Summer Adjournment

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

I warmly congratulate the Deputy Leader of the House on his well-deserved appointment to his Front-Bench role. After a rollercoaster few weeks in UK political history, this is a wonderful opportunity to come together to talk about the needs and concerns of our constituents; it has been a great pleasure to have a canter around the UK visiting many constituencies this afternoon.

I represent an expanding new town built on the historic east Shropshire coalfield. It is the birthplace of the industrial revolution and, throughout its proud history, it has embraced change and made the most of every opportunity that has come its way. It is a fantastic place to live and work, and it continues to attract new investment. It is fair to say that it is playing its part in the fourth industrial revolution with relish. With its unique urban and rural mix, Telford has an identity all of its own. It has a spirit of determination and aspiration and it always makes the best of the cards that it is dealt.

Naturally, Telford faces a number of challenges—they range from a lack of basic infrastructure to pressure on doctors’ waiting lists and school places, and issues relating to broadband—but they are often seen in any rapidly growing new town,. Back in early 2013, when I first set out my stall to be Telford’s next MP, I pledged to bring down youth unemployment, which was blighting the future of Telford’s young people. I was as delighted as anybody here by yesterday’s job figures, which show, according to the House of Commons Library, that Telford’s youth unemployment claimant rate continues to fall to record lows.

I also pledged to fight to get Telford better connected with improved rail services and adequate mobile and broadband connections, which are essential to ensure that those involved in investment and in buying new homes can go about their business. Another pledge was to fight for a new critical care centre to be located at the Princess Royal hospital. A further one was to protect green spaces.

One pledge that was particularly dear to my heart was the challenge to keep Telford moving. We have a plethora of traffic lights at roundabouts that have sprung up overnight when no one could see any need for them, causing frustrations and delays. In the past few years, there has indeed been progress in almost all of those areas, and I am very proud to keep on chipping away at these local issues that really impact on people’s lives. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) so eloquently said, that is what we are here to do.

One area that I can safely say is of the most importance to my constituents is the future of healthcare in Shropshire and what is to become of the A&E at the Princess Royal. I have long championed a new critical care unit to join the existing women and children’s unit, and it is, regrettably, the one issue in which there has been no progress. As time has ticked by, there has been one missed deadline after another and no explanation for the delay. A final decision was due to be taken in November 2015. That was deferred to June 2016, and now I learn this week—July 2016—that it has been deferred again to some unspecified date.

Back in November 2015, NHS England was brought in to keep the project on target, but to no avail. The whole process seems to have become paralysed, with clinical commissioning groups and clinicians completely unable to make a decision. By failing to act, they are, in effect, choosing to do nothing about the future of healthcare in Shropshire, and that is no answer for my constituents who have told me time and again that this is the most important issue to them. While residents worry that they might lose their A&E provision, services deteriorate and there is a negative impact on the morale of healthcare workers in the hospitals affected, not to mention the £3 million of cost that the Future Fit programme has absorbed as a result of this inability to come to a decision.

In Telford, we have a rapidly growing population, and we also have extreme health inequalities. People come to Telford all the time, and it is absolutely right that, when they save up and buy their new dream home, they should expect fundamental services to be available to them. There has been great progress on broadband and on train services, and fantastic news on jobs, but we also need a healthcare provision that is fit for our thriving new town. I want to use this debate to highlight my constituents’ concerns and frustrations that they write to me about on a daily basis. We need a clear timetable for the completion of the Future Fit programme and we need an absolute determination to stick to it. If NHS England cannot make that happen, surely the next stop must be the Secretary of State.

I am looking forward to my summer in Telford and the opportunity to spend time with my constituents whom I am so proud and fortunate to represent. I give huge thanks to the Backbench Business Committee for enabling all of us, on both sides of the House, to come here today to focus on our constituents. After all, that is what we all do every day of the week, but perhaps we do not talk about it quite as much as we should. This is a fantastic and very welcome opportunity to highlight that.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish you a wonderful holiday. I hope that everybody here can get some rest from what has been a frantically busy period in all our lives.