Westminster Hall

Thursday 1st February 2024 Westminster Hall

Thursday 1 February 2024

[David Mundell in the Chair]

BACKBENCH business

Living Standards

Thursday 1st February 2024 Westminster Hall

13:30

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That his House has considered living standards.

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell, to discuss what I think is the defining issue for all our constituents—not that you would know it from the acres of empty green seats surrounding us this afternoon—not just in the upcoming election campaign, but for many years and, arguably, for generations to come. There is no question but that living standards in this country are well below where they should be, and well below those of our western European counterparts on almost every single measure. Regardless of whether we are looking at wages, disposable income or things like business investment and investment in public services, we lag far behind what any Government in London or in the devolved capitals should be happy or comfortable with.

Broadly speaking, three strands of insecurity—economic, social and global—are eating away at living standards in the UK and causing our constituents anxiety. The economic insecurities include inflation, energy prices, food prices, and the disaster of the former Prime Minister’s so-called mini-Budget and what that did to household incomes, mortgage rates and rent. The social insecurities include the inability of many public services to properly recover from the covid pandemic—not just to get back to a pre-pandemic level, but to make the necessary modernisations that public services have to go through.

It is true that much of this is driven by global factors, such as the war in Ukraine and what that has done to food prices and energy prices, the more recent violence in the middle east between Gaza and Israel, and the attacks on international shipping carried out by terrorists in the Red sea, all of which is adding to the problems in this country and, indeed, countries around the world with regard to living standards. Then we have climate change, which is the biggest and most defining issue on which Governments, civil society, other institutions and the private sector must collaborate if we are to not just hit our targets, but deal with the effects of climate change here in the UK and around the world. Of course, as a result of violence and climate change, we also have the mass movement of people and irregular movements of people—a challenge that we need to deal with. I am grateful that the hon. Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) is here this afternoon, because I want to touch on the issue of immigration as well.

Those three factors—economic, social and global—eating away at our living standards are only made worse by the impact of the decision taken in this country in 2016 to leave the European Union. True, much of what I have mentioned is a problem that can be found in the capital of any country around the world, and certainly in any western European country, but there can be no question—certainly not over the past few days—but that we have added to those problems with Brexit. This is not a debate on Brexit, and I have no desire to relitigate that here today, but we must take our heads out of the sand and not pretend that it has not made matters worse for our constituents.

The other issue I want to discuss is how Governments intend to tackle the drop in living standards. We have a Government who are, essentially, dying on their feet. Although I am not looking to get overly capital-P political, I will say that the country at large will certainly welcome some fresh ideas—and my goodness, they cannot come fast enough. However, the idea that the answer to those challenges lies in tax cuts and running the public realm further into the ground is not backed up by the public. We can see from public polling, even if we go back to a few months ago and the results of the British social attitudes survey, that for the first time people, even Conservative voters, do not want tax cuts. They understand the need for taxes to be where they are or to go up so that we can invest properly in a battered public realm. Yes, it has been battered by many global factors and the covid pandemic, but it has also been battered by more than a decade of decay.

There is also a stark need to reimagine the public realm and what public services are actually for. Rightly or wrongly, post-pandemic people have new and heightened expectations of the state, and any politician worth their salt would seek to answer that new reality with a sense of ambition, not least because the challenges we are all presented with absolutely demand it. As this pandemic Parliament enters its dying weeks and days, we no longer even talk about the post-pandemic recovery like we did back in 2020-21, when the phrase “build back better” was absolutely everywhere—I would love to see when those three words were last used on the record in this House. The idea of not just getting things back to where they were, but building back better is redolent with opportunity when we consider the existing new technologies that are at our fingertips, which in the coming years will become more readily available to modernise and revolutionise the public realm and public services. They will touch everything: planning, health inequalities, income—all those things. They have a real ability to turn things around from where they are.

Look at some of the very real issues that people face now—for example, financial strain. Four in 10 people are struggling with energy bills and rent. Some 5.5 million UK adults are behind on energy bills, and four in 10 adults are spending more than usual when food shopping. Just think about how corrosive that is to the average family, household and citizen and their sense of ambition for themselves, their community and their country.

Let us look at rent in particular—I have a constituency with a lot of renters. UK annual private rent price growth remained at 6.2% in the 12 months to December 2023. A third of adults find it difficult to afford their rent, and that is before we even start to discuss the issue of mortgage payments. Homeowners face a £19 billion increase in mortgage costs as fixed rate deals expire.

Income inequality in this country is greater than in any other large European country. Some 9 million young workers have never experienced sustained wage rises. Millennials are half as likely to own a home, and almost a third of young people in the UK are not undertaking any education by the age of 18. All those things are an attack on our society. How on earth do we get young people to buy into the idea of a fair marketplace and fair capitalism if they cannot accrue any capital, because at the moment everything is stacked against them?

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend has hit on a crucial issue. All our citizens need us to focus on the cost of living crisis and he is outlining the problems very well. We see them in Stirling as well. Start Up Stirling has had a fall in donations of food for its food drives. A survey recently published by Citizens Advice Stirling found a 900% increase in people getting in touch for problems with energy bill arrears, and 64% of people have reported skipping meals in order to pay their energy costs. I am sure that, like me, my hon. Friend wants to see action in the UK Budget in March. All of us need to put the badges to one side and focus on the cost of living crisis. It is what our citizens want to see happening, and the UK Government are in the best position to really assist households with their energy costs.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The problems that he mentions will manifest themselves in the constituency of every hon. Member present, without question. The idea that come the Budget, the answer is more tax cuts or maintaining an uncapped right for bankers to receive exorbitant bonuses is completely for the birds.

It cannot be overstated how deeply young people feel that things are stacked against them. Then they read in the papers that there is a new debate to be had on conscription. Get real! Give young people a stake in the society that they might well be called on to defend one day. There is an entire debate to be had about how we get the armed forces up to the scratch, size and modernised style that we need, but the answer does not lie in telling young people that they have to be conscripted in order to defend King and country. Good luck to any politician who wants to go out and sell that message at a time like this.

Among all those domestic challenges, which are being compounded by global factors, there are opportunities to tackle things such as health inequalities, and to modernise public services with real investment in the public realm and, of course, reform and new technologies. However, another area we need to think about is population growth. The way we debate immigration leaves me staggered. The bar gets lower with every passing day in this House. The truth is that if we want to keep a competitive advantage, whether in university research or key sectors and industries, we need people to come to this country. With the mass movement of people only growing around the world, we will have to rethink how we manage people coming into or leaving the country, and the reasons for that. I have spoken before in the House about how young researchers at universities up and down the UK—Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales—are staggered at the fact that everything costs a fortune, they cannot get appointments to see a doctor and trains do not run properly on time. So who is surprised when they tell us that they want to move to another European city that has just as good opportunities for their research and a much higher, easier and better standard of living?

I am conscious that I say all these things representing a party that is also in Government, but we are going to have to seek to create a new consensus to drive up living standards, and an element of that has to be a much more realistic discussion about immigration and population growth. It needs to move away from this dark, ugly debate that we see all often, which starts with a desire to drive the numbers down. Those arguing for reduced immigration are arguing to make the country poorer. There is no question about that.

This is what I think a policy platform that could generate some kind of new consensus looks like. We can see the lessons from institutions such as the European Union and in legislation in the US in the style of the Inflation Reduction Act. I can understand entirely why the right hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), the shadow Chancellor, wanted to move on to that ground, albeit that Labour’s £28 billion green pledge is getting more and more diluted to the point of being hopeless and useless. Nevertheless, such a pledge is exactly where we need to go by using industrial policy. being realistic about immigration policy, and using those policies to tackle the challenges of our time, including climate change and technological development, in order to drive up living standards, while also pursuing our own economic interests and national security interests.

What did we get here in response? Such low ambition. I forget the actual name for it, but the then Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), was announcing his “green new deal day”, or whatever he was going to call it. Such was the fear of the hardliners in the Conservative party that the Government had to take the word “green” out of it. That is not serious Government.

We might be able to create a new consensus that seeks to create prosperity and a sense of economic fairness, and that plans for the long-term resilience that—surely to God—the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the conflict in the middle east tell us we all need. I have not even mentioned China, Taiwan and the South China sea. However, as I was saying, if we can work on creating a consensus built around prosperity, fairness and long-term resilience, it could be transformational, not just for our constituents now but for generations and generations to come. I have little faith that that consensus will come out of this Parliament or that we will will see much of it in an election year, when these contests become all the more bitter because of the election, but if we look at any of the polling, we will see that our constituents and the public at large are far ahead of politics and the politicians on this stuff.

I look forward to hearing what colleagues, particularly the Minister, have to say today. A big reimagining of the state and citizen is what is badly, even starkly, needed. We are so far behind where we should be and we are so far behind many of our western European counterparts. If we do not see that reimagining emerge from this place, and I suspect that we will not, in Scotland the answer lies, yes, in our becoming a member of the European Union, which would put rocket boosters under Scotland’s prosperity in the future.

13:47

[Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) for securing this debate. Indeed, I was pleased to support his application for it, because the issue of living standards is of great importance to my constituents in Dover and Deal, and to people across the country.

