Oral Answers to Questions
Luke Pollard Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Neil O'Brien
The 1% figure that the hon. Gentleman quotes is from a Welsh Government report, which looks only at a very small part of rail investment and does not give a correct picture of the wider investment in Wales that I described. HS2 will of course provide huge benefits to the people of north Wales, who will be connected much more rapidly to the rest of the country.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for Housing (Stuart Andrew)
Data on second homes in Devon and Cornwall can be found on the Government’s council taxbase website. The number of second homes for council tax purposes was 28,126 in 2010, and is at 26,853 this year. The Government recognise the adverse effects that large numbers of second homes can have on some areas, and we have introduced a number of measures to mitigate those effects, including high rates of stamp duty tax for those purchasing additional properties.
Luke Pollard
More west country families are being turfed out of their homes through no-fault evictions, only to find those homes appearing on Airbnb a few days later. Every west country family should have a first home, but we are becoming known as a region of second homes and holiday lets. Will the Minister meet a delegation from the First Homes not Second Homes campaign so that we can look at how the Government can adopt Welsh Labour’s proposal to charge 300% council tax on empty properties and second homes that are empty for much of the year, and ensure that every family can have a first home?
Stuart Andrew
The hon. Gentleman is right to raise this issue, which was one of the main topics that came up when I met several of my colleagues just last week. I am more than happy to meet the delegation, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, and will try to arrange that as quickly as possible.
Oral Answers to Questions
Luke Pollard Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Christopher Pincher
I am obliged to my hon. Friend. We are committed to enabling tenants in social housing to acquire their own home through right to buy or right to acquire, and we have helped nearly 2 million tenants to become homeowners—dream-home owners. I am aware that there are some particular issues in some particular rural areas, and I am very happy to meet my hon. Friend and his colleagues to discuss how we can ensure that those people have the opportunity of home ownership, too.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister will know—and you will know, Mr Speaker—that I am a fan of One Direction, and Harry Styles in particular. If it is true that Harry Styles is looking to buy a £10 million property in the west country, he will join the thousands of people who have been hoovering up our homes to make them second homes. The pandemic has turbocharged the housing crisis in the west country, so will the Minister look seriously at ensuring every west country family can have a first home, not just have a region full of second homes for those who can afford one?
Christopher Pincher
We are determined to make sure that there are homes available to buy for the people who want them around our United Kingdom, including in holiday hotspots such as the west country. That is why we have brought forward new policies such as First Homes, why we are closing the loophole which allows some people to abuse their second home and holiday let properties, and why we want to build more homes in those places to ensure people have the opportunity to own and enjoy them.
Affordable Housing: Planning Reform
Luke Pollard Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to see the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas), who has called such an important debate, especially for the south-west. The holiday industry is important to us, but so is our housing market. Our housing market in the south-west is broken, and needs fixing.
The pandemic has turbocharged our housing crisis. We not only have a housing crisis; we have a homes crisis. In many cases, there are enough houses but not enough homes for people to live in. Too many tenants have been turfed out to make way for holiday lets and second homes, which can sit empty for much of the year.
The low-wage economy means that many people cannot afford to live in the communities where they work. The sell-off of council homes means that there is no longer that safety net for far too many local families, and that is not good enough. We need to see proper action, and nowhere is that more important than in the south-west, where more than a quarter of England’s second homes are, according to 2019 data. Our rural and coastal villages are being hollowed out, and local people are priced out of moving or buying within the community where they grew up. In cities such as Plymouth, homes are being flipped to become Airbnb properties, damaging our local hotel trade and robbing local people of a home of their own.
I want to see more people come to the south-west—it is a great place to be—but housing policy should put local people first. We need a focus on first homes, not second homes. That is why I have worked with Councillor Jayne Kirkham, leader of the Labour group on Cornwall County Council, and Councillor Tudor Evans, leader of the opposition on Plymouth City Council, to develop our “First Homes not Second Homes” approach. That is a very simple, five-point radical plan, designed to tackle the housing crisis that is facing so many rural and coastal communities because of the surging number of second homes and holiday and Airbnb lets in the south-west, especially since the pandemic hit. The region most affected by second homes is rightly where the solution to fix the problem should be first applied. Our “First Homes not Second Homes” approach is a simple one, which I hope that the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) will be able to support.
