Oral Answers to Questions

Jayne Kirkham Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on championing Putney and her high street, and for attending the roundtable. Councils need both the tools and the support to bring vacant properties back into use, which is why we introduced high street rental actions. To make powers as straightforward as possible, we have published guidance and templates and established a dedicated support mechanism for local authorities. We are reviewing new burdens funding to ensure councils are appropriately resourced, and have announced £10 million to tackle long-term vacancies and bring empty units back into productive use. On business rates, this Government are committed to reforming the system to create a fairer approach that fully supports investments and high streets such as my hon. Friend’s.

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

11. What support her Department is providing to councils to help them use their housing revenue account to build council houses.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

13. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of housing revenue account debt on the ability of local authorities to maintain and increase council housing stock.

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)]

We recognise that many councils are facing significant financial pressure on their HRAs. The Government have already taken a number of steps to rebuild the capacity of councils to borrow and invest in new and existing homes, including fundamental reform of the right to buy scheme, a 10-year social housing rent settlement and social rent convergence. We will continue to explore further ways in which we might support councils to expand their stock of social homes, including low-cost borrowing options.

[Jayne Kirkham]

This Government have committed to council housing and taken steps to boost it, which is fantastic. Cornwall council’s housing revenue account has struggled to build because it has had to invest in repairs, meaning that it has had to reduce the amount of funds available annually for new homes. Of course, another of the barriers to delivering new council homes is debt; over £90 million of it is the result of self-financing arrangements dating back to 2012. If that debt were reduced, Cornwall council and others could do more. Will the Government consider options to write off HRA debt, or at least provide lower-cost financing such as that made available to registered providers through the National Housing Bank?

[Matthew Pennycook]

As I made clear, we have already acted to build capacity in the sector, and will continue to explore further ways in which we might increase the headroom available to councils and housing associations, not least through low-cost borrowing options. With regard to the HRA, we remain of the view that the principle of self-financing is the right foundation, but as I said, we are fully aware of the impact of HRA debt on many councils’ ability to build more and will continue to explore ways in which we might further support them.

Rural Upper-tier Local Authorities

Jayne Kirkham Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I thank the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) for securing this debate, which is important and relevant to me.

I will probably shorten my speech a little, as the Minister is getting a double dose of Cornwall this afternoon—I apologise for that. We underwent major local government consolidation early in Cornwall. We became a unitary, from a county council and six districts, in 2009. We are now the third largest unitary in the country by population and the fourth largest by area, but the 12th least densely populated of the 62. That creates quite unique opportunities, but also challenges.

I want to talk a bit about third-tier councils, because the establishment of our large unitary coincided with austerity. The council withdrew from quite a lot of services—all but the most statutory, really. That meant that the third-tier town and parish councils stepped up and took the reins, preventing the sell-off and closure of all sorts of things, such as green spaces, toilets, libraries and leisure centres—so much of the infrastructure that made our town special. It is great having services run by the people who live there and use them, but there are issues that need sorting out.

When third-tier councillors’ councils grow, they still get no pay or expenses. We also have conduct issues clogging up the desks of upper-tier council monitoring officers, who do not have the teeth to sort them out. Precepts in towns have grown significantly larger than in rural parishes. People on one side of a road might be paying £30 for their precept, while those on the other side are paying for everything in the town, so their precept could be £400-plus a year, and obviously those parish residents will still rely on those services.

Although third-tier councils are now big in Cornwall and have big budgets—£5 million or £6 million—they are still not recognised or trusted to get external funding. Everything has to come through the unitary, which can lead to a parent-child relationship. In the previous White Paper, we had the support of the previous—and now current—Secretary of State for sorting some of those issues out, as well as things like remote voting and meetings for third-tier councillors. I really hope the Department will pick that up again for third-tier councils.

On devolution, obviously the Prime Minister made a statement yesterday, which was very welcome. The focus on further devolution and growth in every postcode is very welcome to those of us in places like Cornwall. We did have a devolution deal back in 2015. It was the first non-metropolitan devo deal. We got a level 2 deal in 2023. There have been a number of situations in which we have benefited quite a lot. On public transport, for example, we got the power to franchise buses and make enhanced partnerships back in 2015.

