I can’t believe it is nearly Easter already –this year is flying by! Having said that I also can’t believe how much we have achieved already this year. My team and I have been working tirelessly to support local people with their issues. We have held a surgery on average every week and undertaken over 8,750 items of casework since I was elected. Far more than any other new MP I know.
Whether it be helping with housing, getting your child the SEND provision that they need or supporting residents with concerns about important issues like road safety in our community, I will always be here to give the people of High Peak a helping hand.
I’ve had a fantastically busy year in High Peak so far. I’ve visited schools the length and breadth of our area, including Bamford School, Hope Valley College and Whaley Bridge Primary School to name but a few. It’s always a delight to be able to speak to our local children about what an MP does and how I can support them and their families. Before becoming an MP, you get told to expect tough scrutiny, but nothing can prepare you for dealing with an assembly full of children ready to give you an honest assessment of the world around them or, indeed, the most forthright of questions that will be unleashed on you.
One visit that has particularly stuck was Hadfield Infant School, where we discussed road safety and parking issues near the school. Every child in the school had drawn a picture to show what road safety at school meant to them. It was a great campaign and the children were so passionate about it. It is a good reminder to all us parents to be careful when doing drop-off and pick-up.
The environment means a great deal to me and to lots of people across High Peak, so it was great to join a meeting of Hope Valley Climate Action. We discussed what more we can do locally to help tackle the climate crisis. I also recently visited the Snake Summit to see the vital work the Moors for Future Partnership are doing to protect and replenish our peat moors.
I am also supporting residents in Castleton and the Hope Valley with finding an urgent solution to parking issues that are creating dangerous conditions around the Peak District National Park. We need a multi-agency approach to establish a coordinated and effective response.
This is only a small flavour of what I have been up to in support of the people of High Peak recently. If you want to know more about what I’m up to you can sign up to my newsletter on my website or by emailing [email protected]. I hope that you all have a restful Easter period and I look forward to continuing to support residents in the coming months.
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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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I can help constituents on various issues, such as education, the environment, health and social services, highways, transport, and housing.
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