IN the past few months it has been great to visit some of our many thriving local businesses.

Amongst others, it was an honour to open Qube Learning’s new offices in Milton Park – a leading training provider which continues to flourish. Further, I was grateful to see the important work carried out by Mission Motorsport in aiding the recovery and rehabilitation of former military personnel through opportunities in motorsport.

One in three businesses in the UK are based in the countryside and some recently announced funding commitments are particularly good news for Oxfordshire.

I was encouraged to hear that the Government has pledged to continue its support for the rural economy with the announcement of a new £200 million boost to this vital sector. Through the Rural Development Programme, grants are expected to generate more than 6,000 jobs overall. Further, for the first time under the current scheme, specific funding will be available to support new rural broadband projects. This is in addition to funding landowners to improve farm productivity and invest in rural tourism opportunities.

With regards to rural superfast broadband, I am pleased that the ‘Better Broadband for Oxfordshire’ programme is on course to achieve above 95 per cent coverage across Oxfordshire. This places the county in the top quartile of counties in the UK. Since its launch, this £38 million collaboration between Oxfordshire County Council, Government, BT and local councils has provided 72,309 homes and businesses with access to broadband with a speed of over 2Mbps. Some 488 new fibre broadband cabinets have been installed and a total of 460km of fibre laid.

This was furthered in June by the announcement of an additional £4 million boost to the programme, with money added from savings and gainshare. This will provide an additional 3,000 of the most remote households and businesses with access to super-fast broadband. In addition to the £4 million, a separate fund of up to £600,000 from programme efficiency savings has been set aside for co-funding projects where communities are willing to share the costs of the installation work. Under the scheme, the council will contribute up to £1,700 per premise.

I welcome these announcements in further laying the foundations for a bright, forward-facing future for our communities.

I am confident that they will further help more remote businesses to grow and pave the way for high-quality jobs in towns, villages and hamlets across rural Oxfordshire.

I have long fought to facilitate a prosperous rural economy within our area and I am proud that our constituency has a particularly strong record in terms of employment.