MORE good news this week showed that Britain's economic plan is working. We've got the highest rate of employment in our history, pay is rising strongly, and there are 900,000 more businesses since 2010, while unemployment, including long-term unemployment, continues to fall.

All of this means greater security for working people but it is important that this progress is felt right across the country and by people on lower incomes.

That is why our plans for a National Living Wage are so important as this will mean a £900-a-year pay rise for someone working full-time on the minimum wage from next April. By 2020, the wage will be worth more than £9 an hour, or an extra £4,800 a year and, coupled with the largest personal allowance ever, this will mean people get more of their own money to keep.

There is good news for those entering the workforce too as we have also seen the biggest ever increase in apprentice numbers with over two million people starting an apprenticeship since 2010 (including more than 9,000 people locally) and a government commitment to go further and deliver three million apprenticeships by 2020.

Like many local employers I am determined to do my bit and I was delighted this week to welcome former St John’s student, Georgia Mundy, to my Devizes team on a business administration apprenticeship.

With half term upon us (can the weeks really go by that quickly?), I am continuing my work to ensure that our local schools are fairly funded. We have had many long-standing and unfair anomalies in the national funding formula that have meant that children in Wiltshire schools, especially smaller schools, are funded at a much lower rate than many other parts of the country.

I am really pleased that Ministers have committed to making school funding fairer, to maintaining the amount of money for schools and to maintaining the extra £390 million fairer funding uplift in future budgets.

I know from my conversations with local headteachers and governors of the importance of the detail of schools funding and, with more information expected in the upcoming spending review, I will continue to do my best to ensure that local schools receive the funding and support they need.

Finally, locally last Friday I was delighted to officially open the new Wellbeing Centre in Marlborough for Jill Sudbury and her team of wonderful therapists. The centre is a little oasis of calm in a busy world and I wish Jill and her team the very best of luck with their brilliant business.