Coastal Communities: Isolation and Hidden Deprivation

I beg to move, That this House has considered isolation and hidden deprivation in coastal communities. What a stupendous pleasure it is to serve under your incredible chairship, Mr Vickers. With so much discussion in recent weeks about the north-south divide, I thought that this debate would be the perfect opportunity to bring colleagues from coastal communities together in a time-honoured parliamentary tradition of comparing notes on who has been most overlooked for funding. While that is a joke, it makes a serious point: communities like mine often feel isolated, not just from funding and opportunity, but from the national conversation. In recent years, the challenges facing the Isle of Wight have rarely made headlines or shaped the political agenda. That does not make them any less real or important to those of us who live there. What is great about securing this debate is that we can highlight in glorious technicolour the deprivation faced by coastal communities, and how that is simply not seen as urgent, visible or politically fashionable to champion by those meant to represent us. I am therefore pleased to have secured the debate and am encouraged to see so many colleagues from coastal communities across the length and breadth of the country coming together to champion the British coast. One of the biggest challenges I have faced since being elected in 2024 has been convincing policymakers that the Isle of Wight deserves not simply Government attention, but the same level of support and intervention as that of other communities facing similar levels of deprivation, poor education outcomes and lower life expectancy. Often, the island’s challenges are treated as serious enough to be acknowledged, but not urgent enough for Government intervention. I believe, however, that deprivation and isolation in places such as the Isle of Wight have reached a point where we can no longer pretend that the challenges are a hidden or unknown phenomenon. The evidence has been there for years and the experiences of local people speak for themselves. As a 2024 report from the London School of Economics argued, many of the persistent challenges facing seaside communities are driven by, in part, “a striking degree of complacency and indifference.” As Professor Chris Whitty said in his 2021 report into the health of coastal areas, even after adjusting for age and deprivation, “there remains a ‘coastal excess’ of disease”, otherwise referred to as the coastal effect. Without falling into the trap of reeling off statistics for the sake of it, I want to highlight a few examples that show exactly why the issue demands greater attention, in particular on the Isle of Wight. It is isolated by the Solent and we are the only English constituencies with only one method of transport on and off, which is privately operated. With 85% of the island classified as rural, delivering services becomes that much more difficult. We have the second highest level of educational deprivation in the south of England, a population whose average age is 11 years higher than the national average, and child poverty rates that continue to sit about 4% above the national average. Taken together, those figures demonstrate a community with clear and pressing needs, but one whose deprivation is too often obscured by neighbouring affluence, leaving it overlooked by the very funding formulas designed to help those who need them the most. I know that it has become something of a running joke that, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson), I mention ferry travel in almost every speech or intervention I make, but I ask colleagues to imagine what it would be like regularly to pay between £200 and as much as £500 to get to the next county—so to travel from Derby to Nottingham or Southampton to Portsmouth, they would need to find that sort of money. For the island, that is not a hypothetical question; it is a reality. During the Isle of Wight festival a few weeks ago, the cost of a return car ferry rose to over £500, due to dynamic pricing. For most people, a journey with a maximum distance of 12 miles would be a routine trip. For islanders, it can mean a bill larger than many people’s weekly pay packet, simply to reach the mainland and to access the services that many others take for granted. When we consider that islanders earn, on average, £5,000 a year less than their mainland counterparts, yet still rely on the same highly expensive ferries to access specialist hospital appointments, visit family and friends, pursue educational opportunities or simply enjoy the freedom to travel, the scale of our isolation becomes much clearer.

I congratulate the hon. Member, my neighbour, on securing this debate, which is important not only for us on the Isle of Wight, but for so many MPs, hence the wonderful turnout in the Chamber today. In particular, I thank him for highlighting our issues with ferries. I am sure he would agree that it is not just the price we all pay to get back and forth, but the whole impact on our local economy. That is a message we really need to get across, and use the opportunity of a new Prime Minister to do so.

The hon. Member, my neighbour, is correct. He will not be surprised to know that I have already raised the issue at least once, if not several times, with the potential incoming Prime Minister. It is not just islanders’ wallets that are impacted, but our council budgets, public services and ultimately the sustainability of the island. Earlier this year, the fair funding review left the Isle of Wight council facing a £13 million a year funding shortfall, despite the additional costs and challenges I have already described. If that does not demonstrate that current funding formulas are failing places like ours, I do not know what does. There is nothing fair about a funding review that overlooks the additional costs of island life and then expects local services to deliver the same or more with significantly less. The truth is that being an island or a coastal area comes with unavoidable costs. Even when positive changes are made nationally, they often take longer to reach us, if they reach us at all. Research undertaken by the University of Portsmouth has identified an island factor: the unavoidable additional costs associated with delivering services on the Isle of Wight. The study found that our island status creates extra costs through self-sufficiency, dislocation and what it termed the “island premium”, estimating an added cost of £380 per resident every year, but costing the Isle of Wight council at least £23 million a year extra just to stand still when compared with a similar-sized authority on the mainland. That is coupled with our deprivation, which is often hidden in plain sight. Unlike in some parts of the country where deprivation is concentrated in large urban areas, our challenges are widely dispersed across the island. Areas that experience significant levels of child poverty, poorer health outcomes and educational disadvantage sit directly alongside communities that are comparatively affluent and rank far more favourably in the Government’s indices of deprivation. That phenomenon has been described by academics as “nested deprivation”, where pockets of deep need exist in areas that appear on average to be doing relatively well. The consequence is that deprivation can be masked by neighbouring prosperity. That helps to explain but not justify how the Isle of Wight’s two constituencies can rank among the most deprived and left behind in the country on some measures, yet still miss out on funding opportunities such as Pride in Place. In other words, our deprivation is not hidden because it does not exist; it is hidden because it sits behind postcard views, nostalgia and pockets of affluence, fuelled by second-home ownership that can distort the reality. Such deprivation makes the challenges already facing the country much harder to deal with on the island. Delivering special educational needs and disabilities provision on the island or in a coastal area brings additional challenges, from recruiting and retaining specialist staff to ensuring that there are enough specialist places available. Unlike many mainland communities, families do not have the same range of nearby alternatives when local provision is stretched, and accessing support off the island can mean significant additional cost and disruption. With an ageing and often isolated population, the healthcare inequalities highlighted by Professor Chris Whitty in his 2021 report on coastal communities ring particularly true on the Isle of Wight, where we continue to see higher than average rates of heart disease, diabetes, cancer and dementia, all while patients must travel across the Solent to access specialist treatments such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

