Under questioning in the Commons by Gloria, Treasury Minister Danny Alexander admitted that part-time workers earning less than £21,000 whose full time earnings would be over the limit would miss out on the promised £250 pay rise.

Reacting to the revelation, Gloria said “The Government promised to raise the pay of the lowest paid public sector workers. But now we see that their pledge fails to protect part-time workers.”

Read the story here.

Paisley and her brother Conor learned to swim thanks to the free swimming programme, but she was worried that her little sister Milly would miss out after the coalition announced they would axe the scheme.

Paisley wrote to Gloria, asking if she would sign her petition to protect the free swimming programme. Gloria raised the issue at Prime Minister’s Questions, quoting from Paisley’s letter asking David Cameron to “please, please stop this madness.”

The Prime Minister said there was not enough money to pay for it. Gloria said: "I thought an emotional letter from a nine-year-old girl might make David Cameron think twice about cutting free swimming lessons for children. Turns out I was wrong. It looks like Paisley's sister might be an innocent victim."

Click here to read an article about the story published in the The Daily Mirror.

In response to the axed plans Gloria said, “I am outraged that the Lib Dem-Tory government has deprived pupils of a new school building. The existing Sutton Centre is in urgent need of repair and Labour promised to deliver a new building for pupils and teachers.”

Gloria challenged Education Secretary Michael Gove during his statement announcing the cuts in the House of Commons today. Mr Gove refused to give local people the assurance they want.

“I am shocked by the attitude of the Education Secretary. I won’t be letting the fight for Sutton Centre lie here.”

Gloria has written to Michael Gove inviting him to visit Sutton Centre so he can see for himself the need for continued investment in the schools building programme.

“It is a disgrace that the coalition have turned their backs on Sutton Centre. I am disgusted that the Lib Dems can sit in a government that denies our pupils a decent place to learn. This is the Lib Dems turning their back on Ashfield.”

“New schools instil pupils with a sense of pride and help retain good teachers. I am concerned that the cancellation of this programme will lead to an unfair gap between those schools which have benefited under Labour and those which the Lib-Dem Tory Government has abandoned”

Read the debate here.

During Business of the House, Gloria asked the Government to set a time to debate the issue of police productivity. Deputy Leader of the House of Commons David Heath responded that “it is right that we should find time to debate it at some stage.”

Gloria said, “I am pleased that the Government recognises the issue of police presence on the streets. The people in Ashfield tell me time and again how important it is to them to see police patrolling their neighbourhoods.”

The former coal quarry, which lies more than two miles southwest of Kirby-in-Ashfield, is a haven for wildlife and considered to be the best breeding site in Nottinghamshire for rare great crested newts.

The MP for Ashfield expressed her views to the Advertiser newspaper just after the Budget speech was delivered by Mr Osborne on Tuesday 22 June. She said that unemployment would now rise by tens of thousands.

Read the full newspaper article here.

"I am very grateful to have been given an opportunity to make my maiden speech in this debate. Whatever disagreements different Members and political parties may have about how to tackle crime, terrorism and identity theft, we can all agree that they are issues of great concern to our constituents, and it is for all of us to address them. I congratulate every Member who has made their maiden speech today. They were truly excellent speeches, which I must now follow...

Let me begin by paying tribute to my predecessor, Geoff Hoon, who represented Ashfield for 18 years. Geoff was a barrister by trade but was born and bred into a long line of railwaymen, and I know that the values he learned from his family shaped his political outlook. Above all, he was determined to put those values into practice as a Minister. He spent six years as Secretary of State for Defence, making him the second longest-serving Defence Secretary to date. Much of that is known about Geoff, but less well known is his passion for pop music and his encyclopaedic knowledge of bands of the 1960s and '70s. Geoff Hoon was very serious about his music, and, to be honest, he would probably cringe if he looked at the music on my iPod.

