Maya Ellis
MP for Ribble Valley · Labour · United Kingdom
“The petition states: “The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to direct NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board to commit to a full reopening of the hospital to provide health services to benefit the community, and to promptly address fire safety concerns, providing a timeline to reas…”
“I am proud to present this petition on behalf of residents in Longridge in my constituency of Ribble Valley regarding the future of Longridge community hospital, which serves patients across a large semi-rural area, many of whom need health services within easy reach of their homes and families.”
“The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to direct NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board to commit to a full reopening of the hospital to provide health services to benefit the community, and to promptly address fire safety concerns, providing a timeline to reassure residents of when…”
“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Northumberland (David Smith) for securing this timely debate and welcome the Minister to his place. I asked local farmers in Ribble Valley what they would like to highlight in this debate about profitability. As hon.”
“I completely agree. The main point I want to make, alongside all the powerful financial and security arguments that have been made, is that we need farming to be financially sustainable because we want it to be sustainable. We want it to be part of what we prioritise as this country.”
“We need companies that have drive and that, with Government support and further investment in enabling infrastructure, could do 10 times what they are currently doing for our economy. As a Labour Government, we are great at helping people who are struggling and who do not have the opportunities they deserve.”
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“Does the hon. Member agree that one of the things that has caused a lack of male role models is the lack of third spaces and youth centres? The disinvestment in youth services, which I think averaged about 70% per local authority under the previous Government, has led to a lot of the reduction in role models in the third spaces and youth areas, and in youth funding, and that this Government have reinvested in that.”
“Modelling by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that six weeks at 90% of pay could deliver £2.68 billion to the wider economy, primarily through increased maternal employment and more equal sharing of care. Some 59% of people agreed that bad paternity leave made it difficult to share childcare responsibilities equally, not just in the short term, but in the long term, with patterns proving harder to shift.”
“Research this month from the Centre for Mental Health and the Parent-Infant Foundation finds that expanding access to parent-infant relationship teams to support parents in the most deprived areas to bond with their babies could save the Government £1.2 billion annually. The single most significant thing we could do in this Parliament to change all of this would be to introduce much better paternity leave—ideally at least six weeks at 90% of pay. Paternity leave in this country is truly embarrassing: two weeks is not enough. The UK’s offer of two weeks of unpaid statutory paternity leave is among the least generous in Europe, constraining fathers’ early involvement and entrenching relationship inequality.”
“Some 30% of domestic abuse begins in pregnancy, rising to 40% in the first 1,001 days, precisely when infant brain development is the most sensitive to stress and trauma, but, terrifyingly, only 0.5% of maternity patients disclose abuse, so those numbers miss the majority of cases. Abuse during that period worsens maternal mental health, increases adverse birth outcomes and damages infants’ socio-emotional development. Those effects shift costs on to the NHS, social care, education and the justice system for years. Relationships between parents and children can lead to stronger and more secure relationships and behaviour among those children as they grow up, but we know that currently only 55% of infants develop secure attachments, and that insecure attachment is a key driver of poor outcomes later in life.”
“As a Government, we give couples screen time advice and encourage them to have more children, but we rarely ask, “What is life like for you right now, and what would make your life easier as a couple and as a parent in 2026?” Let us do that more. When it comes to domestic violence, the Government have made huge strides in developing a comprehensive strategy to combat violence against women and girls, but the fact remains that 3.8 million people experienced domestic abuse last year, and a quarter of all UK residents have experienced domestic abuse since the age of 16. The time when abuse starts in earnest is during pregnancy and the first 1,001 days of life.”
“Friend the Secretary of State for Education has recently highlighted our falling birth rate and has rightly highlighted actions taken by this Government to try to change that, such as better funded childcare and measures on the cost of living and housing. Couples are operating under unprecedented strain to both parent or care and to work full time, yet we barely talk about the psychological toll. Then we are surprised that domestic violence rates increase, that mental health in both men and women is plummeting and adding to our welfare bill, that special educational needs and disabilities issues are skyrocketing and that couples are deciding that one child is enough.”
