York Press column: Reflections on 2023
January 3, 2024
As we enter a new year, it is only natural to reflect on the year that has passed and look ahead to what the future may hold.
Last year may not have been the rollercoaster 2022 proved to be with only one Prime Minister and one Chancellor of the Exchequer but this does not mean it was not eventful.
At the local elections, we saw a change of administration with parties pledging to #ReverseTheBan on blue badge holders accessing the city centre making gains. Exactly eight months on from election day, blue badge holders will be able to access the city centre via barriers at Goodramgate from tomorrow with further access via Blake Street coming later in the year once new barriers have been installed.
There are still challenges ahead to ensure disabled members of our community are not excluded, as we saw with the initial Network Rail proposals for replacing Copmanthorpe Level Crossing, but I will keep lobbying on behalf of all my constituents to ensure all voices are heard.
At a national level, great progress has been made although you may not have heard about it. Too often bad news is reported and amplified far louder than any good news. In other areas, landmark moments are being passed at such a pace that they no longer are being celebrated.
Take the environment, for example. Towards the end of 2023, the United Kingdom became the first G20 country to have halved its carbon emissions, but this went widely unreported. The average household now uses forty per cent less energy than in the 1990s and is recycling more house waste than ever before.
Education reforms are starting to bear fruit with England outperforming Germany, France, Norway, Sweden, Scotland and Wales in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment. We ended the year with 89% of schools now assessed as good or outstanding by Ofsted compared to only 68% in 2010 and English students were recently rated ‘best in the West’ for literacy. More good news that you may not have read about last year.
With the still unacceptably high levels of illegal immigration continuing to dominate headlines, you may be excused for thinking that nothing has been done to confront the issue, but you would be wrong. Illegal immigration from Albania has fallen effectively to zero, channel crossings are down 33 per cent, the legacy application backlog is down 42 per cent, asylum processing is up 250 per cent, and returns are up 29 percent. This festive period was also the first in five years with no dangerous channel crossings.
While we must clamp down on the gangs of human traffickers who take advantage of those in desperate need, we need to also confront the pull factors that lead migrants to make the potentially fatal crossing. Global news has admittedly been quite bleak of late with the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and renewed instability in the Middle East but there is still news to be thankful for.
In the fight against global poverty, the world’s economic output hit an all-time high, finally recovery from the pandemic, and wealth is now shared more widely than at any time in living memory with global inequality at a 150-year low. A decade ago, almost 850 million lived below the extreme poverty line. Today it is 610 million, the equivalent of 65,000 people being lifted out of poverty each day.
Whether the good news makes the headlines more or not, one thing for certain is that 2024 will not be a dull year for politics. Not only will there be a general election by the end of the year, but we will also elect York and North Yorkshire’s first ever mayor to lead a new Combined Authority. Not to be confused with our ceremonial Lord Mayor, the new role will have responsibility for a £750million devolution deal covering transport, housing, skills and policing.
Whatever the new year holds, I am quite looking forward to a return of routine and being able to remember which day of the week it is! I will be at events in Bishopthorpe, Haxby, Hopgrove and Heslington this week, which I am sure will be included in my next column in a fortnight.
I wish all York Press readers a happy and healthy new year!