I know that older and vulnerable populations are often supported by naval clubs, particularly in coastal areas, but also across the country. In West Bromwich, unfortunately, our naval club, which is well used by older veterans, is set to close. I have been campaigning hard to try to save it and will work with everyone to try to do that. Does my hon. Friend agree that community groups such as naval clubs are very important in tackling the health inequalities, deprivation and isolation issues he is talking about today? [Sir Alec Shelbrooke in the Chair]

I agree entirely that we are almost reliant on community groups in coastal and island communities. There is a danger that such provision no longer exists when funding dries up. We have no dedicated stroke nurse or cancer nurse. Thankfully, after asking, our integrated care board has agreed to fund an epilepsy nurse for the first time; the issue is now attracting someone to do the job. Despite small positive developments, I continue to hear numerous accounts from residents who have chosen not to pursue treatment at all, or have delayed doing so simply because they cannot face the cost, time and stress of repeatedly making the journey. As I draw to the end of my speech, that is the key point that I want to leave Members with. The costs faced by islanders and by many people living in isolated coastal communities go far beyond the inconvenience of waiting for a ferry or a lifeline transport link. Too often when we talk about isolation we focus on geography, but the real cost of isolation and deprivation is a human one. It is the opportunity not taken, the treatment not received, the family not visited, and the support that arrives too late or not at all. Until we recognise that, our funding, policymaking and public services for communities like the Isle of Wight’s will continue to face barriers that many others never have to think about.

Order. I call Jim Shannon.

I am in a state of shock; I had to fiddle through my papers to get my notes. Thank you, Sir Alec, for calling me to speak. I thank the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) for setting the scene. He is right about the deprivation of coastal communities everywhere in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I will obviously speak about my constituency. I know it is not the Minister’s responsibility, but she is always very responsive and helpful. When we discuss social isolation and deprivation in this House, the mind naturally wanders to stark images of inner-city decay or urban high-rises. I want to take us to a different kind of hardship, referred to by the hon. Gentleman, that is wrapped in beautiful scenery but is no less cruel to those who live through it. I am talking, of course, about the Ards Peninsula in my beautiful constituency of Strangford. It is a place of incredible community spirit, from Portaferry to Donaghadee, right down to the village of Ballywalter where I was brought up from 1959. We have people who look out for one another, a real definition of a community at work. Scrape beneath the surface, however, and stats from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency tell a troubling story. According to the Northern Ireland multiple deprivation measure, the Ards Peninsula suffers under one notable category: the geographic access to services domain. Villages like Portavogie, Kircubbin, Ballyhalbert, Ballywalter, Carrowdore, Cloughey and Portaferry—all the way down—are ranked among the worst in the province. What does that mean in reality? It means that anyone without a car is trapped. We have an ageing population in Ards and North Down, with around 20% aged 65 or over. Regional data shows that nearly a quarter of those older folks live in social isolation. The local bus service is infrequent and 11 local bank branches have closed down in my constituency in the past few years. I suspect the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) has had a similar experience. The nearest GP’s surgery requires a complex, multi-stage journey. Elderly people are being cut off from the world, suffering in silence from chronic long-term loneliness. Looking at the other side, the cost of car insurance for young people is astronomic, among the highest in the United Kingdom, so they cannot afford to drive. They might get a wee car worth maybe £500 or £600, but the insurance will cost £3,500.

The hon. Gentleman is speaking about the transport challenges that people face in rural communities. We know that the Government have plans to introduce additional charges for purchasing an electric vehicle, which seems paradoxical when we are trying to encourage people to be more environmentally friendly. Does he agree that the Government should think carefully about support for people in rural and isolated areas when they consider that policy?

