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.

Whitehaven and Workington MP Josh MacAlister is celebrating the announcement of a major expansion of the Government funded Project Gigabit to give access to superfast fibre broadband to nearly five thousand more properties across West Cumbria.

A £50 million boost to the programme will see an additional 21,000 premises in rural areas across Cumbria included in total, with rollout expected to be completed in 2027.

Thousands of homes were left out of the programme announced by the previous government, with some residents finding that one side of their street was getting access while the other was not. Josh met with Digital Minister Chris Bryant last year to lobby for more properties in West Cumbria to be included in the programme (pictured).

Once this expanded rollout is delivered alongside other commercial plans, 99% of homes and businesses in Cumbria should have access to next generation broadband. Josh is working with Building Digital UK on solutions for the remaining 1% in the most rural areas where it is not possible to deliver fibre.

Josh said:

“I’m delighted that following lobbying the Government has committed £50 million to this massive extension of Project Gigabit, which will give almost all properties in West Cumbria access to superfast fibre broadband.

“Access to high speed internet is absolutely essential to improve connectivity in rural communities, to support more flexible working and back local small and home-based businesses, of which we have so many in West Cumbria. 

“This is just the latest example of how the new Labour Government is delivering for communities like ours.”

Digital Minister Sir Chris Bryant said: 

“Better broadband will not only enhance the quality of life for tens of thousands of homes and businesses across rural Cumbria, but it will also help us put an end to disparities between urban and rural areas.

“Only last month, we launched our Digital Inclusion Action Plan, setting out our next steps to shrink the digital gap. This announcement is a fantastic example of how a Government-backed contract will help ensure people in rural areas are not left behind and have the tools they need to thrive in the digital age.”

Unlocking our nuclear future is critical for West Cumbria because it will generate clean power to power new industries that will create jobs and diversify our economy so we’re not so reliant on decommissioning.

Nine months into the job I want to update you on my progress and outline my plans for the next few months to smash through the roadblocks left by the Tories.

My first act was meeting all of the key stakeholders locally and nationally. I sent off a flurry of letters and Parliamentary questions to reveal what exactly happened under the previous government. I secured the first debate of the new Parliament on nuclear. I’ve held more than a dozen meetings with the Energy Secretary, the Nuclear Minister and other ministers in the Energy department to discuss new nuclear and West Cumbria. 

All of this culminated in the establishment of the Cumberland Nuclear Future Board.

Led by me and Cllr Mark Fryer, the board includes fellow Cumberland MPs, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and Sellafield, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and other ministers we’ll pull in to help us tackle specific challenges.

This is a major development. 

For the first time, we have all partners, local and national, pulling in the same direction and working positively together to achieve the same goal.

That goal is to identify a chunk of NDA-owned land at Moorside that can be offered up for a nuclear-led clean energy development which also attracts users of the power it would generate. Access to that land has been a major stumbling block before now. Unblocking that land is key.

Alongside releasing this land we’re pushing the Government to press on with Plutonium disposition. We want significant funding announced in the Spending Review to be invested in nuclear research and development in West Cumbria.

The third key element is a programme of major investment in the towns nearest the Sellafield site, funded by local and national contributions, so that we can attract and retain the skilled workforce we need for decommissioning and for future new nuclear.

We want to pull this together into a Team West Cumbria, with local and national government and partners working together to build liveable places, address skills challenges and improve our transport infrastructure.

There are no guarantees, but I am genuinely hopeful and energised by the enthusiasm with which local and national government and the NDA have embraced this.

Just to get this far after the mess inherited from the Tories is further than I feared we would get. But my whole career has been spent working with energy and drive to solve tough problems and I am approaching this with the same drive and energy.

I won’t rest until I’ve done everything in my power to see West Cumbria leading on nuclear again.

Plans for a major expansion of the Port of Workington are progressing at pace, say the leaders of the Port Taskforce which is driving the proposals forward.

The taskforce is chaired by Whitehaven and Workington MP Josh MacAlister and Cumberland Council leader Mark Fryer and has been meeting since last summer. It was formed to develop an ambitious masterplan to ensure that Workington was well positioned to benefit from major investment in Britain’s ports by the Labour Government.

Production of the masterplan is underway by Cumberland Council and a prospectus will be launched shortly to attract the investors we want to bring here as part of development of the port and surrounding council-owned land. The Government’s National Wealth Fund are also engaged with the taskforce and will be visiting the port later this month. 

The ambition of the taskforce is to secure tens of millions of pounds of investment from the National Wealth Fund to transform the port into a bustling clean energy hub with energy production, manufacturing and logistics, creating hundreds of jobs. 

Josh said:

“The Port of Workington is a fantastic asset for the town and has so much potential. Cllr Mark Fryer and I have huge ambition for the port and the land around it and we’re already in discussions with a number of potential new businesses that are considering locating here. 

“I am hopeful that we will attract the government and private investment we need to transform the port into a new economic zone that will create jobs and prosperity for West Cumbria.”

I do regular walk-abouts to find out what the top issues are for people. So many people raise the issue of dangerous off-road bikes flying around estates or up and down footpaths. 

Too often the crimes which affect people and businesses most are dismissed as low-level. But it doesn’t feel low-level when people need to put up with daily lawbreaking or parents need to worry about where their kids can play. And it doesn’t feel low level when it’s our town centres being plagued by anti-social behaviour and thefts, or our neighbourhoods blighted by drugs.

For far too long, the last Government wrote off those crimes, and disregarded how they made ordinary people feel. That’s why the Labour Government has announced tough new action in our Crime and Policing Bill, which now continues its next stage through Parliament.

The Bill will restore trust, and reduce serious harm. We’ll put 13,000 additional neighbourhood police and PCSOs on our streets – including dozens more here in West Cumbria – and we’ll give the police new powers to take swift action to stamp out anti-social behaviour.

We know that more visible and active policing works because we’ve seen the results here in West Cumbria over the last eight months. The Labour Government provided our excellent Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner, David Allen, with £1 million for Operation Enhance, which has seen increased police patrols in anti-social behaviour hotspots in Whitehaven, Workington and Cleator Moor. The results have shown a drop of between 30% and 80% in reported incidents across those three areas compared to the previous year. Further Government funding has been provided to continue those enhanced patrols from April. 

Officers will have more tools in their arsenal thanks to our Crime and Policing Bill, which introduces Respect Orders to crack down on repeat offenders of anti-social behaviour. It enables the police to catch and crush off-road bikes used illegally more easily – something officers here will be well equipped to do thanks to the drones funded by Commissioner Allen. 

It also gives the police special warrantless powers of entry to premises so they can move fast and take back stolen phones, vehicles and agricultural equipment. It expands police drug testing powers so more drug users can be supported into treatment. And it ends the Tories’ ludicrous £200 limit on shoplifting, which has left so much shop theft ignored.

I will work with the Commissioner, the police and communities to make our streets safer again. We will never write off crimes that make people afraid. And we will take back our town centres from the thieves and thugs.

We were elected to deliver change: we are working everyday to ensure West Cumbria is secure and safe.