Noah Law MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 25 Jun 2025 · GP Funding: South-west England · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I thank the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for securing this important debate and for his contribution on this matter of long-overdue concern. Cornwall faces some of the most severe health inequalities in the country. In January, more patients waited more than 30 minutes in ambulances outside hospital in Cornwall than anywhere else. That is not just a statistic; it is a clear sign that our health system is under serious pressure locally. We know the reasons: our higher levels of deprivation, an older population, poor transport links that make it harder to recruit and retain the NHS and social care staff we urgently need, and the enormous impact of our visitor economy, which is finally going to be taken into account in local government funding, thanks to the fair funding review. Those deep-rooted structural challenges mean that many people across Cornwall struggle to access timely care. For that reason, I welcome the forthcoming announcement by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care that the Labour Government will top up the system with £2.2 billion to improve general practice in the poorest areas with the highest health need. That is the right decision and the right priority for communities like mine in St Austell, Newquay and the clay country. The impact is already being felt. In mid-Cornwall, Newquay health centre and Brannel surgery are already set to receive vital upgrades. That is part of the biggest investment in GP facilities for five years, even before today’s announcement.

• 25 Jun 2025 · GP Funding: South-west England · Hansard source

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  Yes, I agree. I am greatly relieved for my hon. Friend and his constituents that vital funding is already coming through and that the urgency has been recognised. In Newquay, for example, people have not even been able to sign up with a new GP. That is shocking, given that it is now Cornwall’s biggest town and one of the fastest growing. The assertion should not be levelled that we are not doing enough to invest in infrastructure and services alongside house building, because we are coming forward with the needed investment. Nationally, we are looking at 8.3 million more GP appointments a year, but it is not just about the numbers. It is about restoring trust in the NHS—trust that the infrastructure and services that we need will come together with growth, which will make care local, accessible and timely. We are fixing the front door of the NHS in our GP surgeries and, thanks to our Health Secretary’s leadership, we are fixing the corridors, the consultation rooms and the care that happens before patients reach A&E, as the hon. Member for Newton Abbot mentioned. That should be the goal. Cornwall must not be overlooked. We must be prioritised in the 10-year plan for health. How will the Government ensure that rural and coastal communities such as those in Cornwall are prioritised for once and receive their fair share of new investment, particularly considering our peninsula penalty—just as we are now starting to see happening through local government? Will the Minister commit to delivering not just more appointments, but a long-term workforce plan that reflects the needs of our ageing population and the barriers to staff recruitment in rural areas? Cornwall’s health inequalities have been ignored for too long, but with this new Labour Government we finally have a partner in Westminster that is listening and acting.

• 24 Jun 2025 · Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government · Hansard source

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  Will my hon. Friend give way?

• 23 Jun 2025 · UK Modern Industrial Strategy · Hansard source

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  As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on critical minerals, I have an interest that I know you share, Madam Deputy Speaker, in critical minerals. I welcome the strategy’s recognition of the role that regional clusters, like that in Cornwall, can play. Given Cornwall’s resurgent critical minerals ecosystem, what steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that the region is at the forefront of secure domestic supply chains, and that we benefit directly from that growth in green industrial jobs?

• 9 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T9. I thank the Minister for his previous response, and I am glad to see that Cornwall’s socioeconomic challenges are reflected in the fact that 11 mission priority neighbourhoods have been identified in mid-Cornwall alone. We have talked about funding for mission critical neighbourhoods, but what steps are being taken to ensure that those mission priority neighbourhoods—deprived areas that fall just short of that mission critical definition—get adequate investment, too?

• 9 Jun 2025 · Support for High Streets · Hansard source

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  6. What steps she is taking to support high streets.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Support for High Streets · Hansard source

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  I was elected to this place on the back of a pledge to revitalise the towns in my constituency. With the high street in St Austell in a sorry state, I am delighted to have been able to take the first steps towards revitalising it by ending the impasse at the site of the now derelict General Wolfe pub and moving my constituency office back into town at the other end of the street. However, the fact remains that the high street is on its knees, and many residents feel that our once great town could do much better. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that significant resources are available, beyond just the plan for neighbourhoods, to revitalise towns in constituencies like mine?

