Lorraine Beavers MP: speeches

Speeches

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

  More

  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.