Coastal Communities

Debate between Steff Aquarone and Judith Cummins

Thursday 20th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steff Aquarone]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, and I am pleased to associate myself with the sentiment behind his remarks. I think it was my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), when he was Energy Minister in the coalition, who scoped out the possibility of an offshore ring main for East Anglia, which is an even better solution than trying to bury cables under the ground.

Our coastal communities are also on the frontline in facing down the effects of climate change. I have spoken many times in Parliament about the coastal erosion that we face in North Norfolk—I make no apology to hon. Members for sounding like a broken record—but, as a result of man-made climate change, North Norfolk’s coastline villages such as Happisburgh, Trimingham and Overstrand are rapidly being claimed by the North sea.

We are not alone in this fight, as communities along the North sea coast are facing similar worries, and new modelling shows that the concern is more widespread than previously thought, with areas of the south-west now under threat of erosion too. My constituents look at projects such as the Thames barrier, where we have rightly taken bold steps and built infrastructure to protect communities from the effects of rising sea levels and extreme weather events, and wonder whether the Government would deliver the same level of attention to them. I will not allow our communities to be left behind or written off. We must fight climate change and mitigate its impacts, which we are already facing.

A fantastic book by Madeleine Bunting, “The Seaside: England’s Love Affair”, charts the story of our seaside towns over the past several decades. It is a story of decline that must be reversed, but it is also a story of hope and resilience. I can absolutely see the balance she describes: the fragility of life clinging to the cliffs, but also the social strength, the raw beauty and the economic opportunity. Supporting our local coastal economies does not have to mean billions in investment; it needs advocacy and action at the top table and the right support from Government to help people help themselves. Madeleine Bunting gave the Reynolds lecture in 2023 and made this salient point:

“Seaside towns don’t fit into the public debate about the North South divide. Nor has their decline ever dominated the national narrative in the way that inner cities did in the 80s as a focus of public policy or like the former mining and industrial towns. Seaside towns have been left to struggle with their own decline.”

I have covered just some of the key pillars of the challenges that our coastal communities face, as well as their resilience and our opportunity as a whole country to support them. What frustrates me greatly is that despite the wide-ranging and various challenges, responsibility for supporting them is fragmented and siloed across Government. I am delighted to see the Minister in his place; however, his remit contains only the communities aspect of our coastal communities. We have unique health challenges, economic challenges and opportunities of major environmental importance. Our coastal communities are too important to be bit parts of different portfolios, and we urgently need to take a holistic approach to supporting them, understanding how the different factors interact with one another. We need to be able to see and understand the impact of economic outcomes on health and wellbeing and how environmental challenges and renewable energy opportunities can go hand in hand.

That is why I have been calling for the creation of a Minister for coastal communities to give us a specific representative, speaking up for our areas in Government. That call has cross-party support, with MPs from across the House supporting it in the previous Parliament. I hope that the wide range of Members present today shows the Government that a similar consensus still exists for getting us a seat at the table and making the needs and opportunities of coastal communities heard and acted upon.

I will draw my remarks to a conclusion, as I am keen and excited to hear the contributions from all those present about what makes their communities so special. I hope that everyone will think about how coastal communities have impacted their lives: whether as a summer holiday destination, a weekend getaway, a university town or the place they have called home for generations. Let us think about why they matter to us and what they have given to us all, not just in economic contribution but in memories and in experiences. There are the memories from holidays with family and loved ones; the laughter and smiles at building sandcastles on our beaches as a child or with children of our own; the timeless enjoyment of windswept fish and chips warming us as we watch the waves crash against the shoreline; the way that Turner or Constable captured coastal beauty in their art works; and coastal walks, arcades, swimming, surfing and even seal spotting. Let us remember what coastal communities have given to us. Today, we can come together and make sure that we give back to them, protect them and let them create many more memories for generations to come.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Members will have noticed that there are a lot of people on their feet wanting to speak, so I will try and get as many people in as I can. I am imposing an immediate three-minute time limit.

English Devolution and Local Government

Debate between Steff Aquarone and Judith Cummins

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Before I call the next Member, may I ask people to keep their questions short?

[Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)]

I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a Norfolk county councillor. The Conservatives leading Norfolk county council have nearly bankrupted our county, failed children with special educational needs and disabilities, penalised those with disabilities, blown £50 million on four miles of never-to-be-built road, broken our transport system, taxed and complicated our recycling centres and left our roads pockmarked with potholes. What is it about this glittering record of success that attracted the Secretary of State to allowing them to negotiate the future of Norfolk’s devolution?

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Steff Aquarone and Judith Cummins

2nd reading
Tuesday 15th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)]

Hello! It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Mid and South Pembrokeshire (Henry Tufnell), and I extend my warmest regards to all the Members making their maiden speeches today.

