Surrey and East Hampshire MPs share plans and priorities for 2024
From vacancies, to broadband - and even to space!
Surrey and East Hampshire MPs have shared with us their plans and priorities for 2024.
East Hampshire MP Damian Hinds said:
"The issue we have here for our local economy is that we need people to fill vacancies.
"So a big priority for me is trying to work with local companies to see what we can do to encourage people into the labour market.
"There is low unemployment in the country - even lower in East Hampshire but there's also lots of people of working age who do not work.
"There's lots of reasons for this - some people have disabilities which restricts what they can do, some have retired early and some have fallen out of the labour market and struggling to get back in.
"So what we want to do this year is to make sure there are maximum opportunities for these folks."
Meon Valley MP Flick Drummond tells us she wants to regenerate her town centre:
"Waterlooville for starters, this town centre has been really appalling because a lot of it is privately owned its very difficult to put something into place really quickly.
"We are now getting there and its really, really exciting.
"I want any property developer who's buys something in the town centre to know exactly what the council want and how to fit in with it."
"Some of my constituents have very slow broadband and I've been working on this for a long time and its so frustrating and I'm getting very angry with companies who are in the area because I do not think they are working hard enough or fast enough.
"In the next couple of months, the poor people that have been promised this faster broadband for quite a long time now, will actually get it."
Woking MP Jonathan Lord said:
"I'm really looking forward to the new diagnostics centre opening in Woking Community Hospital.
"This will save local people 30,000 trips for tests and scans that they'd otherwise have to go to Ashford Hospital or St Peter's.
"I've been drawn in the private members ballot so I'm going to do something to help our space industry.
"We've got local suppliers like Surrey Satellites and the idea is to give them a certain amount of indemnity so that that industry can expand globally.
"It's already worth billions to the UK economy this measure will allow it to generate billions more."