Coastal Communities (Health) Bill

Adam Thompson Excerpts

Friday 13th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) for bringing this discussion to the Chamber. He might be asking why, as an inland MP, I am speaking on this Bill—I intend to cover that in the coming minutes. Before I begin, though, I will say that it was lovely to hear from the hon. Member for North Devon (Ian Roome). He reminded me of a holiday I had in his constituency many years ago, which I had more or less forgotten, so it was lovely to be reminded of the weekend I spent in Ilfracombe.

I strongly respect the goals of the Bill, but I cannot directly support it. I do not believe that the problems the Bill diagnoses and seeks to recognise are limited to coastal communities, which is why I have chosen to speak today. The issues covered in the Bill and as part of this discussion are ones that affect communities up and down the country, whether they are next to the sea or—like mine—many miles from it. It is not living on the coast that inflicts particular problems on a place; it is people and economy. However, because of the fundamental imbalances that have plagued our country for decades, it is difficult for me to read that a specific strategy is needed to tackle child poverty in coastal communities. My community is nowhere near the sea, but there are children in poverty in Erewash who desperately need help all the same. Half of all the children in Ilkeston live in low-income households—that is nearly double the national figure. Opportunity needs to be created for young people right across the country.

[Amanda Martin]

I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning young people. This Government have changed the rules for parents on universal credit; previously, if their child went to college, they would still get universal credit payments. This Government have extended that to young people taking up apprenticeships. Does my hon. Friend agree that is a really helpful way to encourage growth and provide opportunities in deprived areas?

--- Later in debate ---

[Adam Thompson]

I completely agree. The work that the Government are doing to support young people— especially those not in education, employment or training—is really important. We are doing a huge amount of good in that space.

Support should be offered—that is absolutely correct—but on the basis of need, not just geographical location. Why should concerns about poor educational attainment in coastal communities be recognised in law but not the real concern of parents in Erewash about poor school standards where they live? The thing is, basically everywhere in this country has some claim or another to having been left behind. Erewash is, given certain elections and a party politics-focused perspective, an extremely important place. Since my constituency was established in 1983, it has had a Government MP, completely without fail. I am proud to be the most recent in a very long line of Erewash Government MPs.

[Maria Eagle (Liverpool Garston) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I ask you to clarify that we are discussing the Coastal Communities (Health) Bill at Second Reading rather than the Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Bill, so that it is clear to everybody that we have not suddenly switched to the fifth Bill of the day instead of the third?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

The right hon. Member is very Eagle-eyed. [Laughter.] She is indeed correct; we will rectify the error on the screens. We are indeed in the correct debate and hearing the correct speech.

[Adam Thompson]

I thank my right hon. Friend for making that point of order.

I was just talking about being the last in a long line of Government MPs. In 2024, the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), launched the Conservatives’ 2024 election campaign in Ilkeston, where he took some planted questions from local Conservative councillors dressed in hi-vis jackets—that definitely made them look like ordinary members of the public—and the current Prime Minister kicked off his August listening tour in Ilkeston as well. As per the accounts of one Peter Thorne—one of my fantastic former local members, sadly now passed—even Clement Attlee once stood on a soapbox in Long Eaton market place. Indeed, many Labour party and Conservative party leaders have done so over the intervening years.

Has Erewash’s status as a perennial key marginal done it any great service? Sure. Long Eaton was in the first round of levelling-up funding under the previous Government, but Ilkeston got rejected in the second round. The particular formulation of my constituency and its demographics mean that it has never been described as part of the “red wall”, but parts of it—especially Ilkeston—can really be considered as such.

Ironmaking at Stanton—one of the smaller parts of my constituency—started at the dawn of the industrial revolution, and it carried on for more than 200 years, but sadly it did not survive beyond 20 years after it was privatised. A deep point of pain for my constituents is what happened in Stanton after it was privatised.

I have spoken plenty of times in this place about the struggles that our town centres face. The high street banks are abandoning Ilkeston and Long Eaton, without any regard for the one in five people in my community— often elderly and disabled folks—who still do not use online banking and probably never will. Historic industries have left our towns. That is all as true in the midlands as it is on the coasts of Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Essex, Kent, Dorset and Cornwall—wherever. It is just as true inland as on the coast.

