New Peterborough MP Andrew Pakes on getting his teeth into the dentist crisis, his commitment to Peterborough - and Parliament being like Hogwarts

“We are breaking new ground for Peterborough. We've got to move very quickly from limbering up and doing the stretches on the side of the pitch to getting on and playing our best team in terms of delivering results for Peterborough.”

Andrew Pakes had been the new MP for exactly one week when the Peterborough Telegraph sat down with the city’s new representative in Parliament, and despite a hectic week getting to grips with the maze of Westminster – and a serious lack of sleep – the Labour politician was keen to get going and start the job properly.

Seven days before we met in a cloudy Central Park, as the night turned into a new dawn on July 5, Andrew had won his seat by just 118 votes, defeating Conservative Paul Bristow after a dramatic recount – with the result arriving at 5am.

‘The moment where you swear allegiance to the King and sign the book was a genuine pinch me moment, just in terms of the enormity of the role.’

Reflecting on the election, Andrew described the result as being ‘very Peterborough,’ because of how tight it was.

He said: “I'm absolutely bowled over by the result last week, even though it was very Peterborough, in the size of the margin,

"To me, the, big challenge now is putting a team together, getting an office together and being able to get going quickly, because the casework and the emails and calls have already started coming in.

"I do feel that I still need to catch up on sleep.

"I was on a family holiday when the election was called, enjoying a teeny bit of sunshine. I had to hot foot it back home to Peterborough for the election.

"Then from six weeks of being put on the spot, rightly so, by the public, after one night's sleep I was in the House of Commons on the Sunday morning. It was a huge privilege, but it does feel a bit like starting school at Hogwarts.

"I've spent all week in Parliament .The moment where you swear allegiance to the King and sign the book was a genuine pinch me moment, just in terms of the enormity of the role.

"Yes, I need some sleep, and I'm hoping to have a few more lie ins, but I know people want me to get on with the job.”

‘The added layer around safety and security is really important given the extremism we've seen in recent years, and the attacks on politicians.’

Andrew said much of the first week in Parliament was taken up security briefings – the importance of which was not lost on him, even in the days before the assassination attempt on American presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Andrew said: “There are an incredible amount of new passwords you have to learn for systems. The biggest challenge is the number of passwords - you know, we live in a very insecure world, so a lot of the time has been in inductions and briefings, the things people expect from starting a normal job, but with this added layer around safety and security which is really important given the extremism we've seen in recent years, and the attacks on politicians.”

Since this interview took place, Andrew has asked his first question in Parliament – when he urged the Government to use it’s influence to bring about both a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages.

‘I think that not enough people around the rest of the country realise how great we are as a city’

The diversity of the city he represents, and has been his home for around three years, is one of the things he loves about Peterborough.

He said: “I love the diversity in the mix of people we have in Peterborough.

“That diversity, and mixing communities, I think, is one of the most brilliant things about us.

“I often think that not enough people around the rest of the country realise how great we are as a city for that diversity.

"I think one of my roles is helping to change the perception of people on the national stage to showcase some of that - Seven tenths politicians, three tenths tourist board.

“Because actually if we can tell our story on the national stage, it will help bring more jobs, more investment, more businesses, more leisure facilities, more tourists and visitors.“I'm also very much aware that, you know, it doesn't matter what background or part of the city you live in, things like lack of GPs and dentists not seeing enough police on the streets, being concerned about energy bills are common across all those communities.

"I'm very much the kind of politician that wants to find the things that unite us as well as highlight those things that is special to us.”

‘We have already had meetings on how we secure a new indoor public swimming pool for the city centre.’

For Peterborough, politically, it is very much a new era. Four years ago, there was a Conservative Government, two Conservative MPs in Peterborough, a Conservative-run city council and a Conservative Mayor of the Combined Authority. All of those are now Labour run – even if some of the elections in the city have been incredibly close, and the make of of the council is very much in the balance, and Andrew said he was very aware of the pressure for his party to deliver.

He said: “I'm very aware that this is a big mandate for Labour nationally, but I think that means people expect us to deliver even more.

"This is breaking new ground for Peterborough. We've got to move very quickly from limbering up and doing the stretches on the side of the pitch to getting on and playing our best team in terms of delivering results for Peterborough.

“Importantly, you know, during the election Labour was able to reaffirm that we will deliver on the Station quarter regeneration scheme.

"We will see through after all of the delays, the new NHS Diagnostic Centre, which will provide more tests and help alleviate some of the pressure.

