Making Britain the Best Place to Grow Up and Grow Old

Cherilyn Mackrory Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to speak in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby). Making the UK the best place to grow up and grow old is an ambitious target, but we are definitely closer to it following this year’s Queen Speech. In my opinion and that of a lot of the people who live in Cornwall, it already is, but there is still a huge amount to do. A lot of work is going on in Cornwall. We have secured a new secondary school near Perranporth on the north coast and we are expecting a new women and children’s hospital to arrive at the Treliske site.

I would like to focus today on the brilliant work of some of my Truro and Falmouth constituents. Last month, I was delighted to welcome my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) to the Falmouth family hub to show some of the best practice of our excellent early years teams, led by Meredith Teasdale and Councillor Barbara Ellenbroek. Cornwall is one of the 75 local authorities to receive Treasury funding as part of the vital best start for life programme.

We began by visiting team members from WILD, the largest young parents charity in the UK. That organisation works with Cornwall Council to ensure that young parents and their babies have the best possible start to family life. We were lucky enough to see messy play and sensory play with bubbles, paint, water and foam that would make any mother twitch. Thank goodness that the facilities they have to do that are not in my house.

I know that I speak for all parents in this debate when I say that becoming a new parent is incredibly challenging and daunting. Although, for many people, becoming a parent means that their hopes and dreams have come true, it is never easy and a bit of extra support can go an awful long way. However, for younger parents and those with no support network, that extra help is absolutely vital. That is why the work of WILD, which has supported more than 13,000 mums, dads and children over the years, is so important. For example, its healthy start programme helps young parents to transition into becoming a new parent. Its infant mental health project helps to improve mental health and the wellbeing of babies and toddlers, and its first steps project focuses on children with the highest needs, in line with the early years foundation stage framework. These teams’ incredible work, along with Cornwall Council, puts Cornwall on the map for early years work. I urge the Government to consider Cornwall as a trailblazer local authority, where we could secure extra funds to excel and share our best practices with other localities.

Moving on to the later stages of life, I draw the attention of the Secretary of State and the Minister to the HAIRE—Healthy Ageing through Innovation in Rural Europe —project. It does a brilliant job in supporting rural communities with an ever-increasing ageing population facing significant health and care challenges and determining what services really make a difference in ruralities. Working together with me and Feock parish council, the HAIRE team—one of only two in the United Kingdom—has done brilliant work locally to develop an environment in the community that supports and encourages older people to feel engaged and part of their locality. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), if people can live healthily in their own home, they get much better health outcomes.

From speaking to the HAIRE team, it is clear that more needs to be done to promote healthy ageing in rural communities. I will focus briefly on the need for the Government to actively develop varied and effective accommodation, potentially, for elderly residents. It will come as no surprise to everyone in the Chamber to hear that housing is the No.1 issue for my Cornwall constituents. Only 2.5% of the UK’s 29 million dwellings are defined as retirement housing and the stock is heavily skewed towards houses with three or four bedrooms.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans) mentioned, the Government must increase the proportion of the housing stock for people of retirement age and encourage those who are over 65 in properties with surplus bedrooms to downsize—that is, those who wish to. That will allow younger families to upsize, reduce the pressure to build more houses—therefore easing the housing crisis—and improve health and wellbeing for older residents. By the way, not all retired people want to live in retirement villages only with other retired people. Some want to live with families and children and see them play and see everyday life. I am driving at the fact that we need the Bills in this Queen’s Speech to promote what we Conservatives do best: look after our communities. Cornwall absolutely shone the light during covid to show what communities can do, and we need to learn from the good practice here. Making the UK the best place to grow up and grow well is a challenging task, and I know that this Government will rise to it. Supporting the fantastic local initiatives and ensuring that our housing stock works for everyone will play essential parts in achieving that goal, for all our families and for all of our communities.