This week is Royal Cornwall Show week and on Friday I will be attending a debate as food and farming Minister on the potential for growth in the food industry in Cornwall.  Few people realise it but food is our largest manufacturing industry, employing around half a million people and contributing some £100 billion to our economy.

The question being debated is whether the food industry has the potential to become a key driver of prosperity in Cornwall.  We have seen great progress in recent years. The Cornish pasty industry has grown exponentially and is now to be found throughout the country.  We have seen many new companies like Lynher Dairies creating new markets with their highly acclaimed Cornish Yarg.  Companies like Roddas Cream are creating new export markets and developing a really strong brand synonymous with Cornwall.  Last and by no means least,  companies like Falfish have ensured that Cornwall is the market leader for many fish species.
Over the last decade or so there has been growing interest in food provenance. People want to know where their food has come from and how it was produced.  Cornwall has definitely managed to carve out a niche in that new market through attention to detail and commitment to the values that make Cornwall unique. The Government has just designated parts of Cornwall a "Food Enterprise Zone" to try to provide additional support to the industry and maintain momentum.
I have many childhood memories of the Royal Cornwall Show. When I was growing up my father was one of the many volunteer stewards who gave up his time each year to make the event possible, with an early start at 5 am for days in a row to get to the show and manage the gates before any of the traffic started to arrive. For many years we used to show our South Devon Cattle there and my brother and father will be there again this year with the family's prize winning Lop Eared Pigs, which is a rare breed native to Cornwall. I am very much looking forward to it.

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Information Notice from the Environment Agency regarding discolouration and bathing water quality at the Red River posted by Cornwall Councillor Jude Robinson.


Godrevy and Red River discolouration
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From the Environment Agency

Hayle and St Ives Community Network


Hayle and St Ives - Cornwall Council
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Information about Hayle and St Ives Community Network

The election last Thursday delivered a very good result for Cornish Conservatives and I want to thank all those in the Camborne, Redruth and Hayle constituency who placed their confidence in me for a second term. Now the election is over, I want to be clear that I intend to represent everyone in this constituency whether they voted for me or not.
In these last five years I have prioritised the regeneration of our towns. I grew up here and hate the way some people talk down Camborne and Redruth. We have an industrial heritage to be proud of and the housing development at the old Holman's site in Camborne shows we can create new housing as well as protect some of the beautiful architecture that we have. Work to do the same to the old brewery site in Redruth is underway and the transformation of Hayle Harbour is finally taking shape. In the next five years, I want to get things moving on some of the other derelict sites we have like Avers roundabout and Tuckingmill. 
We also need to attract new industries and better paid jobs. Unemployment has halved here in the last five years, but the next step is to increase wages and create more opportunities for young people. The new Barncoose Gateway building will provide space for twenty companies employing 500 people. There are already two software companies moving in who between them will employ around 200 people and our schools are now putting more emphasis on maths, physics and computer coding so young people here will be better equipped to take these well paid jobs when they leave school.
Next on my list of priorities is to help those on the bottom rung of the ladder. When people lose their self confidence or get trapped in debt, it can be incredibly demoralising. We need support and advice for those trapped in debt to help them get their life back on an even keel.
Finally, I want to ensure Cornwall gets its fair share of funding for public services. Just because we are a long way from London doesn't mean we should get less than our share. Progress has been made in re-balancing the funding formula so it recognises the challenges faced by Cornwall which has to contend with an older population, increased visitors in the summer and the difficulty of being a peninsula at the end of the line.

The polls have finally closed and no one’s propaganda can make the blindest bit of difference now. The national campaign seems to have been painfully long and negative, without shedding too much light on the issues that will make the most difference to people’s lives. I’m glad it’s over.

Here in North Cornwall I really hope Dan Rogerson is re-elected – he’s been a fantastic local MP for the past ten years and, in my opinion, fully deserves to carry on the good work.

Nationally – in spite of a really nasty set of exit polls – I hope the numbers work out in such a way that the Tories are nowhere near government this time. Their wilful disregard for the vulnerable and disadvantaged has only been mildly tempered by Lib Dems in coalition and I have no desire to see a repeat.