First, let us give councils the power to quadruple council tax on holiday lets and empty second homes. We need an economic disincentive against keeping houses empty, denying local people homes.
Secondly, let us introduce a licensing scheme for second homes, holiday homes and Airbnb lets, to understand the full extent and to set a minimum floor on the number of homes in any community that must be for local people and not for second homes, holiday homes or Airbnb lets. The minimum floor should be 51%, meaning that no community can be dominated by folks who do not live there. Then let us give councils the power to adjust that threshold upwards, to suit local circumstances—60%, 75% or 90%—because it is time that we called time on the takeover of the south-west by absent landlords.
Thirdly, let us create a “last shop in the village” fund, so that councils gain the power to introduce an affordable community infrastructure levy on empty and underused second homes, to support the last shop in the village, the last pharmacy, the last post office, the last pub and the last bus. Hollowed-out communities do not sustain essential community infrastructure and services. We need to find a new way to keep them in business.
Because people should not need to move away from where they grew up to get a decent job and a home they can afford, I want us to focus, fourthly, on an effort to build first homes, not second homes. That means building more genuinely affordable zero-carbon homes to buy or rent and for social rent, with a preference and priority for local people. In particular, that should focus on the key workers who keep our communities alive—the nurses, the shop workers, the teachers, the care workers, the farm workers who are now being priced out of our communities.
Finally, we need to introduce a discount lock for future renters and purchasers of those properties, to ensure that affordable first homes are not lost in the market blizzard of second home and holiday let purchases after that first family moves on, staircasing the benefits, not losing them. That is why we need a focus on first homes, not second homes.
We need to be bold, because our communities are being dominated by a second-homes approach. If we do not act soon, the south-west’s amazing attractiveness will be lost. Shops will not have anyone to work in them. Care homes will not have anyone to support the people inside. We will lose the essential spirit of the west country. That is why we need a focus on first homes, not second homes. I hope the Minister will respond to those points. We need to put first homes first and second homes second.
Oral Answers to Questions
Luke Pollard Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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James Brokenshire
Clearly, the right hon. Gentleman has not been looking at the practical steps we have taken and, indeed, the performance that we have seen. Perhaps that is because of the turmoil in his own party—there has been plenty on the Opposition Benches. I direct the House to the steps that have been taken, the commitments that have been made and the effect that all that is now having. We are championing the cause of leaseholders and confronting some of the really unfair practices. We are seeing the effect that that is having as a result of the steps we have taken, rather than the hyperbole from the Opposition and the continuing turmoil that we see among them.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (James Brokenshire)
My Department regularly meets council representatives to understand the services that they deliver, including children’s social care. Although the Department for Education has policy responsibility, we work closely with it and sector representatives in our spending review preparations. The Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), is meeting the hon. Gentleman this week to understand his concerns.
Luke Pollard
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. Social care accounts for two thirds of Plymouth City Council’s budget, and with more and more children with more and more complex needs relying on social care provision, that spending is only going to go up. It is hard to plan for rising social care costs if we have uncertainty, so will the Secretary of State set out when Plymouth City Council and other councils throughout the country will find out their allocations for 2020-21?
James Brokenshire
Obviously, the hon. Gentleman will be able to discuss this matter further with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary; indeed, I believe that meeting will take place later today. Plymouth has seen an increase in funding this year, with a core spend of £198.4 million. The hon. Gentleman issues a challenges on the need for certainty for next year; I understand that challenge and responded to it firmly at the recent Local Government Association conference. I am working with colleagues across Government to see that we have that certainty as early as we can possibly get it. Yes, it is linked to the spending review, but we know that planning is needed, and I am championing the issue so that we get it.
EU Structural Funds: Least Developed Regions
Luke Pollard Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) for introducing the debate so well. Colleagues representing Cornwall constituencies have made a good case for the argument that the far south-west does not get its fair share, and they are right—we do not. We have not had our fair share under the Governments of the past nine years, and we risk getting an even worse deal if we do not get post-Brexit funding right. I worry that we are getting it wrong politically in Parliament at the moment, and that the Government are getting it wrong through their lack of planning for what would replace EU funding for the region after no deal.
