Richard Graham - MP for Gloucester

Run through the recording of Richard’s talk and you’ll see that, whilst he speaks for about thirty minutes, the Q and A session afterwards lasted a full forty-eight!  He made good use of this extended session however, answering our questions comprehensively, with a good degree of useful content. 

At the start of his presentation, Richard outlined the general picture in January and February.  He talked of the Prime Minister’s theme of getting Brexit done, the levelling-up project largely in the Midlands and the North, getting the country’s engine beating stronger and forging ahead with ‘global Britain’.  But all of this suddenly had to become of secondary concern when the Covid-19 crisis arose and Richard expressed his amazement at the speed with which emergency legislation was necessarily introduced, whilst at the same time, voicing his trepidation at the massive powers given to governments in this type of situation.  

At the local level, he praised the amazing response by the people of Gloucester and Gloucestershire, which we have all seen and probably been involved with in our respective villages and neighbourhoods.  He also mentioned the complementary activities of larger organisations, such as FareShare, a nationwide outfit with regional centres that has delivered massive amounts of food to those in the Gloucester area struggling with the effects of lockdown.  The Gloucester representative of FareShare is Jennie Layhe of Tuffley and she features in a short video about their activities that can be seen on Richard’s Facebook site (richard4gloucester).  It was good to see that Gloucester Rugby’s Ollie Thorley was one of their volunteer helpers. 

On the economy side, Richard stressed that it was only possible to borrow the vast amounts of money required because of the favourable interest rates.  This has enabled unprecedented support to be given to businesses in the form of various loans and the furlough system, amongst other initiatives.  He praised Gloucester City Council on the speed with which they implemented both the BounceBack scheme for small businesses and the CBIL’s (Coronavirus Business Interruption Loans) for larger loans to bigger businesses. 

Coming out of lockdown, we are having to face the seemingly contradictory messages of protecting lives and livelihoods at the same time.  This will be challenging, but hopefully the application of common sense will see us through.  

Jobs are now the main focus, and Richard mentioned the Gloucestershire Jobs Skills and Apprenticeships Lift Off event, which takes place on 11 September at Kingsholm.  Its main significance will be on-line via a website and the usual social media, with all sorts of tips and advice for and from job seekers and local businesses. 

To sum up, I think that Richard’s presentation and the Q and A session are well worth a second look.  There’s some interesting detail as well as limited references to and comment on the government’s overall strategy. 

Roger Barrett