Ashfield is a constituency shaped by industry, and proud of it-and those industrial roots have shaped those privileged enough to represent it. Everywhere I went during the election campaign, I was reminded just how large the shoes are that I have to fill-including those of Frank Haynes, who, after years below ground as a miner, represented Ashfield in this House from 1979 to 1992. In doing my research, I learned that Frank was famous for having one of the loudest voices in the House of Commons. When I promised the voters of Ashfield that, if they sent me to Parliament, I would shout up for them, I was speaking metaphorically. Frank clearly promised the same thing, but meant it quite literally. He was loved by many in Ashfield and by many in this House. Everyone tells me how popular he was. His key quality, which I shall always try to emulate, was that he was always himself. I love the image of him asking Margaret Thatcher a tough question at Prime Minister's questions and calling her "duckie", which is the legendary term of endearment that Nottinghamshire folk use every day. I am assured that the Iron Lady smiled.

am the first Member of Parliament to begin serving Ashfield with no local men underground mining for coal. Our most famous sons were from mining backgrounds. They include Harold Larwood, a Nottinghamshire and England fast bowler who left school at 14, before the war, to work in the mines. His statue still stands today in Kirkby-in-Ashfield. D. H. Lawrence was born in the town of Eastwood and was the son of a miner who could barely read. He called Eastwood "the country of my heart". It is not only the decline of mining that has hit Ashfield hard. I am delighted to be here as the first woman to represent the constituency, because women played a full part in building Ashfield's prosperity by working in the textile industry, but one by one the textile factories have gone the way of the pits. Yes, new jobs have been created, but too often they do not pay as well or offer the job security of those they replaced, and there are not enough of them.

Ashfield could be forgiven for thinking that its best days were behind it, but my mission in representing the people of my constituency in this House is to prove that that fear is misplaced, because the thing that has seen Ashfield through good times and bad is its sense of community. Indeed, I could say that the big society is alive and well there. For us, that is not a smart phrase invented by those from the leafy lanes of Notting Hill: one can smell it in the novels of Lawrence and see it there today. Every village has its community hub: the Stanton Hill community shop, the Huthwaite community action group, the Eastwood volunteer bureau, the Kirkby volunteer bureau, the Acacia avenue community centre and the Friends of Colliers Wood-I could go on and on. We do not just look out for each other in Ashfield; we stand up for ourselves, too, as those involved in the Kirkby and Sutton area residents associations prove every day by trying to keep the green fields in Ashfield green. D. H. Lawrence might be our historical hero, but it is the local heroes who are alive and well today that I want to support and pay tribute to. We can read about them each week in the Ashfield Chad and the Eastwood & Kimberley Advertiser.

I came from a pretty poor background, and I believe that it is thanks to my party speaking up for people from backgrounds such as my own that I was able to go to university, have a successful media career and today speak from these green Benches. I believe that Governments can and should help to transform people's lives for the better. Of course it takes individual effort and the support of the family, but there is something else that transforms people's lives, and that is community.

I know that it is fashionable for some on the Government Front Bench to talk about community, and I am delighted that they have rediscovered the word-along with "society"-but I am not convinced that they really understand it. They have presented a false divide between the big society and big government. I am arguing for an enabling Government who help people to come together and look after their interests. It is not a matter of choosing between society and the state; it is about binding the two together, for then, truly, the whole is worth more than the sum of the parts. The result is an empowered community and a flexible, responsive, enabling state, working together, rather than one replacing the other.

It is ironic that the so-called new politics, which suggests that state and society are somehow opposed and that one can flourish only if the other withdraws, should so precisely mirror the mistakes made by the worst of old Labour which sometimes gave the impression that the state knew best and should dictate what happened. Underneath its rhetoric, the new politics represents the flip side of the same coin. Its adherents seek to trumpet society at the expense of the state, which the Conservative party says should be smaller as a matter of principle. I do not know whether its supposed partners agree with that, but I guess that we will find out eventually.

It is dogma to suggest that, if we roll back the state, the big society will flourish in its wake. Places like Ashfield need strong communities and strong government. If that means big government, then that is fine if that is what is needed. We do not need big government for its own sake, of course, but we do need strong and active government, for a purpose. After all, were Sure Start or community support officers examples of big government? Is a Government-initiated apprenticeship one?

Today, Ashfield needs a new economic backbone to enable local people to develop their talents and become the D.H. Lawrences and Larwoods of the future. We need it to promote the talents of people who come from Ashfield and ensure that those talents stay in the area to develop its future economic strength.

We know that tough economic times lie ahead. Ashfield can cope with a lot, but it is up to Government to help us. Ashfield is a place with a tremendous sense of community, but we need the Government to help us on the way. Ashfield has a big heart and lies at the heart of England. We will be as strong, vibrant and successful as we were in our heyday, but such a renaissance will happen only with a strong state and a strong society working hand in hand. If hon. Members on the Government Benches cannot see that and make it happen, when we get our chance, we will."