Whatever our views on the European Union, and whether we voted remain or leave in the south-west, there is no doubt that the EU funded us fairly, and Westminster continues to fund us at below-average levels. That is despite the fact that Cornwall is one of the poorest counties in the entire country, and despite huge levels of deprivation in Plymouth, with below-average spend across the county. When we get lumped together as part of the south it annoys me, because some of the poorest communities in the country are in Plymouth and Cornwall. Our peripherality has made things harder, but that is not recognised by Westminster in the funding formulas, although the European Union has recognised it in the way it has distributed funding. One need only look at towns funding to see that in action. Out of a £1 billion fund there was only £30 million for the entire south-west region. It was supposed to be allocated on the basis of need, and that episode has not built confidence in the way any future Government will allocate funding after Brexit.
There is an important rationale for funding based on a clear distinction, so that wherever someone lives—in Plymouth, Devon, Cornwall, or anywhere else in the country—they should be funded fairly and given the same opportunities as people have anywhere else. That is what must happen. I worry because there is the risk of no deal on 31 October and the new system is not in place. People do not know what will happen to the funding streams that they currently enjoy. They do not know what forms they will have to fill in, what deadlines they will have to meet, or what happens to existing funded programmes. I worry that that is causing concern.
I remember the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), now a Tory leadership contender, starting the referendum campaign in Cornwall —in the constituency, I believe, of the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth—and grasping a pasty. I think he called it the pasty of independence. We now know that the geographical indicators that protect Cornish pasties might not be there with a no-deal Brexit. In fact, it looks as if they probably will not. So we need to make sure in the far south-west that we protect not only our funding streams, but our fantastic products. That is really at the heart of the issue. We need to make sure that whatever system replaces the European funding if Brexit does happen, distribution will be fair. I worry at the moment that the poor deal for the south-west will continue unless there is a consultation that clearly brings about change, to give such regions a better deal.
Oral Answers to Questions
Luke Pollard Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Kit Malthouse
The hon. Lady addresses a significant issue that I had to address regularly in my previous life as deputy Mayor for policing in London. I recognise the impact that the proliferation of licensed premises in a particular area can have, not only on the community but on crime generally. It is incumbent on local authorities to have an authoritative and assertive licensing policy that sits alongside their local plan and planning policy, such that they can defend their policies in court or under judicial review, if that is the case. If the hon. Lady is concerned that that is not happening in particular authorities, I am more than happy to look into them and offer advice, where possible.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Jake Berry)
The Bellwin scheme can be used to compensate authorities for emergencies and disasters in their area. Children’s services funding is made available through the settlement, with flexibility for councils to target their spending according to the local needs. In the autumn Budget, we were pleased to announce an extra £410 million to address the pressures on social care.
Luke Pollard
Plymouth City Council’s children and social care budget is being sunk by a small number of exceptional care costs for some vulnerable young people, with 6:1 care ratios costing £40,000 a week. Will the Minister agree to meet Plymouth City Council’s Labour leader and Conservative leader of the opposition to look into how the Government can offer additional support for the rare but exceptional care costs for these vulnerable young people?
Jake Berry
I will of course meet the hon. Gentleman, the group leader and the council leader. I understand the hon. Gentleman has been active in this policy area, because he recently met my hon. Friend the Minister for Children and Families and the leader of Plymouth City Council, Tudor Evans. I thought he might raise this issue today, so I checked, and I understand that the Minister he met previously is going to write to him shortly to update him on the progress he is making with his campaign.
Bird Nesting Sites: Protection
Luke Pollard Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mike Hill) on introducing the debate in the way he did and on setting out the need for urgent action to stop the cruel and inhumane practice of netting of bird nesting sites. Every bird matters, and because our wildlife does not have a political voice of its own, it is important that we in this place provide that voice. Today, the Minister will have heard a comprehensive and cross-party argument—on both sides of the House—as to why this cruel practice needs to be stopped and why measures need to be taken to discourage not only developers but, as a number of colleagues have said, the public sector and public organisations from using this practice.
Humans are threatening our planet’s wildlife. They are causing huge and potentially irreversible climate change, and we all need to do something to stop it. A few weeks ago, the House agreed to a Labour motion declaring a climate emergency. The emergency is not just about carbon. Although it is about carbon, it is also about species loss, habitat decline and the pollution of our seas and waterways and our atmosphere. All of that needs to be taken together. When it comes to habitat decline, netting around bird nesting sites is a contributor to the wider issue of habitat loss—a point made by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith). From the bees that pollinate our crops, to the forests that hold back flood waters, the report published last week by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services reveals how humans are ravaging the very ecosystems that support our society.
It is not a coincidence that the same quote has been given by both a Labour and a Conservative Member of Parliament:
“We cannot keep trying to squeeze nature into smaller and smaller spaces or demanding it fits in with our plans.”
We need cross-party consensus that we will not accept any form of economic behaviour without a plan as to how it will protect our environment.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
I could not agree more. My hon. Friend is making a very good case for the need for cross-party consensus on what is a long-term problem. If we are to deal with nets on nesting sites, does he agree that we should also do something about roosting sites, which are not mentioned in the current legislation? In Whorlton, in my constituency, thousands of starlings have been doing murmurations for the last two years, but some developers, where they are building new houses, want to knock down the hedges that have become the roosting sites of those starlings. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should also cover the issue of roosting sites if we are taking the time to change the legislation?
Luke Pollard
I agree that this is a complex area that requires detailed consultation not only with developers, but with public-sector land managers, such as Network Rail, HS2 and local councils. We also need to look at the way our wildlife uses not only our built environment but our natural environment in different ways. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) made a clear distinction between building on brownfield and building on greenfield sites, but there can be bird nesting sites in beautiful trees on both brownfield and greenfield sites, so we need to take steps to deal with what is sometimes a false distinction in our legislation between brown and green, but also to deal with the different ways in which different species use our built environments. I am grateful for the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) has just made.
The report from the UN said that we need “transformative change” to stop the trend of habitat loss, and we do. That is why it is really important that the Minister take the concerns expressed in this debate not only back to her Department—I hope that she will speak about the built environment in a moment—but to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, because we need a cross-Government approach to address many of these concerns.
Kerry McCarthy
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. It is important that we look at how we farm our land. The vast majority of land in this country is used for growing food, and there is a real issue because as it becomes more industrialised in scale, there are fewer hedgerows, bigger fields and less attention to biodiversity. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should support measures to encourage farmers to farm more sustainably, with more regard for the biodiversity on the land?
Luke Pollard
I agree entirely. A few weeks ago, I visited a farm just outside Plymouth run by a fantastic farmer called Johnny Haimes, who demonstrated how agriculture could be more sustainable and still be profitable. That is the type of best practice that we need to encourage right across our agricultural sectors if we are to address the high levels of carbon that they use, but also to make our soils and our waterways in and around those agricultural lands more sustainable.
A number of hon. Members have made the point that it is not just developers that we need to look at. As the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) said, we need to look at how the public sector should lead by example on this matter. The majority of that can be done by local councils, but the right hon. Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire), in the good and passionate rebuke to austerity that I am glad he made, spoke about the loss of planning inspectors at local level. That has hollowed out some of the expertise, particularly in relation to wildlife; I am thinking of the loss of wildlife officers from our local councils.
I am very pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) mentioned the superb work that the Labour council in Exeter has done in choosing swift bricks. More councils should be looking at that. Indeed, about a month ago, there was a national day for putting up a bird box, and my mum—who should always get a good mention in these debates—bought me not one, not two, but three bird boxes for my birthday, so my garden in Plymouth has plenty more nesting sites.
That brings me to a good point about whether the habitats that are lost should be replaced one for one. That is a discussion that has just been had. I mentioned to the Minister before the debate that there was a fantastic piece on “Countryfile” last night about the net gain consultation—perfect wordplay for the debate that we are having today
That consultation was run by DEFRA, and it asked whether we should have a net gain of biodiversity if there is to be economic development. The Government consultation received 670 responses and closed in February. In theory, the results are to be published alongside the environment Bill later this year. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us whether that is still the plan, because we know that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs publishes plenty of consultations, but takes very little concrete action. I would be grateful if the Minister set out what she intends to do in respect of that.
Luke Pollard
We are seeing species decline in all parts of our wildlife in every part of the United Kingdom. The breeding farmland bird index is falling. It has declined by more than half since 1970. The breeding woodland bird index for the UK declined by 25% between 1970 and 2017. We cannot keep squeezing nature into smaller spaces and we must put the environment at the heart of Government policy. The best way to do that is for the Government to lead by example in the projects that they run and the leadership that they can provide for the environment sector.
Liz Twist
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. In the past fortnight, many of us attended an RSPB drop-in called “Let nature sing”. I am sure that we all supported the goal of getting their nature CD into the charts. I am told it got to number 18 in the charts. There is a bigger issue. He is talking about planning issues and squeezing nature. Many residents are concerned that when we develop greenfield sites in particular, but other sites as well, it feels as if the environment is a long way down the priorities list. We look at off-site mitigation and other things, but what we want to do is preserve the site. This has been a huge issue in my constituency recently.
Luke Pollard
Singles like that would make a proud addition to my collection of Britney and Kylie songs on iTunes, so we need to promote it. We also need to ensure that every type of economic activity that we have as a country becomes greener. If we are to meet our Paris climate change obligations, we need to remove 80% of the carbon from our economy. We will not be able to do that simply by recycling some more plastic bottles. We need fundamental economic change. The UN report on species loss outlined the transformative change that is required, and made it clear that when it comes to the loss of habitat in respect of the trees and hedgerows that are being lost through bird netting we need to take quicker action.
Dame Cheryl Gillan
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because he ignored me when I tried to ask him to give way earlier, when he was talking about net gain. Regarding the aim of net gain, I hope that we all will observe that in some instances it is impossible. If we destroy ancient woodland, we cannot replace it: it is irreplaceable. I look at net gain with a great deal of scepticism, as I hope others do.
Luke Pollard
The right hon. Lady is right to be cautious, because with net gain the devil is in the detail. It cannot simply be used as a stamp, to pretend that it makes the activity greener when it does not. A number of us share that suspicion about the consultation, so I would be grateful if the Minister could respond to that.
Finally, I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. I thank Maggie Moran, Nell and John for their work in setting up the petition, as well as Simon Leadbeater, who initiated the second petition, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool mentioned. We all need to do our bit to put pressure on developers, to ensure that the cruel and inhumane practice of netting precious bird-nesting sites comes to an end. I would be grateful if the Minister set out how the Government will be doing that with a cross-Government approach in the weeks and months ahead.
Mrs Wheeler
The hon. Lady makes a very good point. That council has learnt its lesson. It should have brought the RSPB in much earlier, but it did rectify the situation. I also watched that footage and it was very distressing.
Netting is permissible if the intention is to protect birds, but I suspect that many of those who signed the petition are concerned that these rules are often carefully misunderstood by some developers. Netting should never be used to hinder the natural cycle of nest building and the nurturing and feeding of young birds. Nets should protect birds not profits.
The law on protecting birds and preventing the disturbance of nests is clear. Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the Animal Welfare Act 2006, prosecutions can be brought if someone causes unnecessary suffering to a bird by an act or failure to act, especially when the person concerned knew or reasonably ought to have known that their action or inaction would cause harm. Breaches can lead to fines or imprisonment. I am happy to acknowledge that some developers get the message. As we have heard, Bellway and Bovis Homes have declared that they are both changing their policies to stop the use of bird netting, and Barratt Homes does not net hedges or trees on any of its 400 or so sites across England, Scotland and Wales. Their actions show that it is possible not to use bird netting when firms plan ahead, so that construction does not clash with the nest-making and chick-rearing season.
As we have just marked Hedgehog Awareness Week, I am particularly aware that there must be wider recognition that we must do all we can to safeguard and enhance our biodiversity for the future. Today, local authorities already have a duty, under our national planning policy framework, to pursue net gains for biodiversity. The Government intend to give local authorities more powers to insist on the protection and enhancement of biodiversity. Our 25-year environment plan is a symbol of that deep commitment and a reflection of our shared desire to leave our environment in a better place than we found it. To answer the question of the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) specifically, our forthcoming Environment Bill will make biodiversity net gain mandatory for development.
Oral Answers to Questions
Luke Pollard Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Jake Berry
First, I take the opportunity to congratulate my hon. Friend on her recent wedding to Bob.
The Government are aware of the impact of tidal flooding in Looe. The Environment Agency and Cornwall Council are working on an integrated flood defence scheme as part of the £20 million wider regeneration of the area.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
The recent House of Lords Select Committee report on the funding of coastal communities shows that our coastal towns and communities are hardest hit by austerity. Will the Minister take the report’s recommendations seriously and look at how we can redistribute wealth and power from the centre and into coastal communities, especially those in the far south-west such as Plymouth?
Jake Berry
I saw the Select Committee’s report with interest—in fact, I had the privilege of giving evidence to the Select Committee—and it well identifies the fact that coastal communities across the country face shared challenges. That is, of course, why we have our coastal communities fund, which is looking at individual projects that can drive jobs, growth and prosperity in coastal communities, including those of Plymouth.
Stronger Towns Fund
Luke Pollard Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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James Brokenshire
As I have said in previous answers, we want to build on the success of the city and growth deal initiatives, which have cemented our approach to the idea of people working together and the bigger picture of how benefit can be felt at community level. That is the approach that we are taking to the next stage and this additional funding, and my hon. Friend’s constituents will be able to feel the benefit.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State’s allocation of just £33 million over seven years for the 5.4 million population of the south-west is insulting. The far south-west and Cornwall in particular contain some of the most deprived communities in the country. The Secretary of State has said that this fund, and the shared prosperity fund, will be allocated on the basis of need. What faith can the south-west have in that when we receive one of the highest levels of needs-based EU funding and one of the lowest levels of need-based Government funding?
James Brokenshire
As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double), the UK shared prosperity fund is different. Let me also point out that this fund includes £600 million for competitive bids. I know that the south-west has benefited from the coastal communities fund. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to make applications and see towns across the south-west benefit.
Economic Growth: South-west
Luke Pollard Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to follow my neighbour, the hon. Member for South West Devon (Sir Gary Streeter). I believe I was just 13 years old—probably causing as much nuisance then as I do now—when he was first elected, and it seems as though some of the issues that affected our region in the 1980s and 1990s were similar to the ones that we face today. There is still a lack of investment in our strategic infrastructure, and the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to signal road and rail as areas in which we need investment. We also need skills and investment in education, delivering benefits for all young people right across the region, so they can stay in our region and create jobs and future prosperity.
Similarly to the hon. Member for South West Devon, I want to distinguish between the south-west and the far south-west. When I talk about the far south-west, I mean Devon and Cornwall, because there is sometimes a temptation for Ministers to lump together improvements in Swindon and in Bournemouth as part of the overall benefit to the south-west. We need to break down the larger region and focus on where some of the benefits can best be felt, particularly around the peninsula of Devon and Cornwall, as well as further up in Somerset and Dorset.
As a region, we have a lot to be proud of. We are a region of immense beauty, immense skill and talent, real professionalism, and huge potential for job creation. However, we do not always talk enough about how good we are as a region. That is certainly true of Plymouth, but I realise it can be true of our wider region: we hide our light under a bushel, and then we hide the bushel. We are not always as good at talking ourselves up as we need to be. If we are to get our fair share from Government, we need to be bolder about our ambition, clearer and more relentless about where we need help, and prouder about the areas in which we do so much and excel. That unfairness is one of the reasons why I first thought about going into politics, because as a young lad growing up in Devon, I saw other parts of the country getting stuff that we were not getting. My friends in other parts of the country seemed to have more opportunities than were being afforded to young people in the south-west, and that did not seem fair.
