You wait years for a good trade deal and then three come along at once!

In the last three weeks the Government has announced the frameworks for three really significant trade and economic agreements with the United States, India and the EU; the world’s biggest economy, the world’s fastest growing economy and the world’s largest trading block (and our biggest trading partner).

These deals will pump billions into our economy every year, protect and create tens of thousands of jobs in sectors like steel making and cars, provide exciting new opportunities for British businesses, especially our farmers, and lower prices for us here in west Cumbria.

I want to focus on the EU deal but I do want to highlight the boost to our cattle farmers from the US deal. The NFU have long fought for access to the US market for British beef and we’ve secured ring-fenced access for 13,000 metric tonnes. Any US beef coming into the UK will have to meet our high welfare and quality standards. No cheap, hormone-treated beef will be hitting British supermarket shelves. I’ll be working with local farmers to ensure they can take advantage of this opportunity.

Our UK-EU agreement is the biggest prize. The largest and most substantial deal ever negotiated post-Brexit. However you voted in the referendum nine years ago, almost no one thinks the deal Boris Johnson negotiated was a good one and we’ve been dealing with the consequences ever since; stagnant growth, higher costs for British businesses and higher prices at the shops.

Our manifesto promised a better deal with the EU without rejoining the single market or customs union or returning to free movement. Our deal fulfils that promise. It provides a huge boost for Cumbrian farmers, who have seen lamb exports to the EU reduce by 14% over the last five years in large part due to increased checks and paperwork – we’re ending that. Our agreement also means we’ll be able to export processed meats again. The famous Cumberland sausage can be sold in Europe once more! The NFU is clear: “this deal will deliver many benefits for agri-food exports to the EU”.

Slashing bureaucracy will lower food prices, putting money back in the pockets of west Cumbrians, which is why it has the backing of Asda, Lidl and other supermarkets. The CEO of Morrisons says the deal “promises to ease a source of pressure on food prices”.

The Conservatives and Reform opposed the deal before they even knew what was in it. What’s their alternative? Deals negotiated by the Tories shafted our farmers and Nigel Farage defended allowing chlorinated chicken into the UK. Not on my watch. They need to explain to farmers, businesses and shoppers why they should pay the price for their weird ideological obsession. 

This Labour Government was elected on a mandate to make Brexit work. That is exactly what this deal does.

Cancer patients attending West Cumberland Hospital with other issues will no longer have to sit and wait in A&E after the trust implemented a new care pathway following representations from local MP Josh MacAlister.

Josh wrote to hospital trust CEO Lyn Simpson after a constituent contacted him about his wife’s experience. His wife, who is battling cancer, was sent to A&E by her GP due to difficulties with her breathing. She had to wait for several hours surrounded by other ill people, putting her at risk due to her immunocompromised status.

The trust investigated and have now developed a new care pathway for cancer patients attending hospital for emergency care. Cancer patients will now be directed to the Same Day Emergency Care unit and managed by the acute oncology team, instead of waiting in A&E. Those who are critically ill will still need to attend A&E.

Josh said:

“I am extremely grateful to the trust for responding so quickly and positively to this request, which was generated by a piece of casework that came into my office.

“I hope that it will make things just that little bit easier for west Cumbrians living with cancer when they need to attend the hospital.

“This is just one example of the dozens of cases received by my office every week which my team and I do our best to help with in any way we can. If there’s something we might be able to help you with, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.”

You can contact the office of Josh MacAlister by filling in the form at joshmacalister.uk/contact or by calling 01946 458023.

I had lots of conversations with people about immigration last week. From speaking to constituents at a street surgery, to meeting a group of West Africans who have come here to work in the NHS, to friends and family. For all the noise and emotion in the debate, I think most people agree we should have manageable net migration levels (well below the high of 900,000 net migration under the last government), control of our borders, investment in skills and training for British workers, while taking urgent steps to tackle small boat crossings. These are the principles underscoring the government’s new immigration plans and they are principles I share.

