Youth Programmes and Girlguiding

Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Caroline Nokes

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

I was not aware of that. My right hon. Friend has been a great friend to Girlguiding in Foxlease in his constituency and a great champion of Girlguiding across the country. What he says is incredibly worrying; there has been very little information at all about the thinking behind these decisions, so his comments about the potential reasons are interesting.

As my right hon. Friend says, one of the centres to be sold is Foxlease in Clay Hill in Hampshire, which is the closest one to my constituency. There is also Waddow Hall in the Ribble Valley, which is very close to the heart of our much-loved Mr Deputy Speaker; Blackland Farm in Mid Sussex; Glenbrook in High Peak, Derbyshire; and Ynysgain in Montgomeryshire on the edge of the Snowdonia national park.

These decisions do not merely affect Girlguiding members, but many others across the country. The closing activity centres do not just serve young girls in Girlguiding; they run courses and activities and provide opportunities for all sorts of groups of young people, including scouts, schools and many others. If the activity centres are sold off, there is no bringing them back—that’s it. They will be gone and will not be providing opportunities for young women and countless other young people. They will simply be turned into another relic of a wonderful past where children could be children.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes a very important argument about the centres being lost forever. When I visited the fifth Romsey girl guides over the summer, the girls there made the point that they had all enjoyed Foxlease in the constituency of my neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), but they were concerned that future generations of brownies, rainbows and guides would not have the same opportunities that they had had, so it is the girls themselves who are concerned about future generations. They feel that they have missed out on an opportunity to be consulted and listened to, and to perhaps change the decision.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

My right hon. Friend puts it perfectly. I could not have put it better myself. The girls are concerned about the future—for their peers and those who come up behind them, who deserve the same opportunities and life chances they have had. We only have to look as far as Scotland to see what is likely to happen here in England.

Back in summer 2020, Girlguiding Scotland sold off its wonderful training centre at Netherurd under the guise of covid, and the site has now already been rubber-stamped into holiday lets. It looks as though we might even now be too late to get Girlguiding to change its mind. It confirmed its plan to go ahead with the sale on 14 August. Local communities have been valiant in their fight to save the activity centres. Foxlease has already been declared an asset of community value by New Forest District Council, in the area where my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East resides, in a move that will hopefully enable the new charity, Foxie’s Future, to take up the mantle and save the site; and the Waddow Hall Trust in the Ribble Valley is following suit with similar plans, as are others.

I wish all these groups the very best in acquiring and maintaining their sites should they be sold off by Girlguiding but, importantly, I want to know from the Minister what the Government are going to do to prevent the sites from falling into the hands of property developers to become more holiday lets? What are the Government going to do to ensure that the important capacity for outdoor activities is maintained across the UK and kept available at a low cost for those who could not otherwise afford them?

We live in a digital world. Going out and playing with friends is becoming a rarity for some children, which is why it is so important that we expand organised outdoor activity and so alarming to see plans to take that away from children. It is not just young people in the UK who are being impacted by Girlguiding’s short-sighted decision. The decision to end Girlguiding Overseas will bring a close to well over 100 years of Girlguiding across the world. Up until this month, British Girlguiding Overseas operated in 36 separate countries and territories. Those operations are all now either shut or shutting. That momentous decision has seemingly been taken without any proper consultation. British Girlguiding Overseas has said in a statement that it still does not understand why Girlguiding took the decision and that, despite many requests for further information, no information has been delivered.

It is important to note that the end of British Girlguiding Overseas will not only shut down opportunities for thousands of girls across the world, but take away the important English-speaking girl-only spaces that have for so long provided a lifeline to so many members. British Girlguiding Overseas consists of two main elements: units that run in the middle east, Africa, Asia, Benelux and France, Europe and lone guiding, and the units in British Overseas Territories. Although Girlguiding continues to support the Crown dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, the many other territories served by the organisations are set to lose all their support. That will be felt particularly acutely by our overseas territories, which have very special links with the UK. They are often taken for granted, yet in many cases those often remote parts of the world, such as Bermuda or the Falkland Islands, see this country as their big sister—someone who looks out for them. At a time when the world feels particularly unstable, and when the UK needs to be looking out, not in, taking away support and casting branches away to fend for themselves is an incredible retrograde step that will undoubtedly lead to branches collapsing and opportunities for young girls simply melting away. It is also a retrograde step for our global soft power. We hear so much about that, and focus so much energy and attention on it, and yet here we are, taking it away.

British Girlguiding Overseas has not simply rolled over and allowed this step to take place without action, and it should be commended for its efforts in trying to secure alternative solutions, but the shock announcement and rapid deadline set by Girlguiding has left it few options.

UK City of Culture: Southampton’s Bid

Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Caroline Nokes

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank my constituency neighbour, and on this occasion hon. Friend, for making that important point and wonder whether he has predicted one of the next chunks of my contribution.

As I have said, we are all celebrating this bid. It is being celebrated by neighbouring authorities and by organisations, business and community groups alike, and an impressive list of ambassadors. It is being supported by the schools, colleges and universities across the region, by the National Oceanography Centre, by our collective museums, art galleries and theatres—which my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) referenced—by the stadiums, parks and sports centres and above all by the people.

