suffolk and the event demonstrated this very clearly. I have also launched a new website that provides updates on my activities, details of forthcoming surgeries and contact details for my Westminster office at www.jamescartlidge.com.Finally, I was delighted to recently attend the opening of the new Javelin store directly opposite the site of the Sudbury fire. It remains to the town’s eternal credit that the community rallied round so strongly in the wake of the fire, and the best way we can do to keep that spirit alive is to do as much of our Christmas shopping as possible in local stores. I will do my best in that regard, and I wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.