Assessing party policy – the word from our local representatives

By Bev Haigh-Jones

We were very pleased that at our January committee meeting we were able to speak with Jayne Kirkham, Labour Councillor for Falmouth Penwerris and Parliamentary Candidate for Truro & Falmouth. Jayne was one of the first representatives we approached when we started this series of articles, but, although she was happy to take part, illness and other commitments had always prevented it. However, we have managed to get together in the end.

As has been usual in our previous sessions of this type, we had a statement from Jayne, followed by a Q&A session. In the article, the questions are preceded by the initials of the person raising the query. It was really interesting to hear of Jayne’s background, as well as her opinions on Brexit and her hopes for Cornwall’s future.

Please remember, as with all our newsletter articles, there is a facility to comment if you wish and any such comments will be passed on to Jayne.

Chair: “Welcome, Jayne, and thank you for taking the trouble to come and join us. Following the same format we have used with previous guests, we would ask if you would give us an idea of how you see your position in respect of Brexit and the EU. We will then open the floor for questions, which hopefully you won’t mind responding to, then this will be written up as an article to be published in our newsletter.”

Jayne Kirkham: “I did read through a couple of your previous articles, Perran’s obviously, because the party position that we’ve got is the same, there’s not an awful lot of change since he was here. I had a look at Colin Martin’s as well. To be honest, though, listening to Ed Davey, I’m not sure that the Lib Dem’s position is massively different to Labour’s at the moment.

“So, my background – to explain how I feel about it, I trained as a lawyer a long time ago and I worked in London for a number of years as a trade union solicitor. Then I moved down to Plymouth, also as a trade union solicitor and a lot of that involved personal injury claims for people injured at work, and also a lot of employment law.

“Then I came to Falmouth and I had my son, and, when he was little and in nursery for a few hours a day, I ran an Employment Law Clinic at the Citizens Advice Bureau in Falmouth, so I kept my employment law going for a bit longer. I haven’t done it for years now, but I trained as a lawyer, obviously, and one of the options in my law degree was EU law. It wasn’t actually EU law then – it was EC, or possibly still EEC law – and we managed to go to Strasbourg and I think Luxembourg as well, and that inspired me a little bit.

“What I learned through practising law, and through employment law, certainly, was how important European law was to so many of the laws that we have, particularly employment protections. Of course, at that point, and I will be political now, Thatcher had got rid of most of our collective rights. When Tony Blair signed the social chapter, we had more individual rights, and those were the ones we could enforce. A lot of our employment law came from the EU, to be honest, because we didn’t have an awful lot of it left after the Tories had done with it in the 1980s and early 1990s. So it was like a solid back-up and that gave me an inkling of how important it was as a structure and something we were part of on that level.

“I’ve been in the Labour Party a long time – since about 1994. I’ve always been Labour since I was a student and since I was at school, actually. Like some of the other people that you’ve had here, when the whole Brexit thing happened, I think like most of us, we were all maybe complacent and thought it wouldn’t happen – but it did! Then, of course, there was the furore in the House of Commons, and we had the EU elections in 2019, which I stood in. That was an experience! I stood as number three in the South West on the list and at the time we only had one MEP, Claire Moody, Obviously, the Labour Party was not firm in its view at that time and the EU elections were a chance, some people thought, to make a protest vote. In the general election I got over 21,000 votes, and I think in the EU election, across the whole of Cornwall, we got just over 10,000 votes. Claire Moody lost her seat.

“That was a very depressing experience, but I think I’m lucky in a way because Truro & Falmouth is the only constituency that voted remain in Cornwall. There were obviously a lot of reasons for that, there’s a different demographic, there’s a university, there’s maybe different reasons why that should be the case, but that did help, I think. We also have some of the industries that have been badly affected here as well. Fishing, for example – the Fal Oysters had a terrible time after Brexit and everything had to be depurated, and nothing could be sold and the industry virtually fell apart overnight. That was awful and both fishing and farming suffered really badly. So it feels like turning a tide. I think that people are seeing what’s happening around them and, although it’s not talked about so much in the media, they’re realising that a lot of the problems that we face now, and the contraction in the economy, are certainly being contributed to by the fact that we came out of the EU. That is sinking in now, and people do realise now that the figure on the bus was made up and I think they are angry about that.

“For myself, you can tell from my background I was certainly a European, I wanted to stay in the EU. I was a remainer and I felt strongly about that and felt that in many ways our lives were so much richer by being part of the European Union. I have a son who is now eighteen and I wanted him to have the chance to do the Erasmus scheme. I wanted him to have the chance to travel around and work around Europe for months on end and all that kind of thing.

