GIDEON Amos has responded to the King’s Speech by calling for fixing local health and care services to be put at the 'heart of the Government agenda'.

The newly elected Taunton and Wellington MP said: “More needs to be done to support the NHS and care, the cost of living and to safeguard the Taunton and Wellington environment.

“The effects of the Conservative years on the NHS, turning Somerset into a ‘dental desert’ and making it harder to see a GP are deep-seated and need ambitious efforts if they are to be reversed.”

The MP welcomes the priorities given to mental health and the end to sewage being pumped into rivers, like the Tone, but calls for a greater help to the carer system in the UK.

He said: “I was disappointed not to hear more support for carers or on solving the care crisis and the need to upgrade hospital buildings like those at Musgrove Park, where there’s an urgent need for funding for a new Maternity Unit.

“I’ll be pushing more to get the action we now need to see.”

Mr Amos is also pushing for more support for help with state schools funding and has made his stance on parents paying extra VAT to pay for them.

He said: “More investment in our state schools is vital but making parents using independent schools pay for it with extra VAT is the wrong solution.

“I’ll be opposing the VAT move because, as a party, we’d increase school funding and improve teachers’ pay by taxing the big banks and energy companies instead.”