Easter is always a special time of the year and my very best wishes go to everyone for a healthy and prosperous time, regardless of your faith and background. Lots of us will spend a few more days with our families, maybe visit relatives or just catch up on a few things that there just haven’t been time for. The countryside here is as lovely as it gets and Somerset is rightly starting to get more recognition for its amazing places to stay and local food. Whilst spring is certainly here there is a chance of more heavy rain so do watch out for the forecasts.
On a related note, the Government has just announced a new huge investment in speeding up improvements to our water infrastructure totalling £1.6billion. There is a new Integrated Plan on Water which you can see online but the thrust is to accelerate plans to tackle overflow storm discharges. This is good news and I hope greeted warmly by those who have campaigned so hard on issues around sewage and water pollution. It is also particularly relevant for us in Somerset as some of the new funding will go towards reducing nutrient pollution including phosphates which are a longstanding problem here. This will be welcome news for farmers and builders keen to work with the Government to protect our wetlands and the biodiversity there which is impossible to replace but also to get on with their work.
As many of us enjoy a few days with our friends and families, as always our thanks and recognition go to those in the emergency services working to keep us all safe. It is a great shame to go into the break not having been able to resolve the pay dispute with the National Education Union which sees more strikes looming in our schools. The deal offered at around 10% over two years seems a fair one and is more than many in the private sector will receive, although wage increases are robust on average with a boost for the National Living Wage too. Supporting working parents with childcare and other options to unlock potential is going to be a big part of the coming year.
The House of Commons is in recess for Easter. This means Government MPs like me don’t have to be in Westminster late each night during the week to vote through the Government's business and pursue all the policy areas that will benefit people locally, and we can be back in our constituencies. It’s also a time to think about priorities for the following session. For me that definitely includes working on local healthcare options. I have been campaigning for dentists to take more NHS patients as part of their licence to practice and am looking at various collaboration options for a new healthcare centre in Chard. Getting the right people together is something MPs work hard to do and I hope it can lead to some exciting developments here.