Lewis Cocking MP: speeches

Speeches

• 14 Sept 2026 · SEND Specialists: Schools · Hansard source

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  I speak to many families in Broxbourne who are struggling with the SEND system. Unfortunately, until there are more SEND school places, they will continue to struggle, as children with SEND need to be in the right educational setting. What is the Department doing to create more SEND school places for families today, as they are needed now, not in the future?

• 2 Sept 2026 · Rural Upper-tier Local Authorities · Hansard source

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  Lots of difficult decisions had to be made. I politely say to the hon. Gentleman that his party is in government now. We will see the mettle that they are made of in the coming months, when they have to make difficult decisions to produce their Budget, and we will also see how that goes down with the British people outside this place. Many rural councils face real challenges across the board, and now they are expected to cope with even fewer resources. In my area of Hertfordshire, a semi-rural local authority, the county council is facing a reduction in funding of around £50 million a year. That is thanks to this Labour Government, despite the council already being under extreme pressure from an unfavourable SEND funding formula. Under that formula, Hertfordshire receives one of the lowest funding allocations per head. It would receive millions more if it were funded at the same rate as other areas. When it comes to SEND, rural authorities lose out. Inner London boroughs receive thousands of pounds more in high needs block funding per pupil. For example, a child in Camden is allocated four times as much as a child in Yorkshire. It should not matter where someone is born in the country; children with special educational needs deserve the same resources. I am sure that all hon. Members from right across this House can agree with that. Similarly, rural authorities have been ignored throughout this Government’s top-down local government reorganisation. As we have seen in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and other areas, rural towns and villages are now being absorbed into new unitary authorities dominated by cities. That will only result in rural areas being more marginalised and left even further behind.

• 14 Jul 2026 · Coastal Communities: Isolation and Hidden Deprivation · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. It is a huge privilege to wind up the debate on behalf of the official Opposition. I thank the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) for securing this very important debate. I welcome the Minister to her place; this will be the first time we have had an exchange in this place. As hon. Members will know, I do not represent a coastal community. The River Lea and the white water rafting centre that proudly hosted events for the 2012 Olympics are the closest my constituency comes to having a coastline. However, many of my constituents grew up visiting our coasts, and have warm memories and strong cultural attachments to the beaches, clifftops and seaside towns of our great island nation. I fondly remember trips to places such as Clacton, Bournemouth, Great Yarmouth and Southend. From my visits to many of our seaside towns, and from hearing hon. Members’ testimonies, it is apparent that those places face unique challenges. Unfortunately, many of them have experienced decline in recent decades. The challenges that they face are not always adequately acknowledged or addressed by central Government. Understandably, many feel as if they are overlooked time and again. Many Members have made eloquent cases about that, providing us with valuable insights from the people they speak to and from their own experiences, but I will touch on some of those challenges again. They include poor or sometimes non-existent transport links, unemployment and changes to a once-reliable and profitable seasonal trade, a lack of housing supply, and large disparities in income, which mean that many people cannot afford to live in the places where they grew up. That is made even worse by the conversion of former hotels, B&Bs and residential properties into houses in multiple occupation, with councils and Government Departments using them to house people from elsewhere, leading to transient and unstable communities. Another challenge is an education system that receives far less money per pupil than some inner-city areas of London, for example. Unfortunately, decisions made by this Labour Government have worsened and compounded many of those issues. Businesses such as hotels, ice cream parlours and fisheries have been hit hard by the increase the employer national insurance and by burdensome regulations. Business rates have increased—in some cases massively and seemingly arbitrarily. Many people I meet in the hospitality industry, which is vital to coastal communities, tell me that they are really struggling; they simply have no more to give, and they ask why they should even bother. The Minister’s Department is now pushing through local government reorganisation, which in some areas will lump coastal communities together with inland towns and villages that have completely different priorities and challenges, and risks marginalising coastal communities even further. I urge the Government to pay particular attention to that when making decisions on local government reorganisation. Ultimately, our coastal communities and the whole United Kingdom deserve better. We need a Government who cut rather than increase taxes, reward rather than punish aspiration and success, prioritise quality housing for local people rather than HMOs for illegal asylum seekers, and put the interests of ordinary British people first, not least those in our coastal communities.