First, I would like to acknowledge my predecessor, Duncan Baker. He was an attentive and hard-working Member, and I wish him well in his future pursuits in industry. Before him, Norman Lamb served in this House for 19 years and left an extraordinary legacy in the realm of mental health, a cause that he continues to be a dedicated advocate for. It was in no small part Norman’s commitment to speaking the truth to power and giving a voice to the voiceless that made him such a hero to the people of North Norfolk, and which attracted me to politics fully seven years ago, when I was first elected as a county councillor—and I draw Members’ attention to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in connection with my continued role there.

I am immensely grateful for the trust that residents across North Norfolk have shown in me: trust to represent them here, but also trust to play a part in the deep transformation we need in our politics if we are going to make positive change for society. This is an extraordinary place, but I cannot do what I have promised to do for my constituents—we cannot really do what we have been elected to do—without giving it the shake-up that is long overdue.

When people in the beautiful constituency of North Norfolk cannot live well, in good accommodation, with access to transport and employment and healthcare as part of a vibrant society, it is all of us who are failing them. I am thinking of the former resident I met on the train just last week who said to me, “I just want to come home, but there aren’t the jobs and there isn’t the transport.” I am also thinking about Kit, who made me my wonderful Liberal Democrat tie, and about the need to protect the precious Norfolk broads that she lives near; about Lisa in North Walsham, who is living in constant anguish because of the supply risks to her life-dependent medication; and about Don, a 99-year-old in Sheringham who is pinning his hope on a new kind of politics for the sake of his grandchildren.

The Bill introduces much-needed reform of the House of Lords, which we Liberal Democrats of course support, but we know that it does not go far enough. We must establish a fully elected upper House—elected using a fairer voting system—as soon as possible.

The House of Lords is only one part of our broken system, which needs to see urgent, radical reform. The structure and organisation of government itself must evolve to be fit for the modern age, and that transformation must extend beyond government to the wider public services and administrative systems that serve our citizens. Continuing with the current siloed structures of government is to ignore the technological advances of the past 50 years and fail to embrace the logarithmic advances in the future we are already living in. This evolution is about bringing policy and service delivery closer to the everyday lives and needs of people at every stage of their journey through life.

The current structures are having a very real impact in rural areas like mine, where our public services are in dangerous decline. Benjamin Court, a re-ablement centre in Cromer, has fallen into the gap between two silos—social care, managed by the local authority, and health services, overseen by the NHS—leading to its closure. That is not to mention the desperate need for a properly networked rural public transport service, which is key to enabling access to everything from employment to healthcare, but it is out of those departments’ scope and is instead left languishing at the bottom of the pile of priorities by a near-bankrupt county council. These problems make the lives of my constituents harder every day. We cannot go on like this.

But there is a solution: we can bring the design and delivery of services closer to the needs of citizens and there is plenty of precedence to go on here. In the industrial revolution, Thomas Edison made a profound contribution to rewiring the way that industry was organised. Prior to electricity generation, which he helped to develop, there tended to be only one motor in a factory. Industry had to be organised around a single source of power, usually a steam engine, with every machine that needed power connecting directly to the central drive shaft in the ceiling above. Components could be made, yes, but they then had to be transported elsewhere and assembled, usually by hand.

Energy was the central organising principle of industry, but electricity made it possible to pipe power to anywhere on the factory floor. It meant that machines could be placed wherever they were needed, becoming more precise, efficient and specialised, and it led to mass manufacturing, with the product as the central organising principle of industry.

Over the past few years, we have gone through another revolution that is potentially even bigger—the communications revolution. It is powered not by the invention of electricity, but by data. Since the advent of the consumer web in the 1990s, people have come to expect a higher degree of personalisation in their interactions with organisations and services. Data gathered from a wide range of sources—not just digital—is driving innovation and enabling more tailored, proactive experiences for users. This ability to be more pre-emptive and personalised does not even need people to be digitally enabled.

Data has enabled the rewiring of industry, not around the production line or the product, but around the citizen, or user experience. That has caused profound change in the overall architecture of many modern organisations, but it has had limited impact on the way that Government and the state are structured. There are great innovations taking place to try to integrate services and make them more patient or user centred, but without fundamental change in the underlying structures of power and public services, their effects will be limited.

From tackling climate change and preventing sewage spilling into the sea, to helping people get work and get about—let alone get a dentist appointment—so much of the change this country badly needs is not limited to one pillar of the state, but cross-cuts different Departments. Perhaps it is time to move away from the traditional silos of Secretaries of State for education, health, and transport, and instead adopt a more citizen-focused model. Imagine Secretaries of State for the citizen experience, for wellbeing and prosperity, for children or for data and privacy.

If people in North Norfolk are to get the changes they deserve to our rural health and social care provision, to access and prosper in the jobs of the future and to trust politicians as the custodians of our natural environment, we need to be prepared to rewire the structures of politics and public service delivery around the needs of the people they—and all of us in this House —serve.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Maureen Burke to make her maiden speech.