Autumn Statement

This week, George Osborne delivered his Autumn Statement to Parliament, setting out his spending plans for the next few years. Although there are some challenging decisions to be made, we all know that we can only have strong public services and strong defence if we have a strong economy to underpin it.  A lot has been achieved over the past five years with the deficit more than halved but there is more to do and this week we saw a plan to get this country living within its means again.

Some departments are protected. The Prime Minister has always been clear that he would increase the NHS budget and there is also additional money for counter terrorism with that budget increasing by thirty percent to back an expansion in our security forces.  

I have been working to ensure Cornwall receives its fair share of funding and have worked with our Police and Crime Commissioner to persuade the Government not to implement a formula that would have disadvantaged Devon and Cornwall Police. I am pleased the Government have listened to these concerns as it means that our community policing can now be safeguarded.

In other areas there has been a historical bias against rural counties and this needs to be put right.  In education, the formula is outdated and has always favoured local authorities in urban areas around cities.  In the last Parliament we put an extra £390 million to help top up areas that were under funded and the Prime Minister has made clear that he now wants to see a wholesale reform of the formula so that it targets need rather than being based on historic inaccuracies.

I have also been looking at the way NHS services are funded. The current formula which decides how much funding local commissioning groups receive from Government currently fails to take into account issues such as rural sparsity and I have been speaking with the Kernow Clinical Commissioning Group in order to develop proposals that would see this adjustment introduced the next time NHS England reviews the current funding formula.

Paris

Last week I visited the King Edward Mine near Troon.  They have just had a major investment to restore some of the old buildings and to create new working space for local entrepreneurs.  

For many years this was the site of the Camborne School of Mines. Even after the School of Mines was relocated to Pool alongside Cornwall College, the King Edward mine remained the place where trainee miners gained their practical experience underground.  A couple of years ago, the venue hosted the international student mining competition which is testament to the fact that Camborne and Redruth remains the birth place of modern mining.  

Some of the old building had fallen into a state of disrepair and, with the help of Heritage Lottery Grants and Cornwall Council, these have been restored to their former glory.  There are several new businesses already working out of the site including a therapist, a new project aimed at improving our water quality, a consultancy that specialises in design and storytelling for museums across the country and Kernow Spa who manufacture and sell everything from candles to perfumes.

We are seeing lots of good examples locally where new businesses are taking root.  Large Diameter Drilling have recently opened their new factory at Tolvaddon and I had a chance to see what has been achieved there this week.  This is a world leading company specialising in heavy engineering and drilling technology and they are involved in projects around the world including Panama, Argentina, Alaska, Malaysia and Australia.  It's great that the legacy of Holmans lives on through new, world leading companies like LDD.  

Terror attacks in France

The appalling terrorist atrocities in Paris last weekend have caused an outpouring of sympathy and solidarity with France.  These attacks could have happened anywhere. We had similar attacks in London a decade ago.  It is a reminder that we cannot ignore insecurity and instability in other parts of the world but must stand together to fight brutal terrorist groups with whom it is not possible to reason.

Remembrance Sunday

Last Sunday, along with thousands of others throughout the county I attended Remembrance Sunday services.  This year I was in Camborne in the morning and then at Illogan in the afternoon.  Once again there was an incredibly strong turnout despite the weather.  In particular, it was great to see all of the various cadet groups out in force along with the Scouts and Brownies.  All making the effort to pay their respects to those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms.

There were other events including a "Live on" event with performances from the Military Wives Choir, the Bev Lin Dance School, singer Andy Marshall, a wonderful poem about the Poppy read by seven year old Poppy Stevenson and the band from HMS Seahawk.  Care for Casualties also organised a firework event in memory of David Curnow, the local soldier who was so tragically murdered in Redruth earlier this autumn and his father, Mike Curnow, delivered a very poignant reading at the Illogan service this year.  The incident has caused great shock locally and there is huge sympathy and support for his brave family and what they are going through at the moment.

Earlier this year marked the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain and I recently held discussions with David Spencer Evans who lives locally and is the founder of the Spitfire Heritage Trust.  You learn something new every week and it turns out that, during the last war, the people of Lesotho (or Basutoland as it was then called) donated enough money to build two squadrons of Spitfires to help us at a time of great peril.  It is a reminder that the whole empire got behind the UK during the last war and the Spitfire Heritage Trust have been working on a project to build a replica Spitfire to be presented to the people of Lesotho in recognition of their role.  It is great to see such good work being led here in Cornwall.

