Coalfields Regeneration Trust

Katrina Murray Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Adam Jogee]

I am grateful for that intervention from the dean of the coalfield communities. My hon. Friend works tirelessly on this issue and demonstrates by his leadership that it is one for all and all for one; I thank him for his work.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams) touched on “CRT game on”, which does a tremendous amount of work in Newcastle-under-Lyme as well as in Stoke-on-Trent North. I think in particular about what it is doing with our local club, Newcastle Town FC, where it plans to introduce free, weekly, structured turn-up-and-play football sessions for 11 to 18-year-olds in Knutton in the heart of Newcastle-under-Lyme, where the excellent Bayley Dickin is standing for Labour in the by-election on Thursday 1 May. I am sure that Labour colleagues will wish him well in that election. It will be the CRT that will provide the funding for the Newcastle Town coaches to deliver those sessions, and it will be the CRT that will enable young people in my constituency to access good-quality sport provision, no matter their background.

[Katrina Murray (Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend recognise the work that the CRT is doing in my constituency? Adjacent to the leafy suburbs that surround Glasgow there are coalfields, and those are the areas of deprivation. In particular, the CRT is doing work in Waterside to support the local community to re-establish the miners’ welfare, which fell into disrepair, as a new community hub, engaging all that work in the constituency and the supporters’ clubs to do that.

[Adam Jogee]

I thank my hon. Friend, who represents Cumbernauld—and the rest of her constituency—in Scotland: a great part of our United Kingdom. She raises a powerful yet basic point: the CRT does amazing work in all parts of our country. It is no surprise that the Whip on duty is my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare (Gerald Jones), who similarly represents coalfield communities—I suspect that he would be speaking, were he allowed to.

I feel sure that the Minister, in his upcoming meeting with the CRT, will hear that it is seeking the reinstatement of UK Government support to enable it to keep doing what it does and to scale up its model with a proposal of capital investment of £50 million over a five-year period, equating obviously to £10 million a year. That would generate additional long-term sustainable funding of £3.5 million to £4 million, which would be invested to benefit people living in coalfield communities such as mine. I support those calls.

Let us be clear: that is an ask not for grant funding but for investment in coalfield communities and in people like my constituents in Newcastle-under-Lyme. I know that it is one that will pay off. The CRT has proven time and again across 25 years that it is a wealth generator. Its community wealth building model has delivered growth in the coalfield communities that Labour members represent. With support from the Government, it will continue to do so.