Last weekend, I had the privilege of addressing the crowd at the 93rd Kinder Mass Trespass event. This event is held annually to commemorate the most successful piece of direct action that our country has seen. A rare moment in our history where a straight line can be drawn between the actions of Benny Rothman and his fellow ramblers to the access to nature that people in High Peak and across Britain love and cherish today.
The Labour government, elected after the Second World War and led by Clement Attlee, recognised the need to protect nature and preserve our countryside for the people. They passed the legislation to create the first National Parks, ensuring access to places like the Peak District, which dominate our landscape.
Since then, it has fallen to Labour governments throughout our history to step up to protect our natural environment. In 1968, Harold Wilson’s government passed the Countryside Act, which mandated every government minister and public body across the country to have due regard to conserving the natural beauty and amenity of the countryside.
In 2000, it was Tony Blair’s government which passed the Countryside and Rights of Way Act, finally giving walkers the right to roam on more areas of the Peak District and other national parks.
I’m immensely proud to say that Labour has led the way in protecting our environment, from ensuring access to nature, to signing international agreements like the Kyoto Protocol and passing laws that will reverse the impact that climate change will have on areas like the Peak District.
Last week, in the House of Commons, I spoke about the disastrous sale of our water industry into private hands and how before the election, we saw a sewage spill in High Peak every five hours. Labour’s Water (Special Measures) Act will ban the bonuses of the bosses who have failed us and ensure that polluters, not taxpayers, foot the bill on the costs of enforcement.
In December, the Government updated the planning framework to ensure that that planning policies and decisions should contribute to and enhance the natural and local environment. Too often we have seen nature recovery stall, but we’re now heading in the right direction to deliver gains for nature and biodiversity.
Whilst Reform and the Conservatives compete over which party cares less about our environment and our planet, I am determined that this Government will continue in the proud history of previous Labour Governments in extending access to nature and protecting our precious environment.
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Watching my father disappear into Alzheimer’s is something my family will never forget. It is a story that, sadly, will feel painfully familiar to so many families across High Peak.
People often say that with Alzheimer’s and dementia you lose the person twice. First, as the illness slowly robs them of the person they once were, and then again when their body finally gives up after a long and cruel battle.
As heartbreaking as that is, it is often accompanied by another burden: the constant worry about how to provide the care they need, and how that care will be paid for.
For decades, social care has been the problem every politician acknowledges but no government has truly solved. Almost everyone agrees the system is broken. Yet whenever serious reform is proposed, the debate quickly descends into scare stories, political point-scoring and accusations of “death taxes”, leaving families exactly where they started.
That has to change.
Last week, Andy Burnham said he was prepared to spend political capital on fixing social care and to work with other political parties to build the consensus needed to make lasting reform possible.
I know this is deeply personal for Andy. His own father is living with Alzheimer’s. But long before that, as Health Secretary, he argued that social care should be valued alongside healthcare as an essential part of the system, not treated as an afterthought.
For too long, social care has been the forgotten partner of the NHS.
When we think about our health service, we rightly picture doctors, nurses and hospitals. But social care is every bit as vital. It helps older people remain independent, supports disabled adults to live fulfilling lives, gives families reassurance, and frees up hospital beds by helping people return home safely when they are ready.
When social care fails, the NHS feels the consequences. Hospital beds stay occupied, ambulance queues grow longer, families are left exhausted, and vulnerable people do not receive the support they deserve.
Years of underinvestment have left providers struggling to survive, care workers undervalued despite the extraordinary job they do, and families facing impossible choices at the most difficult moments of their lives.
Getting social care right is not simply about one public service. It is about making our entire health and care system work better.
Andy has instructed that the review of social care should report much sooner, with conclusions expected by this time next year. That gives us a real opportunity to have the honest, grown-up conversation the country has avoided for far too long.
As your MP, I will work with anyone - whatever their political party - who is serious about delivering the lasting reforms families deserve.
My father’s journey with Alzheimer’s will stay with me forever. It reinforced something I have always believed: every one of us deserves to grow old with dignity. Every family deserves the confidence that, when the time comes, good care will be there without fear, uncertainty or impossible financial decisions.
We’ve talked about fixing social care for long enough. It’s time we finally did it.
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