For too long, this debate has been dominated by Conservative and Reform politicians who make wild claims and promise unworkable policies they then can’t deliver which further erode public trust in the ability of governments to fix our immigration and asylum system. 

Remember the promise that Brexit meant we could control our borders and reduce net migration? The Conservatives completely lost control and the numbers shot up to their highest levels post-Brexit. Billions of pounds are now being spent as a consequence on temporary accommodation for asylum seekers who should have had their claims processed already and either been returned or allowed to settle, get jobs and pay back into the system.

On legal migration, the Conservatives ran an experiment in open borders. They allowed employers to bring in huge numbers of cheaper workers and slash investment in skills and training here in the UK, where we have millions of people not working or learning. We have many doctors and nurses in West Cumbria from West Africa who are doing a brilliant job and they are welcome here. But how can it be right that at the same time nursing courses are closing in the UK? Less talked about is the fact that we’re also taking skilled professionals away from countries that need them very badly. 

Reform promise no better. They have no plan to stop illegal immigration and their policy to reduce net immigration to zero means we wouldn’t be able to recruit controlled numbers of skilled workers who want to come and contribute to the UK.

This Labour government is getting on with the hard graft of policies which will actually work. Reducing visa numbers gradually in sectors like care and construction as we invest in skills here in Britain to get more British people into these jobs. Higher expectations on people to learn English. Speeding up the processing of asylum claims so we can end the use of hotels, return more people and allow those with a legitimate claim to settle here and integrate. And signing more agreements with third countries and forming closer partnerships on policing and criminal justice to smash the gangs at source and reduce small boat crossings.

An event celebrating Mirehouse was hailed as a “great success” by Whitehaven and Workington MP Josh MacAlister.

The event brought together local agencies and services to provide information and advice to residents on Mirehouse. Lots of activities were also on offer for people to get involved in.

The event at St. Benedict’s RUFC, hosted by Josh MacAlister MP, was attended by over 100 residents throughout the day. David Allen, Cumbria’s Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner and Cumberland Council’s deputy leader, Cllr Emma Williamson, also got involved. Cumberland Council, Cumbria Police, Cumbria Fire & Rescue Service, Home Group, Active Cumbria, Hope Haven and Mirehouse Pharmacy all participated.

Josh said:

“I held a street surgery on Mirehouse and a walkabout with the council and the police and the feedback was that people didn’t feel listened to or that enough attention was paid to their community. I wanted to address that, so I got local organisations together and put on this day to engage with residents.

“I think it was a great success, with loads of people coming along and having a good time, but also being able to talk to the police and fire service, get housing advice from Home Group, discuss their health concerns with Hope Haven or Mirehouse Pharmacy, or find out about plans to invest in physical activity in the area through Active Cumbria.

“I want to thank all the agencies who attended, Cumberland Council’s street cleaning team for giving up a day off to collect bulky waste, and of course all of the residents.

“This wasn’t a one off, I’ll continue my work with Mirehouse residents to improve the area and I’ll be looking to do similar things in other communities across West Cumbria as part of my commitment to be an active and visible Member of Parliament.”

Improving health services across West Cumbria was one of the five pledges I made to local people before last year’s General Election. It’s been one of my top priorities as your MP over the last ten months and I want to share the progress that we’re making locally and the government is making nationally.

I don’t need to remind anyone that our NHS was on its knees last summer when the new government took over. We made clear that fixing it would be a ten year project. But we also set several ‘first steps’ targets voters could measure us against.

I’m pleased to say that these first steps have already been delivered and exceeded. Two million more NHS appointments, waiting lists down every month, 1,500 more GPs, 700,000 more urgent NHS dental appointments and a big investment in GP practices. Promises made, promises kept.

What does this mean for us? The waiting list in north and west Cumbria is down by nearly 1,000, with more people getting treatment more quickly. We’ve gone from being 15 GPs short of our required number at the worst point under the Conservatives to only being five short now. That’s still five too few but ten more than we had! Several of our local GP practices secured government funding last week to improve and expand their surgeries so more patients can be seen. And nearly 1,500 more urgent NHS dental appointments are being delivered in north and west Cumbria this year.