I thank my friend and colleague, whose intervention is now on the record. He is right to focus on that. I hope the Minister will be able to answer. What happens in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency happens in mine. Pockets of the peninsula face employment and income deprivation due to the seasonal nature of the economy. The stigma of poverty and mental health often keeps people from reaching out for help. We have high levels of mental health issues. While healthcare and transport are rightly devolved matters, handled by the Assembly in Stormont, I believe there is an opportunity for the Minister to hold discussions with the relevant Minister at the Assembly. The stats are a warning sign that we are facing a postcode lottery of the highest order. We need targeted infrastructure funding, robust support for rural community transport schemes, as the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East referred to, and digital connectivity to ensure that no rural pensioner or struggling family is left behind. I welcome some of the schemes introduced by the Ards and North Down borough council, but economies of scale dictate that they cannot reach rural businesses as they should. Councils are limited to their funding pot, which is why I look to the Minister to have discussions with the relevant Minister in Northern Ireland. When it comes to the block grant, maybe this money could be ringfenced to help. I am conscious of time and those who want to speak, so I will conclude with this. I urge the Minister to work with the devolved Administration to look closely at the hidden pockets of rural deprivation. Let us show the people of the Ards peninsula—they are my constituents; it is where I live—that although they live at the geographic edge of our nation, they are at the centre of our concerns. They are always at the centre of my concerns as their MP, but they should also be at the centre of the concerns of this House. Respectfully, Minister, let us invest in these worthy communities.

Order. I am setting an immediate time limit of two and a half minutes. The Front-Bench speeches will start at 10.28 am.

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. Cornwall is not an island, like the Isle of Wight, but we are a rural peninsula with sea on three sides. We were identified by the EU as one of the poorest areas of western Europe, and we received the highest level of structural funding from 1999. Since then, we have not often been selected to receive Government funding that uses the indices of multiple deprivation as a measure, because those indices favour more densely populated areas at the expense of sparser, more rural parts of the country. 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. This particularly hits our young people and the opportunities open to them, and in the short time I have, I want to talk about that. Professor Ovenden-Hope has written about the concept of educational isolation in places such as ours. The problems include recruiting teachers, getting to school, and low aspiration due to the distance that young people have to travel to get further and higher education. The education maintenance allowance, set up in 2004, was a real boon to places such as mine. The two FE colleges in the middle of Cornwall grew massively, but that meant that sixth forms shut. 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. There was a bursary, but bus routes were scrapped, the private providers left, and we have been left with young people really struggling to get to education—further education particularly—and to the work placements and job opportunities that are so important for them. In urban places with mayors, there is free or cheap travel for under-19s. In Cornwall, the college funds most of it, which results in real inequity. We now have real issues with our young people not being able to access the work opportunities or FE that they would like, and they are therefore dropping out earlier. That has a real impact, and it places them at a distinct disadvantage compared with young people in urban areas. I have raised this issue with the potential new Prime Minister, and I really hope that we can address it.

