The latest of our regular articles from Sally-Ann Hart, MP for Hastings and Rye.
Recently I was asked to be the keynote speaker for two different events focused on levelling-up; one in London, organised by think tank Localis, and the other in Margate, organised by the South East Local Enterprise Partnership. In Parliament, I chair two all-party parliamentary groups (APPGs), the APPG for Coastal Communities and the APPG for South East England Councils. My focus for both these groups is to ensure that the south east and our coastal communities across the UK do not get overlooked by government (nor the private sector) when it comes to crucial funding and investment.
The pledge to level up the UK was the cornerstone of the 2019 Conservative Party manifesto, promising that this government would unite the country, level up and spread opportunity across the whole of the United Kingdom.
As one of only three regions of the country to be a net contributor to the Exchequer, investment in the south east must keep pace with economic development – it cannot be left behind. In Hastings and Rye, we suffer some of the worst levels of deprivation in the country and so we must ensure that these areas, and the south east as a whole, continue to receive the focus and investment they need in transport, education and skills, housing, health, green tech and the green revolution. A strong social and economic south east has a hugely beneficial knock-on impact around the country – our region is a global gateway to the rest of the UK and rapidly driving economic growth to support the UK’s global agenda and boosting productivity here is essential.
We have long been a proud maritime nation, historically relying on our coastal communities to help deliver national prosperity but today, too many of them face shared challenges and disproportionately high levels of deprivation. Coastal communities such as Rye are important to the south east’s environmental, social and economic well-being, and they have enormous potential – which can be unleashed with an ambitious vision, partnership working, and the right investment from both the public and private sectors. If given the appropriate social, economic and environmental support and investment, our coastal communities would be an even greater resource not only to south east, but to the UK as a whole, rather than a problem to solve.
I have highlighted the importance of education and skills, both academic and technical, in a recent Rye News piece, and these are the bedrock of economic growth and social prosperity and must be something that we continue to focus on in Rye, particularly as regards green skills and technology for the future. Improving our transport and digital connectivity is also key to levelling up economic, social, employment and business outcomes and resilience.
Affordable housing is a real issue in Rye, with many young people complaining to me that they cannot get on the housing ladder – nor find much to rent because of second home ownership and Airbnbs. Whilst the government is rightly engaging in an ambitious policy to build good quality homes that people want to live in, these homes must be the right ones, in the right places, and with the right infrastructure. These issues are ones which I have highlighted with ministers and called attention to as key policy area to resolve, and this is done through my vice-chairmanship of the newly constituted Backbench Policy Committee for the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
What we do not hear much discussion on is the potential for our coastal communities as regards land and sea nature-based solutions to climate change, which could also help drive social and economic betterment. Our coasts and seas contain some of the UK’s most varied ecosystems and investing in coastal restoration and adaptation projects offers opportunities for low-income coastal communities that yield financial returns on investments, create jobs, stimulate local economies and regenerate and revitalise the health of ecosystems.
Restoring and maintaining blue carbon habitats off our coastline would create jobs directly in conservation, and indirectly in nature-based tourism, helping to level up our coastal communities. Our coast is also at the forefront of the green industries, such as the UK’s world-leading offshore wind developments which we can see off the north Kent coastline and onshore at Little Cheyne Court Wind Farm near Camber. In order to campaign more forcefully in Westminster, I have recently set up an APPG for the Ocean and related solutions with the National Oceanography Centre, which will complement the work I am already doing on land nature-based solutions to climate change.
Rye, like many coastal communities, has unleashed potential which, with proper focus and investment, can help improve the lives of local people and generate both economic resilience and environmental sustainability. I will continue to campaign hard for the support we need.
Image Credits: Chris Lawson .
I hate to be negative, and I certainly don’t wish to be rude to Mrs Hart, whom I’m sure is working hard performing a pretty thankless task during a difficult time. However, this is such a half-baked article… It doesn’t tell us anything. It’s just a luke-warm soup of marketing platitudes, and a vague inference of ‘jam tomorrow’ – when people need help today… Has anyone learned anything? What on earth are “blue carbon habitats”?? And exactly how many jobs would restoring them create? It doesn’t even feel like it’s been proof read. Again, I really don’t intend to be horrible, but if Mrs Hart’s communications team want to engage with the community, tell us something we don’t know. Or better still, give us some facts, some timelines, some commitments. We all know there are no magic wands, but at least give it to us straight. Talk to us like grown ups. I know it’s infinitely easier to sit on the sidelines and hurl rotten tomatoes than to stand in the firing line, as Mrs Hart does, but Rye deserves better than this kind of perfunctory old guff. This is what makes people cynical and disenchanted about politics.
Again, why not ask readers to submit questions, and prevail upon our MP to provide answers to things people really care about. It would actually provide Mrs Hart with some focus for these articles too. Again, apologies if I appear churlish, but why not make these regular pieces serve a real purpose?
I couldn’t agree more, GH. Although I now live in Hastings Old Town I lived my childhood in Guestling and enjoyed school in Rye during the mid-late 60’s, and therefore consider Rye as a vital part of my past. During those times, long-standing families were prevalent in both Rye and Hastings Old Town, mainly due to their working lives as fishermen and other local trades. Due to the huge rise in property prices in most areas, families and communities are being torn apart by owners of second homes, air b&b’s and the like. I strongly feel that housing for local families needs to be made far more realistic and accessible, with restrictions on said second homes etc.