Link Road Finally Completed

At last! The new East-West link road is finally open and I tested it out for the first time last weekend.

It has been a project that I have followed closely since becoming an MP in 2010. The road was always a key part of the regeneration plans for the area, but securing the funding to build it after the economic downturn in 2008 was not easy.  There were several rounds of assessments of the proposal and it had to compete with hundreds of other transport capital projects nationally.  We had to persuade the Treasury to alter their formula for assessing projects, but got there in the end.

There were also a number of challenges during construction. One of the wettest winters on record in 2013 led to a great deal of lost time.  Getting the design of the bridge crossing the river right presented technical challenges and took three attempts. Finally, there were mine shafts that needed to be capped.  I remember visiting the project around Dolcoath early on in 2013.  There is local saying, "deeper than Dolcoath", and civil engineers found out what that meant.  One shaft was so deep that when a rock was thrown down it, you never actually heard it land!

Now it's complete, the rest of the changes to the roads around East Hill will start to make sense. People from Troon, Beacon and Pengegon will have a shorter and quicker route to the A30.  The traffic congestion on East Hill will be eased because people can use the new road instead.  It opens up all of the derelict mining land around South Crofty and Dolcoath for regeneration with new housing and industrial space planned.  There are even ideas for a new Fibre Park in the area so that the growing computer software industry in Camborne and Redruth has new space to move to once it has outgrown Pool Innovation Centre.  So, if you have not tried the road yet, why not give it a go.

Police Funding

There is currently a lot of speculation around police funding and the impact this will have on Cornwall.  Like all government departments, the Home Office, which is responsible for allocating police grants, is having to make significant savings over the next five years. 

No one knows yet how much each department will be asked to save, but we all know we are in a situation where it is more likely that budgets will go down rather than up.  The huge debts piled up by Gordon Brown have left a painful legacy and we are only half way through clearing up the mess.

The immediate task is to ensure that Devon and Cornwall gets a fair allocation of the national funding pot and I have been making the case for improvements to the new funding formula within Government.  However, there will still be savings to be made and that means we need to think differently about the way we organise our services.  

There has been a lot of discussion recently about the possibility that the police station in Redruth might close. At the same time we have seen a brand new "Tri-Service" station open in Hayle.  There, one single, modern building is the joint location for the Fire Brigade, the Police and the Ambulance Service.  It is a great example of our public services working together to save money on overheads like old buildings so that the front line can be prioritised.

How we get our public services working more closely together is likely to be one of the key issues debated next May when we have the second elections for the post of Police and Crime Commissioner.  Although some people were sceptical about these new elections three years ago, the truth is Tony Hogg, our current PCC, has been visible and brought some much needed accountability.  

Fisheries Council

I am now entering my third year as Fisheries Minister and we are starting the annual negotiations leading up to the December Fisheries Council where quotas and fishing opportunities are settled.  At the moment much of the focus is on the agreements we must reach with those countries outside the EU such as Norway, Iceland and the Faroes.  This is particularly important for the agreements we need to reach for fish like mackerel in the North Sea.

However, I have also begun preparation work to develop our case for December Council where most of the agreements relevant to Cornwall are concluded.  I want to make sure that where we have a species where the scientific evidence is patchy, that we make the best assessment we can with the evidence we have rather than assume the worst.  If you set quotas that do not reflect the state of a particular stock, then you risk increased discarding.

Next year is also the year that the discard ban will start to come into effect and this week I announced our plans to introduce this.  This has been an important reform of the Common Fisheries Policy.  It means that the shameful practice of discarding will be banned, starting with a handful of species this year and rolling it out to cover all species over the next four years.  Instead, fishermen will be given an uplift to their quota to allow for the fact they are no longer throwing good fish back, they will be offered grants to improve the selectivity of their nets and there will be new flexibilities to make the discard ban work in practice such as flexibilities on quotas and exemptions for some fish species which will survive if put back. 

Finally, I also announced this week a plan to give more quota to our smaller inshore vessels. I made a clear pledge at the last election to rebalance quotas so that the small "under ten metre" boats received a fairer share of the national quota and from next January they will.

