Opinion: Let’s get Peterborough’s future back

That was the question from Labour’s conference in Liverpool this week. It isn’t hard to answer that now I am back home in Peterborough where we have seen record NHS backlogs in recent years whilst the cost-of-living crisis has spiralled.

Whilst Rishi Sunak uses a private jet to make his away across the country, it has been a difficult few years for the rest of us. So, it was a privilege to attend the Labour conference alongside councillors from Peterborough as part of our work to promote the city and to ensure we get the investment and support we need from Labour.

And it is a changed Labour Party. Labour lost in Peterborough and across the country in 2019 because we had taken ourselves off the pitch. We have pride and common sense in this city. We want a government that puts the national interest first, not party.

Today’s Labour Party is back in the service of working people. The Conservative Party has forgotten that lesson. It is barely a year since, in their clamour to cut taxes for those at the top, the Conservatives crashed the economy and left the rest of us to pick up the bill.

The theme of this year’s conference was national renewal. We know it will be hard to turn around the country, but if we put aside the chaos of the last few years it can be done. And we certainly need renewal in Peterborough. From fly-tipping to the lack of police on our streets, affordable housing to secure, jobs, we need change.

Peterborough saw some of its greatest investment as a New Town, and this week Keir Starmer pledged to bring the new town spirit back again.

This means investing in affordable housing so that the next generation can get on the housing ladder. The ability to get a doctor’s appointment or find an NHS dentist when you need them and near to home. Only last week I met a woman who is now forced to travel to Stevenage just to get an appointment. And bringing more better, higher-skilled jobs to the city.

Two announcements stood out for me that would address significant challenges facing us here. First was the announcement that Labour would close the non-dom tax status, a legal loophole that allows some of the richest people in the world to avoid paying tax in Britain. And then use that money to boost capacity in the NHS and cut waiting lists.

Secondly, was the pledge to focus on growing the number of apprenticeships. This is incredibly important to a city like ours with its proud industrial heritage. On Friday, before travelling to the conference, I met trainees at JobSmart in the city centre learning how to become security staff. Every business I meet talks about the importance of skills and how we could do more as a city. Yet, instead of boosting apprenticeships, the government has presided over a decade in which the number of people starting an apprenticeship each year has fallen.

I hope people saw a Labour party seeking to earn your trust this week with plans for economic growth, safer streets better opportunities and a rejuvenated NHS to start fixing the challenges facing our city. This will require a new politics and new way of governing the country – tackling the disease of ‘sticking plaster’ politics and restoring serious, united, long term public service.