We’re only getting started and we need to see much more improvement, that’s why I’m fighting for funding to deliver my plan to transform primary care services in Workington through a new Neighbourhood Health Centre. And I’m pushing to get a new Urgent Dental Access Centre in West Cumbria, which would deliver thousands more urgent NHS dental appointments.

We are only able to deliver this change because of the tough decisions made in last year’s Budget, which gave us the money to pump £26 billion extra into the health service. There is finite money available. You told me before the General Election that getting the economy back on track and lifting our NHS off its knees were your most important concerns and delivering those does involve trade offs. 

Not everyone is happy with the trade offs. I get that. But I ask you to consider the alternatives. The Conservatives took our NHS to the brink of collapse and had no plan to rescue it. And Reform UK have been absolutely clear that they want to end the tax-payer funded NHS and move to an insurance based model. Only Labour have a plan to fix our NHS. It is early days yet but we are making progress.

West Cumbria, like many parts of the country, faces a shortage of NHS dentists, with patients forced to wait until their issue is urgent before being able to access care. Even then, many are still having to wait for an urgent appointment at a limited number of practices. Whitehaven and Workington MP Josh MacAlister says he has part of the solution.

The government has funded an additional 1,500 urgent NHS appointments in north and west Cumbria this year at existing dental practices, including at Queen Street in Whitehaven, but challenges remain.

Josh is working with the NHS to address that, by pushing for the introduction of a new Urgent Dental Access Centre (UDAC) which, he says, could treat dozens of patients a day and thousands in a year.

UDACs have already been rolled out in some areas, including Carlisle, with positive results, but we don’t yet have one in West Cumbria. Josh has been lobbying the North East and North Cumbria NHS Integrated Care Board for improvements to NHS dental access in West Cumbria for many months and says this could be part of the solution.

Last week he raised the issue in Parliament with the Health Minister, who praised him as “a strong campaigner for his constituents”.

Josh said:

“I’ve spoken to colleagues who have Urgent Dental Access Centres in their constituencies and they make a real difference in cutting waiting times for urgent appointments, so we would no longer have a situation where hundreds of west Cumbrians are sat waiting in agony for treatment.

“I’m in a constructive dialogue with the ICB about this and I hope they’ll make a decision soon.

“This is, however, just a short term measure. Ultimately, we need to change the NHS dental contract and recruit many more dentists to take on NHS patients. The government is getting on with that work and I’ll continue to champion West Cumbria to ensure we feel the full benefit.”

We’ve had a couple of weeks celebrating national pride and patriotism, with St. George’s Day recently followed by the 80th anniversary of VE Day this week.

I was honoured to invite a local hero to Downing Street for a reception hosted by the Prime Minister on St. George’s Day. For me, it is a day for recognising and celebrating the people who make England such a great nation. I tried to pick wisely by asking Cleator Moor’s own ‘Marathon Man’, Gary McKee. Gary has done and continues to do so much for West Cumbria and charities like Macmillan and Hospice at Home West Cumbria. It was the least I could do to thank him for his efforts.

We’re in the middle of a week of VE Day celebrations. I’ve been bowled away by the huge number of events being put on in towns and villages across our area. From street parties to evenings of singing and dancing, to quiet memorials and beacon lighting ceremonies. In addition to attending events in Parliament this week it will be my great privilege to attend events in West Cumbria as your MP, representing Parliament and the Government. 

I’d like to put on record my thanks to all of the Royal British Legion branches, town and parish councils and other groups involved in organising these events. Your work ensures the memory of those who fought and died for our country lives on in the minds of future generations.

Millions sacrificed their lives for the freedom, rights and democracy we enjoy today. Those things, which I think far too many people now take for granted, are under threat from within and from external forces. We must protect them – for everyone – while also recognising that we are in a new era, and renewal is needed so that our same values can be applied in a world that is changing. 

