Coastal Communities

John Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)]

As a native of a coastal community in Devon, I am well versed in the challenges that living there presents. However, we must also highlight the opportunities its presents. It is all too easy to depict coastal towns, cities and communities as run down and tired—places where people retire or only have work six months of the year when the tourists roll in. While there is undoubtedly a lot of truth in that, there is also a huge amount to value and celebrate about our coastal communities, because if there was not, why would people flock from right across the country and, indeed, the world to visit?

My constituency of South West Devon has the significant suburbs of Plymouth, Plympton and Plymstock, and swathes of the coastal South Hams and Dartmoor. The challenges the coastal community in my constituency face are much like those elsewhere, including housing for local people and transport connectivity.

[John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has begun what I am sure will be an exquisite speech, and she hits the nail on the head when she talks about transport connectivity. One of the great problems that unites all our coastal communities is that it is difficult to get anywhere. For a community like mine in Dumfries and Galloway, it is 80 miles to the nearest hospital. Perhaps rather than a new Minister looking at coastal communities, we need existing Transport Ministers to put their foot down.

[Rebecca Smith]

My hon. Friend makes a valuable point, and although my constituency is a long way from his, we too have significant problems with transport. We are on a peninsula, and if the trains stop, we cannot get in or out, so I completely understand the need for a focus on transport. We also have the health and education inequalities that have been mentioned, and the new Government’s attack on businesses with increased employer national insurance contributions. That affects not just businesses but our local St Luke’s hospice and vital community pharmacies such as Tubbs in Newton Ferrers. The changes to business and agricultural property relief are also threatening the future of long-standing family businesses.

Arguably, one of the biggest opportunities for South West Devon is the continuing growth of the marine autonomy hub at Turnchapel Wharf in Plymstock. With over 300 years of history as a shipyard and naval base, it was sold 20 years ago by the Ministry of Defence and bought by Yacht Havens group. Over the last 12 years, it has invested in the hub and attracted more and more marine-based businesses, with a specific focus on marine autonomy, developing autonomous vessels for the future of scientific surveying, defence and humanitarian work at sea.

The development highlights some of the unique opportunities we can have in the coastal community of South West Devon and Plymouth. With the easiest and quickest access from land to deep water in the country, my constituency is perfectly placed for businesses looking to do sea trials underwater—a niche but essential opportunity for our local coastal community. Last Friday, Thales delivered the first end-to-end autonomous maritime mine-hunting system to the Royal Navy from my constituency. The project is part of the Organisation for Joint Armament Co-operation, and it has served the French navy as well as the Royal Navy.

It is vital, however, that we do not fall into the trap of looking at coastal communities solely through the lens of built-up areas, towns and cities. The coastal communities in my constituency have a wide range of identifying factors. As the Government’s local government reorganisation work progresses and councils across the country consider how they can best serve their own interests, it is important that they look at the interests of the places that they seek to absorb. Edging Plymouth, a unitary authority with its own proud identity, with part of Devon county council and two district councils will mean a very different future for much of my constituency, but taking in the rural character of communities such as mine is essential.

Although the population of towns and cities such as Plymouth may significantly outnumber the population in the rural parts, it is essential to place value on both population size and land mass. Identity matters, and people often choose to live where they do to be close to the sea, but that does not always mean that they are in built-up towns and cities. Local government reorganisation must be in the best interests of everyone, not just people in urban areas, be they on the coast or not.

To conclude, the previous Government recognised the challenge faced and invested significant sums of money in communities such as mine to help them close the gap with non-coastal communities. Going forward, we must be proud of coastal communities, which are such a key part of our national identity as an island nation. I am committed to finding the balance between pursuing opportunities and tackling the challenges that we all face.

Absent Voting (Elections in Scotland and Wales) Bill

John Cooper Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 17th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Adam Thompson]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention and, of course, I completely agree with everything she says. I firmly believe that education, skills development and all the aspects we have just been discussing should be core to all of our policies. Indeed, my previous role prior to coming to this place was as an educator at the University of Nottingham, where I taught degree-level apprenticeships in electromechanical engineering. I am a great advocate of the apprenticeship system, and I am very pleased by the Government’s commentary over the past few months about expanding skills provision across the board.

As I have said repeatedly throughout this speech, it is really important that we advocate for these points as much as possible. I am sure that colleagues across the House will be au fait with the comments we often receive on the doorstep. Like many colleagues, I will be out knocking doors tomorrow morning and tomorrow afternoon, and very often people say how difficult they find it to access our political system. Many areas such as mine have multiple tiers of government: councils, local government, mayors and MPs. We are talking about devolution at the moment and maybe reorganising some of those systems, and I think there is an opportunity to simplify them.

[John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman talks about simplifying systems. My father applied for a postal vote because he was taking advantage of the early Scottish holiday and was going to be away on 4 July. When he tried to access a postal vote to vote for me, he found that the council could not recognise him, yet as he pointed out, it had been able to collect his council tax for some years. Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that if we are going to increase the number of postal and proxy votes, we must also have better systems on the other side to short-circuit those problems?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Since the vote is private, who knows how the hon. Gentleman’s father actually voted?

Employment Rights Bill

John Cooper Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 21st October 2024 Commons Chamber

[John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

We have heard some electrifying and remarkable maiden speeches today. I rise to speak as a former member of a trade union. I do not miss the subs going out of my pay packet; it did little for me. This is no mere Bill, but a time machine that could take the whole country back decades. The unions are gonna party like it’s 1979. For your benefit, Madam Deputy Speaker—you were not there—1979 was the winter of discontent when the unions bit back, the rubbish piled high in the streets and a Labour PM was soon out with the bins.

