Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Anna Firth Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

At the heart of this Bill, which I welcome on behalf of Southend West, is reversing geographical disparity and spreading opportunity. Coastal communities such as the new city of Southend are the unrecognised potential powerhouses of the UK economy.

I make no apologies for reminding the Minister that Southend alone welcomes more than 7 million visitors every year and contributes £3 billion to the Exchequer, yet coastal communities face their own unique challenges—housing being one that was powerfully addressed by my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby). I therefore hope the Minister can confirm that coastal communities will be given the very highest priority in the Government’s levelling-up agenda.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I represent an entirely coastal constituency. Does the hon. Lady agree that it is an absolute travesty that, now we have left the EU, we will be given just a quarter of the sum from the levelling-up fund that we would have had from the European structural fund? And does she agree that the UK Government should make good the damage that Brexit is doing? I hope Southend does just as well. Money for Southend and money for Na h-Eileanan an Iar.

[Anna Firth]

No, I do not accept that at all. My understanding is that regions have had just as much money as they would have had. I particularly welcome the £27 million of levelling-up funding that Southend has already received, and the £20 million that has been given to the old port of Leigh to enable our famous cockle industry to provide employment well into the future.

Now Southend is a city, we need to go further and faster. A key part of this Bill is recognising that levelling up means restoring civic pride and spreading opportunity through investment in culture. For Southend that means becoming an international centre for culture and, of course, following Bradford as the UK’s next city of culture.

Levelling up must mean delivering a long overdue shot in the arm for a once ignored community. Southend has an international award-winning music and performance charity for people with learning disabilities. It is the first of its kind in the world, and I am grateful to Ministers for engaging with me on this project.

The Music Man Project was founded by the remarkable David Stanley BEM, and it oversees a global network of special needs music educators from Southend to South Africa. Students develop confidence and a clear sense of identity by giving hundreds of largescale public performances, including at the London Palladium and the Royal Albert Hall. Through the power of music, students with learning disabilities in Southend gain high-quality skills, becoming far better equipped for the workplace. Despite being an international beacon of disability potential, the Music Man Project does not yet have a specialist permanent facility of its own. It needs premises that would enable disabled people to access specialist music education in an equivalent way to someone who is not disabled. It needs premises that would enable us to host concerts to showcase disability talent, record disability music making and enable collaborations between non-disabled and disabled creative artists. There can be no more deserving project for levelling-up funding than to take this once ignored community from isolation to opportunity. I hope that the Minister will confirm in his winding-up speech that projects such as this will be prioritised for levelling-up funding.