Jayne Kirkham
MP for Truro and Falmouth · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“Poor infrastructure, high housing costs, precarious seasonal employment and lack of access to healthcare, transport and education are major issues for Cornish residents, and they are all drivers of poverty in rural and coastal places.”
“Although there is a great system of education and apprenticeships, the EMA’s abolition left a real problem, with students across Cornwall having to travel long distances to those FE colleges without the money to help them do that.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Alec. I am so pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) secured this debate. Isolation and hidden deprivation in coastal communities is such an important issue.”
“Patients treated in temporary escalation spaces face a lack of privacy and dignity and limited access to necessities such as food, water and toileting. They experience worse outcomes as well.”
“Our local ambulance trust, the South Western Ambulance Service NHS foundation trust, has got much faster at moving patients from ambulances, so that the ambulances do not waste so much time sitting outside the emergency department, but of course, moving patients faster can increase the queue in ED and the need for corridor care there.”
“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) for organising this debate. It is really important and very timely. Corridor care is a visible symptom of the pressure our NHS is under. According to Age UK, the number of people experiencing corridor care has grown 563-fold since 2015.”
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“Does the hon. Member agree that when we are looking at scaling up wind—floating offshore wind, for example, which will benefit Scotland and Cornwall, where I am from—we could look more closely at contracts for difference, and the licences and leases with the Crown Estate, in order to embed social value in them on a large scale and generate benefits such as apprenticeships or the building up of local supply chains? There are exemptions to the World Trade Organisation rules and so on, and we could manage to do that in quite a substantial way.”
“2. What steps she is taking to help mitigate disruption to rail passengers travelling to the south-west when construction of Old Oak Common station begins.”
“Our railway in the south-west is too slow, too fragile and too expensive. Does the Transport Secretary agree with me and colleagues across Cornwall, the south-west and Wales that this new HS2 station will mean slower and more disrupted journeys? Will she meet me and a delegation of south-west MPs to discuss mitigation of the legacy she has inherited from the last Government to ensure that the south-west does not suffer now and in the future because of that disruption?”
“Awaab’s law will force landlords to follow strict timescales to inspect and repair homes, including those with damp and mould, and the decent homes standard will apply to the private rented sector for the first time, with local councils given the power to fine landlords who fail to address serious hazards. Many people are shut out of the market if they have children or pets, or are on benefits. Changes to stop that happening will prevent the most vulnerable in my constituency remaining unhoused, and the heartache as people have to decide to give up treasured pets.”
“However, covid happened, further local government cuts affected officers’ capacity and the council changed to a Conservative administration that was wary of upsetting landlords following covid, so none of the recommendations was enacted. Regardless of the council’s caution, the private rented sector has still been decimated in Cornwall, with many landlords selling up or flipping to lucrative short-term holiday lets. Prices have skyrocketed, and many people are struggling to find a home, which is why I am so pleased and relieved that the Government have prioritised this Bill. It will bring in many of the measures proposed by that Cornish report—at last, we will end no-fault evictions, introduce longer protected terms and limit annual rent rises.”
“Because of our geographical spread, many of those families have ended up in holiday parks, caravan sites or hotels up to an hour and a half’s drive from home. With poor rural transport links, this often leaves families completely cut off from jobs, schools and support networks. In September 2020, Cornwall council’s economic growth committee published an inquiry into the private rented sector in Cornwall and recommended a number of measures to extend licensing powers. It also recommended data gathering on landlords and tenants in the private rented sector, Disclosure and Barring Service checks, longer terms and the limiting of annual rent increases.”
“Recent statistics show that 50% of the private rented sector in Cornwall does not meet the decent homes standard, way above the average of 21%. Less than 20% of homes in Cornwall were in the private rented sector four years ago, yet a quarter of our children and young people were living in those homes, including a third of our under-fives. That has been evidenced by the noticeable uptick in recent years of section 21 evictions that affect families with young children. Cornwall now has more than 800 households in emergency or temporary accommodation, and many of them are young families who have struggled to find somewhere else to live because of the cost, their children or even their cats.”
“It provides many benefits for the people in Truro and Falmouth who rely on the private rented sector for their home, and certainty for the landlords who provide those homes.”
