A look into Conference Season

I was at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool last week. It was, I think, my 11^th Labour Party conference and, on reflection, one of the best.

I’ve been to conferences as a Labour Party member, as a councillor, a candidate and as the MP for North West Leicestershire.

The good thing about conference is this feeling of camaraderie, of shared aims and common ideas and catching up with people you’ve not seen for a long time. Coming away from conference, I find myself, every time, gauging the temperature of the party.

This year? The party is in good shape, I’d say. You can accuse me of being biased (full disclosure: I am) but I think it was clear that members have galvanised around Andy Burnham as the new leader and his speech was genuine, from the heart and impressive.

I saw some social media comments from one of our more shrill local councillors that the reaction to his speech was rigged and people were ordered to applause. Honesty… I was there. The reception was as genuine and heartfelt as his speech. (I’ll be writing more about this kind of misinformation in the coming weeks. We need to be better at spotting these fabrications and vigilant about calling them out.)

I was pleased to hear the Chancellor John Healey talk about the importance of the contribution of our miners to our British industrial history. I know what that means to ex-miners and their families in North West Leicestershire.

Going to conference as an MP is a very different thing to going as a Labour member. There are more demands on my time, more meetings, more speeches.

I talked with lots of people last week and the meetings I had were all positive. I met with local employers, I sat on round table discussions on youth employment and I was struck by an overwhelming sense that business leaders were listening to us and wanted us to do well. I have to say it’s not always been like that. It was this year.

I met with the bosses of East Midlands Airport, too, just a day after I’d spearheaded a media campaign complaining about their new airport parking charges. And it was fine. Professional. I have a good working relationship with the airport, albeit they know my feelings on their parking charges.

If I can pick out one theme of this year’s conference, though, it was progress through devolution. This is absolutely crucial for Leicestershire.

We are missing out here – and we have been for years. It’s time to put it right. This idea of local people, local authorities having more of a say in the way the money they raise is spent is a crucial part of Andy Burnham’s mission, the ‘growth in every postcode’ idea steered by people who know that postcode needs.

Devolution is bringing billions of pounds into English mayoral authorities. Here in Leicestershire, we do not have a combined mayoral combined authority. So we’ve missed out on millions of pounds of investment in transport, business, skills and infrastructure.

I’m pleased to see that this is changing. I had a good chat with Andy Reed, the former Labour MP for Loughborough, who is working on this growing push for Leicester/Leicestershire/Rutland devolution.

I met with the vice chancellors of all three of Leicestershire universities this week. All three of these major institutions are pushing for devolution because they see the benefits.

They’re not alone. Employers, the East Midlands Chamber of Commerce, more politicians are joining the crusade.

Leicestershire has not always spoken with a single voice on this issue and it’s allowed our neighbours, notably the East Midlands County Combined Authority – like me, I am sure you would always argue this is not an East Midlands Authority, the East Midlands is more than just Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire – to steal a march on us.

I know that in other areas – such as Gloucestershire and Staffordshire – the race is on to secure devolution because the prize is so important.

We’ve watched from the stands as other areas won the spoils. Now, finally, we’re in the game. That’s good.

As I left the conference last week, I bumped into a TV journalist I know. We stopped and chatted and as I left, she quipped: “I think it’s been a really boring conference. There’s just nothing juicy to report.”

I laughed. Because what she said is the key that it had all gone pretty well, thanks very much.