A lot done, A lot left to do!

It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since the General Election. A year since Labour formed a new government, and since you gave me the honour of representing Stoke-on-Trent Central again. Being your MP comes with huge responsibility, and I do everything I can to make sure your voice is heard loud and clear in Parliament.

We’ve spent the last 12 months starting to get the country back on its feet. After years of drift and chaos, things are moving in the right direction. That doesn’t mean everything’s fixed. Far from it. But we’re making progress.

At Royal Stoke and County Hospital, the number of people waiting over a year for treatment has dropped by almost 54%. And the number waiting more than 65 weeks is down by over 75%. I’ve worked with fellow MPs and NHS leaders to push for quicker treatment, and now almost 3,000 fewer people are stuck on year-long waiting lists.

I’ve raised your concerns in Parliament, contributing to more debates in the last year than the previous MP managed in five. Among many other things, I’ve spoken up about potholes, anti-social behaviour, the damage done by unchecked HMOs in our communities and, of course, championing our ceramics industry.

A HMO, short for House in Multiple Occupation, is when a property is split into separate rooms for rent, often cramming in too many people with little oversight. They can lead to overcrowding, fly-tipping, anti-social behaviour and stretched local services. Developers should not be allowed to convert family homes into HMOs without scrutiny from the city council or residents. I have therefore been working with residents to encourage the city council to implement Article 4 Directions requiring planning permission to be sought for any such development. But I believe more can and should be done to tackle this problem and I will be bringing forward a private member’s bill in the House of Commons. If it passes, this would remove permitted development rights for this type of change of use nationally.

I’ve pressed ministers on town centre regeneration and for real investment with a purpose, not Tory ‘pie-in-the-sky’. We’re seeing concrete plans take shape across the city, and I’ll keep the pressure on until they’re delivered. In particular, the new Trailblazer Neighbourhoods Programme will see £20m invested into Bentilee and Ubberley over the next 10 years and what makes that project so exciting is that it will be done with the community, not to it.

Together with Lynn Jones MBE I launched a campaign to build a memorial to Stoke-on-Trent victims of Covid-19 so that bereaved families have a place to meet and remember their loved ones. We are currently trying to identify families who lost loved ones to Covid-19 and I would encourage anyone who wishes to have their loved one included to get in touch with my office.

I hold regular street surgeries around the constituency and one issue that is raised with me, time and time again on the doorstep is nuisance bikes. The new Policing and Crime Bill will give the police new powers to seize problem bikes without a requirement to provide warnings. I was pleased to see the city council and Staffordshire Police launch Operation Transom, which includes increased patrols around hotspot areas. It is vital that incidents are reported to the council by emailing operationtransom@ stoke.gov.uk.

But the issue rightly taking a good deal of my time is the future of our ceramics industry. This isn’t just about pride in our past. It’s about jobs, skills, exports and our city’s place on the global stage. And right now, the industry is in a tough spot. That’s why I helped bring together local firms, trade unions, trade bodies and MPs to launch a ceramics rescue plan, which we’ve taken to government. The new Industrial Strategy, meant to support UK industries, offered neither energy support nor supercharger subsidies. Just vague talk of possible help in 2027. That’s no good to businesses fighting to survive now and so I was pleased to join the GMB at their event last week, encouraging people and businesses to sign the ‘Potter’s Pledge’ and keep our kilns lit!