Firstly, I must wish all the best to the Wolves in the Challenge Cup Final on Saturday.

Let’s hope that Wembley will be a sea of primrose and blue and the trophy returns home.

Meanwhile, as we await the end of the Summer Parliamentary recess two sets of figures have caught my eye.

The first set relate to house building.

Analysis shows that at the current rate of build it will take over 130 years to house everyone on council house waiting lists.

Here in Warrington only five council or social homes were built in 2017-18 to cater for the 3,300+ households on the waiting list.

This is surely unacceptable when these homes are so badly needed.

The number of new homes for affordable home ownership has almost halved since 2010 and the number of new social rented homes has fallen by more than 80 per cent.

The promised one-for-one replacements for homes sold through the right-to-buy has not been delivered and house building still hasn’t recovered to the level it was 10 years ago.

This has a real knock-on effect with average private rents rocketing way ahead of real wages.

Homelessness and rough sleeping is up 70 per cent with 120,00 children recorded as homeless in temporary accommodation.

Sadly, the government seems to have no plan to fix the affordable housing crisis.

The second set of figures to appear in the last week or so concern rail fares.

It would appear that every year commuters are being asked to pay more money for bad train services.

Private train companies continue to cash in while people’s pay has been held back.

Regulated rail fares, which include season tickets and most other commuter tickets, will have risen by 40 per cent on average between 2010 and 2020 whilst median weekly wages have grown by just 14 per cent between 2010 and 2018.

That means that average fares have risen nearly three times faster than wages.

The alternative is to bring the railways back into public ownership as contracts expire, meaning it won’t cost the tax payer a penny more.

Journeys can be made affordable for passengers by capping fares; investing in rail infrastructure will get the system back up to a good standard; and ensuring safe staffing levels are in place across the network will help ensure we have a rail system which puts the interests of passengers first.