Westminster Report

BY David Burton-Sampson MP for Southend West & Leigh.
I was delighted to watch the King’s Speech recently in the House of Lords. It was great to see the new Great British Railway Train, complete with Union Jack inspired liveries, on a visit to Waterloo station.
It was the first time I had seen the red, white and blue carriages. I was so impressed and delighted to see this next step on the road to full renationalisation.
Great British Railways (GBR) will oversee a renationalised and reintegrated rail network, after privatisation broke it up into separate private passenger franchises and track infrastructure almost thirty years ago.
This wrongheaded decision to separate the management of track and trains has led to confused accountability and buck-passing between train operators and Network Rail. Now all that is ending and we can look forward to a new era.
This Labour government has frozen ticket prices for this year too, to help keep more money in your pocket. Now with our Great British Summer Savings scheme, Labour is also helping families have an affordable day out, to help cut the cost of living.
Another thing we are fixing is the health service. In my new role as a Private Parliamentary Secretary, I am supporting ministers in the Health Department as our NHS Modernisation Bill makes its way through parliament.
We inherited from the Tories an NHS which was broken but not beaten. This Labour Government is putting the NHS back on its feet and making it fit for the future.
The NHS Modernisation Bill is an important part of implementing reforms in the 10 Year Health Plan, which focuses on the three big shifts our NHS needs – from analogue to digital, from hospital to community and from sickness to prevention.
The Bill will improve patient safety and experience through a new Single Patient Record, enabling joined-up, proactive care and it abolishes NHS England to put more resources into frontline care.
Too often, patients experience care which isn’t joined up. They have to tell their story time and time again each time they meet a new clinician. This isn’t just an inconvenience: it puts patient safety at risk. When clinicians don’t have all the relevant facts available, they can’t make the best decisions, and patients lose out.
Failing to have a single, accurate source of information, accessible by patients themselves, is causing harm. That cannot continue.
By moving to a more personalised and proactive system, we are giving sick people a bit more control over their lives. So the NHS revolves around patients, rather than patients revolving around the NHS.
It is so important that we are taking the necessary steps to ensure the NHS is there for patients when they need it, that it’s a better place to work for staff and that we will deliver better value for money for taxpayers.
The 10 Year Health Plan will make sure that the NHS really is financially sustainable for the long term, fixing the fundamentals and making it fit for the future. It will take time, but Labour has turned the NHS around before, and we will do it again.
We are also working with Baroness Casey on a long-term plan for reform of adult social care. We have already taken immediate action on social care, bringing in a £2,000 uplift in the carers’ allowance, investing £500 million into the first ever Fair Pay Agreement for care workers, and delivering an increase in the Disabled Facilities Grant to provide thousands more home adaptations.
June sees Carers Week, which I am supporting. It aims to raise awareness of caring, recognise the contributions of unpaid carers and help them access essential support and services. Spearheaded by Carers UK alongside supporting charities like Age UK and the Carers Trust, this year’s theme is “Building Carer Friendly Communities”. It focuses on making workplaces, local communities, GP practices, and organisations more accessible and supportive for unpaid carers.
We have also just seen the final of “Britain’s Got talent” and I pay tribute to performance poet Sonny Green, who did so well to make it to the end. Sonny’s success in finishing in 6th place shines a light on the artistic scene her in Southend, where there is such a lot to celebrate.
I was also rejoicing at Southend United FC’s nail-biting win at Wembley in the FA Trophy and was lucky enough to get to lift the cup recently at Roots Hall.
What a great start to the summer for the city of Southend and we still have such a lot to look forward to in the coming sunshine months.
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