Yahoo News Labour's plan for Plymouth after enormous General Election
Re-elected MP Luke Pollard says the new Labour government will start work immediately on rebuilding the UK’s economy and making lives better for families in Plymouth and the wider South West. The politician, who retained his Plymouth Sutton and Devonport seat, said tackling the cost-of-living crisis was a priority alongside sorting out the NHS, anti-social behaviour and education.
But he warned that his party had inherited a dire situation after years of Tory government chaos. He also vowed to work for changes to gun laws following the 2021 Keyham shootings, to ensure nothing like it ever happens again.
Mr Pollard, first elected in 2017 and who took 49.4% of the vote in Sutton and Devonport and landed an increased majority of 13,328, said Labour’s victory marked a vital shift for the country after 14 years under the Tory control. He said: “I think it changes things enormously, the frustration of the past seven years for me is that I haven’t been able to deliver on many of the things I want to for Plymouth. We haven’t been able to get the houses built that we need, we haven’t been able to get the funding for our health services to deliver an improved NHS that I think we really need.
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“The challenge now is not only as a Labour MP, with Fred Thomas (who won for Labour in Moor View) next to me, but with Labour MPs across our region, we now have to deliver on our manifesto, and in particular the first steps that Keir (Starmer) has set out, cutting NHS waiting times, tackling anti-social behaviour, hiring more teachers, setting up GB Energy, these are big challenges but ones that will deliver, not just for the people that voted Labour but for our entire region, but we need to start work on that straight away, because when people voted for change they need to see it and that is the first priority of what I hope will be a dynamic and transformative Labour government, focussed on delivering across the country but also in the South West.”
He added: “One of the strengths of the election campaign that has been so endorsed by the public is that Keir, Rachel Reeves, as a shadow chancellor - now hopefully our first female chancellor the country has ever had - we have been absolutely clear about the size of the economic problems that we will inherit. The real lack of growth in our economy, the high prices of utilities, food and housing, that is really putting a squeeze on family budgets, that’s made the cost-of-living crisis very, very real for so many people in the South West.
“We have been clear that this is a disastrous economic inheritance, but that is why our manifesto set out only what we know we can deliver. There is no big bells and whistles unfunded promises in our manifesto, everything was fully costed and fully funded, we have set out what the first steps will be in government and those will be delivered with action started almost immediately to make sure we tackle the problems that our country is facing and demonstrating that there is a difference between how a Labour government will work, what our priorities are, turning the page on 14 years of disastrous and chaotic Conservative government . We have to ensure stability and we also have to deliver on the promises that we have made to the public, and that work will start right away.”
He said that for the city, he will also work to bring about changes to the gun laws following the deaths in Keyham. Mr Pollard said: “It’s been a number of years now since the tragedy in Keyham and one of my real frustrations is that the Conservative government did not understand what we were arguing for as a city.
“We weren’t arguing from a Labour position, I was arguing for change in our gun laws from a Plymouth position and we have seen the government previously, the Conservative government, long-grass those proposals, long-grass the recommendations from the inquest, long-grass the results of their own consultation. I have been working with Yvette Cooper who I hope will be appointed as the new home secretary very, very soon, to make sure a Labour government can not only adopt the recommendations but implement them.
“I want to see fairness in the way they are implemented , I want to see some decency and I want to see some recognition of the pain and suffering that Plymouth has experienced in the tragedy.
“If we don’t implement these recommendations, if we don’t update our gun laws then we are at risk of repeating the tragedy, that we had in Plymouth, somewhere else, and I think it is incumbent on me as the MP for Keyham to keep making the case for change, not hysterically, but calmly and cooly, making the case for modernising our out-of-date gun laws, to do so by taking people with us, to make sure that responsible gun owners don’t feel under threat, but the laws that don’t keep people safe are updated. I think that is a sensible and proportionate approach and it’s one I’m going to continue making now I have been re-elected.”
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