Mail Weekly Column: 19 June 2023
This was another busy week. On Tuesday I spoke at an event in the House of Lords promoting our area, ‘Invest in Furness, Barrow and Beyond,’ alongside other senior local figures. These included Leader of South Lakeland Council, Jonathan Brook, Rear Admiral Donald Doull from the MOD, and Chair of our LEP, Lord Inglewood.
With so much happening, now is certainly the time to invest in Barrow: we’ve secured over £120 million of new capital funding from the Government; new investment in Furness General; there are 7,000 jobs coming to the shipyard; Carlton Energy’s Hydrogen Hub is soon to launch; two new massive offshore wind farms are planned (and I hope will be managed out of Barrow Port), and the Morecambe Bay Net Zero project which I’m lobbying for offers the hope of even more new high skill, high wage green jobs in Furness, based out of the old gas terminal.
It’s a really exciting time for our area, and we will see substantial changes over the next two years. The event also gave me the opportunity to raise awareness across Government of the challenges that come with these and the consequent need to support that growth by building more homes and infrastructure, and investing further in our schools and the NHS.
It was great to see Ministers there, and I was delighted afterwards to corner Michael Gove in the voting lobby, to hand him my event brochure, and to stress our need to be a priority for his Levelling Up Department.
On Wednesday at the Home Affairs Committee, I asked the Home Secretary a series of questions on fraud and the Government’s response. Although the Government’s Fraud Strategy contains good initiatives, I remain concerned that more needs to be done to pursue fraudsters, and to prevent the unwary from being scammed. Many of you have contacted me about your own fraud problems, so I shall not be letting this drop.
I also met Minister Stuart Andrew, to discuss how to help CandoFM, our excellent local community radio station, achieve charitable status. A quirk in the law currently prevents such organisations from doing so, cutting them off from many sources of funding and support. Given how much they do to support the community, and the current challenges in BBC local radio (another issue I’m fighting on!) this seems perverse. I am most grateful that the Minister will look further into this. It is so important for rural communities like ours to have a proper local radio station, and not one that skims superficially over a much wider area. I am keeping this under close review.
On Thursday it was good to welcome to Parliament a group from Vickerstown School and answered their excellent questions about life as an MP. If any other school might like a similar trip, please contact my office who can help to arrange it.
Back here, it’s been great to get out and about, from The Farmer’s Arms In Lowick to meeting Stagecoach, then a packed surgery on Friday afternoon, and popping into Another Fine Fest on Saturday. I hold weekly surgeries so, as ever, if you have something you wish to raise with me, do contact my office to arrange an appointment.
