My week in Westminster last week started with a meeting with the new Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove MP.

The meeting was to discuss whether we have a directly elected mayor for Cornwall. I reiterated my desire to see the people of Cornwall have a proper say, through a referendum, on whether we have this substantial change to local government.

I then met with representatives of the Channel Islands. It is interesting to hear of the issues they face in particular when it relates to the English Channel which we both share.

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On Tuesday I chaired a Delegated Legislation Committee to discuss changes to Pensions Legislation relating to electronic media. After this I attended my regular meeting of Parliament’s Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee where we discussed a Progress Update on the Environmental Land Management Scheme. At the meeting we heard from Janet Hughes, Programme Director, Future Farming and Countryside Programme, and Rt Hon Mark Spencer MP, Minister for Food, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

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On Wednesday I met with Cornwall-based researchers to discuss local food policy from Exeter University to meet. We discussed how people access local produce including farm shops and local growing scheme where consumers grow their own food. It was an interesting discussion and I look forward to seeing more of their work in the future.

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On Thursday we received the Autumn Budget statement. It was never going to be an easy budget.

The Government spent £400-billion protecting 14.5-million jobs during the pandemic and this has to be paid for as it has weakened the countries financial position. Putin’s war in the Ukraine has also created particular inflationary pressures due to the cuts in supply of fuel from Russia and food from Ukraine. These price rises cause problems for us all and we must keep inflation under control.

I was pleased that the Chancellor had protected pensioners by maintaining the triple lock on pensions. This mean in April the State pension will increase in line with inflation. I was also pleased to hear that 10 million households in receipt of working-age and disability benefits will also see their benefits increased in line with inflation. There is no doubt this will help a lot of people through this difficult economic time.

The Chancellor also managed to announce taxpayer funding for our NHS and schools by an extra £11 billion over the next two years and that it would support every household with higher energy bills by extending the Energy Price Guarantee until April 2024, while providing over £12 billion in additional support to help the most vulnerable households.

Whilst we would all prefer to pay lower taxes and spend more this clearly would not have been sustainable in the long term. The Chancellor had a difficult balancing act and I thank him for the work that he has done.