Oral Answers to Questions

Noah Law Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

It was a pleasure to be at the opening of that fantastic youth zone with the hon. Gentleman, and to see the queues of young people stretching far into the distance and the excitement it brought them. He is right that there is a particular challenge in rural communities. Through Youth Matters, our national youth strategy, we have taken restrictions off funding and our only stipulation is that young people must have meaningfully been able to drive those decisions. In order to address those concerns, we will fund transport and travel as well as facilities in places that have been overlooked.

[Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)]

T4. I was elected on the back of three clear pledges, one of which was to work to revitalise our towns. As part of that, I promised to end the impasse around the derelict General Wolfe building in St Austell, which had gone to rot under council ownership. That has now been done. I have said that I will work closely with the buyer to ensure the fullest access to heritage funding, to ensure that the building can be restored and used as quality homes for local people, contributing to my mission to revitalise our town centre in the process. Will the Minister work with me to support that mission? What suggestions can she make to me and the developers?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Stephanie Peacock)]

I was pleased to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency earlier this year. The best way to protect our heritage is to use it and I thank him for his work to secure a future for the General Wolfe building. I encourage developers and historic building owners to engage early with our arm’s length body Historic England, and I am sure that the Heritage Minister will be happy to meet him to discuss it further.