Political opinion: Diary of an MP - Honouring service and supporting local industry

The past couple of weeks have been busy, with plenty of opportunities to meet interesting people, visit great local businesses and reflect on some of the most important aspects of our countries history.

Remembrance Sunday is always an important date in our country’s calendar. This year I joined residents and local representatives in Northampton Town Centre for the annual service. Later that day I travelled around the constituency, laying wreaths at the memorials across the constituency.

Remembrance offers a time to stop, to reflect and to thank those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms. I was also lucky enough to attended Barclays’ remembrance event at their HQ, where I met D-Day veteran Corporal Whiting, and many others who served, all of whom shared some truly remarkable stories.

Early last week I travelled to Norwich to speak on BBC Politics East, with the main focus of the show being a huge announcement on defence investment and £9bn of support for veterans housing. It was great to have the opportunity to take Northampton’s voice to that national conversations and speak on what more we can do to support those who serve.

It was a pleasure to join The Princess Royal at Edward Green & Co, one of Northampton’s best-known shoemakers. It was an honour to have HRH visit our constituency and see first-hand a shining example of a local business success story that has transformed into world class excellence.

The opportunity to celebrate excellence in our town didn’t end there. At Three Shires Hospital, I met with the senior management team and hospital staff for a tour of the facility and to congratulate them on their recent CQC report. Their outstanding ranking is thoroughly well deserved and I was pleased to have the opportunity to get into the detail of how their hospital is working to alleviate pressures facing the NHS, their approach to secondary care and also to discuss how we can ensure services keep pace with our towns growing population.

Looking to the future of our town, Northampton continues to lead the way in engineering and manufacturing. I visited Cosworth’s to hear about their exciting developments and to discuss how we can keep building Northamptonshire’s reputation as a centre for advanced manufacturing and global motor excellence. I was a big fan of the suggestion that we make Northamptonshire and the wider South Midlands the UK equivalent of Motor Valley…something to work on and one of the reasons that Cosworth’s is my business success of the fortnight.

The next two weeks are going to be equally busy with plenty of constituency visits, local surgeries and even a local primary school visiting me down in Westminster! Things are continuing on at pace in the run up to Christmas.

Until next time – Mike Reader MP