Party Conference

Last week I attended the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester. The mood was very positive although everyone recognises that there are further difficult decisions to take to get our country back on its feet.  As DEFRA minister, I took part in a number of meetings relating to food and animal welfare. There was a well-attended fringe event on the problem of irresponsible back street dog breeders which has been an issue I have championed since becoming an MP

However, the highlight of conference, as always, was the Prime Minister’s speech, where he set out his plans to tackle poverty and boost social mobility.  Before becoming an MP, I worked for David Cameron as his Press Secretary at a time when he was trying to develop new policies to tackle the country’s social problems. However, due to the economic crisis in 2008, some of these ideas had to be put to one side as he turned his priority to getting the country’s finances in order. This required the Government to make hard, often unpopular decisions.  However, with the economy now back on track, the Prime Minister has signalled a return to the reforming agenda he outlined a decade ago.

Part of his speech was dedicated to helping young families buy their first home.  This is really important in Cornwall.  There have been some schemes such as Help to Buy where the Government has provided financial help for those who don't have the huge deposits that most mortgage companies demand before offering a loan.   However, it does not help all.  I frequently come across hard working people who still cannot raise a mortgage because their income is judged too low to afford mortgage repayments even though their rental payments are even higher.  It is incredibly frustrating for them.  There are some other models such as shared ownership that can help but the announcement of a major increase in new housing that is "affordable to buy" where local first time buyers are able to purchase properties at a discount to the open market price will help many more local families.

Great British Beach Clean

Last week I took part in the Marine Conservation Society’s Great British Beach Clean where I joined over forty volunteers in helping to clean up litter at Porthtowan Beach. It wasn’t just about picking up litter however, as we also recorded our findings to help the MCS identify the main sources of litter on our coastlines and raise awareness about the threat it poses to the marine environment.

This was the second year in which I have taken part in the Beach Clean, which occurs at over a hundred beaches all across the country. So far over 6 tonnes of litter has been removed with the most common items found including fishing ropes, bottle tops and various pieces of plastic, the latter of which often takes hundreds of years to break down. Over the last twenty years the MCS has noticed a steady increase in the amount of litter being left at beaches and while this ruins them for visitors we must also recognise the terrible impact that litter has on marine wildlife, with animals often becoming entangled in netting or eating discarded pieces of plastic.

I have also had a lot of correspondence recently about the ongoing problems of sewage releases made by South West Water. Our old Victorian sewer system means that in most places water from drains off the streets is not separated from the sewage system meaning, that when you have heavy rain, the system is overwhelmed.  Without the discharges, sewage would back up into people’s homes.

We should also note that some of the apparently dramatic photos are misleading.  Raw sewage is not brown but grey. The brown water pictured is simply the minerals from the red river. However we clearly need a better solution in the long term. Water companies account for over a third of pollution in our rivers and we need to see improvement. I would like SWW to consider prioritising new investment in West Cornwall to increase its holding capacity so that the number of these sewage releases can be significantly reduced or stopped altogether.

Being in Opposition

It has been an eventful couple of weeks in Parliament with a new leader for the Labour Party and key votes to reform the welfare system and make Trade Unions more democratic. 

But the annual Party Conference season is now underway and next week Jeremy Corbyn will have to deliver his first party conference speech as leader of the Labour Party.  I was previously an adviser to two leaders of the opposition.  Firstly Michael Howard in the run up to the 2005 election and then David Cameron as he emerged from obscurity to become the leader of the Conservative Party.  

Being Leader of the Opposition is a gruelling task.  It is a big leap for any backbench MP to suddenly assume such a role.  You are under constant scrutiny from the media.  It is a struggle to get everyone in your own party singing from the same song sheet.  When things go wrong, people you thought were on your side turn on you.  If you don't get things right within the first few months, then perceptions about you start to set.  You are under constant pressure to react to everything in the news and just attack the Government which makes it hard to develop your own agenda.  You also have to get by with just a handful of key advisers who keep the show on the road and do not have access to all the resources that the Civil Service offer Government.  Jeremy Corbyn has all this to look forward to.

However, our system is designed to make being Leader of the Opposition difficult.  It should be a testing ground for would be Prime Ministers to sort out the wheat from the chaff. The job is tough but it gets no easier if you go on to be elected Prime Minister.  Those who think they can do the job need to be tested.  Being Leader of the Opposition either makes them or breaks them.  Time will tell what it does to Jeremy Corbyn, but it's been a bit of a shaky start.