“This Government are rightly focused on growth as the key way this country can get back to a time of prosperity, but most parents I know—bear in mind that parents make up a huge part of the working population—are exhausted, and if I know one thing as a parent of small children, it is that nothing good or productive comes of being exhausted. How can we expect great output and productivity from people in the workplace when the strain on couples is so high? We have to pay closer attention to how households are coping. Relationship challenges impact not only what we produce in the workplace, but how we sustain our population. My right hon.”
“There are huge benefits to more people working, especially for women, and it is a good thing that people have access to divorce when relationships are not healthy, but we cannot just take the benefits of these improvements and not mitigate the impacts. What happens to child development when both parents are working full time, or when a single parent has no capacity outside work and childcare? What happens to our ability to bond with each other as a couple in a romantic relationship? What happens to our capacity to engage in and contribute to our local communities? Those shifts in the roles of couples and households also have negative impacts on relationships. We could mitigate those impacts, but as yet we have struggled to do so.”
“Mental health provision, early years support and the wider social safety net all play a role in reducing pressures that constrain partnerships, while legal and justice frameworks affect how society responds to abuse, coercive control and family breakdown. The fact is that relationships today look entirely different from those just 20 years ago. Today, more than two thirds of families with dependent children have both parents in employment, meaning that the majority of households are dual income. With divorce well entrenched in our culture, one in four families with dependent children is a single-parent household.”
“In education and children’s services, the quality of parental relationships strongly influences children’s emotional development, attainment and long-term life chances. In the economy, relationship stability and equality affect workforce participation, financial security and the capacity of families to balance work and care. In efforts to tackle violence against women and girls, healthy norms, cultures and values are clearly fundamental. Policy decisions across those and other areas have a significant impact on couples’ abilities to build and sustain equal, healthy relationships. Workplace policies, such as parental leave and access to flexible working, shape how families organise care and employment. Housing affordability and security influence relationship formation and stability.”
“Valentine’s day is a moment each year when the country reflects on love, partnership and the relationships that underpin our families, communities and society. With public interest high in the pressures facing modern couples and with a growing body of evidence that respect, trust and equality prevent relationship breakdown, this debate offers us a timely opportunity to consider the factors that enable healthy partnerships in Britain today. Healthy relationships are fundamental to a number of key policy domains. Strong and stable partnerships are associated with improved mental wellbeing, reduced loneliness and better overall health outcomes, while relationship distress is linked to increased demand for NHS and social care services.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered Government support for healthy relationships. It is a pleasure to be under your chairship, Ms Jardine. May I start by wishing you a happy Valentine’s day for Saturday? “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” That is probably the most famous line in British literature, but when it comes to British policy, the role of relationships seems too often to be an afterthought, yet they are the building block of a healthy society. I am the first to jump on our cultural obsession with relationships when there is a new “Bridgerton” season, but it is time that relationships became a political obsession, too.”
“I truly welcome the plans for improved relationships education in schools that the Government are introducing this year, particularly plans to start this earlier in primary schools and to focus on how to develop healthy relationships. None the less, we must remain alive to how early we subconsciously introduce power disparities. As part of preparing for this debate, our friends at the Dad Shift challenged us to remember couples we admire for their equality, because role models are critical. The couple I admire most is Tom and Barbara Good from “The Good Life”. Amazingly, I only discovered the 1970s show recently and was slightly taken aback by how good they are to each other, in a way that makes me feel we have in some ways regressed from these days.”
“The fact that radicalised me more than any other, and that tells me that we are still early on in the journey to equal and healthy relationships, is that before 1991 it was still legal to rape your wife. Anyone who got married before 1991 did so knowing that fact. We are only 35 years into a world that expects men and women to be equal in a marriage, and we are only beginning to work out what that means for us as a society. One of the biggest hills we have to climb is helping men and boys find newly empowered roles in equal relationships, in the same way that women and girls have been doing. Many colleagues in this place are doing important work on building role models and positive education for boys, and the Government’s own violence against women and girls strategy includes teacher training to spot the early signs of misogyny in boys.”
“Imagine the benefits if a dad or a partner could build a bond and confidence with their baby, so that understanding is deepened between parents, bonds are built to strengthen the determination to care for the baby, and a society is developed where protecting your family bubble becomes the pride point. I will be frank: I truly hope that this Labour Government and the most progressive and gender-balanced Parliament ever will catch us up by committing to six weeks of protected paternity leave at 90% of pay, paid for by Government, and do it soon. If we do not take the single biggest step we can closer to equality, I do not know what we are here for.”
