Newspaper column 30 January - Brexit Bill has passed, and our NHS

The end of last week saw the Withdrawal Agreement, ‘the ‘Brexit Bill’ pass into law, following Parliament having sat for less than a month after the General Election in December. It goes to show, with the strong Conservative majority that we now have, that the problems this Bill faced in passing through Parliament in previous years were down to other Members of Parliament, many who have now lost their seat, trying to frustrate the result of the 2016 referendum by delaying or cancelling Brexit altogether. This would in my mind have been a critical blow in damaging the that Parliament as a democratic body has from the British public. Now the Bill has passed, and smoothly, we can begin to rebuild that trust.

With the Withdrawal Agreement passed, we can now move on to determining how the next stage of our relations with our friends in the EU looks like, crucially doing so now from the perspective of having already left, instead of pondering over whether we will or not. We can also negotiate relationships with other countries around the world and focus on our domestic agenda, including policies from our manifesto in the recent election.

Over the last seven days, for instance I have been pleased to see announcements that Devon and Cornwall Constabulary will be getting an additional £23.7million funding this year, Cornwall will be getting an extra nearly £1.7million funding for homelessness reduction, and Cornwall has also been chosen as a pilot area for a project with the NHS to help older people stay out of hospital and relieve pressures on Treliske.

Speaking of our NHS, earlier this month I was concerned to hear of increased pressures at Treliske Hospital in the middle of particularly difficult winter. I have subsequently spoken with senior staff at hospital to understand the concerns, and on Tuesday this week, met with the Secretary of State for Health to discuss the matter further in order to ensure our amazing hospital and the great people who work there continue to get all the support they need.

While we have had real time funding increases for Cornwall’s NHS every year since 2015, as well as additional money for separate projects such as the new mother and baby unit at Treliske and the soon to open inpatient facility for young people with mental health problems at Bodmin, an ageing population and our rural infrastructure still puts a heavy demand on our NHS services in Cornwall.

In my meeting with the Secretary of State I was keen to make it clear that Treliske, for now the only major hospital with an emergency department in Cornwall, needs all the support it can get, not just in terms of funding but also in terms of getting the funding to actually impact positively on front line services and improving things for NHS staff and patients. I am clear that improving our NHS services is not just about throwing money at them but also about ensuring that money is well targeted and well spent. I was pleased to get the reassurance from the Secretary of State that Treliske remains a priority of this Government and will continue to do all I can both here in Cornwall and in Westminster to champion the tremendous job it does, as well as push for more services in the future.