Reforming Welfare

Reforming the welfare system and supporting people back into work go hand in hand.  For too long, too many people were left languishing on benefits and trapped in a life of poverty.  Helping them go back to work has been one of the primary objectives of the Government in recent years and the results are starting to show. 

I have always kept in close contact with the local Job Centre and other providers delivering the Government's Work Programme and visited both again in recent weeks. Unemployment has tumbled by almost half over the last year or so, and the job market is stronger now than it has been for over a decade.

One of the most powerful schemes in recent years has been the policy of creating work experience opportunities for young people. The most important step to getting a full time job for school leavers is gaining experience. Lots of local employers have done their bit by offering unpaid work experience to school leavers and I have seen numerous cases where, after that short trial period, employers are so impressed by the young people joining their team that they move things around to try to find them a permanent place.

Another change now being rolled out is the introduction of the Universal Credit to replace other out of work benefits and Housing Benefit. Previously, many believed that they were better off on the dole. If a job didn’t work out it was difficult to get back on benefits support. If income went over a certain threshold, people lost all Housing Benefit or tax credits resulting in employees being unable to work more than sixteen hours per week for fear of being worse off. That is about to change.  Under the new system there will be tapered support so that there is a single benefit payment which is withdrawn gradually as income rises.  It will always pay to work more hours but if something goes wrong, the support will kick back in automatically.

These changes are never straightforward but they will transform the lives of those who are on the bottom rung of the ladder. 

Assisted Dying

Parliament can be at its best on a "free vote" where the political parties step aside and where each individual MP tries to reach their own conclusion on difficult and complex issues of conscience.  Last Friday, we all debated one of the most difficult issues of all: the Assisted Dying Bill.

None of us finds it easy to contemplate death. In recent years there have been some heart wrenching cases of individuals who had severe terminal illnesses and who wanted to bring their own life to an end early, on their own terms with medical assistance.  Some of these have ended up in high profile cases before the courts.  In the last few years I have become more sympathetic to some sort of change in the law that would allow professional assistance to be given to those who genuinely want it and had therefore been minded to support the Bill.

However, as always in such areas, the difficulties start once you get into the detail and try to work out how to put such an option into the lawyerly clauses of a written statute.  A week before the debate as part as my preparation, I read the whole Bill from cover to cover and that is when doubt started to set in.  Of particular concern for me were the nature of the "safeguards" and the impacts that creating such an option would have for relationships within families.  It started with the mere description of how a doctor would prepare and then place the drinkable "medicine" beside the patient and then retreat to a neighbouring room to observe from a distance.  There would need to be a signed declaration from two doctors that the persons' condition meant they had less than six months to live. Doctors say it is very difficult on most conditions to make such a judgement on an arbitrary time limit.  It would also not have helped some of the difficult cases which have ended up before the courts and have prompted debate in recent years such as the former rugby player who was severely paralysed.

There would then need to be a High Court Judge to decide whether or not the individual had genuinely wanted to exercise the choice to have assisted dying or whether they had felt under pressure to do it.  But how can a judge really know when you have such complex relationships between an individual and those nearest and dearest to them? Someone might feel very uneasy about ending their own life but could equally feel that they were a burden on their children or feel that they would not want their children to see their condition deteriorate. Their children would most likely feel precisely the opposite and would want their loved ones to know that they would always be there for them. But they would equally fear that they might be being selfish by standing in the way of a loved ones' wishes. The problem is compounded by the fact that people with such terminal illnesses sometimes suffer depression which is understandable. This came up in the debate and the solution put forward by proponents is that, in such cases, doctors would refer the individual for psychiatric assessment before signing off the procedure. But what's that about?  You have to go and pretend to be happy for the psychiatrist before you are allowed to opt to end your own life?

For every case where this gives people the option they want, I feared there would be many, many more where the weight of having to consider whether to actually take such an option would add another intolerable dilemma to people suffering terminal illnesses.  That is why, in the end, I voted against the Bill. However, I remain sympathetic to some other change.  As I listened to the debate I could see an alternative way.  Legal guidance has already been altered in recent years so that there are no prosecutions brought in cases where a family member acted compassionately to assist a loved one in their wishes.  We could, in my view, move that guidance further.  It might also be that people should be able to opt in advance for a palliative care pathway that deliberately seeks to expedite an end rather than try to delay the end.  That would go some way to dealing with these difficult choices without bringing all the new dilemmas inherent in the Assisted Dying Bill.

