This week I was delighted to be asked by the Prime Minister to become the Minister for Life Sciences, working at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Health.

Serving as Government Life Science Advisor from 2011-13, I helped co-ordinate the Prime Minister's Life Science Strategy in 2011. Having the chance to build on this work as a departmental Minister is a huge opportunity to show how our world-leading science base and pioneering work in healthcare technology can make the UK the global hub for medical innovation and patient empowerment. Having also recently served as a UK Trade Envoy, I know the full potential of helping UK companies export these technologies and breakthroughs to the fastest-growing markets around the world.

This is a major win for our region, a hub of Life Sciences from the Norwich Research Park to the Cambridge cluster. Life Sciences represents a huge opportunity for Norfolk and for Britain. I am delighted as the new Minister for Life Sciences to demonstrate the world-beating excellence of the Eastern region in developing 21st-century healthcare. This means taking the fight to diseases like dementia that blight the lives of so many in Norfolk and in which we have been leading the way, the first dementia county in the UK with inspiring examples like the Wymondham dementia café I visited recently. Next week I will be opening the new Centrum centre at the Norwich Research Park which I have long been championing, a great demonstration of the jobs and opportunities being created in our region thanks to Life Sciences.

I said when elected that I would put Norfolk on the map. By championing our region in Whitehall, I look forward to continue doing just that.