“So, I was very disappointed, and I also think that as well as the country as a whole having suffered for it, it’s been hard for Cornwall as well. Obviously, there was the EU funding that’s now gone, and the Shared Prosperity Fund – well I don’t think it’s replaced it. I don’t think £132m over three years has come anywhere near what Cornwall Council said should be £700m over seven years. The MPs will argue, but it seems pretty clear to me that we have lost out. I think it’s a real shame because EU funding did fund so much that people weren’t aware of – our blue and yellow plaques weren’t big enough. Things like points on trains, branch lines, the Maritime Museum, there is just so much of it and people didn’t realise. So I do think that Cornwall suffered and also there’s the people that used to work here. Industries like social care and agriculture have had more people leaving than coming in, and now we’re in that situation where Cornwall Council have just dropped a couple of providers of social care for modern slavery! People have been coming over under the government’s new employment immigration scheme, which means that they can pay them 20% less than they would otherwise, and they are sometimes giving them the difficult jobs and charging them for everything including their visas, and it just seems a far, far worse way of doing it than it ever was before. So I think we have suffered – in the NHS, in social care, in agriculture, as well as with the lack of funding. I feel strongly that Cornwall has lost out in some ways, and I want to go to Westminster and I want to argue for Cornwall in that way, too.

“You know the Labour Party’s position, I’m sure. We’ll go into the election and there will be no promises to rejoin the EU, or anything like that. Keir Starmer and the Shadow Cabinet do not want to reopen that wound and relive that argument during a general election. I think after 14 years, the will to win has become more important than pretty much anything else, because the country is in such dire straits. Also, what you get when you are knocking on doors now, people aren’t arguing about Brexit like they were, they’re telling you that they can’t afford to put the heating on, or that they’re sitting in the dark, or pulling their own teeth out – we’ve just gone back in time. I do think it’s clear, and I think the Europeans will see it too, that there will be a massive change if there’s a Labour government. Relations will be different – warmer, more positive – and I think everyone in the Labour Party accepts that we need a closer relationship with Europe, and that the one we have has been rocky under the Conservatives. I think they will find it much easier to deal with Keir Starmer, and I’m hoping there will be new trade agreements and agreements on things like fishing and farming. The Party has always been very strong on a veterinary agreement, so I’m hoping that after the general election we will be moving in the direction of a much closer, stronger relationship, not just with trade deals, but with the relationship itself. There’s Horizon, which we’re back in now, but things like Erasmus we could look at again, making the most of the relationship and building on the relationship when we get into power. Notice I say when, not if!”

Q&A

SM: “Do you think that if you are going to have closer relations if Labour get into to power, that maybe in time people will perhaps think that life is so much better that we might as well rejoin the customs union, or the single market, or do you think it’s just way off?”

Jayne Kirkham: “I think that things will change if there’s a Labour government and I do think that it takes time and, I know it sounds like a cliché, but you would have to bring people with you. So I think if there’s a different attitude, because we’ve had years and years of the government blaming Europe for everything that goes wrong – like bendy and straight bananas – and the press leaping on them, and Boris Johnson’s columns for years. I think if that attitude is completely different and the benefits are accentuated, rather than the negatives, the hope is that we do bring people with us, and the relationship can be a progressive, ongoing thing. So I do see a better relationship, but I wouldn’t be able to go further than that, though I would hope that that relationship would strengthen and grow over time.”

AH: “Can I ask a question that is on a related point to relations to the EU really, it’s the question of PR and where you see the Labour Party going with that, obviously perhaps not immediately, but maybe in a second term. Do you have any views about that?”

Jayne Kirkham:“That’s an interesting one, because the National Policy Forum Paper that was published at the end of last year, talks about the electoral system in this country being broken, full stop. The Party has accepted that the electoral system doesn’t work properly. The Party has also, at conference – though that doesn’t necessarily mean that it goes in the manifesto, because that is all voted for at a clause five meeting – but the Party has at conference got to the point where changing the voting system was something that was supported across the board. In previous years, the unions were unsure, but they have now balloted their members and the members of the biggest unions, Unite and Unison, turned out to be in favour. So the Labour Party itself, the party members and the unions, have all been behind that. The voting system doesn’t work for everybody as it stands, the Party has said that. People would have to agree for change to be made.

“But, we’ve got what we’ve got at the moment and I go back to the old adage of you’ve got this one party system, Labour are second in Truro and Falmouth by about 4,500-5,000 votes, so you’ve got to get in now and look at what happens afterwards. But yes, I can see that the voting system is broken, and I was one of those who went to conference and voted for PR.

TS: “I’m wondering about divergence from EU legislation and regulation. There has been quite a lot of that under the Tories, in the direction obviously, away from the EU. Do you see Labour as wanting to bring us back into the same general area as the EU on things like environmental law, or labour law?”