I welcome the government’s commitment to political and constitutional reform. Too many people are locked out of or not engaging in the democratic process. We need a thriving democracy in which everyone feels like they have a stake if our democracy is to survive and faith is to be restored in politics and government. I am given so much hope about the future when I am lucky enough to hear from children when I visit schools in our area. Just last Friday, I was talking with a group of 13 year olds about what Britain will look like in 2030, what the biggest challenge facing the country is and what our area’s greatest opportunities are. 

The 80th anniversary of VE Day is a special moment to mark the enduring values we fought for, reflect on the freedoms that were secured through sacrifice, and to join together to think hard about the kind of country we want to keep building for the future. 

A bold and ambitious plan to deliver better health services for people in Workington was raised with Ministers in Parliament this week by the town’s MP, Josh MacAlister.

Health outcomes in Workington are poor and local services are fragmented. The government’s manifesto promise to deliver new Neighbourhood Health Centres to join up services across an area provides an opportunity to deliver real change and better services for patients in Workington.

To capitalise on this opportunity, Josh brought together the leaders of local health and care services to develop a plan for a ‘Workington Health Zone’ to integrate health and care services in Workington, with the goal of improving access and outcomes for patients and cutting out waste and bureaucracy. The report’s summary states it as “a transformative, community-centred neighbourhood health and wellbeing model designed to address Workington’s unique healthcare challenges”, which “envisions a fully integrated system that merges health, social care, and third-sector services to deliver tailored, efficient, and proactive care”.

Josh has been working for several months to secure the resources to deliver this new health zone, which local service leaders estimate will cost up to £4 million over three years to set up and implement before becoming self-sustaining within existing budgets. Last week he met with Health Minister Stephen Kinnock to give him a copy of the plan and this week he raised it in Parliament at Health Questions. In response, Health Minister Ashley Dalton said:

“I would be delighted to work with my hon. Friend on the Government’s commitment to delivering a neighbourhood health service that reinforces integrated working for the NHS, local government, social care and wider partners as the norm.”

Josh said:

“The people of Workington deserve first rate health and care services, but that isn’t what we have at the moment after 14 years of a Conservative government which left out NHS and social care services on their knees. 

“I want Workington to be one of the first towns to benefit from the government’s plan to introduce new Neighbourhood Health Centres, which is why I pulled together the leaders of our local health and care services to come up with a bold and innovative plan to seize this opportunity.

“What they came up with is a credit to the ambition they have for our town. It has the potential to be transformative for the people of Workington. I have put copies in the hands of ministers, senior officials at the Department of Health & Social Care and the leaders of our local Integrated Care Board and will be seeking every chance I can to raise it with decision makers until we secure the funding that is needed.

“We’re already delivering change, with more GPs and NHS dental appointments and lower waiting lists. There is a long way to go, but we’re on the right track to fix our broken NHS thanks to the new investment and difficult choices made by the government at the last budget.”

The proposal would not just bring services together but also deliver a series of goals, including:

• Ensuring every patient who needs an urgent GP appointment gets one within 48 hours, benefiting approximately 1,435 patients each year.
• Reducing avoidable hospital admissions by 20%, keeping 600 people out of hospital every year.
• Improve patient satisfaction with local health services by 25%.

This comes as the government celebrates recruiting an additional 1,500 GPs across the country since the election, reducing hospital waiting lists every month since the new government took office, and rolling out hundreds of thousands of extra urgent NHS dental appointments across the country. All thanks to the additional £26 billion put into the NHS at the autumn 2024 budget.

Most weeks I get the chance to visit a school, chat to parents and hear from NHS services. In these conversations everyone agrees that it’s good we are now more aware of conditions like autism and ADHD, but a recurring topic is the huge increase in diagnosis amongst children. So it prompts the question: what’s going on?

Parents across West Cumbria are doing everything they can to get help for their children. Many are battling long waits for assessments, hoping for answers. We are lucky that we have brilliant local organisations like Bee Unique who have stepped into the gap left by a SEND system in crisis.  

