Eden North: Benefits for Lancashire Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities
James Daly
Main Page: James Daly (Conservative - Bury North)Department Debates - View all James Daly's debates with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities
Eden North: Benefits for Lancashire
James Daly Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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James Daly (Bury North) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I have come here today to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) for the work he has put into the project.
As my hon. Friend articulately set out, the project does not just touch Morecambe and even Lancashire. I am a Greater Manchester Member of Parliament. The vast majority of my constituents will probably think of themselves as Lancastrians, but we will say Greater Manchester for the sake of this argument. My constituency is half to three quarters of an hour away from my right hon. Friend’s constituency and every school in my constituency would visit the project. Vast numbers of my constituents would flock to Morecambe to see this incredible regenerative project—I cannot think of a better word—that is going to transform our area. There are a lot of people in the north-west, but we are interlinked. Cumbria, Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside: we are all in this together. One project that offers the benefits that have been outlined by my hon. Friend benefits us all, educationally, regeneratively and jobs-wise. It is important to say that.
Sometimes, when we are having these debates and individual MPs stand up and make the case for investment in their area, it is important, because we want to bring investment as close as possible. My hon. Friend is correct; he does not just want Manchester and Leeds to be the main centres. I am arguing for Bury, Ramsbottom and other towns in my seat to have investment as part of the levelling-up agenda. However, I think it is important that another MP is here from the region to say that what my hon. Friend is saying is correct. This will be a jewel in the crown of the north-west. It will power regeneration, education and job creation—and not just in Morecambe. It will give opportunity to young children and people in my area who want to have a career working at the Eden Project. There is no chance of that happening at the moment.
I know that the Minister, who is the best of men, will be supportive of this, whatever he says today. However, I want to say that the project will be genuinely transformative. It will make a difference to the whole of the north-west, including my constituency. My constituents would want me to be here to say that this is the absolute epitome of the levelling-up agenda. Everything that that agenda means to all of us is epitomised in this one project. I finish by saying, once again, that my hon. Friend is doing an unbelievable job on behalf of his constituents with this project. I am glad that I am here to say that.