Perran Moon, MP for Camborne, Redruth & Hayle

Cornwall is a land of extraordinary beauty, rich heritage, and proud communities. As the Member of Parliament for Camborne, Redruth and Hayle, I’m often struck by how much easier it is to persuade Ministers to visit during the summer months as they often reminisce about childhood holidays spent in the Duchy.

But behind the postcard-perfect image lies a far more complex reality than beaches, Padstow and Rick Stein. One where too many local people face daily struggles with low pay, insecure housing, limited transport, and poor access to essential services. These challenges are at the heart of a new report, Pretty Poverty, published by Plymouth Marjon University.

The report’s findings are grounded in robust evidence and lived experience. For those of us who live here, they are deeply intuitive. We see and feel the effects of “pretty poverty” every day, realities that visitors do not see. The report lays bare the challenges we face and equips us with the evidence needed to advocate effectively with Government, from a distinctly Cornish perspective.

A crucial step towards resetting the pressures faced by remote coastal areas is ensuring that funding distribution reflects the unique characteristics of areas like ours. A central concern is that the Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) fail to capture the true extent of remote coastal deprivation. While the IMD has its strengths, relying on it overlooks deep structural issues affecting our communities.

There has been some progress. In June 2025, the Government launched a Fair Funding Review, acknowledging that outdated models have long short-changed places like Cornwall. This review includes a ‘remoteness adjustment’ to better support coastal areas and recognises the additional costs of serving daytime visitors and tourists. The IMD has been updated as of October 2025 and released alongside a new Rural Report. The new assessments reflect seasonal employment insecurity and rural disadvantage and there is a greater understanding that rural disadvantage tends to appear in isolated pockets across seemingly more prosperous regions.

But we must go further. Current indicators still fail to capture the educational isolation, barriers to services, and precarious employment that define life in many remote coastal communities. From my perspective, many of these issues stem from a housing crisis. The personal stories in this report, of people struggling with unaffordable rents and fierce competition, echo what I hear regularly on the doorstep and in my constituency surgeries. 

After surgeries it is heartening to hear about several villages stepping up, identifying a local plot of land which they are designating for social housing and working with housing associations and the council to get them built. It is so important that every community steps up to the challenge of the housing crisis whether that is smaller villages working to develop 20 social homes or larger towns where hundreds may be built. Without this kind of focus, Cornwall’s industrial potential will not be realised. 

As well as the moral imperative to act, the vast economic and social potential of left-behind areas like Cornwall presents a powerful case for urgent action. This report is a wake-up call, and an opportunity to ensure that remote coastal voices are heard loud and clear.