“I completely agree with my hon. Friend; she is right that both men and women want this. Everyone in society is demanding this, and I really hope that the Government will listen and take action. An even more critical point is that it is not just men and women but children who will benefit from this. Ten to Men found that a loving paternal relationship was the single biggest factor in preventing a boy becoming a man who abuses his partner. The macro win of all of this is higher labour supply and reduced gender gaps, the fiscal win is higher tax receipts and lower benefit dependency, and the household win is healthier relationships and more resilient income.”
“It blocks them right out of the gate. Stanford research published just this week found that couples who work one day a week from home would have around 0.5 more children on average, moving the current birth rate of 1.4 closer to the replacement rate, yet there are political voices saying that we should not work from home at all. I hope we put healthy relationships more at the front and centre of all we do here. Our future depends on it. Again, I wish you a very happy Valentine’s day for Saturday, Ms Jardine.”
“It is great to see more couples starting to share actions around the home, but let us see more equal sharing of the noticing and planning too—and yes, that will probably involve realising how big the mental load actually is for some people. Healthy relationships underpin healthy progress as a society, and whether we want to admit it or not, Government policy underpins healthy relationships. We are doing great things as a Government, with improved relationship education, a powerful VAWG strategy, more flexibility built into employment rights, a huge increase in best start family hubs investment and a strengthened court system, but we have to do more. Ninety per cent. of dads say they want to be more present in family life and have a more equal relationship, but our current paternity leave offer is one of the worst in the world.”
“Did you know, Ms Jardine, that there are only nine mentions of the term “mental load” in Hansard , yet as a mum on parenting Instagram I see it every other word? In my office we have four core aims, and one of them is to be useful, so I will end by leaving everyone with the most useful tool I have come across to tackle the mental load and promote equality in creating healthier relationships. In Eve Rodsky’s book “Fair Play”, she says every task has three parts: conception, planning and action. To get something done, you first have to notice that it needs to be done. Then, you have to work out and plan how to do it. Then, you have to do it.”
“It is great to hear that Jane and Mick have such a positive relationship. One of the things that I really value is debate. The fact that in our new schools framework, we are introducing oracy—the ability to debate and discuss well—is really important. It has always been possible to have healthy relationships. We must create the right social and policy decisions to make them easier. At this point, I want to give a quick shout-out to the incredible role models I see talking to women and men about building positive, healthy relationships—people like Neha Ruch, Libby Ward, Joeli Brearley, Ashley James, and so many others who are relentless in making sure we talk about what healthy relationships look like. I know there are similarly strong role models for men out there too, but we still have a long way to go.”
“Some days we carry the load, and some days we are carried. I am grateful for all the relationships in the Chamber, and all those at home, that carry me on a regular basis. On that note, I give final thanks to my husband, who I called just before the debate to tell him that the holiday I thought I had booked for Saturday in fact starts tomorrow, to which he just laughed and said, “I’ll start packing.” That is sharing the load, and that is what we all deserve. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered Government support for healthy relationships.”
“It has been a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. This has been an important opportunity for us to reflect on what healthy, equal relationships look like in Britain today, the pressures that couples face and how policy can better support them. I am grateful to all hon. Members who contributed, and I pay special tribute to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for his beautiful tribute to his grandchildren. Children learn from what they see, and his grandchildren are clearly growing up in a loving family to reflect such love to him. I also acknowledge the spokespeople in the Chamber, the hon. Members for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) and for Reigate (Rebecca Paul). The topic of healthy relationships spans multiple Departments, and part of the challenge is ensuring that it does not fall between the gaps, for that reason.”
“Two years ago, Butlers Farmhouse Cheeses in my constituency, which makes the famous Blacksticks Blue, suffered a devastating fire that destroyed all its storage facilities. The community rallied around the company, with local businesses and farms helping to erect temporary buildings and provide interim logistics. Following some truly brave leadership, Gill, Matthew and Daniel Hall, and their family, have celebrated the completion of their brand-new extended building, which was opened by King Charles himself this week. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating all at Butlers Farmhouse Cheeses on their determination and resolve, and will he consider having a debate on how critical the communities around us are in times of resilience and great need?”