So far, we have gone into enhanced partnerships, but we are now running a pilot to see how franchising could work in rural areas, where it is much more difficult to make it work. We picked it up and ran with it. We were the first rural area to introduce smart ticketing, for example. It will be interesting for us and North Yorkshire to see how franchising could be possible in a rural place.

Devolution could also be really important for housing. We are working towards a memorandum of understanding with Homes England, but a full strategic place partnership would also be helpful and important to us. Turning to economic growth, we lost all our EU funding in 2020, which led to a real slowdown in our growth. We did have the shared prosperity fund, but that is now finished. We had access to the Kernow industrial growth fund, which was fantastic, but we continue to need economic growth support in emerging areas, which chimes and aligns very well with the Government’s industrial strategy.

The Prime Minister has been talking a lot about the devolution of post-16 skills. In Cornwall, we know our businesses—so does the council, and the further education providers. That could work really well for us, so I am really excited to talk about a future devolution deal with the Prime Minister, as well as making the epic trip to Manchester and going to No. 10 North.

Although devolution is an exciting example of progress, it cannot overcome the financial pressures facing our more rural councils. We have heard some examples of things that cost more. Cornwall’s core spending power fell between 2010 and 2018 because of austerity and that Conservative Government, but funding has improved since then and the Government have made efforts to create a fairer funding settlement. Nevertheless, we are still below others in real terms. We have also used the second homes council tax premium, which brought in around £23 million, but even with that we remain in that position.

Rurality and peripherality make things cost more. We have heard some examples already, but I want to mention temporary accommodation, as a room in a Travelodge costs £50 in the winter and £100 in the summer. Meanwhile, home-to-school transport is crazy expensive. We cannot use buses and end up using taxis, and there are long distances involved, which makes it difficult. Furthermore, contracts for emergency accommodation also go through the roof in the summer. In children’s social care, there are very few providers and contracts get very few bidders. It is very difficult and we end up having people placed out of Cornwall, which is a very long way to go and is not good for the population.

There is also a population increase in the summer; we get about 4 million visitors. That is fantastic and it is good for our economy, but it increases demand on vital services, particularly on things such as environmental health, waste collection and emergency services, as well as public amenities. Something like an overnight visitor levy could be used for that, and we are quite excited about the potential for that to be devolved.

In conclusion, Cornwall highlights the opportunities and the challenges of rural upper-tier authorities. We are further down the line than a lot of other authorities—we have had a unitary authority for a long time—and we have seen where that takes us, particularly having lost services that are then picked up by the third tiers. Devolution will be good for us because it will mean that those decisions are taken locally, but for rural authorities to really thrive, that funding needs to reflect the additional costs and pressures of where we are in those sparsely populated areas and the fact that transport in particular is so difficult for us.

High Streets

Jayne Kirkham Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Mr Campbell]

I do not know whether the hon. Member is a mind reader, but I was about to come to that very point. The prevalence of online shopping has dramatically changed the high street. People are free to take advantage of online shopping, but on many occasions it is to the disadvantage of the high street. On numerous occasions, we have heard about things that can help in a small way. For example, urban improvements such as better seating can make town centres more attractive and bring people in. They do help, but they are on the margins.

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

In Truro, the city council has bought a property to convert to commercial and residential use. It is using some of its town deal—what would have been Pride in Place money—to invest in properties and restore some of the flats above shops that have been empty for so long. Does the hon. Member agree that that is progress and that it would be good to have more funding available for that sort of thing?

[Mr Campbell]

Yes, I agree. When I conclude, I will try to draw some of these threads together into a proposition that I hope the Minister will consider.

Charity shops and vaping shops are now prevalent on many of our high streets. I have sometimes been criticised, unfairly in my view, for being an arch-critic of the BBC. I do not regard myself as an arch-critic of the BBC: I always say that I commend it when it does well and criticise it when it does wrong or shows bias. If I am seeing more reasons to criticise it—well, I will leave people to pass judgment on which is more accurate. I have to say that in the past few months, though, BBC News has been excellent on vaping shops on the high street. It should not have been the BBC that had to do that work, but I am glad that it did.

