Dear Fellow Local Resident,
From a brand new school in Felixstowe to a new A&E at Ipswich Hospital, a brand new orthopaedic centre for elective surgery opening this summer, a new hospital in Gorleston to be built by 2030, superfast broadband available right across the constituency, childcare provision extended and Suffolk now having its highest number of police officers, together we’re getting things done for Suffolk Coastal. You can read my plan for the future in my election literature attached.
But what happens next comes down to your vote.
The last few years have been tough. While we have delivered on much of our 2019 manifesto, including getting over 50,000 more nurses and more doctors in the NHS and a record number of police officers in Suffolk, undoubtedly Covid and the impact of the invasion of Ukraine have been a body blow to the country in halting more progress and triggering a cost of living challenge for us all. We got through it thanks to our NHS, thanks to communities pulling together and thanks to unprecedented financial support from the Conservative government.
Being a Cabinet Minister and working with Cabinet colleagues, together we helped millions of families and businesses. Since then, we have continued to invest in the NHS, in children’s education and our schools, in childcare, in our defence, in our borders and have protected pensioners.
We have also balanced who pays taxes. The richest 1% are paying 29% of the income tax, up from 25% in 2010. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies and fullfact.org confirmed, thanks to the Budget this year and the national insurance cuts, the burden of tax for the average salary worker is at its lowest since 1975 – with a £2,000 reduction for those on that £35,000 average salary.
In an uncertain world, I don’t think Sir Keir Starmer can give you certainty with U-turns whenever a policy becomes unpopular or when he needs to please someone new. He made many pledges to be elected as leader of the Labour party. He has dropped pretty much all of them. He is offering more pledges to get your vote. Will he actually keep those pledges or drop them, as he has done so before?
You’ve seen the polls. You’ve heard the commentators. You know who they say is likely to win the national election. Keir Starmer thinks the result is already in the bag. But with the result likely to be particularly close here this time, if just a handful of people here vote for Reform, Liberal Democrats or any other party rather than the Conservatives – they risk handing Keir Starmer a huge majority and a blank cheque to do whatever he wants, without anyone holding them to account.
We are now seeing the economy and wages growing. I will keep championing the countryside and rural services, our natural environment, climate change, cleaner rivers and farming. Conservatives have committed an extra £1 billion annually in support for farmers by the end of the parliament. Labour refuses to match this support. Conservatives will deliver the triple lock plus for pensioners - raising the tax threshold so you will never pay tax on your state pension. Surprisingly, Labour has not matched this. I care passionately about our natural environment and saving the planet. That is why I will support more clean river action plans, like the new one for the River Deben.
I will keep working for more investment to help you, your families, businesses, schools and our planet so we can enjoy a better future, now and for generations to come. That is why I ask for your support this election.