Over the last 15 years, a series of major events have had a direct impact on our economy and on living standards. It started with the credit crunch and the global financial crash. More recently, we have had the covid pandemic, which has had a significant and lasting impact on our country and its finances. Even more recently, the disgraceful invasion of Ukraine by Russia has had severe negative effects on global prices and created major challenges for both global and local economies.

These big events have led many commentators to liken the current economic situation to that in the 1970s, because of the inflationary element that the Government have been grappling with recently. However, each recession or economic crisis is unique. If any historical comparison is to be made, perhaps the challenges we face today echo more closely the political and economic period after the second world war than that of the 1970s. The extreme costs incurred and the public debt overhang created in battling covid, the shortages of materials and supplies caused by global supply chain disruptions, and the simultaneous energy and food price spikes need particular and considered responses.



Following the second world war, problems with food, energy and housing plagued the economy for years. The rationing of goods, materials and even housing lasted long after VE Day, and the political consequences for Labour and the Conservative party were brutal. It was not just Churchill who faced a possibly ungrateful public when he was booted out of office after winning the war; Labour’s Nye Bevan truly transformed the country in his approach to health and housing, only to see Labour unceremoniously dumped for not delivering quickly enough. The lessons of history are that the Government need to be muscular and act single-mindedly to deliver at pace for the people.

The seriousness of the current situation requires the Government to have a laser-like focus on overall household costs, yet the machinery of government does not allow that to happen, because in the division of the Departments, no single Department has overall sight of housing and household costs. The responsibility for and regulatory oversight of the key household utilities—gas, electricity, water, telephone, broadband, TV licensing or council tax, as well as mortgages and rent—that are responsible for so much pressure on individual households is split between multiple Government Departments, each with differing priorities. No one is responsible or accountable for total household costs, yet that is what every household, up and down the land, is thinking about—“How much do all my bills cost? How much do I have, to pay for them? How am I going to make ends meet?”

This matters because we do not just pay for the utilities we use; our living standards are directly affected by the bills, which include commitments such as the costs of net zero and of building new physical infrastructure to meet future population growth. All those costs need to be tightly managed, like any other tax or national spending commitment. In my view, all household regulation should be under one roof, overseen by Ministers who can look at total household costs and the impact of regulatory decisions.

There is a real opportunity for Government to refocus regulators on getting the best deal for householders, rather than the best deal for the people they regulate. That means breaking down the existing silos of Government and regulatory structures to create a new, household-centred approach to allow better decisions to be made about how much households can pay at any time and when extra investment can best be afforded. That is one important way in which we could start to address living standards for the nation.

Back in 2009, as the impact of the financial crisis hit, I wrote about the likely impact of that massive event on household costs and repossessions, and the range of interventions that were available to the Government of the day. Things looked grim and hundreds of thousands of repossessions were forecast, in line with previous housing crashes. There were interventions that I could recommend, and recommendations were taken forward that helped people stay in their homes and weather the crisis. Judicial and financial regulatory policies were changed accordingly.

Given the immediate challenges facing our country, it is just as important today that the Government respond to support householders and households, because the distribution of housing today is very different from in those earlier recessionary events. The majority of rented housing is now owned by private sector landlords—about 20% of all housing stock. That is neither equitable nor feasible for renters, who need to pay high rents to fully shield landlords from challenging times. Rent needs to be affordable; otherwise we end up with inter-generational unfairness, but that is where we are today: unfairness not just for so-called generation rent but for people under 40 who have been unable to get a home of their own and find themselves having to pay more. We need to take a fresh look at how to deal with that, and at how renting is managed within the welfare bill. Too many people find themselves in overpriced, sub-standard rented accommodation with a housing allowance that does not meet the cost of the rent, so they are expected to make up the difference.

The situation is exacerbated by what I call the invisible money and invisible tax position. I recently asked a group of people to say how much energy support the Government had given during the energy spike. There was a silence. Not a single person in the room could give a figure. The Office for Budget Responsibility says that the energy support policies in 2022-23 cost more than £50 billion—2% of GDP—and yet not a single person could say how much money the Government had given. That money is very different from the £300 direct payments under the cost of living programme, which went directly into people’s bank accounts. Invisible money contributes to the sense, but not the reality, that the Government are not helping, so I hope the Minister reflects on how the Government can better explain and make clear the money and support they are giving, and ensure it is done in such a way as to help people appreciate and understand what is happening.

It is the same for what I call invisible tax—the regulatory charges through utility companies. Again, they are not directly visible and do not form part of household assessment when the Government Budget is considered.

Living standards are crucial to all Members of Parliament and the Government of the day. It is right that we look at people’s ability to meet their daily costs, but we must have a firm eye on the fairness of where costs and obligations lie. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, which is of great importance to us all. I hope the Minister will consider the ways in which the Government may better support the 22.6 million people on welfare—a third of the population. That should not just be through direct spending, or support of the type that households received during the pandemic, which protected lives and livelihoods. I recognise the Government’s commitment to upgrading infrastructure, but I should be grateful if the Minister would reflect on my comments.

13:57

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I am delighted to sum up for the SNP. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) on securing the debate and opening it so comprehensively.

No issue is more pressing for our constituents at the moment than the cost of living crisis and its impact on living standards. The UK Government point to a range of factors to explain why, in the two years to March 2024, we have had the biggest fall in living standards since records began, as the Office for Budget Responsibility highlighted. Even as wages rise and inflation falls, there is yet more pain to come. Consumers with less to spend act as a drag on the economy. In addition, confidence in UK economic growth fell by 19% between June and July, according to the Hargreaves Lansdown investor confidence index.

The UK Government blame the covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine—to be honest, they would blame the bogeyman if they could—but they are strangely reluctant to even mention the word “Brexit”, although we all know the impact it has had on our productivity and our living standards. The Resolution Foundation says that the UK is falling behind our European counterparts on living standards due to low growth and high inequality, and our prosperity gap has been widening since 2009.

Everybody knows that there is a global element to the current difficulties, but let us not forget—as so many Ministers have done already, it seems—the disastrous Budget of the previous Prime Minister, which sent inflation soaring, interest rates rocketing and the pensions system to the very verge of collapse. That is what true economic incompetence looks like, and the Tories have never recovered fully from that particular disaster.

My constituents and people across the UK are truly suffering and the Government must accept responsibility for their own incompetence. About 2.65 million people have reported being unable to afford a healthy amount of food. The expense of groceries remains the most significant stream of household finances, as 96% reported a rise in food expenses over the past month. Young adults aged 25 to 34 years are almost three and a half times more likely to experience vulnerability compared with those aged 75 years and above.

The cost of essential household expenditure for homeowners has soared by more than £9,000 a year on average over the past two years, with higher mortgage rates the biggest contributing factor. There have been 14 mortgage rate rises over the past two years, with inflation peaking at 11.1% in October 2022. Food and energy prices have risen markedly since 2022, gas prices in particular, with the cost of energy doubling since 2021. The pain goes on and on. Many households use less fuel, such as gas or electricity, simply because they cannot afford to maintain the same level of usage, with about one in five adults reporting that they were occasionally, hardly ever or never able to keep comfortably warm in their home.

Nearly two thirds, or 64%, of those of working age who live in poverty live in working households. More than 5 million people live in homes with energy debt, with more than 3 million people disconnected from their energy last year because they simply could not afford to top up their meter. There seems to be no end to this because, alongside all that, food-bank reliance is at record levels, with many of the food banks in our communities simply unable to keep up with demand. At this juncture, I pay tribute to the work of the Ardrossan food bank in my constituency, which does excellent work.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation report, “UK Poverty 2024”, was clear that six successive UK Prime Ministers have overseen deepening poverty over the past 20 years. It also noted that the Scottish child payment is making a difference in Scotland. We know that the current UK Government will not implement a similar measure in England, but we also know that no incoming Labour Government will implement it, either. However, it is heartening to know that those parties are committed to ensuring no cap on bankers bonuses, but that there will be one on child benefit. That suggests that those parties are completely relaxed about increasing inequality in our society, with an apparent acceptance of the inevitability of poverty.

The reality is that amid all that pain, with the limited powers that the Scottish Government have—their powers are very limited—they are doing all they can to support people during this unprecedented decline in living standards, with a focus on a more progressive and equal society—the Scottish child payment; the baby box; the rent freeze; free school meals being rolled out for all primary 1 to primary 5 pupils, and to be extended to all primary school pupils on a universal basis; free bus travel for under-22s; five family payments from April 2024, which dwarf the payments made in England; the winter heating payment; the council tax reduction scheme, worth £800 per year for over 450,000 households; and the carer’s allowance supplement, delivering £255 million to over 148,000 Scottish carers. But, if I may quote George Foulkes, we are “doing it deliberately”.

The SNP will always use its powers to support households through the damage inflicted by the mismanagement of this UK Government, with its £318 million a day spent on paying debt interest, after burning £4.2 million-worth of personal protective equipment and wasting £66,000 million on High Speed 2, which is just a rail link from London to Birmingham, for which all UK taxpayers will pay. The UK Government are not doing this deliberately; they are just dogged by their own inability to govern, and govern well.