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Alec. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) for securing this debate on our coastal communities, which are so often forgotten. Those of us who represent coastal communities like Honiton and Sidmouth can sometimes forget that we represent such a beautiful, stunning part of the world. Sometimes it is only on a Friday or Saturday, when my mind is here or on work, that I drive over a horizon and see the sea and am reminded what a beautiful place it is. But coastal communities often contain pockets of hidden deprivation. In particular, they are susceptible to low social mobility, which is what I want to spend a couple of minutes speaking about. The latest report by the South-West Social Mobility Commission highlights a paradox: the south-west region performs really well on some measures, such as employment and economic participation, but it is one of the weakest in England educationally for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. If we want there to be stronger local economies, higher productivity and better-paid jobs, we need a pipeline of young people with the skills, qualifications and opportunities to access them. The south-west peninsula has some fantastic opportunities for the economy and for the UK as a whole. Our agrifood, our defence industries and our clean energy are second to none. Yet the South-West Social Mobility Commission found that just 41% of pupils eligible for free school meals in the south-west achieved the expected standards in reading, writing and maths at age 11—the lowest level of any region in England. By the age of 19, only 30% of those eligible for free school meals achieved a level 3 qualification. Too often, ambitious young people are faced with a choice: stay in the community that they have grown up in and that they love or leave in search of better-paid and more varied career opportunities. That could be different. If we really value our coastal communities and the economic opportunities that they offer, we can set regions such as the south-west alight.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) on securing this debate. I represent the lovely seaside town of Southport, and like many coastal MPs, I know that our lovely towns can be deceptive because behind the frontage there are lower wages, poor health, seasonal work and young people leaving. That is why I welcome how this debate has been framed, because as well as being economic, the challenge facing our coastal areas is social. There is the loss of the places that bring people together, such as libraries, youth clubs, post offices, Sure Start centres, village halls and pubs. There has been a wealth of research in the last decade on the hollowing out of those places and the malign long-term consequences of the funding decisions of the last 20 years or so. However, the one that strikes and stays with me the most is Diane Bolet’s “Drinking Alone”. It charts the correlation between the loss of the local pub and the subsequent propensity of the local population to vote for the radical right at election time. The correlation is striking. It is true that the causal relationship is not fully understood, but what I do understand is that if social isolation is correlated to extreme politics, then it is worth a chance of reversing that ideology by trying to socialise people more in their local areas and geographic communities. I also encourage colleagues to search out “Nothing to do and nowhere to go”. It might sound like the B-side to a song by a second-division punk band from 1978, but it is an academic paper published earlier this year, and the title says it all. It argues that years of losing youth provision, leisure facilities and community spaces has not just reduced opportunities for young people; it has weakened people’s sense of belonging. To bring it back to Diane Bolet’s thesis about voting behaviour, the research was conducted in Great Yarmouth. When the general public hear about infrastructure, they tend to think about roads, but social infrastructure matters too. Youth clubs, sports clubs, libraries, community centres, parks and gardens, faith groups—all of that. I say to anybody watching this debate back in Southport: please get involved. Please help to make our town the town it can be in whatever way you can.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. Britain’s coastal communities are among the most beautiful parts of our country, but behind that picture postcard image lies a reality that too often goes unnoticed—isolation, hidden deprivation and a lack of opportunity. As an MP representing a number of coastal communities along the coast of Somerset, through Brean, Berrow, Burnham-on-Sea and all the way to Steart, I know there are many shared issues in those communities that are markedly different from those inland. The statistics paint a stark picture. Coastal communities have higher levels of deprivation than inland areas, lower rates of educational attainment, higher rates of disability and an older population. Too many coastal towns suffer from poor transport links, economic inactivity, seasonal employment and the loss of young people seeking opportunities elsewhere. The House of Lords Select Committee on Regenerating Seaside Towns and Communities recognised these challenges as far back as 2019, and it called on the Government to develop a dedicated coastal communities strategy. Today, however, many local businesses in coastal areas face higher costs and greater uncertainty. High streets continue to struggle and tourism operators face mounting pressures. The looming threat of a tourist tax, along with Labour’s slew of other taxes on work and increasing compliance costs, such as those related to the Employment Rights Act 2025, all serve to make it harder for small businesses in coastal areas to survive. I hope the Minister, when she sums up, will consider the effect of the right to guaranteed hours on businesses in coastal towns. Has she considered that, when those businesses take on seasonal workers during a period of good weather, they are compelled to offer those hours for the next reference period, whatever the weather might be? Coastal communities need improved transport and digital connectivity to overcome geographical isolation. They need fair funding that recognises the pressures of ageing populations and vulnerable residents. It is time for the Government to listen, develop a genuine coastal communities strategy and ensure that the people who live and work along our coastline have the opportunities that they deserve.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Alec. Despite countless studies showing gaping disparities in everything from employment to life expectancy, coastal towns are neglected in discussions about geographical inequality. There are a few reasons for that. They often sit within otherwise affluent areas, and they do not neatly fit into the north-south divide. Places such as Morecambe and Blackpool have more in common with Ramsgate and Bournemouth than, say, Manchester, to pick a random example. In Morecambe and Lunesdale, 10.2% of people say that they are always lonely. That is staggering, given what we know about the health impacts of loneliness. Social connection is a fundamental human need. It is as crucial to our survival as food, water and shelter. We are biologically wired for social connection. As adults, we cannot just go up to someone in the playground, like my daughter does, and say, “Will you be my friend?” Communities do not happen by accident. They need the social infrastructure such as parks, libraries, youth clubs and naval clubs. We need to protect that infrastructure and think about the barriers to social interaction, such as poverty. If someone cannot afford to go and do anything, how do they meet people, particularly if they are on a fixed income, as pensioners often are? Transport is an issue. I have two brilliant bus user groups in my constituency, and they fight every day to make sure that everyone can get on a bus to go places and meet people. Finally, I want to mention the necessity of communities with roots. In Morecambe, we have a deep-rooted community. There are areas of transience, but people have been there for generations. People know each other, and that social infrastructure is important. I am really concerned about the impact of short-term lets, such as Airbnb and others, on social cohesion. In my constituency, we are getting Eden Project Morecambe. That will be fantastic for our town, but I am concerned about the impact of the changing accommodation scene. I am worried about the impact on residential housing, which is why I am supporting calls for licensing, including caps on numbers, for short-term lets. We need to make sure that the roots can stay deep in our community. We need to make sure that people are able to build connections over generations, and then they can be healthier and live longer.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. There is a version of coastal communities that we like to tell ourselves, of chocolate-box fishing villages and tight-knit communities where people look out for one another, and there is certainly truth in that. In Tiverton and Minehead, I represent one and I see it. We talk of coastal areas being at the end of the line, but there is no line for west Somerset. It is a cul-de-sac. The west part of my constituency, for all its natural beauty, suffers from the lowest social mobility in the country, and it ranks among the poorest travel times to employment, at the 96th percentile. Education and employment opportunities for those living along the coast are so limited that teenagers are catching a bus at 6 o’clock in the morning, with a two-hour journey each way, just to reach the further education courses they need. It is a material hit to a young person’s aspirations, forcing them to compromise before they have even started and putting them at a direct disadvantage to their peers elsewhere. It creates a profound poverty of aspiration and ambition, brought about by an environment that tells people they have been forgotten. That is why my party has consistently called on the Government to apply a fair funding formula that properly takes into account the realities of coastal and rural life for education, travel, health and much more. Perhaps the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham), much of whose political brand rests on regional empowerment, might turn his attention to the south-west as he closes in on No. 10, because the coastal and rural premium is real and is felt acutely. Over the last few months, my office has produced a report into dementia in Tiverton and Minehead. Isolation and loneliness ran through it as a constant, unrelenting theme, not as one issue among many, but as the backdrop against which everything else is experienced. This year alone, the west Somerset coastal area has lost dental services, its post office, hospital scanning equipment and its local citizens advice bureau. They are services that young and old alike depend on, and one by one they are disappearing. Devolution in Tiverton and Minehead means meaningful evolution to prosperity, opportunity and a better future for all my constituents.

