Productivity and Economic Growth: East Midlands

Michelle Welsh Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Michelle Welsh (Sherwood Forest) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I congratulate my fellow Nottinghamshire MP, my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish), for securing the debate.

My Sherwood Forest constituency is proudly rural, consisting of market towns, villages, farms, small businesses, local pubs and visitor attractions. Those communities are full of talent, ambition and hard-working people, but for far too long they have been neglected. Fourteen years of Conservative Governments did little to support the productivity and economic growth of rural communities like mine.

Nowhere is the neglect clearer than in public transport. For many rural villages bus services are inconsistent at best, with some having just a single bus to serve their community. Others require residents to take multiple buses to simply travel across the constituency. In many other areas, it is a bus desert. At a coffee morning I held in Farnsfield at the weekend, I met Oliver Asher, a young man in my constituency who has mapped the bus provision in Nottinghamshire. There is a stark difference between 2014 and now. There is no clearer evidence of the under-investment in and neglect of such areas of the east midlands.

Public transport is not a luxury in rural communities, but a lifeline. A young person who cannot reliably reach a college place, an apprenticeship or a first job risks being lost. Weak connections limit the ambitions of our young people and the productivity of our communities, but when people can travel easily, affordably and reliably, we unlock opportunity.

Currently, there are more than 4,000 children living in poverty in Sherwood Forest. Parts of the constituency, a former coalfield community, are some of the most deprived areas of the country. Those people have never recovered from the decimation of their livelihoods, and that loss of potential continues a cycle of poverty and deprivation.

It is vital that we connect rural communities to towns and cities such as Mansfield, Newark and Nottingham city, where many educational institutions and employment opportunities are based. As Oliver, the young person from Farnsfield, told me, people in our villages need bus routes that actually work for them.

If we are serious about removing barriers to opportunity and unlocking the potential of the east midlands, we must invest in reliable public transport. Of course, that must go hand in hand with protecting our green belt and embracing our future in a way that respects biodiversity and ensures that every one of my constituents can access the outdoors and the natural spaces that define our communities. Where a person grows up should not determine how far they can go. We have a duty to build connections that make that real. No young person’s future and wellbeing should be limited by a failing transport network.