An incoming UK Labour Government seems pretty likely at the moment, but as Labour U-turns on all that it was ever supposed to stand for, we know that it will remain committed to austerity, which it introduced in its previous term in office, leaving bankers’ bonuses uncapped as millions struggled to make ends meet. We all remember the admission from the current shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), that Labour is

“not the party of people on benefits”—

a sorry story indeed.

We look to the example of small, independent European nations, which show what can be done with a more equal, prosperous country with wellbeing at its heart. Scotland is rich in natural resources and we can build a nation, freed from the shackles, the dead hand, of Westminster, which is governed by a consensus from both the main parties that poverty and inequality are acceptable and inevitable. They are not.

With all the powers of an independent nation, Scotland can make meaningful improvements, by making different choices and having different priorities. That is the way that we will tackle the scandal of the record decline in living standards that is decimating our communities.

14:06

[Michael Shanks (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to participate in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell, and to speak in a debate brought by my neighbour, the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald). I congratulate him on securing it. He and I endured many electoral scrapes before we got to this place, but this is the first opportunity we have had to participate in a debate at the same time. It is a pleasure.

This is a timely debate because, as we have already heard, over the past few weeks the Government seem to be trying to give the impression that everything is okay —that there is “nothing to see here” and we are back to normal; the cost of living crisis does not exist, and everybody, all across the country, is getting on just fine.

The hon. Member for Glasgow South made the important point that the cost of living crisis affects individuals, but also the very fabric of our society. I will come back to that point later on. From my own constituency casework and from meetings with community groups and others—I know it will be the same for all of us —I know that the cost of living crisis is far from over. In fact, people are struggling now more than ever. It is important that we keep talking about living standards and that we push the Government, in the weeks that they have left in office, to do more. This Parliament is on record as being the first in modern history during which living standards in the country will contract. Household income growth is down by more than 3% in this Parliament. Britain is worse off.

The hon. Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) made some reflections on history, which was an interesting perspective to bring. At one point, I thought the praising of Bevan might have led to another faction in the Conservative party—the Bevanites—but it was an important point. I will take away particularly the idea of a unified Department to look at these issues. She made the point very well. Just a few weeks ago, I raised the issue of prepayment meters in the main Chamber. It is a classic example of a straightforward issue, but the various bodies that deal with it are divided and sit at different parts of the system. Bringing them together would be very helpful.

I mentioned before the cumulative impact of the cost of living. That is important, because we see levels of poverty and destitution reaching horrifying levels. People who were teetering on the brink of poverty have been plunged into it, and into destitution. Inflation may be coming down, but the aftershocks are still being felt. Wages have not kept pace with costs. Debt is rising across many households. The ability to make the pay packet stretch just a little further every month is becoming more and more difficult, if not impossible.

We saw this week that even the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) has had to confront mortgage challenges. A salary of £118,000, some four times the average salary of a worker in my constituency, still did not allow him to continue in his ministerial job, although I suspect there will not be a huge outpouring of grief in that case.

More than 1 million households are expected this year to come to the end of cheaper mortgage deals, leading to an average increase in annual housing costs of about £1,800, according to the Resolution Foundation. Yesterday the leader of the Labour party, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), raised the case of an Iceland worker and was met with derision from many Members on the Government Benches. Dozens of similar cases have been raised with me over the past few months. Constituents who were stretched to afford their mortgage in the first place now find themselves in greater debt, with income no longer matching the mortgage payments that they could only just afford before.

Citizens Advice has done some research and found that, previously, mortgage holders on average had about £61 left after paying for essentials, but now, after the mortgage changes, they find themselves more than £100 at least in debt every month—there is a cumulative impact—and in some cases it is four, five or six times that amount.

Of course, part of the problem is the still rising cost of food. Although inflation overall may have come down, food inflation continues to be a huge problem for families. The overall price of food rose last year by 26%, which is a staggering figure. Of course, we also have the slightly more subtle version of inflation through companies simply reducing the product that they are selling, which puts even more pressure on families.

Energy bills have soared, with people struggling to heat their homes. As we have heard from other Members, a quarter of adults last year said that they were occasionally, hardly ever or never able to keep themselves comfortably warm, which is a basic that any of us should be able to expect. It was the case that 34% of adults said that they cut back on their heating, and 16% of adults said that they were worried that their food would run out and they could not afford more. That is a staggering statistic.

Many of us may have visited the Trussell Trust’s event in Parliament yesterday. I spoke to a number of people who raised examples of families who were in work, in well paid, permanent jobs, but were still struggling to make ends meet. We know that more and more people in the economy are not in such work and so they are in an even worse position. Working-age adults are far more likely to turn to food banks, and almost half of households experiencing food insecurity are dealing with disability—an issue to which I want to return. This is a picture of a country with so many people teetering on the brink of poverty and now living such a precarious life that even work is not lifting them out of poverty.

A number of Members have raised the intergenerational nature of poverty—the challenge of a generation growing up now without any of the expectations that a previous generation had. Before I was elected to this place, I was a high school teacher and saw many of those young adults. They were very well qualified, intelligent and capable, but they were leaving school and going off to university or work with none of the expectations about being able to get a permanent job and afford a home. That just does not exist for many of them now. The fact that so many of them have resigned themselves to that fact is in itself depressing.

In the midst of all this, we have a Government—I am hoping that the Minister will correct me—who seem to suggest that everything is fine and there is nothing to see here. The fact is that the economy is not working for working people across this country. We have now had 14 years of a Conservative Government, and people are certainly no better off than they were before. People have higher taxes and higher mortgage payments, and prices are still rising at the shops. There have been 25 tax rises in this Parliament alone, with households paying on average £4,000 more in tax each year. The Conservatives have become the party of high tax because they are the party of low growth.

The same is true in Scotland: we see tax rises in Scotland to cover for fiscal mismanagement and a £1.5 billion black hole, but also for a lack of growth, which I attribute to both Scotland’s Governments. We need to get some basic economic competence back so that we can boost wages, bring down bills and make working people in all parts of our country better off.

[Patricia Gibson]

rose—

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

rose—

[Michael Shanks]

I knew that would prompt something. I give way to the hon. Member for Glasgow South first.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman is talking about economic competence. When the Scottish Labour leader described removing the cap on bankers’ bonuses as economically incompetent—he went further than that, saying that it was “economically illiterate and morally bankrupt”—was he right or wrong?

[Michael Shanks]

The leader of the Scottish Labour party—my good friend, Anas Sarwar—is always right. Of course, we opposed lifting the cap at the time. Since then, we have outlined that this is not the moment to bring it back, but we have very clearly said that bankers should be on notice that, if we see the behaviour that led to the cap in the first place, it would be very easy to implement it again.

[Patricia Gibson]

Does the hon. Member accept the independent evidence of the OBR that shows that—I have the evidence and can share it with the hon. Member, if he wishes—the majority of people in Scotland pay less tax, including council tax, than they would if they lived in England? His remarks about tax make me wonder whether he no longer supports what was on his leaflets during the by-election: that council tax should be frozen.

[Michael Shanks]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran for her dedication in checking my leaflets and retaining that information; I think that is what we call “cut-through” in the political world. I accept the interesting point that she makes. She has questioned the Government on that point on a number of occasions. I think that there is an issue when somebody on £28,500 is paying more tax—those are not wealthy people. In the midst of what we have all been talking about in this debate, that is an increase in the cost of living.

On the subject of the council tax—I feel like I am relitigating a by-election that I thought was behind me for now—I opposed the proposal of a 25% increase, which was in the consultation carried out by the Scottish Government. There is a world of difference between opposing a 25% increase and announcing a council tax freeze, which will hammer communities all across Scotland. Of course, the hon. Member may be very aware of my leaflets, but I am not sure that any of her party were aware that the First Minister was going to announce that policy before he announced it, which shows just how little thought went into it.

I will get back to Labour’s new deal for working people, which is what I thought the interventions were going to be about. We have made it very clear that, in the first 100 days of a Labour Government, we want to introduce the strongest commitment to improving the lives of workers in a generation: raising wages, improving working conditions, bringing stability back to employment and enshrining workers’ rights from day one. That would undo the damage of much of the anti-worker legislation we have seen over the past 14 years.

We have also set out how we will bring down energy bills by building cheaper and cleaner power across the country, through the creation of GB Energy, a publicly owned clean energy generation company headquartered in Scotland—something that I am sure my colleagues from Scotland will warmly welcome. We will also look to reform things like work capability processes—I have raised that on a number of occasions in this Parliament—so that people entitled to benefits are not locked out of them by bureaucracy that simply does not work.

I return to the comments that the hon. Members for Glasgow South, for North Ayrshire and Arran and for Dover made about the intergenerational question, which is incredibly important. I spoke about being a teacher. Before that, I worked for a charity that worked with young people involved in gangs and offending. The route out of that involvement was often through giving people something to aspire to: a sense of hope that their future would be better than the poverty and destitution that they found themselves in. It seems to me that we are increasingly turning our backs on a generation of young people who have done nothing to cause any of the crises that they face, but who are going to pay the price of them for a long time to come.

I will briefly address the issue of disability. I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as I am a trustee of two disability charities. Disabled people face higher costs of living across the board. Scope found that disability-related costs represent the equivalent of 63% of a disabled person’s income. Just by having a disability, you are already at a financial disadvantage, and the cost of living crisis has exacerbated that hugely.

