Public Services in Cornwall: Funding

Sarah Dyke Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to bring this debate to the House this evening. It is a particular joy that it has come so early, because it means that I have two hours to talk about my favourite subject—Cornwall. The whole House will be aware that I view Cornwall as a very, very special place—a unique place in many ways. I always count it as an incredible privilege that I was born and raised there, have lived and worked there my whole life, have raised my family there, and now have the joy of seeing my grandchildren grow up there as well.

Clearly, I am not the only one who views Cornwall as a very special and wonderful place. We have seen significant numbers of people choosing to move to Cornwall in recent years, and, of course, around 5 million people every year come on holiday. It is very easy to have that image of Cornwall as a wonderful place to go on holiday—we all have picture postcard images—without understanding that, behind many of those images, individuals, households and indeed businesses face a number of very real challenges.

We are a relatively low-income economy, with higher than average house prices and a number of other factors that make life challenging for many people. It is not just households and businesses that face challenges in Cornwall, but those who seek to deliver our public services as well. I think that we would all agree in this place that funding for public services should be based on two factors: the need or the demand for that service; and the cost of delivering that service locally. I hope to present to the Minister, whom I am pleased to see in his place, some of the issues that are unique to Cornwall. I particularly want to mention the combination of factors that mean that we face of number of very real challenges when it comes to delivering public services in Cornwall. There is a need, I believe, to review and reflect on those challenges when it comes to the allocation of funding for our services in Cornwall.

[Sarah Dyke (Somerton and Frome) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) on securing this important debate. As a fellow south-west MP, I know that what he is referring to is also reflected in Somerset. Somerset Council is struggling to revive discretionary public services, which it wishes to do because of the current unfair funding method. In the last financial year, rural councils could budget only £77 per head on discretionary services, while urban areas spent more than double that. Does the hon. Member agree that more needs to be done to provide our rural constituents with the services they deserve?

[Steve Double]

I wonder whether the hon. Lady actually read the subject of the debate, which is specifically about funding and delivering public services in Cornwall. She can make her points in her own debate about her part of the world; I am here to talk about Cornwall this evening.

There is a need to reflect on these challenges and this combination of factors that we face in Cornwall when it comes to the funding that we receive for our public services. My first point is about geography. Cornwall has a unique geography within the British Isles. We are long and narrow peninsula, unlike any other part of the country. We are almost an island. As I have said in this place before, if the River Tamar was 2.5 miles longer, we would actually be an island, and there is many proud a Cornishman who has talked about taking their shovel and finishing the job to create an island. The challenges we face often have more in common with those of an island than with being a part of the mainland.