Syrian Refugee Crisis

Over the last week the Syrian refugee crisis finally broke into the public consciousness with the heart wrenching picture of a Syrian toddler who drowned with his brother and mother while their family was attempting to make it to Greece.  The Syrian civil war has been running for several years and some four million people have fled the country with many desperate families putting their trust in people-traffickers and trying cross the Mediterranean in overloaded and dangerous boats.


I have received a great deal of correspondence from constituents on the matter. I think there are three things we need to do.  Firstly we need to offer sanctuary to those refugees in immediate need of asylum, but to do so in a way that does not encourage more families to risk their lives. That is why David Cameron was right to say that we will offer sanctuary to thousands more refugees, but take them from refugee camps in Syria and the surrounding states so that we don't encourage people to put their lives at risk trying to enter Europe illegally. 


Secondly, this is a moment when our aid budget can really come into its own.  Britain is already the second largest donor of funds to alleviate the refugee crisis in Syria and we can direct more funds to help support those neighbouring states provide refugees with shelter, food and medical treatment.  


Finally, in the longer term, the problem will only be solved once the civil war ends. I voted in favour of air strikes in Syria in 2013 because I think, had we intervened early, we could have brought the conflict to an earlier close with a moderate group forming a new government.  Haunted by memories of Iraq and Afghanistan, parliament hesitated.  A year later, in a separate vote, parliament limited the authorisation for targeted RAF bombing against ISIS extremists to Iraq only, not Syria.  While we should use force with caution,  there are definitely times when military intervention is the right thing to do and the best way to help vulnerable people suffering the consequences of an enduring civil war.

Improving Opportunities for the Next Generation

I have always thought the best way to promote social mobility is to make sure every child has access to a good education tailored to that child’s individual needs. We have some brilliant schools in Camborne, Redruth & Hayle and the A Level and GCSE results which came out last month show that they are going from strength to strength.

We also have some brilliant extra-curricular projects in the constituency which take place over the summer and are aimed at teaching young people life-skills and helping them to build their confidence. For eleven year olds about to start secondary school, Hayle School participates in CampFirst which runs a two week summer camp, allowing participants to get to know their future classmates before the start of term, while the Get On Track Project, run by the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust deploys retired Olympians to help mentor and inspire young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and uses sport to teach life skills such as team work and problem solving.

We cannot forget however, that the first three years of a child's life are the most formative and have a crucial impact on a child's life chances.  Many primary school head teachers tell me they have noticed a growing trend in the last twenty years of children arriving in reception class with language difficulties and, however much effort those schools put in, those children start at a disadvantage. 

The other week I visited the Gooseberry Bush Nursery at Rosmellin. Run by Gill Smith, the Gooseberry Bush stresses the importance of play based learning in developing basic communication skills so children can build relationships with one another.  The government has been increasing free nursery care for two and three year olds and the Gooseberry Bush have been piloting a new programme of early intervention based on rediscovering the importance of traditional play.  They are getting some really positive early results which proves that, in those first few years, it’s not about forcing academic learning ever younger but instead just about encouraging child's play.

Fairer Funding

I have always argued that we need to make progress to improve the historic unfairness in the way various funding formulae operate in Cornwall.  

In the last Parliament I led the campaign to get every Cornish household a £50 rebate on their water bills and also campaigned to introduce the new Pupil Premium which is paid to schools to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Progress was also made on the NHS formula with greater recognition given to the age of our population.

However, there is further to go and I want to build on the successes so far. This week I met Tony Hogg, Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall, to discuss some of his ideas to improve the police funding formula.

The current formula is too heavily based on population numbers and density. This favours more urban areas, but fails to address the challenges of policing a large, rural area like Devon and Cornwall. Nor does it address the fact that as a popular destination for holidaymakers, the police have to contend with the annual influx of tourists and the difficulties such a large increase in the population temporarily brings.

The Government has announced that it will be reviewing the way in which funding is allocated and I will be working with Devon and Cornwall Police to make sure the new formula takes into account the unique geography and challenges which our area faces so that we don’t stand to lose out.

In addition to police funding, I also recently met the head of the Kernow Clinical Commissioning Group and other local NHS managers and I really want to focus on looking at ways to achieve a better deal in terms of healthcare funding. Again, I think we need to recognise the challenge of running a health service in rural areas. People also need healthcare most at the end of their life and that is why the government was right to increase the weight given to the age of the population.  We have started to put things right, but there is further to go.