I want to mention a woman who I met just before Christmas. She was forced out of her home because she could not afford to heat it any more. She had spent the past three months in the living room. She had a hospital bed where she ate her meals, had her personal care and spent most of the day because it was the only room in her home that she could heat properly. The downside was that the rest of her house became damp and infected with mould because she could not turn the heating on. She had been failed by the benefits system, cuts to her care package and rising energy and food bills. She also lost the opportunity to continue in her employment programme, which was what gave her opportunities in life.

There are countless such examples. I am sure that every one of us could recount an example from our constituents. We should be ashamed that in 2024, in a country as rich as ours, people have such a standard of living.

I want to close by saying what the hon. Member for Glasgow South started by saying: the fall in living standards is a huge crisis facing our country. It affects mental and physical health, education, family wellbeing, housing, employment—a whole range of issues. It is not going away. It has not declined. It is not getting better. It will stalk families for years to come, possibly for a generation. Debt is piling up to eye-watering levels and with it comes the impact on families. The Government have failed in basic economic tests, and working people, as always, pay the price.

I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow South for securing this important debate. I look forward to hearing what the Minister will do in the few weeks that the Government have left to change the situation for families across the country.

[David Mundell (in the Chair)]

I call the Minister. My only request is that we leave a few minutes for Mr McDonald to conclude the debate. It must end at 3 o’clock, so there is ample time for the Minister to respond.

14:21

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Bim Afolami)]

It is a pleasure to spend time with you and serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I want Members to be clear: I have heard the strength of feeling today. I am grateful for all the contributions. I want to start by saying that the issue is complex. Those who know me in the House know that I always try to take things seriously and think carefully about the issues. I hope to do so in my response.

I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) for securing today’s debate. I am pleased to have this opportunity to set out the measures that the Government are taking to support people across the United Kingdom during this difficult time and to respond to the points raised.

The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Michael Shanks), speaks with the confidence of someone who has been here for years rather than months, so I commend him on his speech. I say to him gently that economic competence and credibility are key for any Government of any political colour in this country. When he talks about economic competence, he has to address the fact that the whole growth plan of the Labour party is a £28 billion green growth plan. That is a legitimate thing for any party to suggest, but, as the hon. Member for Glasgow South made clear, when a party has its entire economic strategy bound up in such a plan and then seems to flip-flop from one day to another about whether it is doing the plan—whether it is an ambition or a commitment, and when the money is going to be spent—what that says to investors, households and businesses all over the country and abroad is that there will not be economic competence if his party is in government. I ask him to reflect on that point.

I think that all of us in this place recognise the difficult times through which the people of this country and people across the world have lived. Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine caused an energy shock that was the kickstarter for inflation across the globe and created a perfect storm for vulnerable people. The Government have consistently fought back against covid alongside our Ukrainian friends and, critically from a Treasury perspective, against the economic headwinds that resulted from those external shocks. Over the past two years, the Government have provided one of the largest support packages in Europe.

I was struck by a remark from my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke), who, if I may say so, is a fantastic Member of Parliament. If I recall, she mentioned that it was important that the Government were able to explain clearly to members of the public what support has been given in what different ways. She talked about utilities and various other important things across the economy. I agree with my hon. Friend that one of the things that, as the Government, we always have to work on—I will continue to do so, and I am sure that my colleagues will—is much more clearly demonstrating and explaining the support that is out there: the support that is being given. I will take that away and reflect on it very seriously.

This financial year alone, more than 8 million UK households on eligible means- tested benefits, 8 million pensioner households and 6 million people on eligible disability benefits received cost of living payments. That came on top of the significant universal support made available by the Government, as all households were eligible for the energy price guarantee, the £400 energy bills support scheme, the £150 council tax rebate, and fuel and alcohol duty cuts. Energy support alone has paid for almost half of the typical family’s energy bill from October 2022 to June 2023. Almost half—that is considerable support. It is in part thanks to those measures, and strong labour markets delivering robust wage growth, that growth and real incomes have been stronger than expected in the year before.

I know that the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, the shadow Minister, talked about growth and wages, and I want to address him precisely on this point. Aggregate real incomes have outperformed expectations, both from the OBR and independent forecasters, and are now 1.4% above pre-pandemic levels. In per capita terms, between 2010 and 2022, real incomes—so after inflation—have increased more in the UK than in certain major European economies, our competitors, such as both France and Italy.

Wages now are rising at a level ahead of inflation, contrary to what the hon. Member for Glasgow South said. Although we have been through a very tough time, and I do not minimise the difficulties that have occurred—indeed, I will talk about more of those throughout the rest of my speech—we are now at a point where the economy is turning a corner and wages are now growing at a rate faster than that of inflation.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I do not know where the Minister gets his figures from, but he should look at the research that came out last week from the Centre for Cities. If we take my home city of Glasgow, if wages had gone up at the rate they went up between 1998 and 2010, the average wage in Glasgow would be £23,500 higher than it is today. Why is that so? Why has it not gone up?

[Bim Afolami]

I thank the hon. Member for that point. I have not seen the report, but, to take what he has said as read, the reason why, since the financial crisis in 2008-09, economic growth—trend growth—in all the western world, particularly in Europe, is down on where it was before the financial crisis, is due to the financial crisis. Indeed, it was this Government who had to spend years from 2010 clearing up the mess left by the Labour party when they were in office. That is the core explanation for the difference that the hon. Member describes.

Thanks to the efforts of the Bank of England, supported by the Chancellor, inflation is less than half of its peak, falling to 3.9% in November 2023—the lowest rate in more than two years.

But I do not deny that the outlook remains challenging. Nor do the Government. That is why we announced further action in the autumn statement in November to support the most vulnerable. In April, we will raise local housing allowance rates to the 30th percentile of local market rents. That will make 1.6 million low-income households better off, with an average gain of £800 in the 2024-25 financial year.

We will also uprate all working-age benefits in full for 2024-25 by the September 2023 consumer prices index figure of 6.7%. Now, why am I being so precise about that? Because that is three percentage points higher than forecast earnings for ’24-25. This will help to support the most vulnerable while inflation continues to fall; 5.5 million households on universal credit will gain an average of £470—almost £500—in the ’24-25 financial year.

We are maintaining the triple lock, too, to support our pensioners, whose hard work helped to build this country. They are on fixed incomes and need to be looked after. The basic state pension, new state pension and pension credit standard minimum guarantee—we need to find a better description of that because it is very wordy—will be uprated in April 2024 in line with wage growth of 8.5% in the usual reference period. Let me give a sense of what that means in cash terms: in the coming financial year of ’24-25, the full yearly amount of the basic state pension will be £3,750 higher than in 2010. To put it more simply, that is about £1,000 more than if it had been uprated in line with prices alone. For individuals needing further support, local authorities in England continue to provide it through the household support fund, which is backed by £1 billion of funding. That means that, from 2022 until 2025, total support to help households with the cost of living will be over £100 billion, which is roughly an average of £3,700 per household.

What is the principle here, because I know that I have just given the House a blizzard of figures? The principle is that this Government believe that the people of this country deserve to keep more of their hard-earned money and that, where we can, we should reduce their burdens, as long as it is fiscally responsible to do so and as long as we are supporting public services as we need to. This is not ideological; it is because it will reduce the cost of living and help to grow our economy. That is why, from the end of January 2024—it is 1 February—millions of employees across the country will see their main national insurance contribution rate cut from 12% to 10%. That means that the average worker on £35,400 will receive an annual tax cut of over £450 a year, and we are also cutting national insurance rates for the self-employed. This tax cut is worth over £9 billion a year, which is the largest ever national insurance cut to employees and the self-employed. I repeat: this helps with the cost of living and helps to grow the economy.

We are also delivering on our commitment to end low hourly pay. Although they may not have agreed with everything I have said, I am sure that Members across the House will support that. From 1 April, the national living wage will increase by almost 10% to £11.44, with the age threshold also lowered from 23 to 21 years old. That represents an increase of over £1,800 to the annual earnings of a full-time worker on the national living wage, and is expected to benefit more than 2.7 million low-paid workers.

These actions must be underpinned by a robust and growing economy. Only a healthy economy can spread jobs and opportunities through the country. Only a healthy economy allows the Government to make the long-term decisions needed to strengthen it. Growth is generated by providing individuals with the freedom to learn, the freedom to innovate and the freedom to succeed. That is why it matters so much to create the right environment for the private sector to thrive. That means prioritising the strengths of the UK and focusing on the biggest opportunities for growth.

How have we done that? We did that in the autumn statement, in which the Government set out plans to drive growth and productivity that the independent OBR has estimated will have increased business investment by £20 billion a year in a decade’s time. The OBR also estimated that the autumn statement would increase real GDP by 0.3%. That is one fiscal event! Key elements of the package include a new £2.5 billion “Back To Work Plan”. In combination with measures from the spring Budget last year, the OBR thinks that will add around 200,000 people to the labour market.

The hon. Member for Glasgow South made an interesting point about immigration and numbers and people and population. What I would say to him is that although one can always have a debate about the right level of migration—to some degree, it depends on the nature of an economy and what gaps need filling in the workforce—I think we can all agree that the primary aim of any Government should be to improve the prosperity of the people in the country by strengthening the economy. However, what we should not do is adopt the ideological position that it is inherently good to have high levels of migration, because we need to make sure that we have the right level for what our economy actually needs. Indeed, that should be the focus of our debate.

