Perran Moon MP: speeches

Speeches

• 2 Sept 2026 · EU Membership Referendum: Impact on the UK · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. I thank the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) for securing this debate. There can simply be no argument: Brexit has been one of the most disastrous decisions that the UK has made in modern times. This extraordinary moment of self-harm has irreparably damaged the British economy and society, and for what? There are longer queues at airports, bureaucracy at the ports and hundreds of thousands of boats crossing the channel every year. Let us never forget that there were no small boats before Brexit. Ten years on, Brexit has perhaps had the greatest impact on Cornwall, as my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) mentioned. Thanks to the tireless campaigning of the late Member for Falmouth and Camborne, Candy Atherton, Cornwall secured objective 1 status from the EU, which greatly supported our economic development according to all metrics. As was mentioned, Cornwall received over £100 million a year, which included support for the Eden Project, Newquay airport, our combined universities, superfast broadband and improvements to the A30. It was a transformational programme. The Vote Leave campaign promised that not a penny of that funding would be lost. It said that the money we sent to Brussels would be reinvested back into Cornwall, but that promise never materialised, and we are now looking to the Government to reinstate our economic development funding in the devolution deal that the Prime Minister alluded to at the Dispatch Box yesterday. We have lost not only our objective 1 funding, but the common-sense free trade we once had with our closest neighbours and allies. All told, Brexit has been an unmitigated disaster, and the time has come to rethink and renegotiate a relationship with our nearest trading partners, our allies and friends in the European Union.

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

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  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.