“Last week, I visited Gisburn auction mart in my constituency, with my constituents John Alpe and Graham Young, where I heard the challenges that farms are currently facing with the rapidly dropping milk prices. Indeed, two farmers were there to sell up their farms entirely, while others are pushed into further intensification just to survive. As a former head of innovation, I know that sometimes productivity and innovation can mean bringing back strong old ideas in new ways. In that spirit, does the Minister think that we should consider bringing back the Milk Marketing Board?”
“Will he join me in sending best wishes to Alf and his wife Wendy and join their call for one of the Health Ministers to visit Royal Preston hospital to see the conditions for themselves?”
“With the cancer plan, we have made great progress this week on how we plan to tackle terminal illnesses in this country. On Tuesday, I had the privilege of visiting my constituent Alfred Whalley, who is currently living with terminal pulmonary fibrosis. After serving 20 years as a paramedic, he wanted to share with me his disappointment at his experiences at the very dated Royal Preston hospital, where one night he was moved five times as they juggled beds—though he is keen to stress that all staff were doing an incredible job. Does the Leader of the House agree that while plans for future terminal patients are welcome, we cannot forget the experiences of patients now and must find ways to invest in hospitals like Royal Preston which will be waiting at least 12 years to be rebuilt?”
“I greatly welcome the statement made today and the actions the Government have taken in response to the conflict in Sudan, including sanctions against individuals linked to the most horrendous atrocities and sexual violence. The situation in Sudan is a devastating reminder of how often sexual violence against women and girls is used in both conflicts and peacetime. As a relative newcomer to this place, I am very concerned that, across the world, we still do not treat violence against women and girls as the dealbreaker it is. Can the Foreign Secretary assure me that in wider diplomatic engagement with international partners, including when negotiating trade deals, this Government will always consider a country’s attitude to girls and young women?”
“To build on the point made by the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), Girlguiding has found that two thirds of girls say they are put off exercising and going out because they fear some of the things we are describing. Given that we are debating potentially removing social media from young people, does my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) agree that it is even more important to ensure that other activities that we want young people to take part in are equally available to girls and that they do not feel scared? Otherwise, they will face even more inequality and stigma.”
“The farm I mentioned has seen a drop of 9.5p per litre in what it has been paid for milk since last October, so although I now welcome the tax policy in the Bill, I remind the Government that that there is still a huge amount of work to do to ensure that farms are sustainable and our food security is robust. I hope that the Government will work with us to put increasing pressure on supermarket shareholders to play their part—supermarkets are companies that thrive from British custom—by working much harder to protect the lifeblood of our economy, as farmers are, as well as their pockets.”
“I have 829 farms in my Ribble Valley constituency—mainly dairy and cattle, and with a wide range of innovation and diversification. One farm I visited has a value of around £3 million, and the people I met there told me that they had slowly seen farm after farm close in their part of the constituency over the past 20 years. Today’s changes mean that they now have confidence that the farm can be passed on to a fifth generation, and they are also confident to invest in new calf housing, supported by other Government funding. I question how many famers Opposition Members have spoken to in recent weeks, because most of my farmers are happy with these changes and want me to now focus on other critical issues.”
“Let us learn from them now, as much as we ask them to learn from the things that we do in this place. When we talk about what it means to be British in the light of this Finance Bill, which sets the tone for what we want British growth to be in the next decade, let us make sure that we protect what makes us want to be British. I do not want this country to be prosperous at any cost—I want us to be prosperous in a truly British way. Both myself and the public are clear that that includes the countryside, and our rural economies and communities, being at the very heart of who we are. I thank the Government for their continued work on adapting the Bill through amendment 24, and looking more widely at how we improve and sustain support for farming in the long term.”
“I am grateful to Minette Batters for producing in her farming profitability review a brave and system-wide approach to the future of farming in this country, and I hope that the Government are bold enough to take on all her recommendations. We also have trade deals to negotiate, which must uphold the same standards that we rightly hold our farmers to, and indeed that they want to uphold without being undercut from abroad. We have also had a lot of discussions about ideas like 15-minute cities and sustainable economies. Most rural towns and villages are 15-minute cities, with everything in one place and everyone helping each other out. I know that globalisation favours agglomeration and the urban, but let us not forget who did circular economies first: our rural towns and villages.”
