Jayne Kirkham

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I thank the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) for securing this debate, which is important and relevant to me. I will probably shorten my speech a little, as the Minister is getting a double dose of Cornwall this afternoon—I apologise for that. We underwent major local government consolidation early in Cornwall. We became a unitary, from a county council and six districts, in 2009. We are now the third largest unitary in the country by population and the fourth largest by area, but the 12th least densely populated of the 62. That creates quite unique opportunities, but also challenges. I want to talk a bit about third-tier councils, because the establishment of our large unitary coincided with austerity. The council withdrew from quite a lot of services—all but the most statutory, really. That meant that the third-tier town and parish councils stepped up and took the reins, preventing the sell-off and closure of all sorts of things, such as green spaces, toilets, libraries and leisure centres—so much of the infrastructure that made our town special. It is great having services run by the people who live there and use them, but there are issues that need sorting out. When third-tier councillors’ councils grow, they still get no pay or expenses. We also have conduct issues clogging up the desks of upper-tier council monitoring officers, who do not have the teeth to sort them out. Precepts in towns have grown significantly larger than in rural parishes. People on one side of a road might be paying £30 for their precept, while those on the other side are paying for everything in the town, so their precept could be £400-plus a year, and obviously those parish residents will still rely on those services. Although third-tier councils are now big in Cornwall and have big budgets—£5 million or £6 million—they are still not recognised or trusted to get external funding. Everything has to come through the unitary, which can lead to a parent-child relationship. In the previous White Paper, we had the support of the previous—and now current—Secretary of State for sorting some of those issues out, as well as things like remote voting and meetings for third-tier councillors. I really hope the Department will pick that up again for third-tier councils. On devolution, obviously the Prime Minister made a statement yesterday, which was very welcome. The focus on further devolution and growth in every postcode is very welcome to those of us in places like Cornwall. We did have a devolution deal back in 2015. It was the first non-metropolitan devo deal. We got a level 2 deal in 2023. There have been a number of situations in which we have benefited quite a lot. On public transport, for example, we got the power to franchise buses and make enhanced partnerships back in 2015. So far, we have gone into enhanced partnerships, but we are now running a pilot to see how franchising could work in rural areas, where it is much more difficult to make it work. We picked it up and ran with it. We were the first rural area to introduce smart ticketing, for example. It will be interesting for us and North Yorkshire to see how franchising could be possible in a rural place. Devolution could also be really important for housing. We are working towards a memorandum of understanding with Homes England, but a full strategic place partnership would also be helpful and important to us. Turning to economic growth, we lost all our EU funding in 2020, which led to a real slowdown in our growth. We did have the shared prosperity fund, but that is now finished. We had access to the Kernow industrial growth fund, which was fantastic, but we continue to need economic growth support in emerging areas, which chimes and aligns very well with the Government’s industrial strategy. The Prime Minister has been talking a lot about the devolution of post-16 skills. In Cornwall, we know our businesses—so does the council, and the further education providers. That could work really well for us, so I am really excited to talk about a future devolution deal with the Prime Minister, as well as making the epic trip to Manchester and going to No. 10 North. Although devolution is an exciting example of progress, it cannot overcome the financial pressures facing our more rural councils. We have heard some examples of things that cost more. Cornwall’s core spending power fell between 2010 and 2018 because of austerity and that Conservative Government, but funding has improved since then and the Government have made efforts to create a fairer funding settlement. Nevertheless, we are still below others in real terms. We have also used the second homes council tax premium, which brought in around £23 million, but even with that we remain in that position. Rurality and peripherality make things cost more. We have heard some examples already, but I want to mention temporary accommodation, as a room in a Travelodge costs £50 in the winter and £100 in the summer. Meanwhile, home-to-school transport is crazy expensive. We cannot use buses and end up using taxis, and there are long distances involved, which makes it difficult. Furthermore, contracts for emergency accommodation also go through the roof in the summer. In children’s social care, there are very few providers and contracts get very few bidders. It is very difficult and we end up having people placed out of Cornwall, which is a very long way to go and is not good for the population. There is also a population increase in the summer; we get about 4 million visitors. That is fantastic and it is good for our economy, but it increases demand on vital services, particularly on things such as environmental health, waste collection and emergency services, as well as public amenities. Something like an overnight visitor levy could be used for that, and we are quite excited about the potential for that to be devolved. In conclusion, Cornwall highlights the opportunities and the challenges of rural upper-tier authorities. We are further down the line than a lot of other authorities—we have had a unitary authority for a long time—and we have seen where that takes us, particularly having lost services that are then picked up by the third tiers. Devolution will be good for us because it will mean that those decisions are taken locally, but for rural authorities to really thrive, that funding needs to reflect the additional costs and pressures of where we are in those sparsely populated areas and the fact that transport in particular is so difficult for us.