What a busy woman! Perhaps Ms Hart might like to find time between rushing about to all her various committees to reflect on the damage she and her party are doing to the coastal environment and the marine eco-system when she voted against any control of the discharge of raw sewage into the seas and rivers. Or perhaps she saw the empowerment of already hugely rich utility companies to save money by doing this as economic development? Not so great for the tourism industry on which so much of her constituency relies or for a healthy marine environment which she claims to be so interested in though.
I wonder if Mrs Hart submitted a letter, or indeed, how she will be voting tonight…?
I am informed that she voted to support Boris Johnson. So clearly she has full confidence in him despite his buffoonery, waffle and lies.
Yesterday afternoon at 5pm there was a service of thanksgiving for the Queen in St Mary’s. It ended with the national anthem, including the final verse in which we all sang the line “May she defend our laws”! She, of course, has has done until two years ago, when the Prime Minister, a now convicted criminal, got her to illegally prorogue Parliament. He made her do the exact opposite of what we ask in the National Anthem. For this act alone Johnson should be gone. Now. Tory MPs should help the Queen defend our laws by sacking him. Now.
Yes of course Boris Johnson,should fall on his sword,and hopefully soon,time for the tory party to get another Prime minister in charge,and hopefully a brexiteer, and get this country back on track, and sort out the economy, after the destruction of Covid, and the ongoing Ukraine war, to win them another 4 years in office, as I cannot see any formidable opposition out there, just bitter party’s hell bent in reversing brexit.
My answer to BH question, no, reading through our MP’s speech I learnt very little that might pertain and help the Rye and Hastings people specifically with issues that are on their mind at this moment. It’s a broad brush but no fine details. (maybe next time)
Heidi
For those interested, The Spectator lists our MP as one of the 211 Conservatives having voted for Boris Johnson last night.
Agree with GH, complete waffle with no substance but very pleased she’s managed to get an ‘unleashed’ in the piece, very popular word this government and used frequently together with ‘turbocharged’.
Weldone Sally- Ann Hart, for backing Boris last night,you was elected by the majority of Hastings and Rye, so keep up the good work for our community, and take no notice of the die hard remoaners,who have never accepted yours or boris’s appointments to lead our country, and our towns,through these uncertain times.
John, the widespread public anger around this debate has had nothing to do with Brexit, so let’s set that hoary old subject aside. It has had everything to do with Johnson’s deeply disappointing conduct in a public office – THE public office. It’s been exactly the same motivating factor which has impelled 40% of Conservative MPs to withdraw confidence. Those MPs have not only recognised the damage Johnson is doing to the Conservative party, and to their chances of re-election, but have finally recognised the man isn’t fit to hold the office of PM and is, indeed, bringing democracy into disrepute – by far the gravest of his misdeeds. So between self-preservation and old fashioned public conscience, they will probably be proven to be on the right side of history.
Lastly, yes, Mrs Hart won a slim simple majority in 2019, but the fractionally larger cohort of voters in Hastings and Rye did not vote for her. We’ll all see, I suppose, how her decision to back Boris Johnson plays out at the next election. And in addition to ‘party-gate’, the next election probably will revive the fall out from Brexit, much of which can now be measured. Regardless of Mrs H’s judgement on this matter, it’s pretty clear Johnson’s done for as PM anyway.
Yes GH let’s move on Boris has a reprieve at the moment, hopefully for another 12 months, to get this country back on track, and electable again, and maybe just maybe,if the traitorous Labour and lib dems jump into bed together they may topple the torys, but first they must remember when both parties promised they would honour the referendum and then reneged on the result, that is why nobody trusts them anymore than Boris, to run the country, that is the true facts of the matter.Enough Said.
John Tolhurst, I thought in your first comment was that Johnson should go ( fall on his sword) but now you’re congratulating our MP for supporting him?
The point of the criticism of our MP is the continual waffle and mentioning various quangos she’s attending fighting our corner. There is no substance or plan in her piece.
Yes Steve I certainly did,and I stick by my views for the good of the party he should stand down, Sally-anne Hart is entitled to her reasons for backing Boris, just as you and others were entitled to back Jeremy Corbyn in the last election, and you may have won if the party had not reneged on the brexit result, sometimes I wish we could turn the clock back, would we have been first in getting the vaccine out to the people, and would we still be in Lockdown, which labour opposed, when Boris lifted it, despite Johnson shenanigans, better the devil you know, than the old devil that wouldn’t even sing the National anthem.
John, you seem to be unaware that ‘the old devil who wouldn’t sing the National Anthem’ (allegedly) has not been leader of the Labour Party for the last two years and indeed no longer even holds the party whip. When congratulating themselves on Johnson’s electoral success in 2019 the Tory party might do well to remember that it was as much a vote against Corbyn as for Johnson. And on the subject of devils, just remember the old adage, he who sups with the devil needs a long spoon.
It wasn’t a binary choice in the last General Election, there were other parties/candidates to support. Shouldn’t be necessary to have to point that out, but of course it’s all part of the Daily Mailification of politics to drag in the name of Jeremy Corbyn and we all boo him, don’t we?
Talking of political matters, don’t forget that if you live in Brede or Udimore, the Polling Station is open today (Thurs 16 June) at Brede Village Hall for the District Council elections.
There are ONLY TWO CANDIDATES, one Conservative, one Liberal Democrat.
Don’t forget to vote!!