Order. I thank Members for bobbing. I know I am whipping through the speeches, but I am trying to make sure that I get everybody in.

Meur ras. It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Alec. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) for introducing this very important debate. It speaks directly to the reality facing my constituents in Camborne, Redruth and Hayle, the furthest southerly Labour seat in the United Kingdom. When it comes to remote coastal isolation and hidden deprivation, the machinery of Government is simply broken by stereotypes and urban-centric thinking. Purely as a matter of scale, most people have no idea that Bristol, supposedly in the south-west, is closer to Manchester than to Camborne, Redruth and Hayle. When most people think of Cornwall, they have a picture postcard image, yet beneath that image lies deep hidden deprivation: wages are far below the national average, employment is seasonal and insecure and housing is ridiculously unaffordable to most. While the EU recognised that with objective 1 funding, Westminster simply has not. In fact, Treasury models compound the Cornish misery: in-migration by wealthier English retirees inflates affluence figures, masking the scale of poverty. In my constituency alone, nine neighbourhoods rank among the most deprived in the country, yet wealthier coastal areas create an overall impression of poverty lessening in the region. The indices of multiple deprivation fail those nine communities, because Treasury models consider the overall picture and do not identify the hidden poverty within. As my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) alluded to, Cornish residents are systemically disadvantaged in housing, healthcare and public transport. On SEND, Cornwall is the 11th least funded of 151 local authorities, receiving less than half the per pupil funding of councils in Kensington and Chelsea, and about £500 less than places in Manchester. Much of Cornwall’s population lives in pretty poverty. It is isolated, deprived and hidden from Westminster. If the Government are serious about tackling inequality, they must ensure that funding reflects need, not averages on a Whitehall spreadsheet. It is time for a radical review of funding models for remote coastal areas.

It is a particular pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Alec. I congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) on securing this important debate. I have lived and worked in a coastal community throughout my life, so I can speak with some force about the challenges they face. Our sea ports are not just transit points for goods but engines of regeneration, holding the unique power to lift coastal areas out of deprivation and firmly reconnect them to national prosperity. Ports are the lifeblood of coastal economic health, explicitly serving to catalyse jobs and drive local wealth where it is most needed. Their activities support 90,000 jobs across the broader region, yet a significant driver of isolation and economic deprivation in coastal communities is the severe lack of adequate transport connectivity. Coastal communities are, by their geographical nature, at the end of the line. When we talk about hidden deprivation, we are talking about young people who cannot easily travel to access further education, local businesses that struggle to attract external investment and residents who face profound social isolation.

The hon. Gentleman is speaking very powerfully about the need for connectivity around coastal ports. Is he aware that the two largest towns in the UK with no railhead, Fraserburgh and Peterhead in my constituency, have been left in exactly that position after the Beeching cuts of the 1960s? Does he agree that, if the Government bring forward a new strategy for these areas, they have to look at rail connectivity?

I was not aware of the situation of the two towns the hon. Gentleman mentions, but he highlights a key point. I have been campaigning for the last 15 years to reintroduce the direct train service from Grimsby and Cleethorpes to London King’s Cross. What Hull Trains has done for the north bank of the Humber—many Members will be familiar with it—has been a real boost to the local economy. I now look to Great British Railways to do the same for the south bank, but it has to be said that I have my doubts. If we are really serious about tackling hidden deprivation in our coastal communities, we cannot leave them cut off from the capital. A direct rail link would be a real boost to the economy of the south bank of the Humber. If we are to truly break physical barriers of isolation, we must also strengthen east-west rail freight connectivity. Immingham is the largest port in the country, measured by tonnage, and it needs better access to other industrial centres, which would relieve the M62 of an enormous amount of heavy goods vehicle traffic. When we invest in fundamental infrastructure, private investment and supply chain growth will naturally follow. I urge the Minister to recognise that upgrading transport infrastructure is absolutely key to reducing isolation and deprivation in our local communities. More in Common recently published a report, commissioned by Associated British Ports, that provides a fascinating array of statistics and opinions gleaned from extensive research. It shows very clearly that the state of high streets and the cost of living are the key issues in our coastal communities. I urge the Minister to focus on that when she responds to the debate.

