Steve Brine addressed his sixth annual business breakfast as the city's MP on Friday 12th February as he spoke to much of the local business community at the Mercure Wessex, in the shadow of the cathedral.
Organised by Hampshire Chamber of Commerce and Winchester BID, Steve was on hand to give his yearly snapshot of the national, and international, business and economic picture, as well as his thoughts on how Winchester is progressing.
As well as discussing the rise of apprenticeships, he told the meeting about the record number of people in work in our country, and how employment is up 588,000 on the year, with 31.4m people in work, the highest rate in our history.
He also reported how there are more women in work than ever before and 130,000 fewer young people unemployed than a year ago, with overall unemployment down by 239,000. There are now just 1.68m people unemployed which is below pre-recession levels.
There was good news locally, with the Winchester & Chandler's Ford constituency having just 292 unemployed claimants in December, a rate of 0.6% of the economically active population aged 16 to 64, the 630th highest of the 650 UK constituencies.
Steve also echoed the Chancellor, when he told of a 'dangerous cocktail' of new risks this year in the global economy, specifically looking at the Chinese markets last month, and explained why it is more important than ever we stick to our plan to repair the public finances, move to the full employment aspiration set out in the Conservative manifesto and get Britain back into surplus.
He was also able to touch on the upcoming European Union referendum, and local issues such as the High Street markets, broadband and our train service.
The meeting had a special end, when Steve was asked to present a £750 cheque to Trinity Winchester and Winchester Churches Night Shelter on behalf of the Spare Change for Real Change campaign.
Pictured; Steve addresses the meeting, and below, presenting Michelle Gardner (Trinity) and Michele Price (WCNS) with their cheque, assisted by Catherine Turness from BID
More information ...