“The situation allowed us to move past the niceties quickly and to talk frankly from the beginning about what really mattered to farmers, farming communities and family businesses—and it has been a joy to hear about the passion, the history, the deep pride in this country and its traditions, and about what our land and close-knit communities provide for us, from the voices of families who are motivated to keep it going in a way that money alone could never inspire. We have heard a lot of discussion in recent years about what it means to be British. A poll last year by More in Common found that of all the things that British people are proud of, the countryside came second, with only the NHS ahead of it. There are a lot of decisions to be made about the role of agriculture in British society.”
“Let me put on record my huge thanks to my colleagues in the Labour Rural Research Group, of which I am delighted to have become treasurer today as we regroup for our next plans. In pushing for the change to the thresholds, they have shown me the collegiate and constructive politics that I had always hoped was possible for this country, under the solid leadership of my impressive hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Jenny Riddell-Carpenter). When I stood as an MP in a rural area, I was most excited to learn more about the land and the farming industry that had been all around me growing up. It was challenging to have to start those conversations among such heated debate, but I got into politics because I like a robust discussion. And you know what?”
“It is a delight to speak in this debate following what was possibly the best Christmas present that I have ever received: no shade to my parents or husband, but when we got the call from the Treasury on 23 December and heard about the raising of the threshold for agricultural property relief and business property relief, it was more than I had ever hoped for. I am grateful to the Chancellor, the Prime Minister and colleagues for navigating the genuinely tricky balance between ensuring that the farming industry is not used to avoid tax, that our family farms are protected and encouraged to thrive, and that food security is protected in increasingly turbulent times internationally.”
“I completely agree. That is why it is disappointing that the Opposition are looking at certain details, when all the farmers that I speak to desperately want us to focus on the next stages of how we support those farms. We have done the thing that we needed to do to protect the smallest ones.”
“If we are serious about supporting small businesses across our regions, about local sustainable economies and about improving the health of this country, farms like Gazegill are exactly the type of companies we should support to grow. I wholly support Government amendment 24 to ensure significant protection and support for business owners like Emma and Ian and all the incredible farms in Ribble Valley, which I am so proud to represent.”
“Gazegill farm in my constituency has been in the same family for 500 years and has an estimated value of just over £4 million. It employs 39 full-time equivalents through its organic farm, its award-winning restaurant Eight at Gazegill—I recommend that everyone visiting Lancashire should try it out; it is the best farm-to-fork experience in the country—and its growing farm shop. Emma and Ian, who run Gazegill, are the perfect example of ambitious and innovative company owners, working hard to regenerate and bring new employment and tourism to parts of Lancashire that will really benefit from new investment. The new changes to APR will allow them to push ahead with that investment, including by building a new farm shop later this year.”
“Its people made a really strong point to me when I met them last year; if they had had to downscale to afford the original proposed changes to BPR, their main option would have been to sell one of their company’s three sites to a foreign-owned competitor. Although we welcome foreign investment in this country, it does nothing for our sovereignty, growth or innovation when the proceeds and hard work of British-built companies end up as profits in other countries. After the announcement in December, I was delighted to hear from the owner, Kynan Massey, who thanked this Government for listening and for adapting the BPR thresholds. He told me that the recent change means that the business has the confidence to continue to invest, including with a £2 million investment to grow the capacity of its site in my constituency.”
“The hon. Gentleman raises a really important point. We have spoken about that issue with Ministers; is an important conversation that we absolutely have to have. Another of my farms belongs to a constituent who was one of the first to reach out to me and meet me in London. I have spoken about his farm in previous debates; it is a partnership between husband, wife and mother. Under the original plans, he would have faced a liability of £130,000 when the mother passed away in coming years, but thanks to Government amendment 24 the liability is completely removed, allowing them to focus on profitability. I also have a significant number of family-owned businesses in my constituency, including Massey Feeds, which happens to supply the agricultural sector.”
“I thank the Minister for how seriously she is taking this issue when, according to the latest analysis by the Dad Shift, 90% of paternity leave is claimed by fathers in the top half of earners, with almost a third of those being in London and the south-east. Anna Whitehouse and George Gabriel, who I will meet later today, are among a huge cacophony of voices in this country that are crying out for us to recognise the need for inclusive policies that put the voices of all parents at the heart of our growth, health and wellbeing strategies. Can the Minister confirm that this Labour Government will finally put them there?”