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. My constituency has enormous potential, but it has been held back by years of austerity, under-investment and managed decline. Coastal communities once stood at the heart of Britain’s economy: our ports connected us to the world, our fishing fleet fed the country and our industries sustained skills and secured jobs. Fleetwood was a thriving port, central to our national prosperity. Today, many coastal communities face deep poverty, poor health, lower educational attainment, insecure work and poor-quality housing, yet the deprivation is hidden. Severe need in one neighbourhood can be obscured by apparent prosperity only a few miles away, and broad funding formulas fail to reflect the reality of individual towns. Those problems are made worse by isolation. When buses are unreliable, railway lines have disappeared and services have closed, geographical isolation quickly becomes economic and social isolation. Young people feel that they must leave to find decent work. The industries that once sustained reliable working communities like mine have disappeared with too little put in their place. This decline was not inevitable; it is a result of political choices, and it is now the duty of this Government to fix it. Without investment in towns such as Blackpool and Fleetwood, the Government cannot achieve their missions of growth, opportunity, health and clean energy. It is not good enough simply to pump more money into the major cities of the north and south; our towns need support too. The lasting answer to poverty is good work that pays decent wages, and that requires the reindustrialisation of our coastal towns. In Fleetwood, we need a tidal barrage and the train line reconnected. Transport is not simply about getting from one place to another; it connects people to work, education and healthcare. We came here to rebuild our communities, build warm homes, restore transport links, create secure jobs and give young people a reason to live locally. It is time to give our coastal towns hope again. Let us all get on with delivering the future we promised.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) on securing this key debate. The vital question on “Desert Island Discs” is not what luxury a person desires or which tune they would save from the waves; it is how they would cope on their own. Although we all enjoy a bit of peace and quiet now and then, we are in the end social animals, which is why isolation and loneliness, grinding day in and day out, is such torture. The Scottish household survey says that roughly one in four people suffer loneliness, with 16 to 24-year-olds and over-75s disproportionately affected. Coastal areas such as my Dumfries and Galloway constituency have many remote and rural communities, which is, in itself, a problem. A person who has £10 in their pocket in a city can do something with it; they can go somewhere or see a friend. But £10 up an isolated farm track is of little use at all. The reasons for isolation are myriad. People living longer is of course a good thing, but the harsh reality is that one half of a couple is likely to outlive the other. Although the 2022 Scottish census was utterly botched by the SNP, it indicated that single-person households were the most common, accounting for about 37.1% of all homes. Places such as pubs, which were once the wellsprings of communities, are closing in droves. Rural deprivation, especially in coastal areas, where communities are fragile because of a lack of employment and critical infrastructure, is all too real. Coastal areas are beautiful, none more so than Dumfries and Galloway, with its rocky cliffs, secluded bays, unspoilt empty beaches and rolling gentle hills, but we cannot eat the scenery or have a chat with the big sky overhead. Loneliness needs to be seen for what it is: a public health issue. Rural people, by nature, have to be resilient and self-reliant, and the fact is that no Government can do everything. I must mention the charity A Listening Ear, which in my community, movingly, has a programme called “No One Dies Alone”. That outreach is compassionate and vital, and it is critical that communities work together to tackle loneliness.

Order. I am immediately dropping the time limit to two minutes.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. Hartlepool is a town with a proud coastal and industrial heritage, but above all, it is a town of proud people. We spend a great deal of time in this place talking about the concept of freedom, by which we usually mean freedom from something—whether that is freedom from regulation, from taxation or from the state. Although those debates matter, there is another freedom that we speak of far less: the freedom to become everything we are capable of becoming. The freedoms to earn, to learn, to build a secure life through our own hard work, to raise a family with confidence and to fulfil our potential—those freedoms matter every bit as much, if not more. Freedom is not simply the absence of restraint; it is the presence of opportunity, but that is what deindustrialisation and globalisation robbed from communities like mine. It did not simply close factories; it took freedom away from working people. It took away their freedom to earn a secure wage and build a career, or to believe that if they worked hard, there would be a decent job waiting for them at the end. It took away the freedom to know that our children will enjoy a better future than we did. The scars were never just economic; they were social, cultural and deeply personal. To solve this issue, education must be the engine room of freedom. In Hartlepool, I am so proud that our FE college is taking a visionary approach to ensure that children have that freedom. Not every young person wants the same pathway, and vocational excellence is every bit as valuable as academic excellence. Through our partnerships with X-energy and Centrica, whereby the new nuclear that we are bringing to Hartlepool partners with our FE college, we are once again giving our young people the freedom to believe that their future will be better than the lives their parents had.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Alec. Time and again, everybody in this debate has come back to the word “community”, and I believe that coastal communities do it like nobody else. Although my Chichester constituency is affluent, that affluence often means that funding does not make it to the pockets of deprivation that are present, especially those on my coast. People look at somewhere like Chichester and say, “They don’t need the support,” so those communities are far more likely to fall between the cracks. I represent the coastal communities of Pagham, the Witterings and Selsey. Selsey translates directly to “seal island”, because even though it is part of the mainland, there is one road in and out, so if there is an accident on that road, it is literally an island. The people there do community like nobody else. When I think of Selsey, I think of the Selsey Care Shop, the Selsey Venture Club, the Selsey Beach Litter Ninjas and the Selsey Sea Bathing Society. All those charitable organisations and communities come together to support each other in tackling poverty in the area, as well as the isolation and loneliness. The other thing that happens in Selsey is that the population doubles during the summer, because of all the holidaymakers who come to enjoy our beautiful coastline. Despite that doubling of its population, Selsey does not receive extra police officers to patrol the streets or extra support for an ambulance service, and there are not suddenly fewer cars on the road in Selsey. No extra resource comes in and no extra infrastructure is provided. Instead, it is the community that ends up stepping up and providing support. When we think about isolation and hidden deprivation within our coastal communities, I have to say that I see those things all the time in places such as Selsey. I am grateful that we have amazing charitable organisations that help the people affected and try to fix the problems where so often statutory services have failed.

