Jayne Kirkham

This Labour Government are helping families in Cornwall with their energy and fuel bills. Nearly 37,500 households in Truro and Falmouth will get £100 directly into their bank accounts. The drop in VAT and standing charges going will also help. In a rural and coastal constituency, where a car is not a luxury, the extension of the 5p fuel duty cut will help, as will the rise in travel rates, and the extension of the red diesel cut will help our farmers. We are also tackling the specific challenges facing rural, off-grid communities. Some 14% of Cornish households rely on heating oil, including 5,000 families in Truro and Falmouth, which is well above the national average. Suspending those tariffs alongside more than £50 million of support for low-income households that use heating oil will make a real difference to those homes, as will regulating the market. By pairing that short-term relief with the warm homes plan, this Government are helping rural families to move towards cleaner, cheaper heating on their own terms. I have been working with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero on a medium-term solution to license hydrotreated vegetable oil for use in heating. It has been trialled in Kehelland village in Cornwall with great success, and I hope to engage with DESNZ to get that rolled out further. On devolution, Cornwall will be designated a single strategic authority. That will hopefully bring growth, funding and further devolution on top of the £30 million Kernow industrial growth fund announced last year. A delivery plan will now be worked up, and I look forward to seeing the further devolution of powers to unlock housing, skills and economic growth. Truro and Falmouth enjoys a vibrant local tourist economy, with independent shops, bakeries, cafés and pubs. Raising small business rate relief to £18,000 means that 56% of retail, hospitality and leisure properties in the south-west will pay no business rates at all. Together with that real-terms business rates freeze, 6,500 hospitality, retail and leisure properties in Cornwall will benefit. Crucially for Truro and Falmouth, the right to buy community assets scheme, support for co-ops and high street rental auctions will give local people the tools to take back vacant units and bring empty shops back into use. I would like to see those powers rolled out to our town and city councils. The unitary authority has limited resources and our town councils have grown to fill that gap. They are very capable and they could run those schemes in the absence of appetite from the unitary, and they know their high streets far better. We have many towns of approximately 20,000 people, each with an expanded town council. In Cornwall, only 11% of our housing is social housing, against a national average of 18%. We have 26,000 households on the social housing waiting list. I therefore welcome extending preferential borrowing rates for councils. But Cornwall’s housing revenue account is struggling to put more investment into repairs, and rents are low in Cornwall, so rent convergence will take time. It means that the HRA has had to reduce the annual funds available for new homes. One of the barriers is the £90 million debt from the self-financing arrangements dating back to 2012. If that debt was reduced, Cornwall could do more. HRA and debt reform would allow council houses to be built once again in Cornwall. There are root causes of our housing crisis in Truro and Falmouth. We have many holiday lets, which are a good thing for Cornwall, but I welcome the Government’s plans for a registration system. We need to go further to look at licensing, too, to check that insurance and fire safety documents are seen and that local authorities can inspect properties.