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  Away from some of the consternation of this place, a glance at His Majesty’s Treasury distributional analysis will reveal that the original decision to protect the most vulnerable, the Budget that followed, the spring statement and—I hope—the spending review have been some of the most progressive fiscal decisions we have seen in recent years. Will the Minister join me and the many wealthier pensioners in my constituency who agree that means testing is the right decision, the progressive decision and the Labour decision?

• 4 Jun 2025 · Disadvantaged Communities · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I welcome the Government’s renewed focus on place-based policy through their plan for neighbourhoods, and the commitment of £1.5 billion to tackle deprivation through long-term investment, rather than bungs and short-term sticking-plasters. The plan rightly recognises that some communities have borne the brunt of economic decline for far too long, and that we cannot deliver growth unless we uplift those places too. I welcome the transparency and accountability of a data-led, mission-based approach, and I have long believed that trust is built when policy is not simply delivered to people, but brings them along with it and explains why we are doing what we are doing. However, although I am greatly encouraged to see 11 mission- priority neighbourhoods identified in my mid-Cornwall constituency, I am concerned that none is classified as mission critical. Anyone who spends time in Cornwall knows that, beyond its picture postcard beauty, parts of our region still suffer from some of the lowest living standards in western Europe. For example, St Austell, although not a crime hotspot by national standards, faces severe deprivation and challenges, from antisocial behaviour, weak public transport, poor per pupil funding, poor investment in healthcare, poor integrated care board funding and 10-year lower life expectancy than in other parts of the UK. Cornwall has a crucial role to play in our clean energy ambitions and in helping Britain to become a clean energy superpower, but that potential will fall flat without real investment. I therefore urge the independent commission to do two things: be more transparent about how scoring decisions were made, particularly when certain neighbourhoods were not deemed mission critical, and reflect better in the methodology the rural disadvantage that colleagues have described. Rural deprivation can be just as entrenched in areas like Cornwall as in urban areas. Finally, I urge the Government to unlock more investment to ensure that that mission-priority status transforms into targeted funding, turning Cornwall’s once-in-a-generation promise into progress.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Leasehold Reform · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that part of ensuring that we can take more control and offer more choice to residents is allowing residents to take greater control for themselves and, in the process, ensure better value for the services that they need on their estates?

• 20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  Will the Prime Minister join me in inviting Conservative Members to celebrate the restoration of access to our British shellfishers, and the reduction in frictions on the 70% of our British seafood that is exported to the EU? Will he encourage those Conservative Members to get out there and help us to deploy the £360 million of fishing and coastal community funding that we have unlocked?

• 14 May 2025 · Glass Packaging: Extended Producer Responsibility · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important to ensure that the implementation of EPR avoids unintended consequences for businesses such as pubs, which are already facing huge headwinds? In many cases, pubs already manage their packaging waste through commercial contracts, so they would face double the levy.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T8. Industrial communities such as St Austell and the clay country have been stifled in recent years by soaring energy costs. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that industries such as the proud china clay industry are internationally competitive?

• 24 Apr 2025 · EU Trading Relationship · Hansard source

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  Given the willingness and readiness of other parties, including one conspicuously absent from this crucial debate, to throw our fish under the bus and make fishing fleets again a political football, will my hon. Friend join me and our hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) in calling on our Government to ensure that that will not happen, and that we will, above all, protect employment in our fishing fleets in Mevagissey and elsewhere?

• 22 Apr 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Children adopted from care or living under special guardianship are currently disproportionately at risk of entering the criminal justice system later in life if early trauma goes untreated. Given the recent changes in the adoption and special guardianship support fund, what steps is the Lord Chancellor taking alongside Cabinet colleagues to ensure the availability of more equitable access to such support?

