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February 17, 2015

British House of Lords delegation meets WB CM

British House of Lords delegation meets WB CM

A delegation of British parliamentarians today called on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, besides having an interaction with Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee and members of the state Legislative Assembly to strengthen links between Indian and British legislators.

The 10-member British delegation, consisting of members from the House of Lords and the House of Commons and led by Baroness D’Souza, the Lord Speaker of the House of Lords, began its visit to the city with an interactive session with elected representatives from the Legislative Assembly.

The Chief Minister later said in a Facebook post that she received a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Delegation of eight UK MPs representing various political parties and officials led by Baroness D’Souza CMG, Lord Speaker, at the state secretariat Nabanna.

“We had a very useful discussion on a wide range of topics. They wanted to know about the priorities of the state government like empowerment of women, paid maternity leave for women employees, reservation of seats for women in local bodies and urban and rural development initiatives,” she said.

“The delegation expressed keen interest about our ‘Kanyashree’ scheme. I am so happy that the scheme for our girl child has generated so much interest all over the world,” the CM said, adding, “They also wanted to know about the constraints we face in carrying out development work.”

“I mentioned to them about the legacy of huge debt left over by the previous government and our repayment burden as the major hurdle to development work and how hard we are working to overcome this obstacle,” Ms Banerjee said.

Here is what the West Bengal Chief Minister tweeted: