Crown Estate Bill [Lords]

Jayne Kirkham Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 7th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her help, which I hope gives the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) some reassurance, as it sounds eminently sensible.

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

Clause 3 covers this:

“The Commissioners must keep under review the impact of their activities on the achievement of sustainable development in the United Kingdom.”

This has been written into the Bill.

[Darren Jones]

I am continually grateful for the team effort, and I am grateful to my hon. Friends for having paid such close attention to the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I represent Truro and Falmouth, which has huge potential to benefit from floating offshore wind. With Falmouth docks and our position in the Celtic sea, if the build-out of the sea is done quickly and well, our young people could benefit from good, well-paid jobs in a strong local supply chain, but intervention will be needed to get to that place. No projects in the Celtic sea have been successful in leasing rounds or contracts for difference, except for one test and demo model that is struggling to build viably due to price changes. It cannot just be left to the market to build local supply chains. That will not occur without intervention and investment in our ports, businesses and further education.

I welcome the Bill. The changes to the powers of the Crown Estate will enable it, in partnership with GB Energy, to invest in ports such as Falmouth, the mapping of the seabed to front-load the leasing rounds, research and development and local supply chains. When Falmouth marine school, in my constituency, was struggling to get funding for a level 2 course on floating offshore wind engineering for local 14 to 16-year-olds, the Crown Estate stepped in with one year’s funding to allow it to go ahead on a pilot scale. With the Bill’s changes, more such positive interventions could be made. With powers to borrow from the Treasury national loans fund and invest come greater responsibility. The framework for this borrowing is to be drawn up at a later date, but the Crown Estate is classified as a public corporation with a portfolio of nearly £16 billion, so it is important that it is held accountable and scrutinised in the normal way.

I welcome the governance changes to the number of commissioners and the fact that they will now be paid out of Crown Estate proceeds, rather than from Parliament, but the fact remains that if they are to be given more power and control and are to enter into partnership with GB Energy, their aims and objectives need to strongly align with the growth agenda, the industrial strategy and our environmental targets, and there needs to be a mechanism of accountability.

Where clause 3 compels the commissioners to

“keep under review the impact of their activities on the achievement of sustainable development in the United Kingdom”,

the words “strongly aligned with” would seem more appropriate. Most of the proceeds of the Crown Estate—it will be lucrative, now that wind energy is a priority, as the Crown Estate owns much of the seabed and there will be many more leasing rounds—go to the Treasury, but how the leasing rounds are conducted is important. If the Crown Estate’s priorities are truly to achieve sustainable development in the UK, price cannot be the sole criterion for awarding each lease. The highest bidder may not be the one who would work with the local population, consider the environmental impact, invest in further education, headquarter their development office in somewhere like Cornwall, which needs it, or grow the supply chain.

The way that leases are awarded needs to be considered in the round, and we have the power to do that. Exemptions to World Trade Organisation rules allow contracts or leases for energy security to factor in socioeconomic and environmental factors in their decision-making criteria, and we should make use of them. Currently, the Crown Estate asks for annual option fees from developers. If the aim of clause 3 is truly to be the priority, surely those option fees should be deployed into building local supply chains and mitigating those environmental and other impacts.

The partnership between the Crown Estate and GB Energy has the potential to be a huge force for good, spearheading the development of offshore renewable energy in a speedy but sustainable way and laying the groundwork for our future energy security, building local communities, infrastructure and supply chains in some of the most left-behind and deprived areas of the UK. With a unified strategy between all levels of the public sector, including this public corporation, and faithful allegiance to the aim of clause 3, the achievement of sustainable development in the UK could be the key that unlocks the future potential of the Celtic sea and hopefully kick-starts Cornwall’s clean energy revolution.

Finance Bill

Jayne Kirkham Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

I declare that I am a landlord, and I happily paid the 3% stamp duty that I was required to pay, introduced by the Conservatives when they were in government.

For too long the dream of homeownership has been unachievable for young people in my constituency. Properties are snapped up by landlords, and that is even more acutely felt in our coastal towns, where so many properties are locked up for large parts of the year and used as holiday homes, sometimes for only a few weeks.

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

I am from Cornwall. The point was made earlier that this change will help us. Some of our coastal villages are 50% second homes. In Cornwall, 5% of our houses are second homes. This change can do nothing but good in Cornwall. We do not have the long-term lets that the hon. Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild) talked about dissuading. We have short-term lets and second homes. I welcome this measure.

[Rachel Taylor]

Increasing rates of stamp duty land tax for second properties to 5% more than those buying their home will free up housing stock for first-time buyers, and hopefully stop prices continuing to skyrocket. Before I came to this place, I was a property solicitor in a high street firm in my constituency. Part of the reason I loved that job was that I got to be part of so many brilliant projects that transformed communities, but I was always so happy when I helped first-time buyers who would come through my door, proud that they had saved up and were able to buy their first home. They would tell me their plans for the future. We would overcome mountains of paperwork. I love being part of the moment when they got the keys to their first home, and they were finally homeowners.

I got to know my clients well. Each new homeowner would talk to me about how they would become part of their local community—supporting the local football club, or working at local businesses, hospitals and schools. They were planning to have kids who would go to local schools and shops in the town centre. But the longer I worked in that role, the fewer first-time buyers came into my office. Becoming a homeowner became out of reach for most young people. There are already half a million fewer young homeowners than in 2010. Millions are stuck in expensive, poor quality and insecure rented housing. The average cost of a home is over 10 times the average income of my constituents.

The Conservative party left a legacy of the most acute housing emergency in living memory. This Government could have ignored it and let more people miss out on becoming homeowners, but they decided to act and boost the supply of affordable homes. In addition, this policy will free up more housing stock for first-time buyers. For those who can afford the luxury of a second home, it will bring much-needed income into the Treasury in the form of an increased one-off tax—stamp duty land tax—that will help to pay for the much-needed improvements in health and education that this Government promised to deliver.

The status quo is unacceptable. Our housing market is not a fair market, and I am glad that this policy will help to remedy that. It will ensure that those buying properties as investments pay a fair level of tax at the start, so I urge all Members to vote for this important change.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jayne Kirkham Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

The hon. Gentleman speaks powerfully about the huge opportunities at Immingham and on the whole east coast through renewable energy and carbon capture and storage. Part of the reason for the national wealth fund is to invest in industries such as CCS, but also in our crucial steel sector, which is important to so many of the other Government ambitions on growing our economy. We are determined to support the steel sector through that investment from the national wealth fund.

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

The Chancellor’s plans for growth are welcome in Cornwall, but in the meantime we are relying upon shared prosperity fund and towns deal money. The deadlines for the completion of those schemes are March 2025 and March ’26. To ensure that investment is not lost, will the Chancellor consider extending the deadlines for completion of those schemes by up to 12 months?

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question and welcome her to her place. She speaks powerfully on behalf of the people of Cornwall. The spending review will be the appropriate time to look at the shared prosperity funds and what resource we can give to the people of Cornwall, and I am sure my hon. Friend will work with the relevant Secretaries of State to ensure those representations are heard.