I’M proud to say that, after so much sustained pressure, campaigning, and direct action in Parliament, the government has now dropped its plans for mandatory Digital ID!

Thousands of residents here from across North Cornwall made their voices heard by signing our petition - so thank you to all of those who got involved to make this happen. On behalf of you all, I was able to raise the issue repeatedly in debates, statements, and believe this is a real win for common sense, for privacy, and for all of those in our rural communities who don’t have access to smartphones or reliable internet. I spoke about the government’s embarrassing U-turn in the media this week, and made clear that such an intrusive scheme should never have been put forward in the first place.

I was pleased to vote against the Family Farm Tax again this week, because even though the government has walked back their damaging plans, farmers here in North Cornwall need much greater reassurance from the Government on their new plans. I spoke in Parliament during the debate to expose just how deeply flawed these plans still are, especially where family farms are concerned. Under the proposals, whether or not you’re taxed could depend entirely on your marital status, or how your land is owned. Alongside my Liberal Democrat colleagues, I’ll of course continue fighting on behalf of our farmers until it’s scrapped or reformed properly and fairly.

It was also a very welcome announcement this week that the 96 bus route will now extend to Tesco Wadebridge and nearby villages… a big improvement for local accessibility and public transport links for those areas. I’m very grateful for the hard work of Cllr Rosie Moore on this issue, and I recently met with the chief executive of Go Bus to discuss further improvements across North Cornwall. As ever, I’ll now continue to push the government to properly fund rural bus services, which remain vastly under-supported in our region as a whole.

I was also proud to vote against the government’s attempt to ban peaceful animal rights protests this week, a rather draconian proposal which would have criminalised many legitimate and lawful expressions of dissent. Peaceful protest is a cornerstone of our democracy, and I’ll always stand up for that principle. Also in the House of Commons, following Storm Goretti, I pressed Ministers hard on their lacklustre response: No COBRA meeting was called, no national emergency declared, and many of my constituents didn’t even receive the official alert. Cornwall Council has been left to foot the bill, yet the ‘Bellwin emergency funding scheme’ unfairly penalises larger local authorities like ours here in Cornwall. I raised this in the House with Ministers, and will be pressing for emergency financial support for Cornwall Council to cover the storm’s impact.

On that front, I secured an urgent meeting with the Local Government Minister, MP Alison McGovern, this week to demand a serious rethink on Cornwall’s funding. The government has dropped ‘rural remoteness’ factors from its formula, and bizarrely included the second homes tax premium in the baseline budget, despite this pot of money likely decreasing as second homes reduce.

Finally, while I didn't make the official opening ceremony of Bude Banking Hub due to the storm, I made it for a visit recently after a Bude surgery. I was very pleased to see the new hub open its doors in its permanent home. While in an ideal world physical bank branches are of course preferred over hubs, I’ll keep fighting for similar hubs in towns like Wadebridge, where many residents still lack access to basic banking services.