Jayne Kirkham:“Yes, that’s the kind of thing I was thinking about, environmental law and food standards and that kind of thing, because some of those trade deals they’re really undercutting our farmers and I would certainly think that we’ll be looking a lot at any future trade deals, as well as existing ones, to make sure that standards are upheld. And environmental standards, too, because if you look at the Green Prosperity Plan that we’ve got, there’s going to be investment in renewables and in the environment in this country. To do that and to have that be successful, you have to have the strong standards and policy direction that you have in Europe, added to some of the kind of investment you’ve got in the States with the Inflation Reduction Act, and without the both of them together, then the private investment that you’re trying to pull in, there won’t be the certainty if your environmental protections are swinging about all over the place and backtracking like they are under the Tories. Businesses won’t have the faith to invest and follow the government and it will just end up in disaster. I love the Green Prosperity Plan, actually. I think it’s my best-selling point in Truro and Falmouth, I think it’s a really strong thing and I think Cornwall, for all sorts of reasons, because of all our raw renewables, our geo-thermal, our off-shore wind, our critical minerals, really stands to benefit from that, not just environmentally but economically as well. Cornwall should be rich again. So I would certainly hope that that kind of legislation and those standards would be kept high and kept in line.”

TS: “It would make it a lot easier for many businesses as well, if we were maintaining at least the same standards as in Europe.”

AH: “Jayne, you touched on what’s been happening in the States with all the investment that Biden has been putting in, do you see any prospect of the Labour Party going down that route?”

Jayne Kirkham: “As I’ve said, the Green Prosperity Plan is to put some investment in. Things like GB Energy, the new public energy company that is going to be set up and the wealth fund, where the plan was to put a certain number of £bn within it so that we could invest in energy, and certainly renewable energy to pull in investment from the sector, and also invest in infrastructure because if you look at our National Grid in Cornwall, it stops at Indian Queens. There are so many things that need to be done and I know that’s something that the Party feel quite strongly about, to stimulate the economy, and at some stage in the future – as fiscal rules allow because it’s going to be horribly difficult when we get in and Liz Truss has blown everything up and the discussions that we had in 2021 aren’t relevant any more – but we need to be stimulating our economy and we need to be hitting our environmental targets as well. And that clean power by 2030 target as well, it’s ambitious and it won’t happen unless we actually move onto clean power. That will take some investment and that will probably come from the private as well as the public sector and hopefully more from the private sector. It seems that the government will have to lead by example, so by policy regulation and when finances allow, by investment.”

CB: “Could you explain the fuss in the media about the £28bn? I’m utterly confused. I’m an intelligent person, I’m very up to date with politics, I’ve been involved with politics myself, I’ve stood as a parliamentary candidate and all that, and I can’t for the life of me work out what the hell is going on. It seems to be that the official policy of the Party is to spend £28bn in a year to get green stuff going, but then every time any Labour spokesperson, including Rachel Reeves, is pressed on this for a commitment, it all wobbles all over the place. Now, what’s going on?”

Jayne Kirkham: “Yeah, there was a really strong, Green Prosperity Plan and policy, lots of commitments made in conference of 2021, and she was looking at putting the £28bn of investment into the green economy, but as time’s gone on and Liz Truss has blown up the economy, the question is, is that kind of investment sustainable. In the near term, because the Party don’t know what they will be facing when they get in, and whether they will be able to do that sort of thing, the figure for the first couple of years is not there, but they will move to that sort of investment in the second half of the term. So there will be investment, but it won’t happen immediately, they are going to work up the schemes and put some of the money in later. But I think the acceptance is that there is going to be investment, there has to be investment, but it isn’t going to happen immediately because the state of the finances isn’t as they were in 2021. As I said, though, there is so much good stuff in that Green Prosperity Plan, and one of the things that will be so important here, if we can skill people up to do it, is the promise to refurbish and insulate 19 million homes. I’ve just been in Cornwall Council today and I’ve been told that of our 10,300 council homes, they have surveyed 40% and 30% of those are way below the decent home standard. So there’s a lot of work on housing and homes that needs to be done in Cornwall, and that’s part of that Green Prosperity Plan. That’s important and that will take investment to do that, but everyone knows that housing is a crucial issue down here, so I do believe that there will be investment, but the exact figure – I don’t yet know – and it will probably be later in the parliament when money starts to be invested, but the plan is there. Clean power by 2030, insulating homes, investing in infrastructure, pulling in investment for renewables, hopefully to benefit so much of what we’ve got in Cornwall. That is there – and that is a hill I will die on, quite frankly.”

We send our thanks to Jayne for taking the time to talk to us. Unfortunately, we’ve still not been able to get any of our Tory representatives to agree to talk to us, but we will keep trying. If you have anyone specific that you would like us to approach to take part in one of these sessions, please let us know here and we will see what we can do.