With three towns in Wyre Forest and many local churches, it was always going to be a challenge to know which Remembrance Sunday service to attend. Years ago I decided to rotate through each town on a three yearly cycle.
The Wyre Forest District Council local plan is, as many residents are aware, under public consultation. For many residents, they face the prospect of their views over what they thought was safe, greenbelt land being built on and I am hugely sympathetic to their concerns.
The latest focus on Westminster rekindles an issue that I have argued about for years: the care of MPs’ members of staff and how they are employed.
Currently, MPs are given an allowance that is used to pay staff. Most of my staff are in Kidderminster and I have one assistant in London.
Ensuring we have good health services locally is a key part of an MPs role. Core to the checks and balances is the Care Quality Commission (CQC), ensuring standards are maintained across the country.
Making sure that we give all children a top quality education is no small challenge. On the whole, we do well at educating through our schools and universities, but we cannot be at all complacent about maintaining standards.
During the referendum campaign, I met a bloke who argued that Britain could be entirely self-sufficient. He claimed that we could manufacture everything we needed and that we could stop importing anything at all. We could be an isolated country, not dissimilar to the 70s sit-com, The Good Life.
Recent press is dominated by stories about Uber, the ground breaking new taxi service. At its heart is the decision by Labour’s Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to cancel Uber’s license.
Don’t get me wrong, Uber are guilty of infringements of its obligations to provide a safe service to the public.
The jobs figures published last week were, by any standards, remarkable. Not only do we have a record number of people in work, we have the lowest unemployment rate for 42 years (4.3%).
As a Minister in the Department for International Trade I had the opportunity to speak in a Westminster Hall Debate this week on Foreign Investment into the UK.
The link for the full debate is posted below but the following are some of the points I raised during my speech.
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