New data shows that 600 Apprenticeships have been delivered in Bedford & Kempston in the last year, up 70% on the previous year.

Richard, who recently visited Ultra Precision Engineering in Kempston, where they have just taken on two new apprentices from the Bedford Training Group, said that the record rise in apprenticeship numbers shows commitment to helping employers train the skilled workers they need to build a stronger, growing economy. He added that companies like Ultra Precision Engineering are providing a vital role in skills development.

He was also delighted with the Government’s announcement that it will offer cash bonuses to employers for taking on an apprentice aged between 16 and 24 and urges companies in Bedford and Kempston to take up this opportunity.

For more information on apprenticeships, please visit this link.

Richard and Cllr Caroline Fensome with founders Karen Fryc and Sam Price

Richard met with the founders of the Castle Quarter initiative, Karen Fryc and Sam Price, last Friday to discuss their plans for the east side of Bedford.

Karen & Sam talked through their manifesto for Castle Quarter, the area in and around the Embankment, St Cuthbert’s, Castle Road and Mill Street which is aiming to celebrate and promote the quarter to attract people from outside the town to visit.

Richard said:

“My views are completely aligned with what the Castle Quarter group are trying to achieve. A few years ago, I wrote to the then Mayor, Frank Branston, about the town centre redevelopment suggesting that Bedford needed a unique offering that reflected the special characteristics of the town and that we should promote area clusters with their own special identities. This is precisely what Castle Quarter is trying to achieve.

“In tough economic times, with family budgets tight, we need to nurture and support our local shops. Castle Quarter is a great step forward and a model the rest of the town can follow.”

Richard Fuller has welcomed Tuesday’s announcement by the Chancellor that funding for East West Rail will be made available.

In a powerful Autumn Statement, which focused on supporting growth while maintaining the budget discipline that keeps our interest rates low, the Chancellor announced that a new East West Rail link will go ahead.

Restoring the rail link between Bedford and Oxford (via Milton Keynes) is the key first step in the East West rail project, which ultimately aims to add Cambridge, Ipswich and Norwich to the line, and is supported by MPs from all along the proposed route. The project forms part of the Government’s investment in infrastructure to boost growth, and will create 12,000 new jobs in the region.

“Future increases in fuel duty should be reconsidered to help family budgets” was the message in Parliament from Richard Fuller this week. A parliamentary debate had been called asking for fairer prices at the pumps, after over 100,000 people had signed an e-petition asking for the topic to be discussed.

Richard said that it was unacceptable to force through further rapid increases in duty when the average family budget is already under pressure. Richard said: “The Coalition government needs to be fairer to motorists than the last government and with 10 percent of family budgets going on petrol, stopping further increases would be a major help.”

Earlier this week, Richard lent his support for investment in the East West Rail link, arguing that it would give a lift to job creation in Bedford and Kempston. The debate was called to urge the government to set aside £250m for the Bedford to Oxford link in the 2014-19 rail plans.

Richard commented: “A regular fast rail service to Oxford, linked with a direct route to Central Milton Keynes, will reinforce Bedford’s position as a natural hub for the rail network, further improving our attractiveness for new businesses and bringing more, local jobs.”

A new, local initiative aimed at invigorating the economic recovery by investing in a new generation of start up and early stage businesses is planned for Bedford. One hundred local business leaders from Bedford attended the launch by MP, Richard Fuller at the University of Bedfordshire.

The proposed Fund, which will be advised by local business leaders and managed by South East Fund Managers Limited, an FSA regulated entity, will seek to raise an initial fund of £500,000 in units of £10,000.

This will be boosted by co-investment from Finance South East and national government schemes, with a potential total of £2 million.  Investments will be made on a purely commercial basis, with the goal of maximizing financial returns to investors.

The initiative has the active support of Cranfield University, Colworth Science Park on the Unilever campus, the University of Bedfordshire and Bedfordshire on Sunday.

An advisory panel of local business people will be formed, with Nick Kier, partner, Lane & Holmes and Dougie Hunter, Chief Executive, Aircraft Research Association Limited, leading the effort.

Richard said:

“Bedford and the surrounding area have a wealth of business opportunities. This initiative aims to bring together all the local experience and talent of current business owners in order to inspire and support the next generation of businesses and provide the investment they need to prosper.  Feedback from the folks at the meeting was encouraging and we are off to a good start with indications of interest already for half our target for the Fund.”

Dougie Hunter, Chief Executive of ARA Limited added:

“I am very happy to play a part in moving this initiative forward and I look forward to meeting the challenge of putting together an advisory panel of business leaders to help with the Fund.”

Sally Goodsell, Chief Executive of the FSE Group said:

“We are very pleased to be involved with this unique initiative led by Richard Fuller and the Business Community of Bedford. We look forward to backing innovative ambitious businesses in the Bedford area and playing a part in their growth and success”.

A business mentoring scheme is also proposed asking local business people to share their expertise with the entrepreneurs and business leaders of tomorrow and strengthening businesses in difficult economic times.

