By Isle of Wight Observer
Working with West Wight MP, Richard Quigley, we are setting up a new board to co-ordinate our work on the ferries. We have appointed the former leader of GMB Union, Sir Paul Kenny, who lives in Bembridge, as chairman. It will allow us to negotiate more effectively in Westminster, drawing on Paul’s skills as a negotiator at the highest level, as well as dealing with the ferry companies directly. We will get local representation on the board to ensure residents’ voices are heard as well. That is the purpose of it.
Isle of Wight East has been named the second most ‘left behind’ constituency in Britain, by the Independent Commission On
Neighbourhoods (ICON). This is the data that will inform the government about how to deliver on its ‘five missions’ (similar to the Levelling Up agenda of the last government).
I have written to the government to seek further details about their plan for delivering funding. If this is the data they are using, then the East Wight should be in line for significant investment, and I want to hold the government to their promises.
I have also set up a new business group for Ryde, to help ensure business voices are heard in Westminster and that we make
the best use of resources available locally. Ryde Town Board (which is being named Ryde Neighbourhood Board) will receive £20 million over the next 7-10 years, and I want to ensure that a wide cross-section of the community gets a say on how it is
invested. If anyone would like to get involved, please contact my office.
I will also be setting up a similar group in the Bay area, and making a specific case to the government for similar funding for the Bay as Ryde benefitted from, using the “left behind” data which is informing the government’s five missions.
Finally, I am setting up a national campaign to get dementia put back into the government’s list of priorities for the NHS. It was
removed from NHS England’s annual planning guidance in January, and the government and NHS now have no target for diagnosing dementia. As it is the biggest cause of death in the UK today, I think it is shameful that it has been removed, so I am
campaigning to get it put back in for 2026. I have raised it in the House of Commons twice already.