Coastal Communities: Government Support

Jayne Kirkham Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Neil Duncan-Jordan]

Yes; I agree with my hon. Friend’s point and I will develop it further.

Like my hon. Friend’s constituency, towns such as Poole are desperate for good quality, affordable and secure housing—I would argue council housing—for local families, rather than the developer-led luxury waterside apartments that have sprung up.

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Again, that sounds similar to Cornwall. Does my hon. Friend agree that speeding up a registration scheme for holiday lets would help to deal with all the second homes and holiday lets proliferating around our towns? Maybe if we had that, we could move towards more affordable housing.

[Neil Duncan-Jordan]

My hon. Friend is right. There are some areas of Poole where no one lives; they are all holiday lets, second homes and so on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jayne Kirkham Excerpts

Monday 13th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

I assure the right hon. Gentleman that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is working closely with digital delivery experts to ensure that the registration service is robust, secure and simple to use, minimising the impact on businesses for precisely the reasons he gave.

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister will be aware that Cornwall has the second highest number of short-term lets in the country, after London. I understand that DCMS has responsibility for the scheme, but will the Minister discuss with his opposite number in DCMS the possibility of uploading things such as fire and safety certificates and checks to the register, so that it is not just a simple light-touch registration scheme in the future, if not during this round?

[Matthew Pennycook]

As I have said, we know that excessive concentrations of short-term lets affect urban and rural constituencies, and that coastal communities in particular are feeling the acute pressures that result from them. I am more than happy to engage with my counterpart in DCMS, as I do already, and to raise the specific points made by my hon. Friend.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jayne Kirkham Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

The Conservatives foisted Liz Truss on us as Prime Minister. I am very surprised that they have failed to learn from that disaster. Unfunded commitments they have no idea how to pay for cause only trouble to the economy, including to the housing economy.

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Cornwall has been campaigning for fair funding for years under successive Tory and Liberal Democrat Governments. We are so pleased with the fair funding formula 2.0. There have been some consultation changes, so can the Secretary of State please confirm that they will not disadvantage Cornwall and that we will get the increased fair funding we deserve?

Indefinite Leave to Remain

Jayne Kirkham Excerpts

Monday 8th September 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy.

When the Government’s immigration White Paper was published with the proposal to increase the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain, I received numerous emails from constituents in Truro and Falmouth who could be affected. My constituency is home to Cornwall’s only large acute hospital, so many of the constituents concerned work in the health service as doctors, nurses or dentists.

In 2022, according to the British Medical Association, the NHS in England had a shortage of 12,000 hospital doctors and more than 50,000 nurses and midwives. Cornwall has a super-ageing population with complex health needs, and we struggle to attract medical professionals. As a result of our housing crisis, they sometimes cannot find anywhere to live. We do not want to lose any of those highly skilled medical professionals who are trying to make Cornwall their home.

These people stressed their commitment to their jobs in the way they worked tirelessly on the frontline during covid, the way they have served and contributed to their communities, and the taxes they have paid. Many have children attending school in Cornwall, and they are very concerned about disruption to their children’s education. Some have partners who are Cornish.

Dr Mohamed Abdelazim, who works at the Royal Cornwall hospital in Treliske, has said:

“Ten years is an extraordinarily long time to live on a visa—without the security of citizenship, the right to vote, or the ability to fully settle and plan our futures in the UK.”

The Government have not yet confirmed whether people already on the affected immigration routes will have to wait longer for settlement, as opposed to the change applying only to those arriving after the implementation date, although the White Paper’s annexe suggests that the change will affect those already here.

Many MPs, including me, have been asking questions about this issue, but the responses to written parliamentary questions so far have stated that it will be addressed as part of the consultation process, but without giving a timeline. An idea of that timeline and the parameters of the consultation would be extremely helpful in giving my worried constituents some idea of how long they have to plan for their future, and what representations they can make. For now, they are, as one constituent wrote,

“trusting the UK’s commitment to fairness and stability for migrants who invest their lives here”.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jayne Kirkham Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris]

No, we do not think that the regulations are fit for purpose, which is why we are planning to amend them through the Bill that we published last week.