“We have already started work and had meetings this week on how we secure a new indoor public swimming pool for the city centre.

"So, we will deliver on those levelling up promises that were made in the last Parliament, but we also need to start focusing on a new plan for the city centre.

“I particularly want to work with businesses to bring more jobs, skills, apprenticeships and investment into the city.

"It's going to be tough. The reality is we've had a tough decade. That's been the cost of living crisis, and some of the challenges we've had when Russia invaded Ukraine and now the events in the Middle East.

"These are difficult, insecure times. One of the most important things a Labour Government working with Labour colleagues can do is bring some stability to the city and the economy, working together, to help bring down some of those living costs and mortgage bills.

"This is a 10-year project, I think, to turn our country around. We've had 14 years in which our Public Services have been run down, by combination of austerity and underfunding.”

NHS dental crisis in city ‘top of to do list’

Having had time to reflect on his election win, Andrew said health services were at the top of his to do list.

He said: “The NHS was a consistent theme during the election, whether that was lack of access to GPs, the waiting list at Peterborough City Hospital, challenges to mental health provision in the city, and being able to get the treatment people expect.

“But my starting point, the first step, will be NHS dentists.

"We are one of the worst places in the country for NHS dentist provisions.

"I'm really pleased that one of the first meetings Wes Streeting, the new Health Secretary, hosted was with the British Dental Association.

"We need a national solution to help us locally.

"We've got lots of dentists in the city. They all do private provision. They don't do enough NHS provision really. We need to slide that scale up to get us extra NHS appointments to the city.

"People said they were travelling afar to Stevenage, to London and elsewhere, just getting an NHS dentist appointment. The most surprising and shocking one was meeting a woman on the doorstep, who is living in Peterborough partly because of what's happening back home in Ukraine, and they just found it easier to get the appointment back in Ukraine than she did in Peterborough.”

‘I want us to keep that welcoming Peterborough spirit where we bring people together rather than divide them’

With his election win, Andrew said he was hoping to bring a new style of politics to the city, with an end to what he described as ‘the Punch and Judy show.’

He said he had been disappointed with attacks the Conservative Party had made on him – especially that he was ‘Milton Keynes’ Man.’

He said: “One of the things I'm disappointed about the election campaign is how negative it went. I think people are fed up with negative politics and personal attacks.

“I'm very proud to have been born and raised in Milton Keynes but I haven't lived there since 2016. I've been Peterborough for about three years, I've worked for a trade union representing members in Peterborough for about seven or eight years before getting elected, so it's a patch of the world I know. I've chosen to make my home here and I now have the great privilege to serve it. So, yeah, this is my community, we're sat here in the Willow Cafe in Central Park, I live just around the corner and this is one of my favourite parts of the city.

"I also think we're a city where lots of people have chosen to make their homes here, and I think I want us to keep that welcoming Peterborough spirit where we bring people together rather than divide them.

"I think it's time to push back on that negative attack based Punch and Judy show that politics has become.

"We have much more in common and we need to remember that for the first time."

‘This city, and this country can be a much better place.’

Andrew, who listed gardening as how he likes to relax away from the hectic world of politics said it was his mum and dad who inspired him to get into politics.He said: “My starting point in politics was my brilliant, hard-working mum, who worked several jobs when we were growing up. She taught my brother and I that if you think things should be better, you need to get up and do something about it.

"My mum was a cleaning lady. My dad worked in a car plant. They worked really hard so that my brother and I can have a better life than them. And that kind of social contract in this country is what really inspires me.

“I've had a career helping other people, being a food bank volunteer, paying back into and paying it forward into the community, as well as being a trade union official for many years.”

He is now working to set up his office and team – but said he was hoping to be visible during his time as MP.

He said: “I think the heart of a good MP's operation is meeting people, listening to them, following up on their casework and enquiries, Hopefully in the next few weeks I'll have a team in place who can support me in doing that, and provide that first-rate service to people who need help and support in the city.

“But I also want to continue in the spirit we had during the election with more community meetings, bringing people together working alongside councillors Parish councils where we have them communities groups, and other, to keep having that big conversation across the city about what the challenges are.

“We've changed and immeasurably from before we became a new town. We've got great foundations in the city, whether it's you know, the square, the cathedral, or the Parkways. The basics of this city are brilliant and still hold true, but they just need a bit of TLC.

“One of the big things I talked about during the election was infrastructure for expansion and I think we've seen too much piecemeal development and housing growth, which hasn't seen the investment in the roads, schools, surgeries that people need.

“This city, and this country can be a much better place.”