One year on from the General Election, we have additional neighbourhood police on the beat in the Castleford, Pontefract and Knottingley, more NHS appointments in Pinderfields and Pontefract, an average 32% pension boost for thousands of local retired miners, and free school meals coming in for nearly 6,000 local children. Those are some of the practical things that people round here have been calling for many years, and we need to make sure we go further.

In the last year, we had promised to provide 2 million extra appointments across the country. We went further and delivered 4 million appointments, backed by major new investment, and waiting times at Pinderfields and Pontefract are finally coming down. 1900 new GPs have been recruited. In our manifesto we set a five-year target for hiring mental health workers, 8,500. 6,700 were hired in our first year in government.

But that’s not enough. Alongside the investment we also need reform, including things like reforming dental contracts. We are just coming up to 77th anniversary of our NHS – founded on that vital principle that health care should be provided depending on need not on ability to pay. Labour created the NHS, we protected it last time we were in government, and we will do the same again now.

Here in the Five Towns, we also have more police back on the beat – starting first in Pontefract and Castleford town centres in response to the Government’s Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee. For the first time in more than a decade we have seven day a week neighbourhood policing in the Five Towns – targeting antisocial behaviour, shoplifting, and drug dealing. And I’ve been pushing a change in the law to make it easier for the police to seize nightmare off-road bikes.

placeholder image — Yvette Cooper MP at Castleford College

But perhaps one of the most important changes we are making is something that doesn’t get talked about as much – new support for industry and jobs of the future.

Industry and manufacturing have always been a vital part of our towns, from the sweet factories that trace their roots back to Pontefract liquorice, the coal mines that powered the country for generations, or the glass factories of Knottingley. The new Industrial Strategy has put skills at the heart of boosting our economy for the future.

For us in the Five Towns that includes major new support for construction apprenticeships where a brand-new state of the art construction training centre is set to open as part of Castleford College later this year, providing new opportunities for local young people.

The strategy also means major new support for energy intensive industries, through reducing the bills for industry like glass. I’ve also met with Government Ministers and with our local glass factories to talk about support for glass as new recycling changes come in.

Sometimes all the political debates on television and social media can miss the practical things on the NHS, policing and local jobs that make a difference here in our towns. Those are the things we must work on to deliver for local people.