The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise are one of the most prestigious UK business awards, designed to recognize outstanding achievements in the fields of Innovation, International Trade, Sustainable Development and Promoting Opportunity (through social mobility).

Having spent fifteen years before coming to Parliament working with and helping to finance small, science start-ups in and around East Anglia, I can see the huge potential of Life Science, Clean-tech, Agri-tech and Med-tech in East Anglia.

Although not opposed to the principle of having a new Weather Radar Tower in my constituency, since day one I have had concerns about the Met Office proposals to build one at the Anglian Water site in Old Buckenham.

Our region, and particularly Norfolk, is ideally placed to play a frontline role in the ‘Green Revolution’ that the country is embracing on its road to Net Zero. But what does that ‘Revolution’ actually mean for the everyday people and businesses on the ground?

Improving connectivity in our part of the world was one of my first pledges when I began campaigning to become the MP for Mid Norfolk back in 2007.

It will come as no surprise that I continue to receive a large amount of correspondence in relation to the recent flooding. The current system is not working, and something needs to be done.

Fast modern rail is crucial to modern economies around the world. Here in the East, people are sitting in cars and trains going nowhere fast in an area that has a lot more to offer – and where we should be generating more of our own economic growth and prosperity.

For all of those of us that love and appreciate our beautiful rural and coastal landscapes here in the East, it is clear that the current chaotic “free for all” approach to delivering offshore wind infrastructure is unsustainable in the long term.

Big Society Capital is the leading financial institution dedicated to social impact investment in the UK working with the government and other lenders.