Whether a person lives in Plymouth, Devon, Cornwall, or anywhere else around the country, they should have the same opportunities, but sometimes our peripherality seems to restrict our opportunities in that respect. To engage with those opportunities, we need a structural, long-term, cross-party plan, and I hope that today’s debate will help to put pressure on Ministers to create such a plan, because our region needs a turning point. As the only Labour Back Bencher in this debate, with my regional Tory colleagues sitting opposite me, I feel as though I am up against a very tough job interview—the question is whether I would like the job at the end of it, if it involves working with that employer. I know that the other Labour MPs who represent the region—my colleagues from Bristol and Stroud—would echo this point; sadly, the Whips have timed statutory instrument Committees very well in order to avoid their being present here. However, if we are to succeed as a region, fairness and cross-party working are important, and my Labour colleagues would like me to emphasise the benefits that come from working together in order to achieve that.
We know that as a region, we have been starved of investment for far too long. We know that our education, health and transport spending per head is well below the national average. We know that those structural problems have affected our region, not just since 2010 but for decades prior to that, and we know that we need to change that. I am mindful of the fact that, with the Government’s entire majority sitting opposite me, we have a power and a voice that we should be using more. The sooner our region starts standing together across parties, and being louder and more determined about our key asks, the more likely it is that Ministers will listen to Members from the far south-west. It should not be only the Democratic Unionist party and its 10 Members of Parliament who hold sway in this House. The DUP received about 300,000 votes at the last general election, but 260,000 people live in Plymouth, and we need to start evening out our influence as a region, because there are still some problems that we need to address.
There are also some opportunities, which I will briefly dwell on. The hon. Member for South West Devon spoke about Dawlish. I honestly wonder what went through the minds of Ministers in the Department for Transport when they decided, knowing that today was the fifth anniversary of Dawlish being washed away, to park the announcement on funding until two weeks hence. I cannot understand why that has happened. Equally, at the end of the funding—I anticipate that it will come in a couple of weeks’ time; if it does not, I hope there is an almighty stink about it—we will still only have a train line at Dawlish that closes slightly less than it does at the moment. That funding will not deal with the structural inequality and slowness of our service, or its capacity.
The superb Peninsula Rail Task Force report, which I recommend to the Minister and to all colleagues who have not apprised themselves of it recently, talked about our long-term investment from Penzance at one end of the region to Paddington and other destinations. Some £8 billion of investment over 20 years could transform our economy. Just imagine the transformation if an average journey of three hours and 30 minutes from Plymouth to London could be reduced to two hours and 15 minutes, as the PRTF suggests. Imagine the potential for job creation, greater investment, more tourism and greater connectivity, and the broader horizons for our young people that that transformation could create. I realise that the Minister is not a Transport Minister, but any nudges and winks that he could give to his colleagues in the DFT to encourage them to push out the announcement we know is sitting in their press office, waiting to be announced in a couple of weeks’ time, would be greatly appreciated. It is not just rail that we need to improve: we need to extend the M5 from Exeter to the Tamar bridge, and we also need to be bold in some of our vision.
Finally, I will mention the huge potential that our natural environment presents to the region and our economy. I want Plymouth sound to be designated as the UK’s first national marine park. That project has the support of Plymouth Marine Laboratory, the University of Plymouth, the Marine Biological Association and many of the genuinely world-class institutions that just happen to be based in Plymouth. Being able to protect and value our coastal waters is incredibly powerful, and I know that there are people on both sides of the House who recognise the importance of protecting our coastal waters and valuing them more.
Having the UK’s first national marine park in Plymouth sound could send a strong message that Plymouth is open for business not only for marine sites, marine engineering jobs and fishing, but for marine conservation. It could send a message that our wider region is open to the job creation potential that could flow from greater investment in our marine sector, in terms of both science and the exciting element of marine autonomy, keeping our Royal Navy jobs and the marine refit jobs that accompany them in the city of Plymouth. It is an exciting project, and I hope that Government Members will join the increasingly large numbers of individuals who are getting behind this campaign on a cross-party basis. If it works for Plymouth sound, it could work for coastal waters right around our peninsula, and indeed around our country. It could be really quite exciting.