“Statistics from the council tax base tell us that over 13,000 second homes are registered in Cornwall, which is nearly 5% of the total housing stock and five times higher than the average across England. There are also 27,000 families on the waiting list for social housing, but Cornwall has only 10,000 council houses and 22,000 housing association homes. I am pleased that the Minister is considering a toolbox of measures that could be made available to local authorities to discourage the further depletion of the private rented sector and full-time residential housing in Cornwall, such as the higher council tax that is coming in, licensing and registration, planning restrictions and closing the business rates council tax loophole. In conclusion, I very much welcome the Bill.”
“I was not here when the hon. Gentleman introduced his previous Bill, but I am sure the Minister has considered the importance of pets to people living in all types of housing. The court system and local authorities will need extra capacity to deal with the extra work created by the legislation. I was pleased to hear the announcements about digitisation and the ombudsman. The proposed changes will support the security of privately renting families in Truro, Falmouth and across Cornwall. As I have said, many people in Cornwall have been evicted from their rented homes with two months’ notice, so they can be used as short-term or holiday lets. We know that Cornwall council is the local authority with the largest supply of short-term lets outside London. There are 24,300 holiday let properties in Cornwall, up 30% on 2019.”
“I am so pleased to be part of a new era of clean energy investment, with carbon capture in the north-east and the very successful recent renewables auction. The Secretary of State has been to see our critical minerals, floating offshore wind potential and geothermal potential in Cornwall. Will he please confirm that the industrial strategy and renewables will be truly UK-wide and will span from Scotland and the north-east down to the west and Cornwall, with a clear pipeline of investment opportunities in order to give certainty to developers in, for example, floating offshore wind in the Celtic sea?”
“Finally, we should create a planning use class for short-term or holiday lets, so that homeowners need to actively apply for permission for the change from “lived in” to “holidayed in”—flipping the default that the Conservatives suggested. Those are the four measures I would like to see in the toolkit, which could be given to local authorities or could form part of the devolution package.”
“It would be a similar scheme to the licensing of houses in multiple occupation, which currently only applies to homes registered for five or more people; it would seem sensible to increase the scope of HMO licensing as well. Secondly, we want the business rates/council tax loophole closed. It should not be possible to pay no council tax or business rates on a property; it is just not fair. Thirdly, Cornwall council has already voted to double the council tax on empty second homes, and has actually asked the Government if it can triple it. Given that the council is Conservative-run, and that this decision was agreed cross-party unanimously, it shows how severe the problem has become in Cornwall. If we were to implement that, every time the council tax was doubled it would raise £25 million.”
“During covid, approximately £170 million went to properties that were registered as business lets, with £100 million of that going out of Cornwall, which shows the ownership of the properties. We have done an awful lot of work on this, and I suggest that the Minister should consider a toolkit of measures to deal with some of the issues. First, lots of people have talked about a licensing scheme obliging owners of short-term lets, including Airbnbs, to register them for a fee for three years, which seems like a sensible amount of time. We would then know how many there were and where, and could push for fire and safety checks to be mandatory.”
“That is nearly 5% of the total housing stock, which is nearly five times higher than the average across England. Plus, we have roughly only 10,000 council houses and 22,900 housing association homes in Cornwall. We have 800 families in emergency or temporary accommodation. Lots of families have been evicted under section 21—a situation that will hopefully improve, now that the Bill has been introduced. Businesses struggle to get key workers. The private rented sector has all but collapsed in Cornwall, to be honest. The taxpayer has lost about £20 million per year, as a result of the loophole allowing second homes to be registered as holiday lets for business purposes: they pay neither council tax nor business rates.”
“This debate was called by a London Member, my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake). I am grateful to her, but I am happy that so many Members from across the country are here too. I wanted to make sure that our voice from Cornwall, where this is a really big issue, was heard very loudly. We have been running a “first homes, not second homes” campaign for a number of years. Cornwall is the local authority with the largest supply of short-term lets outside London. There are around 24,300 properties in Cornwall, which is up 30% on 2019, while there are about 27,000 houses on the social housing waiting list—hon. Members can see the balance there. Statistics from the council tax base tell us that there are probably about 13,000 second homes registered in Cornwall.”