Making full expensing permanent represents a tax cut of over £10 billion a year for companies, meaning that they can invest for less—something that more than 200 businesses and trade bodies have called transformational for business investment. That is another example of the Government taking a long-term approach. The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West playfully suggested that there are only weeks left of this Parliament, but we still have almost a year to go. I would not pre-judge the timing of any election, but I do think his suggestion may be a little premature. What I will say is that politicians often get accused of doing things for the short term—indeed, sometimes they do—but nobody can accuse this Chancellor and this Government of acting in that way.

Full expensing, a tax cut for businesses to improve their productivity over the long term, is worth about £10 billion a year. This is one of the most transformational long-term measures that will improve our country’s potential growth rate. That is a very good example of the measures I have been talking about. It underpins a strong, growing, robust economy, which allows us to provide the support for the vulnerable that I described at the start of my speech. Indeed, we have provided over £4.5 billion in funding for the UK’s strategic manufacturing sectors.

It is important to note that we are talking about the entire United Kingdom, not just London and the south-east. That is why we used a combination of local growth policy and national economic policy, taking into account the inequalities that exist at all levels of decision making—I do not deny that—to underpin our approach to tackling them. According to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the UK Government provided a package of cost of living measures worth £7 billion in Scotland, more than £3.5 billion in Wales and more than £2 billion in Northern Ireland to help households and businesses weather the impact of soaring energy prices between 2022 and 2024.

I am reminded of the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dover that a single Government Department should be responsible for housing and household costs. I do not think that we will do another reorganisation of government, but Ministers and my officials in the Treasury work very closely with DLUHC. I am happy to hear any ideas from her about how we can do that more effectively, but it is important that we do not spend too much time working out how to reorganise Departments, and that we focus on the issues at hand.

[Mrs Elphicke]

I am grateful to the Minister for addressing that issue directly, but does he acknowledge that the timeframes for the investment and spending settlements are not within the control of the Treasury, but within the control of the regulatory frameworks that are in place? The ability for either DLUHC or, indeed, the Treasury to bring them all together in a meaningful way is currently limited. It was in that spirit that I hoped he would reflect on the impact of all these things on households, and on how they build up for the individual household purse.

[Bim Afolami]

I thank my hon. Friend for that remark. I am very happy to think about and consider more deeply how we make sure that—whether it is a regulatory impact, is at national policy level or is legislation made in this House—we focus on achieving the right outcomes for the right people at the right time. I can give her that commitment today.

All households in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England were provided with support, but the poorest households gained the most. The average level of support was most generous in the devolved nations, compared with the UK average. Alongside that, we have announced a comprehensive levelling-up strategy that not only addresses the immediate challenges but lays the groundwork for sustained prosperity. As part of that, we are continuing to support local growth through funds such as the £2.6 billion UK shared prosperity fund and the £3.2 billion towns fund. The shared prosperity fund empowers local leaders who know their areas best to take the action that best meets the needs of their local labour markets. In addition, the refocused investment zones programme will catalyse high-potential knowledge-intensive growth clusters across the UK in our key future sectors, bringing investment into areas that have traditionally underperformed economically.

The three watchwords of the hon. Member for Glasgow South were prosperity, fairness and resilience. He expressed uncharacteristic pessimism about the idea that they would be addressed by this Government or in the coming weeks and months of this Parliament, but I want to make the case for why we are doing that. On prosperity, I mentioned full expensing, tax cuts in national insurance and various other measures that support all regions of the UK. They are designed to build long-term prosperity in our economy. They deal with our economic weaknesses and build on our strengths.

On fairness, I think I have comprehensively set out today the support that is being given to the most vulnerable —indeed, to a majority of households. That is done in order to be fair.

I should not stray out of scope and go into other policy areas, but the fundamentals for resilience are having a robust, sustainable economic growth strategy that, over time, increases the growth rate of our economy. Upon that foundation everything else is based.

In conclusion, these measures are a clear demonstration of the Government’s unwavering commitment to promote living standards and support households up and down the country. We firmly believe that the key to a prosperous future lies in creating opportunities for everybody. The boost to the national living wage and the historic reduction in national insurance are powerful tools in driving employment and improving living standards. By putting more money into the pockets of hard-working people, we are not just bolstering their financial wellbeing but fuelling economic growth.

As always, we need to balance support for households with fiscal sustainability. As I have said, the economic position remains challenging. Inflation has more than halved, but it remains too high: it is not at our 2% target. We are not complacent about that, which is why the Government remain steadfast in our support for the Bank of England as it acts to reduce inflation.

Our long-term objectives are crystal clear—increasing prosperity, improving the long-term growth rate of our country, improving our resilience, levelling up every corner of this country and fostering sustained economic growth. It is through these robust economic policies that we lift communities, create opportunities and enhance the quality of life of all our citizens.

Our commitment to growth is not about numbers in a spreadsheet. It is not for the short term; it is for the long-term, tangible improvements in living standards that result from a thriving economy. We continue to keep all options under review as we take tough decisions to drive down debt and inflation and increase our prosperity. These complex issues affect all our constituents, wherever we call home. I thank all Members for their constructive contributions.

14:44

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I will be brief—that is normally followed by a long speech. I am grateful to the hon. Members who came here today, to the hon. Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) for her co-sponsorship, and to my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), who granted the debate as a member of the Backbench Business Committee.

It has been a useful debate. I recall the Minister’s maiden speech, which I was in the Chamber for; I knew that he would be a star of his parliamentary group. The speech he just gave was so good that I think he even believed some of that glowing assessment of the Government’s record on these affairs. Although we have some disagreements about the rather glowing assessment that he adumbrated so eloquently, some of what he had to say was agreeable. I know that the whole issue of intergenerational fairness is close to his heart, for example. I read some of the publications that he puts out, and we are starting to see the new shoots of a consensus that this subject requires urgent and less partisan attention. In the debate, we can see the confluence of domestic and foreign policy come alive on the issue of living standards, which touch every single part of our constituencies.

I am grateful to my friend—and he is a friend—the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Michael Shanks). It is good to see him in his place, and I look forward to us winning back his seat at the upcoming general election. Finally, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran, who always gives a stout defence of the record of the Scottish Government in Edinburgh.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered living standards.

14:46

Sitting suspended.

Coastal and Rural Communities: Employment

Thursday 1st February 2024 Westminster Hall

15:00

[Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the employment of people living in rural and coastal communities.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing me a debate on this important subject, the employment of people living in rural and coastal communities. I am grateful to the Minister for being present to respond on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions. Before the debate, there was some discussion about which Department should respond, because there is a strong argument that this is not just—perhaps not even—a DWP matter. Arguably, it is for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, because the problems with employment in rural and coastal areas are entrenched in long-term social and economic patterns. It could be a matter for the Department for Transport, because one of the greatest barriers to employment in rural and coastal areas is physical connectivity—roads, rail and public transport. Or we could have put to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology our questions about the barriers to employment caused by poor digital connectivity in rural and coastal communities. How about the Department for Business and Trade? There are issues to tackle in nurturing supply chains and implementing enterprise zones to enable businesses to thrive.

In places such as my constituency of Ynys Môn, I would add the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to the list and ask when that Department will act on bringing new nuclear to Wylfa, because that would be a game changer for our local employment market. Similarly, I could ask the Wales Office to liaise with colleagues in Cardiff about the impact that decisions made by the Welsh Labour Government are having on employment in my constituency—decisions such as the 20 mph blanket speed limit, which has shredded our public transport timetables; cancelling road building and leaving us with no hope of a much-needed third Menai crossing; and increasing business rates, putting local employers at risk. I am sure that many of my colleagues representing English constituencies would want to include the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care in the list.

In no way do I wish to put my hon. Friend the Minister under any pressure, but in this debate on employment in rural and coastal communities, there is a huge amount to unpick and a clear case for some joined-up Government and intergovernmental action. I will take Ynys Môn as my basis for explaining the unique issues that such communities face—issues that, in the cut and thrust of London, can be very easy to forget. London is just over twice the size of my constituency and has 73 MPs fighting for it; Ynys Môn has just one—me.

Ynys Môn is a coastal, rural and island community as far in the north-west of Wales as one can get, and is joined to the mainland by not one but two bridges. Over the past 20 years, it has lost 2,400 jobs as a direct result of local employers closing. Hundreds of jobs went when Wylfa nuclear power station was decommissioned, 500 when Anglesey Aluminium closed, 100 when the Octel plant shut down, and 700 only last year, when 2 Sisters closed its poultry-processing factory in Llangefni. That is a lot of jobs, a lot of skilled people and a lot of opportunities for our island’s youngsters. We are not alone in facing that problem: between 2009 and 2018, 50% of coastal towns had a decline in employment, compared with 37% of non-coastal towns.

The large-scale employers have not been replaced. The island’s largest employer is now Isle of Anglesey County Council. Our largest employment sector is tourism and hospitality, with more than 33% of local people employed in retail, accommodation and food-related businesses, compared with a 22% average across the UK. It is a sector renowned for offering seasonal, insecure and often low-paid jobs. It was also the first sector to be hit by covid and the last to recover.

