Scarborough and Whitby MP urges Andy Burnham to deliver for coastal communities

Ms Hume welcomed Andy Burnham to 10 Downing Street and urged him to appoint a Government minister for coastal communities, a role that does not currently exist.

A cross-party group of politicians in North Yorkshire have previously backed similar proposals, and Ms Hume has said that “rural and coastal communities are overlooked in the current power structure and the way things work”.

Speaking on Monday, July 20, Ms Hume said: “Sir Keir Starmer ran the first solid leg for this Government and has now handed on the baton to Andy Burnham.

“I welcome the new Prime Minister to Number 10 with hope in my heart. Andy Burnham has promised to do things differently, and he has started as he means to go on by announcing an end to rough sleeping.”

She added: “I call on the Prime Minister to deliver a coastal industrial strategy, under a minister for coastal communities, to promote sustainable economic growth throughout our region. This must include the creative industries.”

Mr Burnham used his maiden speech as prime minister in Downing Street to promise to take power out of Westminster and give the public greater control over “life’s essentials”.

Mr Burnham said he would set out a 10-year plan later this year, and, starting on Tuesday, measures to address the cost-of-living squeeze and give people “breathing space now”.

His first instruction as Prime Minister would be to “end rough sleeping in our country,” he said, after a visit to a homeless charity in London hours earlier.

It echoes a promise he made as Greater Manchester mayor and delivered with mixed results.

Ms Hume said that devolution in rural and coastal communities could only succeed “if mayors and local authorities are funded and empowered to deliver the regeneration of and innovation we desperately need in Scarborough, Whitby, and the villages”.

The Liberal Democrat MP for Torbay, Steve Darling, said he had also called on Andy Burnham “to appoint a minister for coastal communities to ensure that communities like ours, which face poorer health and wellbeing outcomes than our inland neighbours and some of the greatest levels of poverty and lowest life expectancies, are properly supported in Government.”

Mr Burnham, who was met with cheers by supporters in Downing Street, said: “I am acutely conscious that I am the sixth person in the last 10 years to walk up this street, the seventh prime minister since 2016, making this a moment for reflection and new resolution.

“It requires my generation of politicians to raise our game and rise to the new challenge.

“Britain needs to show the world that we can regain our stability once again.”

The Labour leader pledged to “make this moment a circuit breaker for Britain” – the biggest transformation in the last 40 years, with “a new political model and a new economic model”.