As we approach the warmer summer months, it’s a time to reflect on some of the good news there has been over recent months.

As hard as it is sometimes to break through the social media and broadcast media bubbles, there have been several recent announcements that are worth repeating.

Having been promised for 10 years a new Women and Children’s Unit at Treliske hospital, we can now finally say that it is going ahead in the first wave of the Hospital Buildings Programme, bringing jobs to the area and, perhaps more importantly, brand new dedicated facilities for service users across Cornwall.

Another major job-creating announcement was the £57.4-million investment into South Crofty tin mine. The investment, which will see tin mining coming back to Cornwall for the first time this century, also demonstrates the Government’s view that this is a significantly strategic project backed, as it was, by £28-million from the National Wealth Fund and a 28 per cent stake in the mine itself. People sometimes question who owns the mine – well, 28 per cent of it we do!

In education, the Labour government’s unremitting focus on the importance of early years was backed by the announcement of funding for school-based nurseries in areas of highest deprivation. Treleigh School, in Redruth, is in the first wave of 750 schools that will receive extra funding, putting up to £7,500 back into the pockets of parents from September. Another reason to feel more positive is the continual reduction in NHS waiting lists for the sixth month in a row.

We have suffered for so long with some of the highest ambulance waiting times in the country and the government’s focus on putting £22-billion back into the NHS is starting to see tangible benefits, not just for us here in Cornwall but throughout the UK. Here in Cornwall, we have seen a drop of almost 2000 in the waiting lists between July 2024 and January 2025. That includes 728 fewer patients also having to wait more than 18 weeks.

We’ve also acted to reduce waste and duplication in the NHS by announcing the scrapping of NHS England. This will mean more funds available to frontline NHS services. All of this would be put at risk by those that want to move the NHS to an insurance-based privatised system.

We have also seen increased funding going into Devon and Cornwall Police to ensure more frontline policing will be visible on our streets and £47.3-million in Shared Prosperity Funding for Cornwall in 2025/26 will see projects right across the Duchy benefiting, including in the public, private and voluntary sectors. Nationally, inflation has come down and for homeowners, so have mortgage rates.

We still have much to do locally around GP and dentistry access, as well as sewage pollution in our rivers and seas, and the SEND provision that has been lacking for so long.

But I will continue to push to improve these services and to bring more jobs, prosperity, health and happiness to our corner of the world.