Regardless of who forms the next government here is my wishlist of the things I hope they remember:

1. Please make sure that any debate about the future of Europe is based on the facts, not emotive propaganda led by tax exile newspaper owners with vested interests.
2. Please stop making scapegoats of immigrants. The vast majority work extremely hard and help provide so many vital services – the NHS, for example – that we take for granted. Be nice, people!
3. Please take a good hard look at whether our ‘First Past The Post’ system and an unelected House Of Lords are really relevant to 21st Century Britain.
4. Please don’t just accept the ‘austerity’ agenda without question. Much harm has been done in the name of deficit reduction and the suffering has mainly fallen on the poor and vulnerable rather than the super-rich speculators who caused the crash in the first place.
5. Please stop playing politics with Scotland and ‘The Union’. I don’t see any reason to be scared of Nicola Sturgeon, and the constant assault of the right wing press will only increase divisions and make a permanent split inevitable.

I leave you with the words of my great political hero, Abraham Lincoln, which I hope are at least partially relevant:

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

Post-election rant over…

When I was elected in 2010 I made delivering economic regeneration my number one priority. We have an industrial heritage to be proud of and over the last few years I have prioritised delivering major projects like the regeneration of Hayle Harbour and the Cornwall Archive at the old Redruth brewery.  
We have made a good start, but there is more to do. While unemployment has almost halved in recent years, we still have problems with a low wage economy so we need to attract new industries and better paid jobs.  Over the last few years, we have started to see new businesses setting up in industries like computer software and engineering and which have skilled jobs on offer. I will work to ensure that we continue to increase the number of well paid jobs in our economy to provide opportunities for the next generation.
To build on what we have started, we need to fight for continued investment in our transport infrastructure, we need more apprenticeships to help young people find their first job and we need to ensure we have the right support in place to help those who are out of work and have lost their self-confidence.  

A recent report by comparing health systems concluded we have the best NHS in the world.  Its central value is that it is free at the point of need and it is the dedicated staff that makes it such a great institution. We have increased NHS spending by over £12 billion since 2010 and will increase it by another £8 billion if re-elected.
While it is free at the point of need our NHS has always involved some private practices most notably GPs surgeries. Tony Blair extended the use of private providers in the NHS and Gordon Brown introduced PFI contracts which left many schools and hospitals lumbered with appalling contracts where they were routinely ripped off for basic property maintenance.
The use of private providers in the NHS encompasses only six percent of the total NHS budget, an increase of only one percent since 2010. I think the key thing is not to be dogmatic about these issues. Where private providers can help our schools and hospitals cope we shouldn't rule them out.  But the agreements need to be negotiated properly so that our NHS is not ripped off in the way it was under Gordon Brown's PFI deals.

I grew up at Trevaskis Farm near Connor Downs, studied at agricultural college and worked in the family business for over nine years.  Over the last eighteen months I have been the Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food.  I think it makes sense in politics to bring to the table knowledge you gained in an earlier career and for me that was farming.  
I want to see a vibrant farming industry and my priorities if returned would be to shake up the Common Agricultural Policy and make it easier for new entrants to get into the industry. I also think we should have a much looser CAP with common European objectives, but where national governments legislate to deliver these objectives in their own way.  
All new industries need new talent and farming is no exception. The high cost of land is a real barrier to new entrants so I want to do more to encourage alternative routes in, such as contract farming agreements where a young farmer might manage the crops or livestock on behalf of the landowner for a fee that is linked to outcomes.
Better progress has been made improving the Common Fisheries Policy and we have now banned the shameful practice of discarding perfectly good fish back into the sea which takes effect next January.  

In order to raise standards of living and wages in Cornwall we need to attract new industries and better paid jobs. The Superfast Cornwall programme has been very successful in getting homes and businesses connected to fibre optic broadband and when the programme ends in 2015, it will have connected 95% of premises in the county.
Improving connectivity is a great way of attracting new businesses to the area and we are now beginning to feel the benefits. I recently visited the Barncoose Gateway Centre where they have opened a new office block with space for twenty companies. Once occupied there will be 500 skilled jobs on offer and already NetBooster have chosen to base their European headquarters there. Elsewhere, the innovation centres at Pool and Tremough play an important role in incubating new start-ups, with Tremough specialising in digital media and green technology.
These are all positive steps forward. However to build on this, we also need to take advantage of our industrial heritage and wave resources. In Redruth, Severn Subsea is a world leader in the development of equipment for the oil and gas industry while in Hayle, Wave Hub has harnessed the powerful Atlantic swell to create the first commercial test facility for wave power in the world. We need to encourage more of this kind of innovation to attract new opportunities to the area.

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