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Is it not the case, however, that this problem has two sides? There is lack of employment in some areas, but in other areas there are unfilled vacancies. For example, in my coastal town of Bridlington, we cannot get NHS dentists to fill the vacancies. Does she agree with me that we hope the Government will address this problem when they release their dental plan shortly?

[Virginia Crosbie]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the intervention. We on Anglesey also have a dramatic problem with dentists and getting dental appointments, because of the Welsh Labour Government’s approach to dentistry.

Only 9.5% of people on Anglesey work in traditionally higher paid sectors, such as IT, finance, technical, professional and administration, compared with 25.8% across the UK. When I announced this debate, one of my constituents, Kevin McDonnell, contacted me to say that in his household of three working people, the one working closest to home is working in Portsmouth. When people have to commute 330 miles just to get a decent job, we know there is a problem. That may go some way to explaining why the average salary on Anglesey is £27,000, a good £5,000 less than the UK average.

When we relate lower salaries to the additional costs of living in rural and coastal communities, the inequalities become even more stark. Research shows that people in rural communities spend 10% to 20% more than their urban counterparts on everyday items such as fuel. That is hardly surprising, when we consider the context. For someone who lives in Llanrhyddlad, a quick pop to the shops takes 40 minutes driving time, costing £6 in fuel. Some 5,000 households on Anglesey are considered to be in fuel poverty; that is 17% of all households, compared with 12% in England. An estimated 52% of our properties are off the gas grid, compared with a UK average of 15%. We are reliant on alternative fuels such as liquefied petroleum gas, which costs around twice as much as gas.

Interestingly, an internet search on the cost of living in coastal communities does not return that information but instead gives details of how affordable it is to buy property by the sea. Herein lies another problem for our native young people. Ynys Môn has one of the highest rates of holiday home users in England and Wales, with 63.3 users per 1,000 usual residents. Some 2,236 properties on Ynys Môn—an island with a population of just under 70,000—are registered as second homes. That activity pushes house prices up. The average home on Anglesey costs £250,000. With average salaries at £27,000, local homes are clearly becoming more unaffordable for local people.

There is another long-term consideration in relation to holiday homes. There is a correlation between second-home ownership and retirement, and 19.1% of the island’s population is retired, compared with 12.7% across the UK. Therein lies another challenge: in Wales, there are 64 dependent persons for every 100 people of working age; on Anglesey, there are 77. When we also take into account the fact that 6% of our 16 to 64-year-olds are economically inactive due to long-term sickness, compared with 4.5% in inland constituencies, the inequalities start to stack up. A glance at the population data for Ynys Môn shows that we have a pretty average percentage of births and under-18s, but drop significantly below average between the ages of 18 and 50, then rise steeply to above average over the age of 50.

The data is clear. People of working age on Anglesey leave the island to find decent employment and affordable homes. That decimates our communities and leaves behind people earning poor salaries who need to support an above-average elderly and economically inactive population. It is no wonder that Anglesey Council struggles to make its books balance.

I have worked hard along with Anglesey Council and Stena Line to get freeport status for Anglesey and I continue to work hard to establish new nuclear operations at Wylfa. It is a challenge, though. I have personally taken dozens of companies around Anglesey to look at Wylfa and our freeport sites like Prosperity Park in Holyhead. They ask me questions such as, “What is the local workforce like?”, to which the honest answer is that we haemorrhage our local workforce every year because there is no work here for them. “What is the local transport infrastructure like?” Well, it is fine, unless someone wants to cross the Britannia bridge in the summer holidays, when the queues back up for miles, or at rush hour, when people leave the island to go to work, or when the bridge is closed due to high winds. As for, “What is the internet connectivity like?” let us just not go there.

Businesses face real practical challenges, such as how to make their products affordable and competitive when Ynys Môn is so far removed from supply chains and large consumer markets. I stress to them how great the opportunities are in Ynys Môn but also talk to them about how important our unique heritage and culture is to us. I explain how supportive and enthusiastic our local population is, but also how concerned they are that they will be overlooked for new jobs and so pushed further and further away from their communities. I explain that Welsh is the first language of many local people and that these people are fearful that it will be side-lined if new businesses come here.

I explain the challenges around aspiration, skills and education for our young people, as well as our local workforce, and I ask businesses to sign up to my “Local jobs for local people” campaign, which means that they commit to ensuring that, where possible, jobs will be prioritised for local people, they will respect and use the Welsh language, and they will work with schools and training providers, such as Grŵp Llandrillo Menai, WOW Training and Môn CF, to give local people the skills they will need to take available jobs. This is just one approach to ensure that potential new employers understand and work to address the issues we face.

I know that my hon. Friends in other rural and coastal communities will have similar challenges and stories. This problem needs a systemic, whole-Government and inter-Government approach. How do we attract high-quality employers to an area where the workforce has left and the infrastructure frankly is not up to scratch? How do we teach young people the science, technology, engineering and maths skills they will need if those employers come, when all that they see ahead of them currently is working in the summer season cleaning rooms? How do we convince a community that bringing in new employers will not mean that local people get further pushed out by “outsiders”?

In short, how can this Government give Ynys Môn and other rural, coastal and island communities the special support that they desperately need to facilitate new, sustainable and high-quality local employment? Will the Minister will work with me to ensure that employers who want to move to Ynys Môn receive every possible form of support to do so? Diolch yn fawr.

15:11

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

It is a pleasure, Dr Huq, to serve with you in the Chair.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) on securing this debate and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it.

Also, it is great to see the Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard)—here in Westminster Hall today, as well as the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft), who represents the Opposition, and the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Steven Bonnar), who represents the Scottish National party. I have to confess that I was not really expecting to see them, which probably indicates the problem that we have, in that there is some uncertainty as to where the issue we are discussing—employment in rural and coastal areas—best fits. Actually, it is an issue for the whole of Government, and one of the points that I will hopefully make today is the systemic approach that we need, because there is always a danger that if we leave this issue to one Department, even though it relates to a whole host of Departments, nothing actually happens.

I believe there is enormous potential for job creation in rural and coastal communities. There are the obstacles that my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn outlined, but there are also tremendously exciting opportunities, and if we do not adopt that overall approach that I mentioned, we are in danger of not taking them.

The focus of my contribution today will be on the coast in my area, centred on Lowestoft, which is the principal town in the Waveney constituency, and the village of Corton in the north and the villages of Pakefield and Kessingland to the south.

In its October 2020 analysis of coastal communities, the Office for National Statistics split towns on the coast into two categories: first, seaside towns, with a tourist beach and visitor attractions; and, secondly, coastal towns, focused on ports and related industrial activities. I was about to say that the Lowestoft area is unique, in that we fall into both of those categories, but so does Ynys Môn, as my hon. Friend so greatly articulated.

In Lowestoft, we have a port founded on fishing and with a current focus on low-carbon energy, and a magnificent sandy beach. Lowestoft is also the gateway to the Norfolk and Suffolk broads, and to two of the most popular visitor attractions in the east of England: Pleasurewood Hills; and Africa Alive.

Like most coastal communities, we have challenges to overcome, but as I have already said there are also some great opportunities, which, with the right policies and the right seedcorn investment, we can unlock, primarily for the benefit of local people but also for the benefit of the whole of the UK.

I specifically highlight the opportunities presented by the UK’s transition to low-carbon and renewable energy sources, which puts Lowestoft and the whole of the East Anglian coast in the vanguard of the UK’s energy supply system. In 2022, East Anglia’s renewable and low-carbon energy portfolio powered the equivalent of 32% of UK homes. It is estimated that by 2035, that figure could rise to 90%. That dramatic transformation presents both the Suffolk coast and Lowestoft with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to drive inward investment, to create exciting and enduring careers, and to play a major role in delivering the UK’s net zero goals.

These are great opportunities not just in Lowestoft but all around coastal Britain, but, as I have mentioned, there are significant obstacles to overcome. Coastal towns are more likely to have high levels of deprivation, and I am afraid that is the case in Lowestoft. Many of the jobs are seasonal, leading to fluctuations in employment opportunities throughout the year. Limited infrastructure and poor connectivity hinders job creation; coastal communities are invariably at the end of the line. Climate change, floods and coastal erosion can have a devastating impact on communities and businesses, particularly in the tourism sector. That has been experienced in recent weeks all along the Suffolk and Norfolk coast, and I shall return to that subject in a few minutes.

The seedcorn investment made by Government in the Lowestoft area over the past decade or so makes an impressive list, and it will help sustain and create new jobs. The Gull Wing bridge over Lake Lothing in the middle of the town is nearing completion. The Beccles loop on the East Suffolk railway line has facilitated the reintroduction of an hourly service from Lowestoft to Ipswich. The Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science—the Government marine scientist agency—has new offices and a refurbished laboratory in the town. There is the energy skills centre at East Coast College. There are two heritage action zones, one focused on the High Street and the other on London Road South. In Lowestoft itself, CityFibre has installed a full-fibre broadband network. The Jubilee Parade seafront is to be redeveloped, and work is starting on the various projects in the £25 million towns deal, which will help regenerate the town centre and its surrounding area.

