A year as your MP
On July 4th 2024, one year ago, I was elected to be your new Member of Parliament for Erewash. It was the honour of my life to be chosen to represent my home, and all the people of Ilkeston and Long Eaton, Sandiacre, Breaston, Draycott, Risley, and Stanton-by-Dale. It was the culmination of years of effort, but the real hard work was yet to come.
My main goal has always been to be an MP you can rely on, because that’s what people here deserve. The team I’ve put together handle questions and calls for help about anything and everything. We’ve helped more than a hundred local families with SEND children. Reported endless potholes. I’ve now been to every secondary school in Erewash, and I’m getting around the primary schools – most recently visiting Grange in Long Eaton.
We need to get a grip on crime here locally – I’m in regular contact with the police, and by next year we’ll have 35 new officers on the beat in Derbyshire. I’ve also launched a campaign for publicly available bleed kits to save lives in Ilkeston.
We need to revive our town centres – that’s why I’m backing crackdowns against empty shops, extensions to town centre business grants, and voted to even the playing field on business rates between local shops and online giants.
To put money directly back in the pockets of working families, we’ve extended free school meals to a million more children and introduced free primary school breakfast clubs. Eventually, every school will have these clubs, but Chaucer Juniors in Ilkeston has one of the first in the country. We’ve also clamped down on the rising cost of school uniforms.
I’ve voted to reform our outdated planning rules, so it’s easier, cheaper, and faster to invest in Britain and create jobs. I’m so proud to see New Stanton Park rising from the rubble, and I’ll do everything I can to ensure those are good, skilled jobs for local people. I’m also very pleased with 3,000 new jobs and apprenticeships being created at Rolls-Royce in Derby.
There’s been so much that it’s hard to fit it all in. I’ve voted to renationalise our railways and British Steel, to end zero-hour contracts, to legalise assisted dying, and to make sure no woman that gets an abortion is ever threatened with prosecution again. I’ve visited major employers like Toyota and Wards and East Midlands Airport. And I’m still holding regular advice surgeries roving around the constituency.
And nationally, what has the Labour Government achieved? Well a lot can happen in a year with a Labour government. Four million extra NHS appointments delivered. A Border Security Command launched. GB Energy set up. Breakfast clubs rolling out. Wages for millions of workers boosted. Undeserved bonuses for water bosses banned. Ninja swords outlawed. More potholes filled. Trade deals with the EU, US and India secured. A sustained increase defence spending confirmed. A National Wealth Fund set up. Our planning system reformed. The Rwanda scheme scrapped. The pensions triple Lock guaranteed. The biggest uplift to workers rights in a generation. School-based nurseries rolling out. Record returns of people with no right to be here. Bus services improving. Rail back under public control. A 10-year plan for the NHS published. British steel protected. Together, we’ve done a lot, but there’s much more to do.
It’s been a stellar year. This job is not easy, but nobody ever said it was going to be. I work six or seven days a week, sometimes well more than 12-hour days – all dedicated to you, the people of Erewash. There’s still so much more to do, and I’ll be speaking up for you every step of the way.
So thank you, Erewash, for this first year as your MP – here’s to more to come.