My column in today's Darlington & Stockton Times.
Ten years ago this month I was honoured and privileged to be elected as your MP for the first time.
To say a lot has happened in that time would something of an understatement.
But looking back, I am hugely proud of what we have achieved together for this, our very special part of North Yorkshire.
Getting things done that matter to individuals and communities is why I entered politics. I had seen how my parents had served their local community in the NHS and I wanted to serve too.
To represent people effectively you have to listen, and that is what I have tried to do since first being elected in 2015.
Recently, you may have seen me opening the new toilet for severely disabled people in Leyburn.
A small matter you might think but for me it marked the culmination of the work I started with a small number of parents of disabled children back in 2017.
I had called at the Dales School in Morton on Swale, near Northallerton. A group of parents of some of the most severely disabled students at the school told me of the difficulties they faced when going out as a family.
They explained how the lack of suitable toilet and changing facilities at the majority of leisure destinations and attractions made a day out that most families would take almost for granted nigh-on impossible.
A standard disabled toilet was inadequate when caring for children and young adults with complex needs. What they needed were more spacious toilets with extra equipment like adult-sized changing benches and hoists. These are known as Changing Places toilets.
I remember vividly one parent showing me a magazine listing all the events taking place in North Yorkshire over the coming summer holidays. She had crossed off 99.9 per cent of them because they couldn’t offer these facilities.
Another spoke of the physical difficulty – and the indignity – of trying to change their child on rough ground behind a shed because that was all they could do in the circumstances they found themselves in.
I vowed to do what I could to highlight the issue, raising the matter in Parliament and, a year later when I had been appointed Local Government Minister, I put in place a range of measures to increase the number of Changing Places toilets in public spaces and venues around the country.
In 2020, in my first Budget as Chancellor of the Exchequer I was able to launch the £30m Changing Places Fund which match-funded the costs of installing these toilets in existing buildings.
It is this fund which has made possible the Leyburn toilet and, last year, a similar facility at the Dales Countryside Museum in Hawes.
To open the Changing Places toilet in Leyburn was special for me but I want to pay tribute to those parents at the Dales School who eight years ago took the time to talk to me about something that affected their families’ lives so deeply and did so eloquently and passionately.
I also congratulate Diane Howarth, Leyburn’s Accessibility champion, for her expert work on this project.
William, now Lord, Hague, my predecessor as your MP, also should be mentioned for the example he set me. As Minister for the Disabled, he created and largely guided through the House of Commons the Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 which made it unlawful to discriminate against disabled people in a number of key areas, including employment, education and transport. It is a landmark piece of legislation.
For my part, I just did my job as the parents’ MP. I listened. I fully understood the issue. I campaigned and raised attention and then, when I was in a position to make a difference, I acted.
That’s why the opening of the Leyburn Changing Places facility last month was quite a moment.
I can’t say it is job done because we still need more Changing Places toilets. But we have made real progress. It is an issue I will continue to campaign on.