With this hastily assembled Employment Rights Bill, Labour is feeding the union alligator that may yet eat it, too. That is because the Bill lacks balance, assuming that all employers are robber barons intent on exploiting workers. The Prime Minister has talked of growing the economy and cutting red tape, yet now we see the reality: proposals that will frighten firms away from taking on new staff and burden them with still more rules and regulations.

My constituent Rory, a forward-thinking dairy farmer, has written to me about Labour’s pledge

“to make Britain the best place to start and grow a business.”

Like me, he sees fine sentiments, but the Bill risks the opposite effect. There is even an expensive new layer of bureaucracy: the fair work agency, whose costs will be borne by business and passed on to the public. The people’s tape is deepest red.

The Bill makes it easier for militant unions to infiltrate workplaces, and it strips out sensible curbs on their power. Strikes will hit the public harder without Conservative safeguards such as those that guarantee minimum service levels. An impact assessment of the Trade Union Act 2016 indicated that it would cut strikes by about 35%.

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[John Cooper]

No, I have waited 40 years for this. Much of the 2016 Act will be tossed into picket line braziers, and as ever it is the public who will suffer. The plan to make union funding of Labour opt-out, not opt-in, is another back-to-the-future move. It is naked opportunism from the Labour party.

The Bill will be hardest on small and medium-sized businesses, the backbone of the economy. We must not forget that they are run by people who are themselves workers and strivers. Napoleon disparagingly called us a nation of shopkeepers. With legislation as skewed as this, Labour risks shutting the shops and turning us into a nation of strikers and their union rep handmaidens. This skimpy Bill is so heavily skewed that it resembles the blade in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum”, leaving employers strapped in red tape between the ever-present pit of insolvency and the slice, slice, slice of costly, pro-union, anti-growth legislation.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call Lorraine Beavers to make her maiden speech.

Renters’ Rights Bill

John Cooper Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to wind up for the Opposition in what has been a comprehensive debate. I add my thanks to all Members who made so many interesting points about different aspects of policy, but I would like to start with the contribution by the hon. Member for Rugby (John Slinger), who said that most landlords are good landlords. The English housing survey’s most recent set of statistics, published on 18 July 2024, sets out that private renters in England are the most satisfied of tenants in all types of tenure, more so than in social rented or any other kind, where the highest levels scored between 51% and 65%. While all Members will see in our constituency casework dozens of examples of people in great difficulty as a result of problems in the private rented sector, on the whole this sector remains one that those who use it find to be valuable and a source of appropriate and affordable housing. Therefore, the spirit in which we approach the Bill is that we need to ensure we put right the more egregious examples of tenants or landlords being abused and their good will or vulnerability being exploited in different ways.

My right hon. Friend the Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch), in her opening speech for the Opposition, set out some robust criticisms of different aspects of the Bill and a strong defence of the previous Government’s position on the implementation of the Renters (Reform) Bill, as was. It is clear that our approach during the passage of this legislation will be to work constructively to address those shortfalls and deficits that we perceive in it, while recognising, as we did in the previous Government and as we have in manifestos—and as I think, from the speeches, has been the case across party—the importance of getting this right for renters.

[John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

I have seen the reality of such measures in Scotland, because these matters are devolved. They have driven up costs for renters, reduced choice, and made it exceptionally difficult to get that first home and almost impossible to get student accommodation in our wonderful university cities. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that we get this right, and if we are to do so we are going to need changes?

[David Simmonds]

My hon. Friend represents Dumfries and Galloway and therefore knows a great deal about the impact that these measures have, because he has seen at first hand the impact on his constituents. I agree with him entirely, and it is important to draw out his point that they will have an impact not simply on those who are private renters in the traditional sense; this is part of a wider rental market, as many Members have noted, which includes everything from temporary accommodation to short-term lets, which is to a degree an unregulated market into which some landlords are moving. There will be a huge impact on students across our university towns. The private rented sector is used by local authorities to find accommodation for those in social housing need, and the social rented sector and our housing associations will be impacted too. Of course, there will be a degree of impact on owner-occupation as well.

Reflecting on the speeches of Members, it is clear, as the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) said in her contribution, that we are increasingly reaching many of the key milestones in our lives later on, including acquiring our first home as an owner, having our children and getting our settled career. That is one of the reasons why we in the Opposition party, as we did in government previously, recognise the importance of getting things right in the private rented sector, because it will represent an increasing proportion of tenure in our country in future.

I will try to draw together a number of the points made—I appreciate that the Minister will do the same for the points made by his colleagues; I will endeavour to do my best for those on the Opposition side. As well as the points made in the introduction by my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Essex, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) shared the experience of being a local authority cabinet member in a part of our country with a combination of high-density modern housing in cities and surrounding rural areas, something more characteristic in the market of the United Kingdom than is the case in London, where my own constituency is located. Indeed, the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) spoke of similar experiences.

That illustrated a point that some scoff at: landlords exiting the private rented market means not that the bricks and mortar disappear, but that the home is no longer available to the private rented market. It may be available to owner occupiers, it may be available to short-term lets, and it may be converted into other types of accommodation, but it represents a net reduction in the supply of private rented homes in that location. It is absolutely correct to draw attention to the impact of that on our communities.