LAST week I was honoured to join Labour’s frontbench team as a Shadow Cabinet Office Minister.

This is an extremely exciting role to hold the Government to account.

My promotion won’t however impact the important local work I have begun to try and secure the recognition, powers and resources that our local towns need. The towns in our constituency are facing a number of unique barriers to our success, which I am determined to work with others to overcome.

For example, we have a reduced A-Level provision, buses to access further education are heavily oversubscribed, we are isolated from the rail network, apprenticeships are falling and businesses aren’t investing.

I believe that local infrastructure is key to helping our disconnected towns – not the large, national projects which only serve to connect our booming cities with the hope that investment trickles down.

By investing in our towns we will support our young people to thrive and attract the business investment that we need to create jobs and support communities.

We also need to alter how we view social mobility - it’s not just about the grades you get at school or the job you secure when you leave education, it’s about connecting people with opportunities – and that is why intervention from the top is so desperately needed.

One group determined to make a difference in our community is the Reclaim Project however. Reclaim is a youth leadership and social change organisation.

They are a small but bold charity, using their experience as a platform to support and amplify the voices of working class young people.

They are driven by the understanding that young people on the periphery, with lived experience of UK social inequality, hold the key to social change.

I was lucky enough to spend some time with some young women on the project recently and was bowled over by their passion and determination.

Groups like Reclaim show us why a true revolution is required in our approach to tackling social mobility which includes investment into infrastructures, skills, apprenticeships and business growth and education.

Their powerful message demanding a better post-16 education for working class Leigh girls is a fantastic example of how we can empower our community to effect change.

Unless we prioritise towns like Leigh, we will leave behind a forgotten generation of young people who were unable to access employment and educational provisions provided in our nearby cities.

Leigh was at the front of the first Industrial Revolution and I will be doing everything that I can in Parliament to make sure it is at the front of the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution by standing up for our towns and transforming our approach to tackling the social mobility crisis.