“Will she join with me and Longridge residents and say that she hopes the essential repairs are completed quickly at the community hospital?”
“My constituents in Ribble Valley have been directly impacted by the delays to the new hospital programme, with the rebuilding of Royal Preston hospital being put back by almost a decade. Just last week, I received the disappointing news that Longridge community hospital, which is much loved and valued by local residents, will be closed for safety upgrades for the next six months. This Government’s impressive 10-year health plan rightly notes that they expect a shift from hospital to community. With that in mind, can the Minister confirm that she expects integrated care boards, such as Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB, to keep community hospitals open? That is opposed to centralising, which not only takes services away from communities but, in our case, transfers them to vastly inferior hospital buildings.”
“However, in my decades of working with all types of communities, often hearing things that challenge some of my progressive dreams for and assumptions about this country I love, I have learned that progress and tradition can work hand in hand if we take the best from both. I therefore urge the Government to make the most of the powerful structures we have—town and parish councils, which already run 90% of this great country—part of our future, and to ensure that we truly have accountable democracy at every level so that every person has a voice, as has always been the Labour way.”
“We need only look around us to see what happens when people do not understand how our governing structures work and do not feel connected to them. People are increasingly disillusioned, and at a time when our economy is relying on people to come together with new ideas to create growth, despondency is our biggest enemy. While we need to allow flexibility, might the Government be able to show a clear preference for a town or parish council structure in their guidance, and/or ensure or require that any proposed solution involves clear democratic accountability? I am so grateful to this Labour Government for being brave enough to push this Bill as one of their first priorities. Done is better than perfect for sure, and any devolution is better than none.”
“The Minister has made clear throughout the Bill’s development that town and parish councils will not be affected, and indeed will have every right and opportunity to take on more responsibilities through the Bill. I commend that, and I thank her for protecting this vital part of our democracy. While I recognise that there is plenty of public sentiment against mandating areas to become parished—which is why I cannot support new clause 63 directly—there is certainly public support for simplified, easily understood structures of government that the public can more clearly hold to account. Indeed, the Government’s own White Paper on the Bill said that its aim was to simplify local government and make it more consistent.”
“As I observed during the development of plans for devolution in Lancashire, too many residents and organisations told me that their part in the consultation on the process felt tokenistic at best, if it was there at all. I think there is still a broad question for the Government to answer: how will we ensure that the interests of all residents and local groups have been properly fed into local changes, and how will we continue to hold local areas to account for maintaining that engagement? My constituency contains many parished areas, while in other parts of it local community groups come together ad hoc, so I see the strengths of both formal and informal community leadership. I have been a proud member of my local parish council for many years, and it is often the place where I feel most connected to my community.”
“I have not directly supported the range of amendments concerning neighbourhood governance arrangements and parish and town councils, and on the whole I understand and largely support the Government’s argument against them—namely, that if we are intent on devolving power, we should allow local areas to manage that power as well, rather than dictating from Westminster how it must be managed. However, I wish to mention a number of instances in which I agree with the intent behind the amendments and to say something about the issues that they raise, in the hope that the Government can add helpful secondary legislation or strong guidance to help local areas make these changes a success.”
“Friend the Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon), who poured himself into this Bill for the past year, ensuring that areas such as Lancashire can get the powers they need to turbocharge their growth in the way that only Lancastrians know how. Today, I will speak about new clauses 63 and amendments 42 and 150, which pertain to neighbourhood governance. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to participate in the Bill Committee, during which I sat through lengthy debates on all these clauses.”
“I come once more to this discussion with a huge passion for devolving power to local areas. The northern powerhouse promise encouraged me to move back home to the north from London in my 20s, and I am so proud to have spent most of my career since then working to grow the local economies in Manchester and Lancashire. The city of Preston, part of which is in my constituency, has the telltale cranes all over the sky and grade-A office space being built at pace. Growth is best when it has local inputs and local impact, and with a two-hour train journey to London, there is no reason that Preston and cities like it should not become a key and critical spoke in our national growth story. I am hugely grateful for the incredible energy of the Minister and for that of my hon.”