Improve these three priorities and get better deal for Valley
The result of last week’s general election has been analysed from every angle over the past week, and the overwhelming conclusion has been that things are going to be chaotic for a good while yet.
But the result does make one of our local MPs, Jake Berry, significantly more influential – and not because his name has been popping up in speculative stories in the national press about who might replace Theresa May.
Mr Berry is described as a close ally of Boris Johnson, who is widely predicted to stand to become Tory leader at some point in the future, so it’s no surprise to see people linking Mr Berry with supporting Mr Johnson were he to run. Yet it doesn’t take a change of leadership for Mr Berry to make a bigger impact in Parliament – the very result gives him a much stronger position to get a better deal for Rossendale.
With no overall majority secured at the election, the result of the election meant the Tories would have to rely on the support of another political party to get a majority.
The same would be true of Labour if the Tory government were to collapse.
That makes an assumption that all Tory MPs will naturally support the Party in parliament.
This gives every Tory MP, including Mr Berry, greater clout in the formation of government policy prior to it being discussed in the House of Commons.
Here are the three top things I think he should dig his heels in about:
Spending cuts:
Northern councils have been clobbered by spending cuts for the past seven years and while it can be argued this has been needed, we are rapidly getting to a point where our local councils – Rossendale and Lancashire authorities – no longer have the money to provide the services people expect.
The funding cuts need to stop – or a new formula needs to be found which doesn’t hammer our local councils quite so much.
We are about to reach a tipping point where everyone who uses council services begins to feel the impact of the cuts – that can’t be allowed to happen.
Investment:
Similar to stopping the cuts, we need a real push on investment in government projects in our area.
The two obvious candidates for this are improvements to the M66 and real exploration of work on the East Lancashire Railway to run commuter train services.
The M66 improvements are much more likely to bear fruit in the short term, and are certainly required. Plans for ‘smart motorway’ work on the M66 have been mooted, but getting a commitment to turn plans into action might be a little easier for Mr Berry now.
Local decision making:
The previous Tory government, and the coalition before it, were big on the idea of devolving decision-making locally wherever possible.
Lancashire needs to ensure it isn’t left behind here.
With a Metro mayor now in place in Manchester, Lancashire needs to push for similar devolution in neighbouring Lancashire too. Mr Berry can play a key part here.
But at the same time, we also need to ensure local decisions are still made here.
Mr Berry successfully worked to make the government think again on the number of houses it expected to be built here (working with Rossendale Council leader Alyson Barnes) and he should be in a stronger position to make sure there is no going back on this.
Decisions on big things like fracking need to remain local too – not made by a Government quango as proposed by the Tory manifesto. The result of this election could yet result in Rossendale getting a better hearing – here’s hoping so.