Private sector investment and job creation is following the seedcorn funding, with projects such as the ScottishPower Renewables operations and maintenance base in the Hamilton dock, and the Associated British Ports Lowestoft eastern energy facility. That investment is welcome, and will bring enduring and positive benefits. However, I will make a general observation on the enormous opportunity to create jobs in coastal Britain. Although there are a number of funds to support regeneration—and they are well listed—I sense that there has been a lack of strategic overview. More specifically, we have not realised the full benefit of two initiatives.

First, one of the enterprise zones set up in 2012 was the Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft enterprise zone. It has been incredibly successful in that it has created more than 2,000 skilled jobs and secured over £245,000 million-worth of inward investment. However, in Lowestoft, it is in need of some relatively minor adjustments to remove land that is not coming forward for development and replace it with land around the port that is ready for redevelopment. Unfortunately, the Government have been reluctant to sanction that change, which may well be because their focus is now on freeports and investment zones. I am due to have a meeting in the next few weeks with the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Jacob Young), who I think is the Minister with responsibility for enterprise zones, but I urge the Minister here today to reinforce that message and take it back to him.

Secondly, I go back to the coastal communities fund, which ran from 2012 to 2019. It was a great idea, but it was not set up on the right basis and has been discarded too soon. My criticism is that it provided relatively small grants scattered around the UK coast, whereas it should have focused on a smaller number of strategic regeneration projects. It was also wrong to close down the fund in 2019 and subsume it into other funds. A significant part of the income from the fund derives from the Crown Estate’s marine activities, which—in particular, the development of offshore wind farms—are providing opportunities for many coastal communities. The funds generated should be used to help the people in those areas, many of which face deprivation challenges, to realise the most of these opportunities, such as investment in skills and infrastructure.

Turning to skills, investment in education and training is vital if we are to make the most of the job opportunities that are emerging in coastal Britain. In the Waveney area, school performance has generally improved over the last decade. East Coast College is playing a vital role in enabling young and older people to acquire the skills needed in new emerging industries, and the University of East Anglia and the University of Suffolk are fully focused on the needs of local communities and the opportunities and challenges that the region faces. Challenges remain in raising overall attainment, improving special educational needs provision, and recruiting and retaining staff and teachers to work in what can be regarded as a periphery location—we come back to the problem of coastal communities being at the end of the line. An institute of technology would have provided a focus for meeting this skills challenge. It was disappointing that the local bid was not successful, and it is hoped that that omission can be corrected in the relatively near future.

In recent weeks, the threat of coastal erosion along the whole of the Suffolk and the Norfolk coast has come to the fore. It is starkly illustrated in the Lowestoft area, where the construction of the tidal barrage in the outer harbour is now on hold. The innovative Kessingland and Benacre flood defences scheme also has a funding gap, and the rapid erosion of the cliffs at Pakefield threatens not only nearby homes but Park Holidays UK’s adjoining holiday park. Proper coastal defences are vital to provide the private sector with the confidence to invest in new facilities, whether in the tourism, energy, fishing or maritime sectors.

It is not just a question of money; we need to speed up and simplify the process for assessing and approving coastal erosion and flood defence schemes. The floods budget for the six-year period from 2021 to 2027 has been doubled over the previous period to £5.2 billion. We are nearly halfway through this period; the money needs to be out of the door, and work needs to start on projects including the three I have mentioned. That will in turn leverage in the private, job-creating investment that we need.

As I mentioned, a lot of good work is taking place, but I sense that there is a need in Government for a change of mindset to view coastal areas as a great opportunity that, with the right policies and seedcorn investment, can create many well-paid and exciting jobs. Some good initiatives are being pursued, but to maximise their benefit there is a need for a strategic overview of the coast right from the heart of Government. Finally, we need proper investment in coastal defences.

15:25

[Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dr Huq. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) for securing this important debate, because it gives me the opportunity to address an incredibly concerning issue for the people of Scotland.

A depopulation crisis is gripping our valued rural and coastal communities. Scotland’s agricultural industry is the linchpin of the rural communities in Scotland and the economy. Those communities are hard-working. They are full of hard-working individuals who show great resilience to sustain their families and the dinner tables of many more families across these four nations. Scotland’s agricultural sector employs more than 67,000 people, making it the key employer in rural Scotland. Scottish farmers and crofters support thousands of supply chain businesses, estimated at more than 130,000 jobs, and generate a gross output of £3.3 billion annually for the Exchequer in the UK. Despite that resilience and input, our rural and coastal communities face challenges that threaten their very existence. From the decline in traditional industries to the encroachment of large corporations, the forces arrayed against them at times seem formidable. However, we need to be clear: the people of those communities are not defeated, nor will they ever be defeated. They possess a real spirit of resilience, and it is our duty to support and empower them in every way that we possibly can.

Depopulation is not merely a statistical anomaly: it is a profound threat to our economic prosperity, our cultural heritage and the social fabric of such communities. The numbers are stark. Although Scotland has seen modest population growth, the highlands and the Western Isles face alarming declines. Between 2011 and 2022, the population growth in the highlands was a mere 1.4%—less than half the national average. Projections paint a grim picture for the Western Isles as well, where a decline of 6% is anticipated by 2028. Behind those figures lies the harsh reality of an ageing population, with the number of over-75s in the highlands at 60% over that same 10-year period.

That demographic shift is compounded by economic challenges, particularly in sectors vital to rural and coastal livelihoods. We must make no mistake: the aftermath of Brexit has rocked industries such as agriculture, fisheries and food and drink production. It is exacerbating labour shortages and disrupting supply chains. That is the reality of Brexit being faced by people in rural communities across Scotland. Reports from the East of Scotland Growers, for instance, highlight losses of 3.5 million heads of broccoli and 1.5 million heads of cauliflower; due to labour shortages, they were left to rot in the ground. In the seafood processing sector, which relies heavily on migrant labour, up to 92% of the workforce in certain facilities across Scotland comes from eastern Europe. Those are not just figures: that is the harsh reality caused by broken Brexit Britain.

Wherever we can, the Scottish Government have been resolute in their efforts to address those undoubted challenges. The Scottish rural visa pilot scheme that we championed recognises the urgent need for immigration policies that support the economic and social viability of rural and remote communities. The solution to depopulation probably extends way beyond the insular immigration policies of this place. Investment in rural infrastructure and connectivity is vital to attract businesses, create job opportunities and retain the talent that coastal towns require. Although broadband remains reserved to this place, the Scottish Government, led by the SNP, have taken proactive steps to bridge the digital divide through initiatives such as R100 and the Digital Scotland superfast broadband programme. Those efforts, coupled with the commitment to future-proof digital infrastructure, are crucial to drive inclusive economic growth and ensure that no community is left behind.

Supporting sectors such as agriculture, renewable energy and hospitality and tourism not only fosters economic growth but preserves our cultural heritage and our way of life in those community settings. The Scottish food and drink industry contributes more than £15 billion to the economy annually, and it relies heavily on rural and island communities for its workforce. It demands urgent action and bold leadership, but we do not see them coming from this place. That is why the SNP has already shown that it can be done, using the limited powers at our disposal, but the sector’s future ultimately lies with the UK Government unless we remove the shackles and ensure that the decisions are made by those who are most impacted by them—the people of Scotland—and that we can manage our affairs in full.

15:31

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) on securing this debate. For fear of pronouncing her constituency wrongly, after she spoke to me earlier about it, I will perhaps not try to do so again.

I was interested to hear the hon. Lady outline her concerns about employment in her area and in similar rural and coastal constituencies. She has campaigned for a long time to bring more jobs and investment to the area. She made really good points about the need for more cross-departmental working, which I feel very passionate about. The hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) rightly outlined where this debate should lie and pointed out the challenges that arise when this issue is not prioritised.

This debate has made it clear that people living in rural and coastal communities face a unique set of challenges. Economic inactivity, which Members are keen to tackle, is highest in those areas. This debate has primarily focused on employment, but that is only one part of the picture. Almost 14 years of Tory austerity, coupled with the pandemic and the cost of living crisis, have left many of these communities broken. Coastal communities face higher levels of deprivation, inward migration of older people and outward migration of young people, as highlighted by the hon. Member for Ynys Môn—see, I went for a second go. They also have higher levels of physical isolation and poor quality housing, and they often have a seasonal economy.

As shadow Minister for disabled people, I find it particularly noteworthy that economic inactivity due to long-term sickness is highest in coastal communities. The shadow Work and Pensions team is keen to investigate that further and work with colleagues in the Health team to tackle it.

Rural communities face issues including poor transport links, a lack of digital infrastructure and challenges around social activities and related isolation. I am sure that I need not remind anyone who represents a rural constituency that the delay to the Government’s plan to roll out gigabit-speed broadband to every home in Britain by 2025 felt like a kick in the teeth to those struggling with their current speeds. People who live in areas that are both rural and coastal are hit by a double whammy of inequality.

Earlier this month, the Government published a statement on their levelling-up missions, which outlined their

“objectives to reduce geographical disparities”.

It is perhaps surprising, then, that none of those 12 missions is targeted specifically at rural or coastal areas. The levelling-up White Paper at least acknowledges the specific problems faced by rural and coastal areas. However, there has so far been little evidence of any meaningful action to reverse the growing disconnect between urban areas and their rural and coastal counterparts.