Most people with experience of adolescent mental health services would agree that we’re facing a serious problem. There is a huge increase in diagnoses for milder cases that doesn’t come with meaningful support. And it is very often the children with the greatest needs who are suffering most as a result of an overwhelmed system.

Across England, the number of children diagnosed with autism has nearly doubled in the last five years. Teenage ADHD diagnoses are also rising sharply. Right now, around 400,000 children are stuck on NHS waiting lists for an autism or ADHD assessment and some are waiting more than two years. Diagnosis rates also vary dramatically depending on where you live and your socioeconomic background, raising uncomfortable questions about fairness and consistency.

Neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan, in her recent book The Age of Diagnosis, warns that we are living through a time when lots of difficulties risk being framed as disorders. She argues that while diagnoses can be helpful, too often they are used to explain normal human experiences — sadness, restlessness, shyness — that don’t always need a medical label. The consequences of a diagnosis are not trivial. They can profoundly shape a child’s self-image, education pathway, and access to support. While for many children a diagnosis brings much-needed understanding and help, for others it may impose unnecessary limitations, fostering a belief that they are “disordered” rather than simply different.

None of this is to dismiss the reality of neurodevelopmental disorders. I have met too many families for whom an autism or ADHD diagnosis has been transformative. But we must strike a better balance.

We need a system that puts children’s needs first, not one that forces parents to chase a diagnosis just to unlock basic, or in some cases non-existent, support. I’m convinced that the answer lies somewhere in a mix of much more support for parents, new rules for the use of social media and smartphones by children, and more clubs and opportunities for children so they can grow, take risks and be included. And this needs to be on top of faster and more careful assessments within the NHS and better SEND support in schools. 

As your MP, I am committed to fighting for these changes — locally and nationally. Our children’s futures are too important to leave to chance.

I hope everyone had a restful break over Easter and had the chance to catch up with friends and family. 

For those local families with children in nursery or primary school it’s now back to the morning rush to get them clothed and fed and in on time so you’re not late for work. And all of the costs that come with that.

I want to ease that burden for families in West Cumbria and the government has already made a start by delivering on several manifesto promises.

From this week, children at Seaton Academy, Beckermet Primary and Arlecdon Primary will benefit from a free, government-funded breakfast every morning, as they were chosen to be part of the pilot of our new Free Breakfast Club programme to ensure children are school ready and parents are better off. It will soon be rolled out to all local primary schools, meaning no more kids in West Cumbria going to school with empty bellies – a shameful legacy of the previous government.

We’re also making the school uniform shop this summer a bit cheaper by reducing the number of branded items schools can require parents to buy, giving you the option to buy more cheaper, unbranded clothes. Changes opposed by Conservative and Reform MPs.

Taken together, these measures will save local families up to £500 a year.

Those with younger children will benefit too. Too often I’ve heard the frustrations from parents who are seeing their wages disappear into sky-high childcare costs, or who aren’t able to get back to work at all because of these ballooning costs.

From September, we’re rolling out a massive expansion of free childcare so that parents will get 30 government-funded hours of childcare a week from when their child is 9 months old right up to starting school. Working parents could save up to £7,500 a year through the 30 hours of funded childcare, compared with paying for it themselves.

That kind of saving will be a huge help to family finances. And we’re doing it in a way that works for parents and for children.

We’ve got a challenge to grow capacity in the early years workforce and make sure the space is available in nurseries. So I’m delighted that two local schools have secured hundreds of thousands of pounds from the government to expand and improve their existing school-based nurseries. 

Thornhill Primary and Eaglesfield Paddle are two of 300 schools nationally which secured investment from the government to open or expand nurseries which will deliver up to 6,000 new childcare places across the country – most of them ready by September.

We’re delivering our promises to parents: more nursery places, an expansion in government funded childcare, new breakfast clubs and cheaper uniforms. This government is putting children and families first. We’re boosting parents’ work choices and children’s life chances.