Rachel Gilmour MP: speeches

Speeches

• 18 Jun 2025 · Businesses in Rural Areas · Hansard source

  More

  At the end of the high season for tourists, does the hon. Gentleman agree that we should reduce tourism VAT to lower prices and allow businesses to increase investment, particularly in coastal and rural communities such as those in my constituency? That would boost growth in tourist economies. There is such a system in Italy, France and Spain, and it brings much more money in.

• 15 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  T8. My constituents in Tiverton and Minehead face many challenges when it comes to transport connectivity. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss the merits of a strategic outline business case set out by West Somerset Railway to reconnect the heritage railway line at Bishops Lydeard to the mainline at Taunton? That would allow students to access the only sixth-form facilities in Taunton, take the pressure off the No. 28 bus, and massively improve our ability to entertain more tourists.

• 13 May 2025 · Churches and Religious Buildings: Communities · Hansard source

  More

  I would like to reflect on the words of the hon. Gentleman. My three brothers spent many happy years as choristers at Salisbury Cathedral. As the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) said, churches are the backbone of our communities; as she also said, some 969 in England alone are at risk due to crumbling roofs and vanishing heritage funding. Recently and famously, my party was mocked for fixing church roofs, so I can only surmise that the more Liberal Democrat MPs there are, the better. Having said that, instead of leaving congregations and communities up and down the country seemingly praying for a miracle, can the Minister comment on whether the Government will commit to making the listed places of worship scheme permanent, and to removing the cap?

• 5 Feb 2025 · Closure of High Street Services: Rural Areas · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. I congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) on securing this debate. Rural high streets make up the heart of the local communities, and it is vital to draw attention to the difficulties they face. One crucial service run on rural high streets is banking. My area of the country is not blessed with good broadband connectivity, making online banking a difficult task. Many of my constituents were also not born into the digital age, and for them, changing to online and mobile banking can be difficult. The high streets across my community include some 15 community pharmacies. They are all threatened by the perilous financial state of the health sector. Pharmacies need a better deal from the Government and a real-terms funding uplift, preferably backdated to account for the fall in value that the sector has seen. Without that, we will risk losing those vital services from the high street. The constituent part of the high street are the businesses that make up the vibrant centre—whether they are the fantastic cafés such as Whelans, where I regularly grab a mid-morning snack in Wiveliscombe when hosting surgeries, or the charity shops where I regularly buy the clothes I showcase on my social media—and it is those businesses and more which engender the spirit of community and truly make up the high street. If we lose our high streets in rural settings, it will be very hard to get them back. The old market towns and villages across my constituency hold cherished memories. It is not too late, but we need to act fast and with urgency, otherwise rural communities will continue to see those services moving away from their high streets. I hope that this Government are up to the challenge, but I remain to be convinced.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Railway Services: South-West · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) on securing this important debate. We all know the importance of strong and effective railway services in the south-west. I will give a bit of background on my constituency. As I mentioned in my maiden speech in the House—and continue to mention at every opportunity—improving the transport links in my constituency of Tiverton and Minehead is one of my top priorities. We are served by only one major train station: Tiverton Parkway, which sits on the Great Western Railway and CrossCountry lines, as well as the charming and historic West Somerset Railway—a heritage line that runs up through the shoulder of my constituency and along the coast, terminating at Minehead. Those services provide the totality of rail connections in my constituency, but there is still no way to get from Tiverton to Minehead. Minehead desperately needs linking to the main line at Taunton, as I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) would agree, but there are much wider issues at play for rail travel in Tiverton and Minehead. The latest available data from July to September ’24 lays bare the inadequacy of railway services across the south-west. The punctuality of CrossCountry trains is pitiful—more often tardy than not, just 46.4% of the time did the service run as scheduled. That is shocking, as the figure is over 20 percentage points below the national average for punctuality on the rail network over the same period. Meanwhile, the Great Western Railway service is understood to have operated in accordance with the timetable 60.2% of the time—still over 7 percentage points lower than the national figure. That is better, but hardly an advert for timeliness. Not knowing whether a scheduled service will appear on time is far from the only issue for my constituents. Even when the service is scheduled, and appears to be all-functioning, there is always the risk of cancellation. Both of the major carriers for Tiverton and Minehead had cancellation rates above the national average from July to September ’24, and in both cases, the majority of those trains were cancelled as a result of not Network Rail, but the operator itself. That is not what the people of Tiverton and Minehead expect when they buy their tickets, and they deserve better. As is also the case across the length and breadth of the country, passengers in the south-west are forced to grapple with exorbitant train fares. Even with the Government’s rail fare discounts, which are in place for the next few months, the price of standard regulated tickets in England will go up by 4.6% on 2 March, climbing higher than the retail prices index inflation and hitting passengers hard. The Liberal Democrats have previously called on the Government to do the decent thing and freeze rail fares immediately to help families struggling under the cost of living crisis, instead of hiking ticket prices. We will continue to fight for a fair deal for commuters and families who will be left forking out more and more for the privilege of using Britain’s rail systems. I am not sure how many people in the south-west would call it a “privilege”. Just 1% of my constituents use rail as their means of travelling to work, according to data from the House of Commons Library. That is well below the national average, but not at all surprising, given the sorry picture for rail travellers in my constituency that I have painted. Members might assume that the proportion of my constituents travelling to work by bus would be higher, but I am afraid to report that that percentage sits at just 2%. I am also an avid campaigner for improving the bus routes in Tiverton and Minehead, but we are talking about railways today. The state of railway services in not just Tiverton and Minehead, but the whole south-west, adds strain on the road network, because the lack of transport connectivity and the unreliable, overcrowded and overcharged public transport links leave people with no other choice but to travel by car. The environmental implications of that reality cannot be ignored. Before closing, I must briefly draw attention to the looming Old Oak Common HS2 project and the inevitable disruption to travel that it will cause. Pressing ahead with the project will condemn the south-west to inter-city services that are among the slowest anywhere in the country and greatly reduce the number of direct trains to London. To accommodate the new role of Old Oak Common, trains originating in the south-west will be diverted from the traditional London Paddington route to London Euston, which will add an hour, on average, to train journeys. The current provision of rail services is already well below a level that could be deemed satisfactory, so the new interchange at Old Oak Common comes at great expense to the west country and our friends in south Wales. Immediately freezing fares and introducing discounts for passengers in the south-west seem reasonable and fair first steps towards correcting that glaring disservice to the people of Tiverton and Minehead, and beyond. Beyond the short term, we ought to simplify the fragmented ticketing system to provide passengers with more affordable fares if we are serious about making public transport public. The Government have an opportunity to look seriously at the issues of the south-west and its rail network, and I sincerely hope that they do so. For far too long, transport links have been overlooked and under-resourced. I appreciate that the pressures on the public purse are heavy at the moment, but so are the pressures on ordinary people in Tiverton and Minehead, and across the south-west. I urge the Government to look closely at what they can do to better support the rail, bus and road network so that the people of the south-west do not have to settle for the sort of service that is, far too often, currently on offer.