Havant MP Alan Mak has co-founded a new group in Parliament to champion Hampshire and county-wide issues.
Mak has co-founded the new Hampshire & Isle of Wight All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) with North East Hampshire MP Ranil Jayawardena. Mak and Jayawardena are both new Hampshire MPs elected in May 2015 and realised that working on county-wide issues such as policing, schools funding, transport and devolution was more effective as a team.
The new APPG aims to get a better deal for residents across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, in areas such as infrastructure, planning, public services, broadband and devolution.
Mak will serve as a Vice Chairman of the new Hampshire Parliamentary Group. Ranil Jayawardena MP will serve as Chairman. Alan Whitehead (Lab, Southampton Test), Andrew Turner (Con, Isle of Wight) and Kit Malthouse (Con, NW Hampshire) will also serve as senior officers on the APPG Executive.
Hampshire County Council has offered its support as the Secretariat of the APPG, alongside the involvement of local MPs.
Alan Mak MP said, “I want more funding for Havant’s schools, police and infrastructure so I’m proud to play a leading role in starting the new Hampshire MPs Group. By working together as a team, Hampshire’s MPs have a stronger collective voice and all of Hampshire’s residents stand to benefit when we lobby government as a group.”
Mak added, “This Hampshire MPs group will provide a stronger voice for the people of Havant and Hampshire as we seek plans to devolve powers to local government, to get the strongest public services and the best deals on planning and infrastructure.”
Councillor Roy Perry, as Leader of the County Council: “I am really grateful to the MPs for looking beyond their constituency boundaries and seeing that as a team, we can really raise the profile of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. When we met Rail Executives earlier in the year they very strongly made the point that in other parts of the country, especially in the north, a cohesive group of MPs could be very effective in helping attract Government investment.
Meeting Mak, Jayawardena and other Hampshire MPs in Westminster, Councillor Perry also gave the MPs an update on the devolution proposals for a Hampshire and Isle of Wight Combined Authority. He was able to report that Community Secretary, Greg Clark had been very complimentary about the Hampshire and Isle of Wight bid. If the bid is given the green light by Government in the coming weeks, a public consultation will take place across the whole county in the New Year.