The new year has started with some very promising news. Firstly, the new £2 bus flat fare which will encourage more to use our local bus services, helping to further safeguard their futures within our local public transport network.

Secondly, The Gryphon School can look forward to a promising year after the announcement a few weeks ago that, following my campaign in Westminster to urge for the need to improve its dilapidated temporary classrooms, the school has been successful in a funding bid for the finance it needs to replace them.
Following on from this, in Westminster, The Procurement Bill came to Parliament for its Second Reading this week. This will overhaul the UK’s procurements legislation, streamlining and condensing four different sets of laws into one and removing 350 existing rules derived from European regulations.
This will enable businesses to drive down costs while boosting innovation. About 97 per cent of West Dorset businesses are classed as Small and Medium Enterprises. Add this to the fact that about 18 per cent of West Dorset businesses were lost through the Covid-19 pandemic, the much-needed boost to these small businesses couldn’t come soon enough, and this is why I have been strongly supporting this in Westminster.
This will mean that small and medium-sized businesses based here in West Dorset or nearby will be able to access a greater pool of opportunities – to be able to bid for and win supply contracts with the public sector, such as schools, hospitals and transport networks. This will make it far easier for businesses based here to thrive, expand and provide more long-term employment.

You may have seen my intervention in the House of Commons in November during Prime Minister’s Questions which shone a spotlight on the unfair fuel pricing policies for local retailers like Morrisons in Bridport which charged at one point about 20 pence a litre more in its Bridport store than in neighbouring stores. Similar, too, for Tesco in Dorchester and Bland compared to Poole.
Since then, a Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation has been taking place to fully examine this situation nationwide. I met the director of the CMA last month to make the case for Bridport and West Dorset to be the prime case in point for its investigation, and further underscore the importance of securing fairness for consumers.
Shortly after this, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), Grant Shapps, wrote to fuel retailers across the UK to urge them to divulge details of their pricing policies to the CMA to further assist its investigation and help it make recommendations for the Government to ensure fairness prevails.

I was very pleased to see fuel prices at Morrisons Bridport falling rapidly in December and am working to achieve the same for those affected by other supermarket chains. While this remains higher than in some neighbouring towns, the gap is being narrowed and I will continue working towards fairness for West Dorset.