PARLIAMENT’S back this week. A chance to put the new Prime Minister to the test. I’ll be asking him for his support for my Bill to improve the opportunities for the thousands of families housing need, insecurity, or just struggling because of the excessive housing costs.

The government's housing investment announcement last week was welcome news for Metro Mayors, but it leaves tens of thousands of Cornish people in prolonged housing desperation limbo.

Cornwall however has the promise of things to come, through a bespoke MoU (“Memorandum of Understanding”) with the government, but this is against a large step backwards. I warned government ministers their misguided and undeliverable housebuilding targets for places like Cornwall would prove counterproductive. Housebuilding targets for Cornwall have always been well above the national average. Indeed, Cornwall has been amongst the fastest growing places in the country. Nearly trebling its housing stock in the last half century. But, after all that, the housing need of locals has got worse.

Government housebuilding targets are founded on a delusion - that private developers will collude with government to drive down the price of their finished product.

Government planning policy will just allow land-value speculators to fill their boots. It will drive up the cost of development land; encourage developments of UNaffordable homes and further limit opportunities for desperately needed homes for locals.

There are already hundreds of shovel-ready projects which could deliver thousands of desperately needed social homes tomorrow, including in Cornwall, but the government needs to invest now.

It's difficult enough to deliver genuinely affordable homes for locals with a planning system fuelled by greed rather than need. The government's planning policy has made that problem worse. Welcome as it is, their 10-year £39 Bn housing budget will produce fewer homes.

Cornwall has the poorest access to NHS dentistry in the country, says last week’s Nuffield Trust report. There's been a further 25 per cent decline in NHS dentistry here in the last decade.

The dentistry contract doesn't incentivise provision of services to those who need it most. It should incentivise preventative dentistry but doesn't.

Our Health Committee previously warned of the impact of dentistry crisis, of "dentistry deserts" in places like Cornwall, and of the need to review the contract and prioritise need and preventative dentistry.

Cornwall Council's recent Dentistry Summit helpfully reviewed the challenges faced and identified the action needed. I'm pressing local health managers and government ministers to address these.

I’ve always said, the primary purpose of prison is public protection, especially to protect those most vulnerable to violent and predatory crime. So, the government’s principal objective when prisons are overcrowded, must be to protect our society from violent criminals, rapists, paedophiles etc. I appreciate the government has been left a legacy of overcrowded prisons, and no plans to increase prison places, but public protection should always remain its primary objective.