Perran Moon

I am just glad that we have a Labour Government who are taking the national health service far more seriously than the previous Government did. My deepest concern is that deprivation is not adequately reflected in standardised measurements, particularly the indices of multiple deprivation, as the Government’s primary tool for assessing need. Research from Plymouth Marjon University due to be published on 26 September introduces the concept of “pretty poverty”—deprivation masked by Cornwall’s postcard beauty. The six key findings of the report show that the indices of multiple deprivation do not give enough weight to transport dependency, housing displacement, employment precarity, healthcare withdrawal, educational isolation and community resilience. Although the measurement has strengths, without reforming it we risk missing the deep structural issues facing remote coastal communities. In June, as was mentioned earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham), the Government launched the fair funding review, acknowledging that outdated models have short-changed places like Cornwall. It includes a long overdue remoteness adjustment, previously dropped in 2018, and recognition of some of the costs associated with tourism. However, in Cornwall, the ending of the shared prosperity fund, which had been used to develop economic prosperity— announced on the same day that millions of pounds were made available for mayoral combined authorities in the north and midlands—was a bitter pill to swallow. The indices of multiple deprivation do not see the full picture, and when measurement fails, funding fails. I am pleased to see that a new iteration of the indices will be released later this year, and that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has been brought into the process to consider rural affairs, but the specific needs of remote coastal communities must be considered as well. Time and again, evidence shows that remote coastal communities are often conflated with rural areas, overlooked in key metrics and treated as peripheral. Decisions about these communities must be based on accurate, meaningful assessments of deprivation. I urge Ministers to commit themselves to reviewing the forthcoming research from Plymouth Marjon University, because although it focuses on Cornwall, the issues that it raises are likely to apply across most other remote coastal areas. I also ask this Minister to commit herself to a dedicated remote coastal strategy to deal with these issues holistically. Our remote coastal areas have so much economic potential, but up until now Government policy has seemed to favour investment in urban mayoral authority areas in London, Birmingham and Manchester.