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Alec, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) on securing this important debate. Like all hon. Members who represent a coastal constituency, I am lucky to represent such a beautiful area. However, one of the first issues we face is that of perception. My constituency has some of the most expensive land in the country, which sits just 20 minutes away from areas that fall within the most deprived 10% of places in England. Such extremes of wealth can often mask what is really happening in a town. Average gross median weekly full-time earnings in Poole are £764, but monthly rent is around £1,400. One in four children in Poole is living in relative poverty after housing costs, which shows the impact of high rents and their effect on the cost of living. Towns such as Poole are also desperate for good-quality, affordable and secure council housing for local families, rather than the developer-led luxury waterside apartments that have sprung up in recent years. Such apartments are either unsuitable for young families or out of reach for many locals. We know that poor housing can lead to poor health outcomes. Life expectancy, healthy life expectancy and disability-free life expectancy are all lower in coastal areas, and the gap between more affluent areas and poorer areas continues to widen. In conclusion, I hope that the new Prime Minister will consider appointing a Minister for coastal communities to address these very important and pressing issues.

I thank the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) for throwing the spotlight on the challenges that many of our communities face. More than 20% of Bexhill’s neighbourhoods are among the most deprived in England. Many of the speeches this morning have focused on what central Government can do, but I will use this opportunity to recognise and thank the organisations that do amazing work in my community to tackle the challenges we face, right here, right now. For example, funded by the previous Government’s levelling-up fund, Heart of Sidley has shown what can be achieved through years of grassroots work, local partnership and community leadership, developing a vision for a brand new community hub at the heart of Sidley. I thank Tanya and her team, the chair, Jay Carroll, and all the volunteers involved in that project. The Pelham is helping to tackle the causes and consequences of social isolation and poor mental and physical health through youth work, counselling and volunteering. It is also home to the suicide prevention-focused running group RunningSpace, founded by Jacky Youldon, who has direct experience of how exercise helped her. The Bexhill Family Collective provides a local nursery service, Dragonflies, as well as a community pantry, and outdoor learning and gardening activities for families. Bexhill Caring Community has for decades provided affordable and vital support to older, housebound and lonely residents. Freedom Church in Sidley provides a community marketplace, which redistributes food that would otherwise go to waste to households that are struggling. Many others, including Bexhill Foodbank Advice Service, Warming Up The Homeless, and Bexhill and Rother Homelessness Unity Group, are all doing their best to tackle the challenges in the community, and they provide hope, advice and support to so many people. The Government have a role and I echo the comments of the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West about the funding formula and the challenges it has created. Of course, as a coastal community with a lot of hospitality businesses, the damaging jobs tax and the increase in business rates have made things difficult. However, in Bexhill we are looking ahead to our £20 million town deal, which was awarded by the previous Government. I know that residents are excited about what we can achieve with that money, because Bexhill, at its heart, is a community of positive people who want to get things done and want to improve their lot in life. We will do everything we can with that money to support them in doing so.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) for securing this important debate. Blackpool is a town with huge potential and pride, but we are also a case study in what happens when national policy neglects the specific needs of coastal communities. The decline of traditional industries, the collapse of secure employment and decades of underinvestment in housing, education and health have left scars that no one-off funding round can heal. In Blackpool, the impact of deprivation extends far beyond income; it affects health, wellbeing and social connection. Last year’s community life survey found that adults living in the most deprived communities are nearly three times more likely to report feeling lonely than those in the least deprived areas. Loneliness does not exist in isolation from health; people living with disabilities or long-term health conditions are almost three times more likely to experience chronic illness and loneliness. Left unaddressed, isolation and poor health feed one another, deepening inequality and creating a cycle that is difficult to break. Tackling isolation is vital to improving public health, reducing health inequalities and helping people live healthier, happier lives. Against that backdrop, I have seen what is possible when people are given a chance to build that connection. I have seen it at Grow Blackpool at The Grange community centre. I have seen it in The Hub in South Shore with the Monday lunch club run by Brian and Karen, and I have seen it at the Forget Me Not dementia café led by Jenny Fitzsimmons and all her brilliant volunteers. Such places are stepping up to fill that gap. I have seen volunteers, community groups and local organisations build connections and create hope where it is needed. We need a Government who match that determination. We need targeted funding, long-term planning and genuine recognition of place-based disadvantage. That means the scaling up the ambition and speed of projects such as Pride in Place and moving beyond short-term pots of cash and towards sustainable, multi-year investment tied to measurable outcomes in coastal towns, such as better jobs, improved health, higher educational attainment and connected communities. It also means a dedicated coastal communities Minister leading all that change.

