Looking forward, it’s clear 2025 will be a year we will ultimately look back on as critical in shaping the future of Cornwall! Will Cornwall survive other than for ceremonial and tourism purposes? Or will Cornwall strengthen its governance, become the new Celtic Tiger, and contributor to the celebration of diversity in a wider world? And will Cornwall become even more of a developers’ paradise than it already is?

First, I must praise my fellow Cornish MPs for displaying firm unanimity during our meeting last week with deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner. Our collective strength will be critical if we’re to secure the best outcome for Cornwall. Ministers need to understand that devolution is about letting go, not holding on to and micro-managing the handing out of power. No government would have said to Wales that devolution was conditional on it “partnering with neighbouring authorities” in the West Midlands. But that would be Cornwall’s destiny if they insisted on adherence to the letter of their White Paper.

The Deputy Prime Minister was left in no doubt very that we’re determined Cornwall to secure devolution on a Cornwall footprint. We’ll wait if that’s what it takes. She would not really want to be perceived as delivering devolution by authoritarian central diktat!

Second, planning policy should back need, not greed. But the government’s announced planning policy risks the opposite and is destined to fail. Its National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) is focused on delivering its ambitious housebuilding targets – one and a half million by the end of this Parliament. The Prime Minister says they’ll “back builders, not blockers”. But all they’ll do is put greed before need. The PM has created a false battle to push reforms through.

No government has met its housebuilding targets (unless the government builds them itself), and this government is no less doomed to failure. This is because setting housebuilding targets is based on a naive delusion that private developers would be willing to collude with government to drive down the price of completed homes; and to generally act against their commercial interests. Unfortunately, all mainstream political parties are adherents to this delusion.

House building targets are a means to an end. The end, of course, being the meeting (or at least reduction) of housing need. If instead, the government set targets to meet need, it would provide for more creative opportunities to engage communities, rather than to alienate them, as now.

Cornwall is one of the best examples of where the government’s policy fails. Cornwall has been one of the fastest growing places in the UK, almost trebling the housing stock in the last 60 years. Yet the housing problems of local families have got worse. Setting and meeting high housing targets doesn’t work in places like Cornwall, because developers make more money building homes for property investors (eg second and holiday homes owners) than in meeting housing need.

Andrew George

Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives