Dear constituents,
Firstly let me say how grateful I am that you have chosen me to represent North Norfolk as your MP. It has been my dream to represent the constituency that I was born, grew up, and live in. I will work as hard as I possibly can over the next 5 years to ensure that the people of North Norfolk's voice is heard in Westminster. It would like to say a huge thank-you to Sir Norman Lamb who served this constituency graciously during his time as MP and I look forward to having the opportunity to improve the mental health services we have in North Norfolk.
Now that the Conservatives have a large majority in Government I shall be able to strongly put forward many of the concerns that North Norfolk residents face:
Infrastructure for the 21st century - We plan to invest £29 billion to upgrade England's roads and now that we have a strong Conservative voice representing North Norfolk I hope to make sure that we receive as much as funding possible. During our election campaign improving our roads was a main issue for voters and I hope to rectify this as your MP, I understand how vital they are for our public transport and for commuting. We are also investing £5 billion to deliver gigabit broadband across the country, transforming the country's digital landscape and levelling the playing field for rural communities and businesses in North Norfolk. To prepare the country's roads for the future, we will be investing almost £1 billion to complete a fast-charging network for electric cars, reducing our footprint in the process.
Building homes for the future - Emissions from heating homes are the single largest contributing factor to the UK's carbon footprint. As a result we plan to raise requirements set out in the building regulations for new homes, ensuring we decrease our co2 emissions. We hope to build 1 million homes in the next 5 years, with plans for community developments already in place in North Norfolk. I am committed to ensuring first time buyers onto the property ladder more easily, making sure that there is enough supply to meet current demands in North Norfolk. I am fully behind devolving power to local authorities so they have more control over the future of their economy and public services, so we can have a tailor made solution for North Norfolk.
Protecting and Investing in our Environment - North Norfolk is full of areas of natural outstanding beauty, we need to maintain and preserve these areas to allow locating tourism to develop and conserve these places for generations to come. Once we leave the EU we will ensure that farmers have more of say in how they farm their land, as well as creating initiatives to enable restorative agriculture to take place. We have published an Environment Bill stating our ambition to protect and enhance our precious natural environment ensuring generations to come will be able to cherish our wonderful countryside. This will aim to improve air and water quality, tackle plastic pollution that often ends up on our beaches and restoring wildlife.
The NHS and Social Care - While out campaigning one key issue that resonated throughout the constituency was the need for increasing funding and provisions for the NHS and social care. The NHS should always be free at the point of use, and over the next 5 years we are going to be insuring it gets the help it needs across the board and crucially in vital services. We are going to be working cross-party here in North Norfolk to ensure that Ambulance response times are decreased as well as ensuring that government NHS funding comes to North Norfolk. I have already spoken to Matt Hancock MP, Health Secretary, to express my concern over the current response times and have begun dialogue to rectify this. In addition, we are aiming to boost mental health funding by at least £2.3 billion over the next five years, with this I hope to improve upon the health outcomes of constituents by providing more power to patients in how they are treated and creating additional GP appointments to reduce waiting times and ensuring patients can be seen by the right person, when it's most convenient for them. I hope to help stabilise the current social care system, which has seen an increase in demanding especially in areas like North Norfolk with an ageing population. We have boosted social care funding by an additional £3.9 billion in 2019, this injection of funding will aide councils to support people to live longer and live more independently.
Schools - I believe that everybody deserves an exceptional education here in North Norfolk. Nationally we have 1.9 million more children in good and outstanding schools since 2010, but I believe we can improve on this even more. We plan to increase school funding by £14 billion over the next 3 years so that every child can get a good education and are offering a new £90 million arts premium to secondary schools to help fund enriching activities as well as advocating for primary schools to promote physical literacy and competitive sport. Furthermore, we plan to increase funding for pupils with Special Education Needs, we have announced an additional £780 million in high needs funding, an increase of 12pc bringing the SEND budget to over £7 billion a year.
Economy - Rural areas like North Norfolk have often been left out of the spotlight by previous governments. I am the Conservative's group leader at North Norfolk District Council, as well as having a background in business and accountancy, I believe I am best suited alongside my knowledge of the area to provide the opportunities for local businesses to flourish. I know how vital small businesses are to our economy, and I want to make sure that they receive the necessary support from the government to thrive. We are increasing the business rates retail discount, reducing tax for small businesses, to 50pc from 33pc. This would be an effective tax cut that enables small businesses to retain more of the money they earn, enabling them to invest in the future of our economy.
Once again I would like to express my sincere gratitude for allowing me this opportunity to represent you, lets get Brexit done so that we can focus on solving other issues facing the United Kingdom, like the NHS. Thank-you.
Duncan Baker
Member of Parliament for North Norfolk
