A big thank you to Ben Houchen, Tees Valley Mayor for joining a group of our candidates across Redcar and East Cleveland at Saltburn Conservative & Unionist Club last night for the official launch of our Council campaign!

Few towns are fortunate enough to have a social entrepreneur of the calibre of Andy Preston. From The Fork In The Road, transforming offenders’ life chances, to this latest milestone for his fundraising, Middlesbrough is lucky to have him.

It was really great to catch up with Molly Drew and Harry Twohig from the National Citizen Service yesterday. They are two of the brilliant young people from our area who I've enjoyed meeting through my work every summer with the NCS.

After a long week in Westminster, it's been really good to be back in our constituency today, including supporting a great family business, Purple Skip Hire in Carlin How.

There's important news for pupils and parents at Laurence Jackson School and Freebrough Academy.

In October, the Government announced £24 million for "Opportunity North East" - a three year programme to improve education and employment outcomes in our region.

The ONS’s summary of today’s brilliant UK jobs market news shows:

?‍? Employment at an all-time high
? Unemployment below 4% for first time in 44 years
?‍♂️ Fewest people economically inactive ever
? Wages up 3.4% - almost twice the rate of inflation

Some good news for the fight against crime in East Cleveland. Paul Jefferson has caused misery for so many people, and a robust sentence will be welcomed by lots of families and businesses.

No story has captured our imagination more than the heroic work of Ben Houchen, our Tees Valley Mayor to rescue our airport.

That new future began this week. The Airport is now under our ownership, run by an excellent and ambitious commercial partner in Stobart.

At the end of a busy constituency surgery - and a very long week! - it was great to support Comic Relief Red Nose Day at Marton Library. Such a great cause, and thank you to everyone who is raising funds across our constituency today.

I want to provide you with an update on my votes this week.

Yesterday I voted against removing No Deal from the table. This is clearly a terrible idea and would deprive us of all negotiating leverage.