This week, Wycombe MP Steve Baker writes exclusively to Bucks Free Press readers. He writes:

Recently the Government unveiled their “Levelling Up” plans. Levelling Up is a noble goal which I support.

However, there needs to be a further conversation about how we level up and what that means for areas like Wycombe and Buckinghamshire as a whole.

The White Paper has 12 national levelling up missions, including restoring local pride, boosting pay and productivity, and improving education standards in primary schools.

These are admirable, as are some of the policies aiming to reach them, but it seems to me the answers to every question posed by the 12 missions are: more government, and more government.

Time again the State’s answer to the problems it has helped created is that it hasn’t intervened in people’s lives enough.

Instead of constantly directing individuals and adding further layers of bureaucracy, let’s empower individuals and communities to take control over their lives and their areas.

Let’s cut the red tape that stop small business from getting off the ground and flourishing, and stop areas from making the most of their community assets.

Let’s understand real local priorities like how there are some schools in Wycombe where a majority of students do not have English as their first language.

Buckinghamshire taken as a whole often appears wealthy, but this ignores the reality of the situation.

The White Paper refers to levelling up areas ‘outside the Greater South East’ implying all areas like Buckinghamshire are so rich they no longer need support.

Try telling that to my constituents in the disadvantaged parts of Wycombe. Where is the levelling up for them?

Let’s cut the intrusion into the lives of individuals and communities that often traps them in cycles of poverty.

Instead, we should create the conditions that will allow these individuals and communities to flourish.

Wycombe’s motto is industria ditat: industry enriches – if we can create the conditions that make hard hit areas across all parts of the UK attractive areas for investment, then we can truly level up the UK.