“I have just one small point to make about the furnished holiday letting scheme. There are some properties in Cornwall for which there are planning restrictions that say they can only be holiday lets and nothing else can be done with the property, because it may be on the same premises as the first property. I just want the Government to be aware of that when the regulations are developed.”
“Does my hon. Friend agree how important the SPF is to areas, including Truro and Falmouth in Cornwall, that lost their funding under the European regional development fund and the European structural fund when we came out of the EU under Brexit? Does she agree how fundamental it is that there is some sort of replacement fund for that?”
“My query is about the current version of the shared prosperity fund. Some of the capital projects going on at the moment are time-limited to the end of March. Some will not be finished by then, but local authorities are rushing to complete them and spending more money because they are worried that some of it—the current money, not the future money—could be clawed back. Will the Minister confirm that that will not be an issue with those existing projects and that that money will not be clawed back, so those projects can be completed?”
“Victims of alleged rape in Truro and Falmouth and across the country are having their trials pushed back for months, if not years, often very shortly before those trials are set to begin. That leads to severe distress for victims and families, and can have unintended consequences, such as bail conditions becoming outdated as victims wait so long for their cases to come to trial that addresses change in the meantime. Will the Minister please outline what she is doing to prevent or minimise the potential harm caused by such unintended consequences and to bring those long-delayed cases to a speedy conclusion?”
“I ask the Minister to look into that, and to see whether other local authorities in this situation have been treated in the same way and lost their grants. Has that grant moved to other registered providers in Cornwall, or has it left Cornwall completely? Is there any way we could get that back and backdate it? The other issue, which the hon. Member for St Ives spoke about, is second homes and holiday lets, which have absolutely exploded in Cornwall, particularly since covid. The private rented sector has been decimated and is now virtually non-existent. We have struggled so much with section 21 notices, which explains to a great extent why so many of our families are now in emergency and temporary accommodation.”
“There is now a movement called Homes for Cornwall, whereby businesses are coming together to try to find alternatives solutions to deal with the housing crisis, which has become so bad that they cannot find staff. As the hon. Member for St Ives said, we have a very low number of social houses in Cornwall—only 10,300 council homes. I want to talk about the affordable housing programme grant, which a previous Secretary of State, Michael Gove, suspended for Cornwall because of the poor performance of the housing provider Cornwall Housing, which is an arm’s length company owned by the council. That performance has now improved, and the grant is desperately needed for a new social housing scheme in Redruth, but it has not been returned.”
“It is providing bunk cabins in council car parks for people to live in as emergency and temporary accommodation, which is very difficult. So many people in Cornwall are now living in their vans, because they simply have nowhere else to go. I am finding that families are moving into emergency accommodation, and that the single people who were becoming homeless when I was first a councillor in Cornwall are now living in their cars. The situation has become really dire. Businesses are now finding that key workers have nowhere to live, so we have people coming down to work in the hospitality sector or in agriculture. The same is true for professionals, such as teachers, nurses and doctors—a headteacher in Cornwall struggled to find somewhere to live, and she had to give up her job and move away again.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for granting extra time for a debate that is so important for Cornwall and for giving others a chance for speak about its very particular housing issues. I also thank the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) for initiating the debate. As he said, about 27,000 people are on Cornwall’s housing waiting list, and about 800 are in temporary and emergency accommodation. Many of them are families with young children, who are placed in caravan parks and holiday homes that are up to an hour and a half or two hours away from their support networks, their schools, their jobs and where they live. This is really affecting community cohesion, upsetting families and causing real hardship. The council is struggling with the need, and the cost is vast.”
“The previous Government had a review on introducing a use class for holiday lets—but then did not do very much about it—so that is one possible measure. The default could be second home owners having to apply for a change of use if they flip their homes to holiday lets.”
“Friend the Member for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), who cannot speak in this debate. He has worked hard with us in Cornwall on the issue of protecting first homes, rather than second homes, and he has supported us, as I know that the same issue applies up in Devon. We have spoken with the Minister about potentially having a toolkit of measures that could be used to deal with issues relating to second homes and holiday lets. I know that our Government will introduce one of those measures: the licensing of holiday lets, hopefully with fees and safety checks on those lets, which is not done at the moment—some properties are not checked for fire safety, or for safety in any way. That is a massive loophole that needs to be dealt with. The hon. Member for St Ives talked about planning requirements.”