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

The “New life for city buildings” project in Truro is breathing new life into empty high street buildings and redeveloping them. I would love for the Minister to be able to see this for himself, so will he consider coming to Truro and attending our growth summit on 18 September?

[Alex Norris]

I do not have my diary for 18 September in front of me, but I do owe my hon. Friend a visit, and I will definitely make such a visit.

Post-industrial Towns

Jayne Kirkham Excerpts

Wednesday 18th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jo White]

Absolutely. [Laughter.] We are going to have no disagreement whatsoever because what we need is a Government who will deliver the jobs and skills that have already been identified. While the investment into STEP—spherical tokamak for energy production—fusion in north Nottinghamshire has the potential in time to unlock new skills, jobs and opportunities that will completely change the industrial landscape of my area for years to come, my demand of Government is an industrial strategy that encompasses and prioritises the left-behind areas.

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my hon. Friend agree to include post-industrial towns in places like Cornwall which used to mine and have been post-industrial for longer than many other towns in this country? Now, with opportunities in renewables and critical minerals, they could be rich again under this new industrial strategy.

[Jo White]

I totally agree. It has been too easy to invest in our metropolitan and city areas, so areas such as ours have missed out time and again. The fact that my hon. Friend’s constituency is in the far corner of England has made it far too difficult for previous Governments and industries to think about her communities and what they need in order to be strong again. I am so delighted that we have a Labour Government who are focused on the same priorities that we all share.

Disadvantaged Communities

Jayne Kirkham Excerpts

Wednesday 4th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jodie Gosling (Nuneaton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with your Chair, Sir Roger. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Mrs Brackenridge) on securing the debate. Poverty has affected the work that I have done over the last decade, and I probably would not be in the House today had it not been for some of the things I have witnessed over the past 10 to 15 years.

While I was researching for the debate, I found a report on child poverty dating back over a decade. The foreword reads:

“In the UK today, millions of children”

and

“adults are daily experiencing the crushing disadvantage that poverty brings. They are living at the margins of society, unable to achieve their aspirations and trapped”.

The report goes on to say that that is unacceptable in “today’s” society—obviously, it was written over a decade ago. It is not usual for me to quote the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), but those comments are particularly pertinent. In 2013, when the report was written, poverty in Nuneaton stood at around 18%, but it is now 33%—almost double—and in some communities it is over 50%.

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

On the question of barriers to opportunity, the potential for growth in some areas is high, but access to funding and education—particularly further education—can be difficult, as it is in Cornwall. Does my hon. Friend agree that, as a result, the people who live in an area cannot always take advantage of that growth potential?

[Jodie Gosling]

I thank my hon. Friend for her valuable intervention, and I absolutely agree. One challenge is under-skilled children who have left school without the right qualifications. As a result, they experience a lag in getting qualified and being able to access opportunities.

In one of my wards, Chilvers Coton, over 65% of households—two out of three—live with one marker of deprivation. The majority of them are defined as living in deep poverty and destitution, and they are not able to meet basic needs. That is not my understanding of the word “eradicate”, and it appears that the strategy that was laid out over a decade ago actually perpetuated significant poverty, rather than eradicating it.

Poverty eats into every corner of people’s lives. It drains people and grinds them down, and it makes every aspect of life harder. The physiological and psychological impacts are profound. As poverty has soared, we have seen healthy life expectancy fall by over four years, with cardiopulmonary conditions, diabetes and preventable death statistics among those affected by poverty well above the national average. Poverty strips people of their dignity and their power to shape their lives and livelihoods and those of the people they love.

Living in poverty is a full-time job, as people juggle making sure that they can pay their debts, get their kids out, do the daily shopping—which involves having to look for the yellow stickers in the aisles—and deal with the chaos of managing arrears, evictions and sleepless nights, as they worry about how to just get through tomorrow. Despite that, the vast majority of Nuneaton households in poverty still work, with over 60% of affected households having at least one working adult.

Poverty is also wasteful. It is expensive; it costs more to live in poverty because people cannot access cheaper supermarkets and might not have the data to order online—