• 3 Apr 2025 · UK Democracy: Impact of Digital Platforms · Hansard source

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  The strength of our democracy lies in its people—their voices, concerns and participation. The Labour party that I know has always been a party of the grassroots, particularly in Cornwall, and of real individuals engaging with real communities. We are not the party of faceless bots, anonymous profiles or foreign interference. Yet, as we reflect on last year’s general election, we must confront the unsettling reality that the integrity of our democratic process is under threat from hostile actors and unaccountable digital platforms, such as those we have heard about today. In my constituency I have seen the manipulation at first hand. The administrators of the local Reform UK Facebook group—supposedly representing my constituency —are not local at all. Not a single one that I can see has anything to do with my constituency. Many cannot even be identified as real individuals. This is not grassroots activism; it is astroturfing—an insidious form of political manipulation where orchestrated campaigns masquerade as spontaneous grassroots movements, misleading and deceiving the public. That is not an isolated case. Across the UK, our election was tainted by misinformation on an unprecedented scale. These were not spontaneous expressions of a democratic electorate, but the work of malign domestic and foreign actors, deliberately interfering to distort the public discourse. The power of those platforms to spread falsehoods rapidly and without scrutiny undermines trust in our political system. Undoubtedly, the owners of the platforms wield immense influence on our public discourse. Their decisions on content moderation, as we have heard, shape what information is disseminated and trusted. The fact that one such owner has openly endorsed figures convicted of hate crimes, such as Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, is appalling, signalling how those with immense digital influence can amplify those voices. These are not neutral platforms but ideological battlegrounds, and right now the scales are tipped in favour of disinformation. Labour stands for a different vision of politics; a politics built on real people, engagement and communities.

• 3 Apr 2025 · UK Democracy: Impact of Digital Platforms · Hansard source

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  It is not only important to make the distinction between fact and fiction; does my hon. Friend accept the distinction between the real and fake people who operate in some of these spaces?

• 2 Apr 2025 · School-based Nursery Capital Grants · Hansard source

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  I am sure that the children of Pondhu primary school and their families are delighted to welcome the investment in the nursery announced by the Secretary of State, not least because St Austell Central has sadly become the second most deprived ward in the whole of Cornwall. What impact does the Secretary of State expect the investment to have on the life chances of children living in deprived families?

• 1 Apr 2025 · Official Development Assistance: Refugee Costs · Hansard source

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  The British public increasingly feel that development aid has sadly lost its clarity of purpose. While I accept that there are multiple objectives behind aid, and that of course lifting the world’s poorest out of poverty has long been at the heart of the FCDO’s mission, a reset in the social contract around development aid is clearly needed. What consideration has the Minister given to shaping development policy that explicitly addresses the upstream determinants of mass migration?

• 1 Apr 2025 · Official Development Assistance: Refugee Costs · Hansard source

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  6. What assessment he has made of the value for money of official development assistance spending on in-donor refugee costs.

• 28 Mar 2025 · Water Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. and gallant Friend makes an impassioned case for public ownership—something that, in the right context, I am sure Members on all sides of the House can celebrate. On the point about the cost of financing to the public, though, does he agree that while there are some serious indiscretions in parts of the industry, such as in Thames Water’s case, this conversation about the appropriate financing model would be better entertained at a time when the cost of capital in the private water industry was not lower than the cost of public sector borrowing, on which, of course, we are in a very difficult situation?

• 28 Mar 2025 · Water Bill · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. and gallant Friend accept that there is increased accountability in the Water (Special Measures) Act through the fact that many companies in the industry are now rewriting their articles of association to ensure that they are accountable not just to shareholders, but to the customers and users of water?

• 20 Mar 2025 · Tourism Industry · Hansard source

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  I welcome the hon. Member’s bold efforts to bring Bedfordshire’s tourism economy to the fore. In Cornwall, our tourism economy is already very much at the fore. Does he agree that it has been a mistake to see the industry as a sort of be-all and end-all in places such as Cornwall? Given the seasonality of the employment, the lack of infrastructure and the many opportunities beyond, it must be recognised that it can sometimes be a mistake to bed tourism so centrally into our growth plans.

• 20 Mar 2025 · British Sign Language Week · Hansard source

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  My constituent Sarah has been unable to afford a British Sign Language course for her son, which costs up to £400. I welcome the prospect of a GCSE in BSL, but that support is often unavailable where skills funding is not devolved. Can the Minister outline what steps he is taking to ensure that families in areas not yet devolved, such as Cornwall, can also affordably access BSL courses?

• 20 Mar 2025 · Coastal Communities · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?