“I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I will shortly move on to some of the ways in which we can deal with the proliferation of second homes and holiday lets, and address the imbalance. I want to reinforce the point that the hon. Member for St Ives made about the tax loophole. I think £18 million is now lost in council tax because so many housing providers have taken advantage of the loophole whereby they can claim business grants and the zero rate of exemption, rather than pay council tax, if their houses are let out for 10 weeks of the year. As the hon. Member said, so much money was lost in business grants during covid. I think £170 million in business grants went to properties that were registered as holiday lets. I want to mention my hon.”
“That is very popular, and if it was supported more, there would be a great deal more of it. In fact, our cabinet housing member in Cornwall has said that if every village built 10 homes, that would deal with the housing crisis completely. Discouraging hope value, particularly in certain parts of Cornwall, would be very helpful. I know that forcing developers to deliver their affordables rather than relying on the viability defence is part of the Government’s plans, because so often developers get to a point and say that they cannot afford to build the affordable houses that they promised. Another real problem is that the cost of building has shot up because the contractors in Cornwall have dropped in number and have become a great deal more expensive.”
“I thank the hon. Member for that point. I wanted to talk about council tax in particular, because, strangely, one of the few things that the entire council agreed on—we have a Conservative council in Cornwall at the moment—was doubling the council tax on empty second homes. In fact, we wrote to the Secretary of State at the time to ask whether we could triple the council tax on second homes, as they do in Labour Wales—that was a very unusual thing to do. Of course, as has been discussed, this is about looking at closing the loophole so that the owners of the property cannot flip between business rates and council tax. That would mean an £18 million a year gain in council taxes. I agree with the hon. Member that we should encourage co-operative and community housing in Cornwall.”
“Falmouth’s time truly has come again as part of the Government’s mission to become a clean energy superpower. Truro and Falmouth is the most magical place to live. It well and truly hooked me and my small family, and has become part of me. My journey, despite its ups and downs, has been a charmed and happy one. Truro and Falmouth has given so much to me, and it is overflowing with promise and brilliant, independent-minded enterprising dreamers. I am determined to serve my home as well as it has served me. A bright future lies ahead for it.”
“But there is potential for so much more, and the port of Falmouth is poised to take advantages of a new generation of offshore wind production in the Celtic sea. With the support of the new energy company GB Energy, the £1.8 billion ports fund and investment in the skills training we so desperately need, our young people will be able to grasp with both hands the well-paid jobs of the future, while securing our own home-grown energy and facing down the challenge of climate change—a challenge that is so important to a place like Cornwall, which stares the impacts of the changing climate in the face every day. We were the first large rural authority to declare a climate emergency and the 2030 net zero target. Now, we will play our part in getting the country to meet a similarly ambitious target.”
“Like Penhaligon, I believe that Cornwall, with its proud and independent heritage, deserves better. Turning to the topic of this debate, there is so much to be excited by. As well as Cornwall’s potential for onshore wind, we have 20% of Europe’s requirement for critical minerals and geothermal energy beneath our feet, buried in our granite. We only have to look at a horizon dotted with the ruins of engine houses to know that the people of Cornwall are more than happy to dig for their treasure. Falmouth is a town with its face turned to the sea. The port still has a very busy harbour and docks, which have businesses servicing both military and commercial ships, as well as hosting cruise and leisure vessels.”
“Exactly 50 years ago in this House, he referred to an economy that relies on tourism, traffic conditions in the summer months that strangle much of the industry that keeps the place going for the rest of the year, tremendous pressure on hospital services, sewage problems, pressure on housing, the problem of summer lets and the lowest average wage in Britain. I am pleased that the measures in this Government’s programme—a real living wage, the water Bill, devolution and renters rights—will help to address some of those issues, but it is shocking that many of the issues that he mentioned then are, sadly, still very much in evidence today, half a century on. For a place on the edge of the map, Cornwall is too often at the edge of our thoughts in this place.”
“The area brims with creatives, scientists and engineers—whom Dawn French, the university’s chancellor, described as “enterprising dreamers”. If we follow the River Fal upwards, we reach Truro, Cornwall’s capital and only city, with its impressive cathedral and award-winning theatre Hall for Cornwall. It has Lys Kernow, the home of Cornwall council, as well as Treliske, the acute hospital. The constituency also has a large rural element, with an array of beautiful villages and areas such as the Roseland peninsula, where farming and fishing are still vital industries. When researching for this speech, I was struck by the words in the maiden speech of one of Cornwall’s most well known and loved Members of Parliament, David Penhaligon.”
“It is a vibrant and welcoming town enveloped by the ocean. Falmouth has played its part in the history of Great Britain. In the late 1600s, the town was appointed the Royal Mail packet station, receiving and sending mail and messages all around the globe, making Falmouth —for 150 years at least—the information super-highway of the British empire. However, Falmouth is more than its seafaring past. We still have two splendid castles, Pendennis and St Mawes, protecting the entrance to the Carrick Roads, but the constituency is also the site of Falmouth University, built on the legacy of the famous art school that is still found on Woodlane, but now anchored across the border in the state-of-the-art Tremough campus in Penryn, which it shares with the University of Exeter.”
“She did a huge amount to shape the women’s health strategy and maternity safety awareness, and was integral in introducing the new pregnancy loss certificate. Both Cherilyn and her predecessor, Sarah Newton, worked to secure a new women and children’s unit at Treliske hospital in Truro, one of the previous Government’s 40 new hospitals or units. It is desperately needed and a long time coming. I had my son in the existing unit nearly 19 years ago, and the building was not fit for purpose then. I really want to ensure its speedy completion. Truro and Falmouth has existed as a constituency only since 2010. It sits in the middle of the Duchy of Cornwall, spreading from Falmouth on the south coast to Crantock on the north coast. Falmouth is my home, and where I have sat as a councillor for the past six years.”
“But I chose to stay and bring him up in Cornwall, and it is very much our home. Becoming a single parent was sudden and difficult, but I was fortunate. I benefited from the opportunities offered by the last Labour Government and was able to get back on my feet. I retrained and took a job as a teaching assistant working in a local secondary school for seven years, first in special educational needs and later as an unqualified teacher, which shows the journey that education has been on. I pay tribute to my predecessor, Cherilyn Mackrory. She served in a number of roles in this place; she showed her passion for the environment in her work on the Environmental Audit Committee and as chair of the ocean conservation all-party parliamentary group. She also drew on her own personal experience to help others.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison), whose experience and passion will be of great benefit to both his constituents and his local hospital, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford and Bow (Uma Kumaran), who will be a very worthy successor to those suffragettes. It is a real honour and a privilege to be standing here as the MP for Truro and Falmouth. I arrived in Cornwall quite by accident nearly 20 years ago, having been swept off my feet by a naval pilot who tempted me away from life as a London trade union lawyer, with images of beaches and sunsets. He flew search and rescue helicopters at Culdrose naval station. Unfortunately, as is often the case, our military marriage was short, and I was left as a single mum with a small son.”
“The Chancellor’s plans for growth are welcome in Cornwall, but in the meantime we are relying upon shared prosperity fund and towns deal money. The deadlines for the completion of those schemes are March 2025 and March ’26. To ensure that investment is not lost, will the Chancellor consider extending the deadlines for completion of those schemes by up to 12 months?”
“I recognise the conclusion in Baroness Hallett’s clear report and thank her for it. In Cornwall, our peripherality made it so much harder. Our local authority’s public health test and trace was halted by the Government on 12 March when fewer than half a dozen cases were in existence in Cornwall. PPE came very slowly. Citizens were making masks and some councillors and officers drove up to Exeter to pick up some. Care homes and workers in particular were slow to get PPE. In many care homes in my constituency, there were tragic results. Will we ensure that local authority public health directors can be more involved with decision making and setting up local solutions such as test and trace?”
“Cornish ports such as Falmouth, which the Secretary of State visited during the campaign, have well-advanced plans to reconfigure to service floating offshore wind in the Celtic sea. Cornish further education providers are keen to gear up to provide specialised courses to support the speedy growth of that industry so that young people in Cornwall have the opportunity to train for those high-skilled jobs of the future, but in the past they have struggled because of a lack of Government support. Will the Secretary of State please confirm that support will be available to ports, businesses and educational establishments in Cornwall, to enable them to plug into the vast opportunities opened up by floating offshore wind in the Celtic sea?”