Richard said:

“A leading reason why early stage businesses fail is because they make a small mistake which they could have avoided with some advice from someone with experience.  Business executives have limited time, but do have a personal and commercial interest in promoting success of the next generation of business leaders. The mentoring scheme will make this expertise available for those who can benefit from it.”

For more information on the fund please contact Sally Goodsell at Finance South East (sally.goodsell@financesoutheast.com).

For more information on the mentoring scheme please contact Richard (richard.fuller.mp@parliament.uk).

Richard with Jake Marsden (PV Installer) at Carillion

Bedford MP Richard Fuller has praised local company, Carillion Energy Services for its commitment to training and apprenticeships.

The MP was keen to see how the company was creating sustainable jobs in Bedford and the impact that this was having upon skills in the area.

Mr Fuller met senior managers and also had the opportunity to speak first hand with renewable installation engineer, Jake Marsden who gained vital training on the installation of solar photovoltaic panels at the Academy and qualified fully in October 2010.

Richard said: “I was really pleased to see first hand the scale of the Training Academy and I am particularly proud that Carillion Energy Services have chosen to use Bedford as the location for their UK Training Academy. Green Skills and employment are vital to the development of both the local and wider economy and here in Bedford, we are actively involved in developing these.”

Carillion Energy Services are at the forefront of the low carbon economy and have a strong commitment to the training of apprentices on eco-skills such as heating, insulation and renewable technologies particularly solar photo voltaic. In 2010, the wider Carillion group sponsored 2500 apprentices across the business.

Graham Tidball, Director of Contracting, “We were really pleased to welcome Mr Fuller to the Training Academy and see first hand the excellent facilities that we have. We have had over 150 trainees attend Solar Photo Voltaic training through the Academy and many of these have now gone on to work on our Clean Energy Programme which installs Solar Photovoltaic on the properties of Housing Associations at no extra cost to the tenant, but can result in financial savings to the householder as well as making a real climate change impact. We believe that there are genuine opportunities in this sector which is why we are committed to building what we call a green collar workforce – here in Bedford and indeed throughout our business.”

Richard recently visited Cranfield University Technology Park to learn more about the leading innovative businesses based there and the technical advancements being made in the region.

Screenetics, Prolite and Cabair – all based at the Technology Park’s Innovation Centre – gave tours of their offices and explanations of their latest innovations to the MP, who also took part in a flight simulation provided by Cabair. The three businesses exemplify the type of organisation that is attracted to Cranfield University, which aims to encourage and facilitate the development of knowledge-based businesses.

Richard was impressed with what he saw, commenting:

“The businesses I visited compete in very different sectors but they share the same passion for entrepreneurship. We need to nurture that passion to create the next generation of businesses and jobs, and Cranfield University Technology Park has a critical role to play in making that happen.”

During the Budget Debate on the 23rd March, Richard praised a number of the Chancellor’s announcements and put forward a few ideas of his own.

His contribution to the Debate can be found here.

One of former Mayor Frank Branston’s innovations was to emphasise Bedford as a “town of markets”.  With specialty food markets and other events, Frank’s insight has done much to boost the town centre while we wait (and wait) for the much needed regeneration of the bus station area.

So, it was with great delight that I gave Nick Herbert, a tour of the fruit and veg market on Wednesday.  Topics we discussed with shoppers and shop owners ranged from the importance of locally grown produce, to preferences for brown versus white eggs, to the increasing cost of weekly shopping.  With wages flat and prices increasing, budgets are being squeezed for many of the shoppers in the market.

Talking with the inspiring Rakesh Ram at Community LD, a town centre group that provides training and support for people seeking employment, I got a clear understanding of what a crushing burden the top down, bureaucracy beloved of Prime Minister Brown can be.  Rakesh is local, highly motivated, experienced and capable. In short, he is exactly the sort of person that someone in Bedford would want to turn to get advice and encouragement.  However, because of the intrusive, restricting and obsessive requirements of the bureaucracy, Rakesh finds much of his time taken up by the requirements of form filling, and less of his time available for doing what he loves to do –serve the needs of his clients.

In this election , there are competing visions for how we provide the social goods – the schools, the health services, the policing etc – that we all share and we all benefit from.  Labour’s proposal is more of the same obsessive and controlling formats of the bureaucratic state. The stifling of local initiative, the restriction on the exercise of judgement by those – the teachers, doctors, police officers etc – who we trust to provide those services here in our local schools, hospital and on our streets.  More of the same is what we will get if Mr Brown and Labour are re-elected.

The other model, proposed by Mr Cameron and the Conservatives, is to push authority for our public services down to a local level.  We want to empower local communities with enhanced authority over their hospital – with more foundation hospitals; their schools – with more rights for parents and teachers to establish their own schools; and with our local policing – via directly elected heads of our local police authority.  We also want to empower more discretion for those who are on the frontline – freeing them up from the “box ticking”, target driven culture that is so loved by the bureaucrats, but so frustrates those whose job it is to provide the services.

This is a big change – and one that will free Rakesh and his team to achieve all they would wish to achieve here for the people of Bedford.