Instinctively, when we think of Southampton we think of the Solent and the water, but our bid is not just about boat shows and regattas, brilliant though they are; it is also about the ripple effect of our culture, the tide of Solent water that rises not just once, but twice a day, and carries people with it. There is a tendency to think of people using that tide to leave the city. After all we have a park and a theatre named after the Mayflower, Southampton was where the Titanic set sail on her ill-fated maiden voyage, and it is the cruise capital of the UK, but that tide has, as my constituency neighbour the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) said, also historically brought people to the city. As a result, it has a rich and varied culture, with over 150 languages spoken, with places of worship of every religion we can think of, and an annual peace walk that brings all faiths together. It is a city that celebrates and enjoys difference and diversity while also working hard to bring people together, and of course that is what being the city of culture is all about and can accentuate, widening the reach of that strong maritime history, and enabling the wider region to participate in the legacy this bid seeks to bring.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this mission of addressing need and creating opportunity is important for both Southampton and the wider region and the ripple effect she spoke about? My Gosport constituency has some pockets of real need and deprivation but also a jewel of heritage, particularly naval heritage, which is so important to celebrate. There is so much potential through this bid to benefit the wider area in both levelling up and also celebrating the things we treasure. That is why I agree that this is an important bid for us to win.

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank my hon. Friend for that comment. She is right. We do have a rich maritime history. The trading character of Southampton but also the Royal Navy heritage of Portsmouth and Gosport are key to this.

As I was saying, when it comes to faith, it is not just about the mosques, the gurdwaras, the Christian churches, the Friends meeting house, the synagogue and the Vedic temple; there are also the shrines to the sporting prowess that the region has in abundance. In this bid we celebrate many religions—that of sport, of music, of food. St Mary’s is a fabulous church, where the annual Titanic memorial service is held, but it is also where we worship idols like Ted Bates, Lawrie McMenemy and the current bid ambassador James Ward-Prowse. In 2019, another bid ambassador, Southampton’s own Craig David, played there—a concert, I hasten to add, not on the pitch. And we do music in the city, from youth orchestras to festivals, at concerts on the common, and in places like the Engine Rooms and the Joiners. And we most certainly do food. The bid chairman is Masterchef winner Shelina Permalloo, who runs her Mauritian street kitchen in Bedford place. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor had his first job at Kuti’s famous brasserie, and we have food from literally everywhere. I always say that food brings communities together, and whether it is the big iftar at the Medina mosque or the langar at the gurdwara in Peterborough road, you can point to examples across our city where we come together to celebrate and to eat.

There are other, different types of temple, across the region—those that celebrate sport like the Ageas bowl, which my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Paul Holmes) has already referenced, the home of Hampshire cricket, in neighbouring Eastleigh—and my thanks to that borough for supporting the bid. The village of Hambledon, known as the cradle of cricket, is in the Winchester City Council area, which is also backing this bid. Even in the Solent itself we play cricket. Who would have thought that it was a water sport, but the annual Bramble Bank cricket match happens in the Solent, in late August or early September, dependent upon the tides I have already referred to, literally half way between Southampton and Cowes—which brings me on to some of the more interesting partner relationships, because even Portsmouth is backing this bid. Those who understand the region know there is a challenging rivalry between the two cities, but there is wide recognition that what benefits one will also benefit the other, in terms of visitors, volunteering hours, participation and even levelling up.

Levelling up is not something that is geographically limited to the north. There are challenges in the south as well, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) said. Sometimes Southampton has been described as a northern city in the south, but of course we do have our own character. You only have to look at what city of culture has achieved for Liverpool and for Hull, bringing places together, bringing a focus for activities and an ongoing legacy. That is one of the crucial parts of the city of culture. I would like to pay tribute to the Southampton bid team, who have made legacy their focus, recognising the year of culture would be 2025, but securing ongoing commitments from businesses and organisations which stretch far beyond that. They have looked at the challenges we face, contemplated the difficulties that the pandemic has brought, and recognised that mental health, particularly for men, has been a big issue, and they have developed a programme of events to include everyone, regardless of age, gender, ability, ethnicity and faith. They have celebrated our rivers—the Itchen and the Test, which combine in the Solent. We have a rich maritime history, which you might expect to be an enormous theme.

But this is also a region which has much to celebrate in the sky. The Spitfire was designed and built here, in Woolston, but tested over the hills of King’s Somborne, much further north in my constituency, and it protected us during the second world war. The first ever website was developed by Tim Berners-Lee, a professor at Southampton University, and while one may not be able to see and hear the world wide web in the same way one could the Spitfire, it has come to dominate our lives, as the debate immediately prior to this one ably demonstrated. And this is a bid earthed in our land, with the open parks and the adjacent New Forest, and the South Downs national parks. It is also a bid for the future, celebrating technology and the changes that that brings. So I say to the Minister, and to all those assessing this bid, that we know that we have a great deal to offer, so let us make it so.

UK Musicians: EU Visa Arrangements

Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Caroline Nokes

Tuesday 19th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

Yes, absolutely, I agree with the comments of my predecessor. That is why we put to the EU fantastic proposals, which were based on the views of the music industry, would have been mutually beneficial and allowed musicians and support staff to tour. We are very disappointed that the EU did not see it the same way.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con) [V]]

I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend mention technicians—the sound and lighting engineers who make touring possible. When she is looking for a solution, which I know she is doing, will she also include companies such as Beat the Street in Romsey, which provides the tour buses that make it possible for artists to travel Europe? It will spell a death knell for the entire industry if they are not able to access the continent.

[Caroline Dinenage]

My right hon. Friend is such a great champion for businesses in her local area, particularly those that have been so badly affected, not just by covid, but by the very disappointing EU refusal to accept our very reasonable propositions. She will know that the sector has benefited from a range of different support measures over the last year that were put in place because of covid, but we do need to support it moving forward. The EU’s proposal would not have worked because it would not have supported the valuable support workers in my right hon. Friend’s constituency to do their work. Quite simply, without them, touring would not be possible.