I accept that Erewash is almost as far from the sea as it is possible to be in England—I understand that the furthest point away is about 7 miles away from my house, so that is pretty close—but it is not like we do not also have the flooding issues that face our coastal communities. My constituency is bounded to the east by the River Erewash and to the south by the Trent, which is fed by the Derwent. That means that the entirety of my constituency—particularly Long Eaton—is always at flood risk, as I am reminded every year when I struggle to get house insurance. Even before I was a Member of Parliament, when Storm Babet came in 2023, I spoke to people across the constituency in Ilkeston, Long Eaton and especially Sandiacre, where many residents found their homes under water, facing exactly the same issues as their counterparts in coastal constituencies.

A few months ago, I was joined by my hon. Friend the Minister of State for Water and Flooding at the new Witches Oak addition to the Severn Trent site at Church Wilne, which is being specifically developed to deal with particularly dirty water sourced from the River Trent. The River Erewash itself, formerly flanked on both sides by heavy industry, as it flowed through Mansfield, Ashfield, Amber Valley, Ilkeston and Long Eaton, was once said to be the most polluted river in Britain.

I was particularly bemused by attitudes to regional development and the distribution of economic growth during the Makerfield by-election. Right-wing journalists, perhaps for the first time ever, were looking at ward-level economic data to try to say that the incredible growth they have had in Greater Manchester was all just bundled up in shiny towers in the city centre, but that is not what the evidence showed. That suggests that columnists at The Spectator and The Daily Telegraph were perhaps not engaging with that very real and serious debate in good faith. While the pinnacle of growth in Greater Manchester may not yet have reached to the very edges of the metropolitan area, it has spread outwards into Salford, Trafford and Stockport.

What does that tell us about economic growth in the country, in coastal communities and in my community? It is quite simple, really. Some have observed that maps of economic growth across the country just show us where trams go, where local train stations serve or where bus routes go. That should not be a surprise to us in the east midlands or in our coastal regions; Nottingham has a great tram network, and the city has a more productive economy than the country as a whole. I know that they have done incredible work in Stockport on densification, meaning that there are more people in the same space living together, shopping and socialising, and therefore doing a greater amount of economic activity.

I will return to my central thesis. We have grievous economic inequalities around the country, be it in coastal communities or in towns. As we all know, regional distribution is exceptionally poor. I met an education YouTuber—a woman called UnJaded Jade—at Labour party conference this year, and she drew my attention to some of the statistics. They are the things that we know in abstract and by instinct, but it is shocking when they are laid out in front of us. More than half of all graduates from the top universities are still from London and the greater south-east. Young people in the midlands are the least likely to go to university to study a creative subject.

When I see communities in England that are really moving, getting along and growing, they are down here in London and in Manchester, where there is a clear, significant space for creative industries, which need graduates in creative subjects to fuel them. The truth is that that is a world away from our economy in the midlands, where there is very little opportunity for jobs in the creative industries and young people are thoroughly discouraged from pursuing one, despite their growing and innovative part in the British economy overall.

[Amanda Martin]

I thank my hon. Friend for considering our children, our young people and their opportunities. Does he agree that the report by the Children’s Commissioner made for some very stark reading? My own city of Portsmouth was the 12th-worst place in the country to be a child, yet Hampshire was in the top 20 best places. When we talk about red wall seats and areas of deprivation, it is really important that the south-east is not just seen as one block; there are elements of high deprivation in the south-east. We were the worst place in the country for opportunities for 16-year-olds.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Before the hon. Member for Erewash (Adam Thompson) returns to his speech, let me remind him that we are debating the Coastal Communities (Health) Bill, which is about health inequalities.

[Adam Thompson]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will continue to make points about the health system in coastal communities. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) for her intervention.

The fact is that coastal communities have suffered for the same reason that the post-industrial midlands and north have: the economy has changed, and the health provision has changed with it. A good part of that change is the swirling nature of markets, consumer interests and all that, but undeniably political choices were made. The route to recovery for those places, whether we live next to the sea or far away from it, is economic growth. That is as true in the health space as it is everywhere else. For that, we need investment. I have no doubt that a great many of our coastal communities suffer from infrequent, expensive and unreliable deregulated services, particularly in the health sector, that have been cut time and time again.

There is a lot more that I could talk about, and I know that the various crises are really biting in many coastal communities, but I want to end my speech by saying that I cannot support the Bill as written, because I agree with the Prime Minister. What we need is growth in every postcode, in the health sector and across all of society. Our problems are not created by geography, even if they are reinforced by it. Ultimately, the problem is that our economy and our health service have been imbalanced for too long.

Regardless of whether someone is on the North sea, looks out across the channel or, like me, lives in the very heart of the midlands, where they live has been left behind because of political and ideological choices made by successive Governments. I am proud to be part of a Government who recognise that fact and are finally striving to correct our nation’s course—not pitting us against one another, but pulling us all together.