20th November - Speaking at the East of England APPG

"The East is ready, the East is open for business, and if you back us the East will deliver."

That was my message at last night's East of England APPG reception in Parliament.

I'm delighted by the wins our region has secured over the past year. Sizewell C in Suffolk, East West Rail, a new National Biosecurity Centre in Harlow, the Lower Thames Crossing, Universal Studios in Bedfordshire, airport expansion at Luton and Stansted, investment in Cambridge Biomedical Campus, a Google data centre in Hertfordshire, and Microsoft's commitment to build the UK’s largest AI supercomputer in Essex.

And I'm proud of the work I led on inward investment, delivering our first region-wide investment prospectus which showcased eight major, high-potential projects – from Ipswich’s Portman Road redevelopment, to Stevenage’s Station Gateway – representing a combined GDV of £4.3 billion. A huge thank you to Gavin Winbanks and Kanda Consulting for all their work on this - stay tuned for an exciting announcement on this front soon...

Make no mistake though, while we have made positive progress over the past year – whether it is through this APPG, our work on inward investment, or Government backing for major infrastructure projects in our region – we must self-reflect and challenge ourselves too.

We are competing for investment with every other region and nation in the UK. So we should always ask ourselves: are our business cases strong enough? Are we being proactive, ambitious and creative enough? Are we making the decisions we need to locally in the long-term interest of our region?

So we should celebrate what we have recently achieved, but there is more to come if we are bold enough. If we are, the East of England will not only continue to deliver for our communities – it will drive our country’s renewal too.