A future Labour Government will breathe life back into our rural and coastal communities and break down the barriers to opportunity that they face. We will address the challenges, disconnection and disparities that we have heard about today through improved cross-Government working. To thrive, communities need good jobs and affordable homes. More than a quarter of a million people in rural England are on a housing waiting list, yet the Government are on course to miss their targets on new rural affordable homes. Labour will work with local councils to ensure that their voice has traction in delivering what is needed for rural and coastal communities.

I want to finish with some comments from conversations that I had with Keir Cozens, Labour’s candidate in Great Yarmouth, who is leading a campaign to prioritise good-quality, year-round, local jobs in the industries of tomorrow. With it having an unemployment rate of more than 6%, 14 years of an absent MP and Tory Government failure have squandered Great Yarmouth’s potential. With the right investment and a full-time MP in its corner, Great Yarmouth could power Great Britain through the quadrupling of offshore wind, energy bills coming down, thousands of new green industrial jobs and apprenticeships with quality training locally. That is just one of the ways in which Labour will give our coastal communities their future back. With that, I look forward to hearing from the Minister, who I am absolutely certain is an expert on this issue.

15:37

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Paul Maynard)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Dr Huq. Congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) on securing the debate and to the Backbench Business Committee on allowing it to take place. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft), is right: I am an expert on this issue, not least as an MP for Blackpool—how much more seaside can you get than Blackpool?

My hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn and my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) set out in great detail how the issue impacts every single Department. Not a single one was missed off their list, apart from, perhaps, the Attorney General’s Office. I am sure that if they had been that bit more creative, they could have found a way to connect the issue to it.

The word “employment” in the title of today’s debate perhaps explains why I am here, or rather, why the Department that I represent is here today through me. But as a Blackpool MP, I know full well that when we say “employment”, we are really talking about public health matters, transport, and housing above all else. The root of every social evil always seems to come back to housing in some way, shape or form, particularly in seaside towns, which have older, more dense populations. There is a heritage of mass tourism—that has now passed away, sadly—and often, that is about housing as well. As a Department, we are very aware that we have to spread opportunity, unlock the economic potential across every corner of the country and recognise the unique opportunities and challenges, including employment, that our rural and coastal areas experience.

As for Ynys Môn, in particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn set out in great detail all the different opportunities and concerns and the potential that is out there and that her district needs. Yet it is also clear that however picturesque or beautiful an area is, beauty alone does not pay the bills. We can gaze at the beautiful Lake district, the hills, from Blackpool. That does not fill the pockets of my local hotels or hospitality sector, which have gone through a very turbulent time in recent years.

The Department is working to support employment across the country, including our rural and coastal geographies. We want everyone who can work to be able to find a job, progress in work and thrive in the labour market. We know that transport can be a significant barrier to accessing work and training opportunities, and individuals on low incomes are especially affected by that. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney was right; many coastal towns are indeed at the end of the line. I think there was a Conservative report entitled that when we were in opposition and a Labour report entitled that when it was in opposition—it is almost a cliché. But it is not true of Blackpool. We are the end of two lines—one line stops at Blackpool North and one at Blackpool South. But we are still the end of lines, and he is right to make that point.

Our rural and coastal communities also face more limited digital connectivity. Frequently, there is a high dependency on a single local industry for employment, and there are immense challenges around seasonal work. Rural and coastal populations are also disproportionately older, with implications for health and social care needs, and there are difficulties recruiting health professionals. It is always abundantly clear to me, when I speak to any public sector employers in my town, that they have a recruitment problem merely because of geography, because half of their hinterland is the sea and no one lives in the sea, to state the obvious. They immediately have a much harder task recruiting people.

Our rural and coastal areas are also rich in economic potential, home to strong communities and businesses, natural environment and heritage. Although productivity and earnings are, on average, lower in rural and coastal areas, rural areas also have a higher employment rate than urban areas. Employment rates in rural and coastal areas have increased since 2010.

The Department for Work and Pensions offers a national programme of welfare and employment support, with a strong place-based presence through our Jobcentre Plus network in 37 districts across Britain. The core jobcentre offer includes face-to-face meetings with work coaches and tailored support for different groups, including claimants aged 16 to 24, 50-plus claimants, disabled people and people with health conditions, and those in work and on low pay.

The Government are committed to supporting individuals who are in low-paid work to progress, increase their earnings and move into better-paid, quality jobs. For working universal credit claimants, we have introduced the in-work progression offer to give claimants additional Access to Work coaches focused on removing barriers to progression and considering skills gaps and training opportunities. However, we want to go further to see even more people fulfil their potential. We have made significant investments in the past year with an ambitious package of employment support, with more help for those over 50 and for disabled people and those with long-term ill health needs, including in rural and coastal areas.

Through jobcentres, we offer additional work coach time for eligible 50-plus jobseekers on universal credit to provide more intensive, tailored support during the first nine months of their claim. We have dedicated 50PLUS champions working out of every jobcentre across Great Britain. Those champions support and upskill work coaches and engage with employer-facing staff to tailor provision and recruitment, and to develop opportunities for those aged 50-plus to take up roles in key local sectors such as care and housing.

The Government have an ambitious programme of initiatives to support disabled people and people with health conditions to start, stay and succeed in work. The programme includes increased work coach support and disability employment advisers in jobcentres; the Work and Health programme and intensive personalised employment support; Access to Work grants; Disability Confident; the information and advice service; employment advice in NHS talking therapies—the list is endless.

We announced even more support targeted at that group at both the spring Budget and the autumn statement last year. That includes: expanding the existing additional work coach support programme; introducing universal support, a new supported employment programme for disabled people and people with long-term health conditions in England and Wales, matching participants with open-market jobs and funding support and training; launching WorkWell, which will bring together the NHS, local authorities and other partners in collaboration with jobcentres; expanding access to mental health services, increasing the number of people accessing NHS talking therapies and individual placement and support; and introducing employment advisers to musculoskeletal condition services in England.

Although individuals and businesses across rural and coastal geographies will benefit from all those measures, the DWP also offers a place-based, targeted approach to ensure that support is available and relevant to those who need it, wherever they live. The DWP has local teams that specialise in working in partnership with local authorities, creating links to local communities to understand their needs and tailor their provision to the local labour market.

For example, to mitigate the local transport challenges that we have heard mentioned, the Jobcentre Plus travel discount card is available to DWP customers, giving a 50% discount on the majority of train journeys. Many bus operators also accept the card for discounts.

Our flexible support fund can cover the first three months’ travel costs for claimants starting work to support them in the early stages of employment. The fund can also be used to purchase a pedal or electric bike where there are restricted levels of public transport available and the claimant does not drive. Of course, there is also the access to work grant, which is available to customers with a disability who are starting a job or are in employment. That can pay for help getting to and from work as well.

The Department is also working with colleagues across Government to further minimise transport barriers to labour market participation. Close collaboration between local jobcentres, DFT and local transport authorities ensured that the development of local bus service improvement plans was informed by DWP insights into which key employment opportunities are limited by transport barriers.

Jobcentres also run sector-based work academy programmes, working in partnership with local employers and training providers to offer people valuable training, work experience and a guaranteed interview for genuine vacancies. This place-based approach enables jobcentres to connect local people and businesses, providing a pipeline of skilled labour that is relevant to the needs of local sectors. We work closely with businesses across an array of different sectors, including traditional rural and coastal industries such as farming and tourism. For example, DWP is supporting DEFRA to develop and deliver a long-term recruitment strategy for the agricultural sector that will help domestic workers into both seasonal and long-term roles.

More widely, the Government have supported coastal communities to level up through dedicated funding under the coastal communities fund and the coastal revival fund, and additional funding under the welcome back fund. The levelling-up fund has provided around £1 billion to projects in coastal areas, and over £400 million has come through the UK shared prosperity fund to local authorities within or serving coastal areas of England. However, it is not just about the funds. Perhaps unsur-prisingly, 11 out of our 12 freeports are in coastal areas, but seven out of the 20 current levelling-up partnerships are also in coastal areas, demonstrating our deep commitment to unlocking the economic potential of coastal communities.

The Government are committed to levelling up employment across all parts of the country, including our vital rural and coastal areas. We want everyone to access opportunities to better their lives, wherever they live. We will continue to deliver extensive employment support that we know works in supporting people to enter and progress in the labour market, including tailored help from jobcentres to meet the needs of individuals and businesses in each area.

I look forward to working with all colleagues across the House—as does the Minister for Employment, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill)—to continue to support people across our communities so that they can prosper. I want to thank again my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn for securing this debate, and I thank all those who have participated.

15:45

[Virginia Crosbie]

I thank all Members who spoke in this important debate on the employment of people living in rural and coastal communities. We had representation from all parts of the UK, and I particularly thank the Minister, who certainly rose to the challenge.

The debate highlighted how much rural and coastal communities have to offer, as well as the challenges they face. I am particularly pleased that the Minister highlighted how important it is that we have intergovernmental co-ordination so that my constituents, like Kevin McDonnell, do not have to travel hundreds and hundreds of miles for good-quality employment. That is important for my Ynys Môn community, for our Welsh Heritage and for our Welsh language. Diolch yn fawr.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the employment of people living in rural and coastal communities.

15:48

Sitting adjourned.