Exam Results

It is that time of year when teenagers across the country get their exam results.  It can be nerve racking experience because, for many, the results they achieve at A level can have an important bearing on where they go to university.

Last week saw some exceptional A Level results from our local schools with Camborne Science and International Academy achieving a 100 percent pass rate and Redruth only just behind with a 97 percent pass rate.  

I am really proud of all of our schools and tried to visit our secondary schools before the end of last term.  They have each made tremendous progress in recent years and when you visit our schools you detect a real sense of pride from both students and teaching staff.  We now have some of the best schools in Cornwall here in Camborne, Redruth and Hayle.  

Camborne has done impressive work on international exchanges and science, hosting the student science fair in 2013.  A few weeks ago I visited Redruth School which has come forward in leaps and bounds over the last few years and I was really impressed by the work they did to develop confidence in pupils.  Pool Academy also continues to deliver excellent results.  I remember seeing some of their students a couple of years ago running a mentoring scheme to help local children with their reading and Hayle School has also seen its results improve in recent years and has always done good work developing entrepreneurial skills and focusing on languages.

Over the last few years the government has been trying to raise standards by putting a new focus on subjects like maths, sciences and languages and by giving head teachers more freedom.  Every good school has one thing in common: good teaching staff who are well led.  Last week the Prime Minister made clear that he wanted to help more schools become academies.  Being an academy means that head teachers have control of their own budget and the ability to set their own curriculum.  I have never yet met a head teacher who regretted converting to academy status because of the freedom it gives them.  

Cornwall Archive Centre

Last week John Whittingdale, the Secretary of State for Culture, was in Redruth to see work on the new Cornwall Archive project and to confirm the £12 million of Heritage Lottery Funding needed to see the construction completed.

Cornwall has a unique culture and an industrial heritage to be proud of, with Redruth playing a particularly important role as one of the birthplaces of the industrial revolution and as the centre of the Cornish diaspora across the world. In its prime, Redruth was at the heart of the tin mining industry and there were many feats of engineering developed in Cornwall at that time.

After the decline in the fortunes of tin mining in the late nineteenth century, there was a huge exodus to the new world with Cornish tin miners founding the industry in Australia, California, South Africa, South America and Mexico. As a result, today there are some six to eight million people making up a worldwide Cornish diaspora and the vast majority of them can trace their family roots back to Redruth.

It is this history that makes Redruth the ideal place to host the new Kresen Kernow archive project and that is why I have supported this initiative from the start. The new funding of £12 million secured from the Heritage Lottery Fund is a major boost.

The money will be used to help transform the old derelict Redruth brewery site into a centre for holding the world’s largest collection of maps, photographs and manuscripts relating to Cornwall. In addition, once complete, the centre will host a range of exhibitions and activities allowing audiences to celebrate and share in Cornwall’s history.

As well as safeguarding the iconic brewery, the site will also see the construction of homes and shops all of which will play a key role in kick starting the wider regeneration of Redruth and leading to an estimated 300 new jobs in the town.

National Citizenship Service

Parliament has now dissolved for the summer recess which gives MPs the opportunity to take a break from the politics of Westminster and spend more time in their constituencies and in my case catch up on some of the good projects in Cornwall.

Last week I visited a group of young people taking part in the National Citizenship Service (NCS). Set up back in 2011 as a type of modern day, non-military National Service, NCS is open to all 16-17 year olds in England and aims to bring together young people from all sorts of different backgrounds, helping to break down social barriers and develop self-confidence.

As NCS is a residential course, it gives participants the opportunity to leave home behind for a couple of weeks and immerse themselves in a fresh environment and make new friends. This can be a great way to develop their confidence and independence as it means those taking part are all in the same boat. It doesn’t matter what school they go to or where their parents live and it’s a great way of breaking down social barriers.

The team I met had previously spent their first week of NCS enjoying water sports at Sibleyback Lake near Liskeard which was then followed by another week on a residential course at Tremough University where they took part in more team building exercises and began to plan their project to help the community. When I caught up with them, they were putting the finishing touches to a children’s play area at the BMX track at Parc Erissey, where they had spent the last two weeks helping to build sand pit slides, a tunnel and a scramble net. All of their hard work looked very impressive and those involved were celebrating the completion of the project with a well-deserved BBQ in the sun.

Speaking to those taking part, it was clear to me just how much they had learnt and benefited from NCS and I think they deserve a big congratulations for taking on the challenge.

