Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Sheryll Murray and Steve Double

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 18th November 2016 Commons Chamber

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

I want to start by saying that I will be supporting the Bill and concur with the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) about why he supports it. However, I will mainly talk about the impact that the proposed boundary changes will have on Cornwall. I want to explain why people in Cornwall, my constituents in particular, feel so strongly about this issue and have urged me to speak up today.

Many hon. Members will be aware that the restrictions in the current legislation mean that Cornwall will have to share an MP with Devon. There will have to be a seat that crosses the border between north-east Cornwall and north-west Devon.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray]

Will my hon. Friend explain to me what part of his constituency may cross the border with Devon?

[Steve Double]

My constituency is clearly in central mid-Cornwall and no part of it will cross the border, but the people of Cornwall feel strongly about this whether they are directly impacted by the cross-border seat or not. The Minister will know that the matter has provoked strong feelings for many in Cornwall. I acknowledge that that reaction may seem strange and make little sense for people outside Cornwall—many simply view Cornwall as another English county—but the Cornish pride themselves on being different, un-English, and unique in many ways. It is therefore unsurprising that people who do not share that sense of pride and passion in being Cornish do not appreciate how the Cornish people feel. The truth is that this is an emotional reaction to the proposals.

I will admit that I have looked at many of the reasons for objecting to the cross-border seat in the current legislation, and there are no reasonable legal arguments to stop it going forward.

[Mrs Murray]

rose—

[Steve Double]

I will make a little progress before I take another intervention.

Cornwall’s democratic representation will not be somehow diluted by sharing an MP with part of Devon. I do not believe that an MP will be unable to represent two different counties in one constituency. Many hon. Members represent diverse constituencies with people from all sorts of ethnic and cultural backgrounds very effectively. This is about a purely emotional response from the Cornish. We have seen over the past six months that voters have become much more emotional in how they react to Government and our democracy—politics is now much more emotional.

Like many, I had hoped that the granting of minority status to the Cornish people would provide a basis for a legal challenge. There was great joy in Cornwall in 2014 when the Cornish were recognised under the Council of Europe’s framework convention for the protection of national minorities. We were told that it would give us the same recognition as other Celtic people in the UK, but it appears that this does not apply when it comes to parliamentary boundaries. Although the Boundary Commission has recognised and maintained the borders of Scotland and Wales when drawing up the constituencies, the same respect has not been shown to the Cornish border. Sadly, legal advice obtained by Cornwall Council has stated that our Cornish minority status is not something that can be used to argue against a cross-border seat, so despite all the rhetoric, it seems that the legal arguments against this boundary are very weak.

[Mrs Murray]

There has been a petition on this and some of my constituents wrote to me about it. I looked at the petition website and saw that 400 of my constituents—out of 72,000—had signed it. Does my hon. Friend know how many of his constituents signed it? He said he was speaking on behalf of the Cornish, but let me put on the record the fact that I am a Cornish girl and he was not speaking for me.

[Steve Double]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I do not know how many people from my constituency signed the petition, but I have been out in my constituency, on the doorsteps, in the pub and at my surgeries, and what I do know is how many people have come directly to me to raise their strong feelings about this issue. That is what I have taken notice of. Leaving aside how many constituents have raised this issue with me, it is one that I, as a Cornishman, feel strongly about.

EU Membership: Economic Benefits

Debate between Sheryll Murray and Steve Double

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Commons Chamber

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

I feel a bit of a lone voice because I am going to speak in favour of voting to leave next week. It is very important for me to do so because I believe that Labour Members’ comments about a Tory Brexit betray the fact that they are not listening to the British people. The vote next week will quite clearly be very close, but at least half of the British people have had enough of the EU and want to leave. By calling this a Tory Brexit, Labour Members are just not listening to the many millions of British people who have genuine concerns about our current relationship with the EU.

This debate, however, is about the supposed economic benefits of our membership of the EU. I will address one very specific point in that regard. According to the House of Commons Library, in 2016 Britain is forecast to give £20.5 billion gross and £11.2 billion net to the EU, so we will be getting back some money from that £20 billion. No one can deny that that will be a large sum of money, and there are various opinions about how it could be spent, but only if we leave will we get to decide how it can be apportioned.

Part of the money we get back from the EU comes in the form of economic development aid. The constituency in Cornwall that I have the privilege of representing is one of the areas in England that benefits the most from that aid. Over the past decades, Cornwall has received hundreds of millions of pounds in regional growth funding from the EU.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray]

I believe Cornwall has been getting around £65 million a year since 2001.

[Steve Double]

I thank my hon. Friend for that—I was about to make the point that over the past 10 years or so Cornwall has received around £600 million in economic development aid. But we need to remember that that is not EU money. The EU does not actually have any money—there is no magic EU money tree. It is our money, which we give to the EU. It converts it into euros, then converts that into sterling to give back to us, except that it gives it back with a whole load of strings, bureaucracy and red tape attached about how we can spend it.

The fact is that that money is not working. It was meant to create 10,000 new jobs in Cornwall. In fact, in the past 10 years or so, it has created around a third of that number. That Cornwall has now qualified for a third round of EU funding demonstrates that the funding is failing. It is not lifting the Cornish economy as intended. It is not raising wages or the standard of living in the way it was designed to.

Local Government Funding: Rural Areas

Debate between Sheryll Murray and Steve Double

Monday 11th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Murray]

That is something my hon. Friend the Minister could consider.

There is also a problem with specialist schools, which are often a considerable distance away from where children live. Facilities can also be more difficult to get to. As well as having to travel many miles to the local swimming pool or to see a film at a cinema, we have to look at essential amenities, such as doctors, dentists and hospitals. I worked as a doctors’ receptionist at one of my rural practices for more than 21 years, and I used to try to arrange people’s appointments around the bus timetable, but that was not always possible. My nearest hospital is over the Tamar in Plymouth, and getting there involves a ferry or a long trip around by the Tamar bridge. Google Maps shows it takes one and a half hours to get there by public transport.

Such matters create considerable transport costs for anyone in a rural area, and especially for any local authority that must help people to get around these vast areas. It is simply not financially viable for the private sector to run such services on a regular or affordable basis, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) said. These rural communities, such as my own, need assistance with that extra burden. Last week, I spoke on the importance of food security, and I remind my hon. Friends that it is in these rural areas that we produce our food.

I want to finish with a complaint from one of my long-standing councillors. Councillor Armand Toms from Looe wrote to me recently, although I acknowledge that he must also raise this matter in Cornwall Council. He said in his email:

“Year on year the revenue from the Cornwall Council car parks in Looe is going up hitting the local community and tourism. Yet the town gets very little if nothing in return and has taken on public conveniences which will cost over a million pounds in the next ten years.”

I remind the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset that when town councillors have the ability to increase a precept without being called to account for it, that often has the same effect as raising council tax revenue by the back door. In Councillor Toms’ words:

“I believe that Cornwall Council is treating Looe’s car parks as cash cows.”

Those are his words, not mine. He is a Cornwall councillor, but I point out that he is not a Conservative one.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that that is the case right across Cornwall and not just unique to Looe? Newquay in my constituency, which raises more money from car parks than any other town in Cornwall, is just the same. The council keeps putting up the car parking charges, but the town gets very little back.

[Mrs Murray]

I completely agree. Cornwall Council seems to be taking revenue from its revenue-raising amenities, but offloading the costly amenities we provide in tourist areas on to town and parish councils.