THIS has been a week of two halves, as I’ve been away this week on Home Affairs Select Committee business, all while managing casework and being kept up to date by my fab team despite the challenges of shifting time zone differences.

Back home, it's great to hear that the council is running public consultations on proposed active travel schemes for new cycle lanes along Abbey Road, and North Walney.

The route along Bridge Road and Michaelson Road wasn’t without its challenges, and I’m really pleased that the council has listened to my calls for a much more thorough public consultation this time around. It is important that as many people as possible take part in this public consultation so please, if you ever commute on Abbey Road and/or North Walney, then have your say here.

I was also delighted to learn of further government investment in four local schools, helping to improve their buildings and facilities, and two local grassroots football clubs in Barrow this week.

I want to single out Sacred Heart RC school in Barrow, who are getting a new boiler system thanks to DfE funding. It’s a start, but there’s plenty more to do at this school. I continue to work closely with governors and the senior leadership at Sacred Heart to make the case across the government that this school needs serious investment to make it safe first and foremost, and of course warm and welcoming so that the students there have the best possible start in life.  

The two local grassroots football clubs that have received funding to improve their facilities are Barrow Island Juniors, and Holker Old Boys, and this money will be used to provide some new goals. As part of Our Plan for Furness I’m working together with local leaders and sports leads to bring even better sports and leisure facilities to Furness, including a new 3G football pitch. The work for these facilities is ongoing, and I hope to be able to update you on this further in the weeks to come.

And as I mentioned, I’ve spent a fascinating couple of days in the USA with the Home Affairs Select Committee. We started in New York, meeting with the NYPD and FBI to learn more about their policing structures and challenges, and discussing issues covering everything from community consent to mental health, and terrorism to cyber crime.

The US has 18,000 different law enforcement bodies, so there is a huge challenge about getting them to do anything coherent or together. 9/11 was a driver for change as gaps in intelligence, information sharing, and responses forced a re-think. We saw that sharp end of that in the joint command centres in New York.

Our visit in NYC ended with a really interesting meeting with the National Cyber Forensic Training Alliance to meet with the FBI, the UK’s own National Crime Agency, and industry partners to talk about their response to fraud, cyber crime, and both organised criminal and state attacks against our institutions and critical infrastructure.

We then flew to Dallas, Texas to learn more about local policing, the funding of law enforcement, and also to take a deep dive into how Colleyville PD managed a situation in 2022 alongside the FBI, and UK Security Services when a British National took hostages in a synagogue. It was a fascinating example of how law enforcement works on the ground, but also across borders, in real time.

I could write paragraphs on this issue, but I am constrained to 500 words for this column, so I will instead flag the Committee’s report on the Future of Policing when we publish in the coming months. I returned to the UK on Saturday, and back to balmy weather in Furness. Oh, it’s good to be home!