PM visits link road

Last week David Cameron came to Camborne to see the new East-West link road which is now set to be completed in October.  It was part of a wider visit to Cornwall where he also agreed a new "Devolution Deal" with powers to join up spending on areas such as health and social care services being passed to Cornwall.


The East-West link road will play a crucial part in unlocking the potential of all the derelict land around the old South Crofty mine.  We have seen Pool transformed over the last four years with new businesses setting up at the Pool Innovation Centre, a makeover for the college and, of course, the completion of Heartlands.  Now it is time for the Tuckingmill end of Camborne to get the investment that it deserves with new homes built at the proposed Tuckingmill Urban Village and new employment space opened up to attract new industries and better paid jobs.


Building the new road has not been plain sailing and its completion has been a long time coming.  We had a real fight on our hands to secure funding for the project in 2011 and there have been quite a few complications during the construction due to many mine shafts and mine workings affecting the site.  There have also been major problems getting an engineering solution to crossing the Red River Valley due to the softness of the ground with an early attempt having to be aborted.


Perhaps most important of all, once the new road opens, the junctions at either end of it will start to make sense.  For several years now the traffic lights at the top of East Hill have not really worked properly because they were designed to predominantly carry traffic across the top from the new road to the A30.  The result is frequent congestion.  At the other end, the disruption around the Tesco roundabout in Camborne has also caused frustration.  Let's hope these problems are resolved when the new road opens.

Cornwall Deal

Plans for a new Cornwall Deal could take a big step forward this week with the Government expected to outline some areas where it plans to give more responsibility and power to Cornwall.

Cornwall has its own unique identity and being a peninsula at the end of the line, I have always said we should have more control over the way we configure key services.  Last month I spoke at the Cornish Constitutional Convention and made the case for Cornwall having more of a say over culture and heritage policy.  I also think that we can do more to ensure our bus routes work effectively by joining up bus services with train timetables and exploring the possibility of franchise models to make sure that rural routes link in with the main trunk routes.

Another area where we could join things up more effectively is in the area of health and social care.  The problems we have had with black emergencies at Treliske have largely been driven by the fact that Cornwall Council have been slow to roll out care packages for people waiting to be discharged from hospital. If we could join up funding streams more effectively by looking at increased joint commissioning of services we could reduce the tendency of different institutions working in the field of health and social care to operate in silos.  

We also need to look at how we can make things work more effectively within the NHS.  As people live longer there will always be growing demands on the NHS Budget.  That is why George Osborne was right to commit in to an increase in NHS spending of £8 billion.  However, we also need to make sure that funds are distributed fairly so Cornwall gets its fair share.

One of the ways you take pressure of A&E departments is through supporting alternatives like the minor injuries unit currently being piloted at Camborne and Redruth Hospital.  We also have a fantastic tradition of hospice care in Cornwall with charities supporting people with end of life care and support.  These hospices mainly run on charitable funds but, without them, there would be a lot more pressure on NHS services.

The Budget

By the time you read this article, George Osborne will have presented his first budget of this new Parliament.  Good progress has been made in the last five years reducing the deficit, but there is more work to do.  

In Britain we have earned credibility, which means we have incredibly low interest rates at the moment which is a respite for those paying mortgages and a stable economy increases confidence in business which has contributed to a sharp fall in unemployment here in Camborne, Redruth and Hayle.

As I write this article, there is a lot of speculation about what the Budget will hold. We are likely to see a further clampdown on wealthy individuals claiming non-dom status in this country as part of a wider £5 billion crackdown on tax avoidance while the personal allowance threshold is also likely to move closer to £12,500. This will be especially important here in Cornwall where we have a higher number of people on lower incomes.  

To help balance the books, George Osborne has been clear that we will need to look again at the amount of benefits some households receive.  He has already said we will continue to protect the most vulnerable in society such as the disabled. However, where people can work, they should work and it is simply wrong that some families not working are better off financially than those who do work and pay their way. 

In addition, there could be good news for Cornwall with speculation that a new growth deal could be on the way that would give Cornwall some additional investment in infrastructure, the ability to manage more of its own services and with funding for the NHS and social care being more joined up to make sure that the money we have is used effectively.

The economic situation today is very different from the one inherited in 2010. Britain has the fastest growing economy in Europe, the deficit has been halved and we have record numbers of people in work.  I hope this Budget will help sustain that momentum.