Terry Jermy

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I thank my Norfolk colleague, the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone), for securing the debate. One of the real pleasures of being a Member of Parliament is visiting businesses across the constituency. That is something I aim to do regularly in South West Norfolk. I have two questions when I visit: what are your challenges, and what are your opportunities? The responses are nearly always the same: skills and connectivity. The Heygates flour mill in Downham Market is nearly 200 years old. When I visited, the owners told me that they have to bring over engineers from Turkey, which is a big flour-producing country, to service the machines. They cannot recruit engineers locally, so they bring them in from Turkey at great expense. On healthcare, 85 million drip bags are produced every year in Thetford in my constituency. Those businesses tell me that they are moving away from having people on production lines and towards automation, so they need trained, skilled individuals to help with technology. They struggle to recruit locally for that critical part of our healthcare system, located in a rural community. The Wissington sugar beet factory near Downham Market is the largest sugar beet factory in Europe. The owners tell me that they have vibration sensors on the machinery, linked with artificial intelligence, so they can proactively plan maintenance to reduce the number of breakdowns, but they struggle to recruit people with the right skills. Those are the issues that come up time and again. Hon. Members have already mentioned connectivity, and I would agree that issues with connectivity in the broadest possible sense—mobile phone signals, broadband, trains, buses and road infrastructure—really hold us back in my part of the world. I therefore ask the Minister to comment on skills and connectivity.