I thank the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) for securing this important debate. I want to speak up for Ilfracombe in particular, and the challenges that will be familiar to coastal communities everywhere. Devon county council has identified Ilfracombe as one of the most vulnerable towns in Devon. Its remote location leaves it badly cut off from wider public services, economic opportunities and emergency intervention. That pattern will be all too familiar for those in this room. What I can never accept are shameless articles, such as the one recently published in a national tabloid newspaper that I will not name, punching down at Ilfracombe. Trashing a small town’s reputation for clicks is not journalism; it is monetising misery and it is not fit for tomorrow’s fish and chip paper. I have spoken with local business owners who pour their hearts and souls out into Ilfracombe trying to make things better, and the very last thing that they need is a hatchet job in the national press. Just yesterday, it was reported that a local teenager, Bradley Blackmore, bravely rescued another boy from drowning. Well done, Bradley. Ilfracombe can boast award-winning manufacturing businesses and several promising new housing schemes supported by North Devon council and the Ilfracombe Community Land Trust, delivering safer social housing for local people. Every year, crowds flock to Ilfracombe for the maritime festival. This August, a daring soapbox derby will again raise thousands for charity, and I am proud to say that Ilfracombe has just been shortlisted for the first ever UK town of culture awards, one of only 15 towns in the country on the list. I ask the Minister whether the Government will consider re-inventing the coastal communities fund or coastal revival fund for the new generation. How should we talk about challenges without damaging the reputation of coastal towns that deserve our help? How do we deliver what the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) called “good growth in every postcode”?

In coastal communities such as mine in Scarborough and Whitby, we see persistently high levels of domestic abuse where victims and survivors are hidden and isolated. Scarborough has the highest rate of reported domestic abuse in North Yorkshire. A landmark report found that, on average, victims in rural areas, including North Yorkshire, were subject to abuse for 25% longer and were half as likely to report it compared with victims in urban areas. Referrals to the Independent Domestic Abuse Services in North Yorkshire, the largest charity supporting victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence in the county, continue to rise. In 2025, it received over 20,000 referrals, compared to 18,000 in 2022. I have worked on countless heartbreaking cases on behalf of my constituents where women experiencing domestic abuse have been denied the support that they need. A constituent recently told me that she contacted multiple organisations to try to get help so that she and her child could move away from her abuser, but they kept saying, “There’s not much help we can give you.” Another survivor wrote to me to say she was homeless, and paying to live with her three children in hotels. My constituents desperately want to move on from their isolating and traumatic experiences of domestic abuse. Sometimes, dispersed accommodation is the answer, and other times the answer is a refuge, but there is no refuge in the North Yorkshire council area, the largest county by area in England. I urge the York and North Yorkshire combined authority to deliver a women’s refuge on the coast. I would be grateful if the Minister could outline how she is working across Government to provide targeted support to hidden and isolated victims of domestic abuse in coastal communities.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) for securing the debate, because it is vital to consider the issue of hidden deprivation and isolation in coastal communities. In Methil and Buckhaven in my constituency, which have proud histories in fishing and mining, these problems are there in plain sight. There are too many derelict buildings, too many families scarred by the impacts of substance misuse and too many homes that are hard to heat. A third of children live in relative poverty. Levenmouth has the lowest employment rate in Fife and the highest economic inactivity rate. That is why the future of Methil yard in my constituency has been such a priority for me since I was elected. If we ensure that British yards benefit from Government procurement, including through the defence investment plan, that could make a big difference for many of our coastal towns, and certainly would in Methil. If we create more opportunities for work, tackle the pressures on cost of living, improve public services and improve public transport for all our people, coastal communities stand to benefit the most. Government at all levels, including the Scottish Government, must also have a clear focus on their specific needs. That means devolving power further, including within Scotland, so that the people living in these communities, who are both proud of and ambitious for their areas, have a real opportunity to create change where they live. Methil and Buckhaven will receive £20 million in Pride in Place funding over the next 10 years. Our new neighbourhood board is brimming with ideas on what could be done with these funds to provide better support to local people, to use investment in the public realm to realise the beauty in our local coastline and to improve the quality of life in the community. If we take the example of Pride in Place and go much further, investing in our coastal towns and backing local residents to take the decisions that can transform their local areas, this Government can make a real difference in improving their communities and lives.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Alec. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) for securing this debate. A report by Plymouth Marjon University used the phrase “pretty poverty” to describe places such as mine in South East Cornwall, where visitors see our coastline, fishing villages and tourist economy, but behind the curtain are local families facing low wages, insecure and seasonal work and a shortage of affordable homes. Poor transport links, patchy digital connectivity and challenges in accessing healthcare, education and employment are part of the challenge. The realities of living in rural and coastal communities cannot be measured by populations, because the distances, travel times and cost of service delivery really matter. They impact whether someone can actually get to an appointment, their college or a job interview. We need more bus provision to enable them to do so. Those realities should be reflected much more consistently in funding decisions. Tolled crossings, such as the Tamar crossings, which many of my constituents rely on every day, adding yet another cost. High levels of second homes and short-term holiday lets put additional pressure on the local housing market, reducing the supply of homes for local people and often forcing them to move away the communities where their support networks are based. The social infrastructure in South East Cornwall, made up of pubs, social clubs and other places, is thriving, but these places are under pressure, and we must do more to support them. Property values in Cornwall are driven up by homes that local people could never realistically afford, which impacts our experience. Tourism is vital to our economy, but those visitors cause significant additional pressures; young people often feel they have to leave home to find opportunities. I want Cornwall to become not only one of the UK’s leading tourist destinations, but a place where young people can build careers in digital industries, defence, clean energy and maritime tech, as well as other advanced manufacturing. We have so much potential; we have led the country before and we will do so again. With greater support from the Government, we can face these challenges head on, because Cornwall certainly does not lack ambition.