It's been a productive year for Conservatives in the South West of England. As a Party, we gained eleven new seats here at the General Election. Of the 55 Parliamentary constituencies in the South West, Conservatives now hold 36.
And to round off all these political successes was a great personal moment for the Cameron family, as the stork flew in and dropped off a new arrival at Truro - Florence Rose Endellion.
All this means that I'm seriously looking forward to my first visit to the South West as Conservative Chairman this week. On Friday, I'll be in Taunton to meet local party members and thank them for their incredible campaigning efforts this year. I'm afraid I can't promise that I'll be naming my kids after local villages. But I can promise them that I'm going to be working incredibly hard for them over the coming years.
I'll start by being straight with them about what that means. I know how fed up people are of politicians promising sensational things that never happen. That's not what they can expect from me. I tell it as I see it. So if something is unaffordable, I'll be up front about it. And I speak for everyone in the coalition when I say that we're not going to govern by press release.
Instead, we're relentlessly focused on the massive job ahead: putting this country back on her feet. For thirteen years, Labour talked about tough decisions but never took them. But in just a few months, this coalition has showed that it is intent on becoming one of the great reforming governments. And we won't rest until we've got the job done.
A huge part of that is about the economy. Since we came into office we've made a strong start. We've already completed an in-year spending review to deliver £6 billion of savings. We've presented an emergency budget that will balance the books within five years. And we've scrapped Labour's jobs tax, which will lead to a saving of around £260 million in the South West.
Another vital part is about building a bigger and fairer society. That's why from April next year we will restore the earnings link to the basic state pension, benefiting 1.2 million pensioners in this region. That's why we are getting immigration under control, with an interim limit on non-EU economic migrants and a full cap to come. And that's why we are raising the Income Tax personal allowance for those aged under 65 by £1,000, which means that more than two million basic rate taxpayers in the South West will gain by up to £170.
But there's something else we're doing, which matters enormously for people here: making sure our national recovery isn't just something which happens in one region alone. I don't want to be in a government which helps improve life for people in just one part of the country. I want to part of a government which makes things better right across the country as a whole.
How can we do it? It is partly about rebalancing our economy. Over the last ten years, our economy became dangerously dependent on just a few sectors and just one city: London. We've got to change that and we have already set out a number of ways how.
One is our new regional growth fund, which will give local businesses and communities the chance to apply for money for projects that will stimulate local innovation and growth. Another is our policy to waive some of the employment taxes on the first ten jobs created by new businesses outside London, the South East, and the Eastern region for the next three years. A third step we are taking is to show more support for those industries - such as tourism - which the last government neglected, but which are of massive importance to this region and to our economy as a whole.
Tourism already provides a quarter of all jobs in West Somerset. But we're convinced that we're still not making everything we can of our tourism industry. That's why the Prime Minister made a key note speech about tourism recently. And one of the points he highlighted was how we are stopping Labour's plans to remove the special tax rules for furnished holiday lettings, benefitting an estimated 13,200 people in the South West who receive an income from furnished holiday lettings.
But it's not just our economy which needs rebalancing. It's our politics too. Because just as our economy became lop-sided during the last thirteen years, so our politics became remote and unaccountable as more and more power was sucked away from local people and given to distant bureaucrats.
We must never again let this kind of top-down, big government approach creep into our politics. And that's why we're going to keep giving local councils more power, with a general power of competence so that they can set up banks, develop property, run new services and own assets. That's why we're also giving councils the power to get together with local businesses to form their own local enterprise partnerships to create the right environment for local business investment. And that's why there will be a referendum guaranteed by law on any future European Treaty that seeks to shift powers from Britain to the EU.
Taken together, these steps amount to one of the most radical programmes of any government in the last thirty years. So when I arrive in Taunton this week I'll be talking about the work we are doing loudly and proudly. But I'll also be doing something much more important: listening to what people here have to say. In the new politics, it's the listening, not the talking, which matters. And as long as I am running the Conservative Party, that's the way it's going to stay.