Coastal Communities
Debate between Alex Cunningham and Lia Nici(2 years, 2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Lia Nici)
It is an absolute honour to be here and speak in this debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) for raising the important issue of coastal communities and their future. This Government’s central mission is to level up the UK by spreading opportunity more equally across the country, bringing left-behind communities up to the level of more prosperous areas. I am delighted to have the opportunity to set out our ambitious plans to realise the potential of every place and every person across the UK.
We have already made progress towards levelling up coastal communities through initiatives such as rolling out gigabit broadband, introducing a fairer school funding formula, opening freeports, increasing the national living wage, recruiting more police officers, and further local devolution with more powers being passed to local people, away from Westminster.
My Department’s coastal communities fund, which ran from 2012 to 2019, made great strides towards levelling up coastal communities, with investment of £229 million into 369 projects in coastal areas through England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Alex Cunningham
The coastal development fund was important for coastal communities around the country. The Minister’s predecessor said that fishermen in Redcar could access the fund for infrastructure—perhaps a new fishing boat or equipment to improve their fishing. However, there are no fish left in the sea for them to catch. Does the Minister agree that we need further investigation into the ecological disaster we have on our hands on Teesside?
Lia Nici
With respect, I am not sure I agree with that statement. Coming from the coastal community of Great Grimsby, where our fishing industry is taking advantage of the increasing Brexit opportunities for quotas, I accept that we need to ensure that fishing is sustainable to ensure that we have a future industry. However, I am not quite sure I agree with the hon. Gentleman there, but DEFRA is not my portfolio or my specialism.