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  • David Lidington – 2006 Speech on a New Direction for Northern Ireland

    David Lidington – 2006 Speech on a New Direction for Northern Ireland

    The speech made by David Lidington on 12 October 2006.

    It’s been a good year for our party in Northern Ireland. Our membership is growing and we have regained our toehold in local government.

    We are the only political party that contests elections in every part of the United Kingdom.

    I look forward to the day when we can welcome to our conference not just Conservative councillors, but Conservative Assembly members and Conservative Members of Parliament from Northern Ireland as well.

    Northern Ireland is changing.

    Not everything’s good. Sectarian tensions run deep. Paramilitary groups still use intimidation to exert social control.

    But while serious problems remain, most people in Northern Ireland can at last lead their lives in the normal way that all of us here take for granted.

    The face of Belfast and other cities has been transformed, not by bombs, but by new shops, hotels, offices and homes.

    Even in places like Crossmaglen, for the first time in decades, the police can patrol on foot without routine Army support.

    Politicians of all parties can claim some credit for making this possible.

    But let us never forget, that the peace Northern Ireland has today was won through the courage and endurance of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and our Armed Forces. We shall always remember their bravery and we shall honour the sacrifice that they made.

    And of course the victims of terrorism will carry physical and mental scars for the rest of their lives. We have a duty to speak out for them.

    That’s why we opposed Labour’s amnesty for ‘on the run’ terrorists. It was unjust. It betrayed victims and their families and I am glad that we helped force the Government to abandon its plan.

    Whatever their religion or national identity, people in Northern Ireland have the same everyday hopes and aspirations as the rest of us. They want a prosperous economy, good schools, better health services, decent homes, effective policing.

    As Conservatives, we support the Union. And we also believe in trusting the people.

    An Assembly and stronger local councils would make politics more accessible and more accountable than it can ever be under Direct Rule.

    Giving politicians in Northern Ireland responsibility for practical decisions about jobs, local taxes and public services will force a welcome change in the content of political debate.

    That’s why I support devolution and why I hope that the current talks succeed.

    But devolution and power-sharing will only work if all parties play by the same democratic rules.

    In a democratic society, there is no place for paramilitary gangs. I don’t care whether they call themselves “republican” or “loyalist”; they should go out of business, permanently and completely.

    The tiny loyalist parties are too small to qualify for ministerial office under devolution. But Sinn Fein is different. Sinn Fein is now the second-biggest party in Northern Ireland.

    Its leaders say that they are now committed to pursue their political objectives by exclusively democratic and peaceful means. Certainly, the decommissioning of weapons and the clear statement that the IRA’s so-called ‘armed struggle’ is finally over were events of historic importance. The police and the army believe that there has indeed been a fundamental change in republican strategy.

    But after all that has happened in the last 40 years, we are justified in looking for clear evidence that this change is both permanent and irreversible.

    That means two things in particular.

    First, IRA involvement in crime has to stop for good.

    Second, republicans should support the police and the courts. A power-sharing Executive simply isn’t going to work unless every minister in it is committed to uphold the rule of law.

    Let’s hear Sinn Fein’s leaders ask their supporters to give evidence to help convict the killers of Robert McCartney and give justice to other victims of crime.

    That’s the way to encourage trust.

    Northern Ireland today can look towards a better future. But there are still huge challenges.

    Northern Ireland is over-governed, its economy lags way behind the Irish Republic, with some inner city areas blighted by long-term unemployment and deprivation.

    We need a new direction: smaller government; harnessing the energy of social enterprise and the voluntary sector to tackle poverty and rebuild broken communities; freeing business to create new jobs and investment.

    And Northern Ireland needs a fairer system of local taxation than the tax on homes that Labour is now imposing.

    Health spending is higher than the UK average. Yet the quality of treatment and the standards of public health can be amongst the worst. There’s too much waste and red tape, too little responsibility given to professionals at the sharp end. We need a new direction. People in Northern Ireland deserve better from the NHS than they get now.

    School results in Northern Ireland are better than in the rest of the country. But too many children from deprived areas still leave school unable to read or write. Vocational education and training aren’t good enough for the needs of a modern economy.

    We need to put that right – and can do so while keeping Ulster’s grammar schools. Those schools are successful and they have the support of the overwhelming majority of the people of Northern Ireland.

    Labour’s ban on academic selection is both vindictive and undemocratic. We were right to oppose them and we shall continue our campaign.

    Let me finish with this thought.

    As David reminded us on Sunday, politicians, governments don’t have all the answers. But we Conservatives pride ourselves on being a national party: one that speaks for men and women of every race, faith or social background.

    Let’s draw on that tradition to help the people, all the people of Northern Ireland to put the bitterness of the past behind them and build a shared future based on justice, reconciliation and trust.

  • Oliver Heald – 2007 Speech on Social Exclusion

    Oliver Heald – 2007 Speech on Social Exclusion

    The speech made by Oliver Heald on 12 February 2007.

    Let me start by welcoming the Government’s renewed emphasis on social exclusion. We share their concerns and welcome further efforts to help those on the edge of society. Although I promise not to refer to Polly Toynbee, it is only right to say that I agree that we should not let people fall too far behind the caravan of society.

    We clearly have problems of social exclusion; the proportion of children in workless households is the highest in Europe, more than half the children in inner London are still living below the poverty line, more than 1.2 million young people are not in work or full-time education despite a growing economy, and 2.7 million people of working age are claiming incapacity benefits—three times more than the number who claim jobseeker’s allowance.

    The Minister for Social Exclusion knows from her background in social work, as I do from helping many disadvantaged people as a lawyer. She laughs, but if she has ever been to a law surgery, she will know what I mean. The statistics do not convey the full misery and hopelessness in which some people find themselves. Family breakdown, financial problems, addictions, poor educational achievement and worklessness are key matters at the heart of social exclusion that lead to people being trapped in pockets of permanent poverty.

    As the Minister said, approximately 2.5 per cent. of every generation appears to be caught in a lifetime of disadvantage and harm. We argue that far more people are affected to some extent by the factors that I have mentioned. It is important to maintain a vision that is broad enough to help all those who are affected by social exclusion and does not simply concentrate on a tiny group that has particular problems. The Minister said that one of the core principles of the Government’s action is better identification and earlier intervention—I am happy to agree with that.

    The groups at the highest risk of social exclusion are those affected by the issues that I mentioned. The Leader of the Opposition has asked my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith)—He is in Birmingham. He had a prior commitment to do with the subject that we are discussing. He had hoped to be here today. It is important to bear in mind that his social justice policy group has just published “Breakdown Britain”, which examines family breakdown in great detail. My right hon. Friend treats family in his report in its wider, less restricted sense and breakdown as meaning dissolution and dysfunction. He also considers homes without fathers and single parenthood.

    Most people learn the fundamental skills for life in the family—physically, emotionally and socially—and the findings in the report are evidence based. I believe that they are important. The rate of marriage has declined but divorce rates are now stable. The continuing rise in family breakdown is driven by the dissolution of cohabiting partnerships. As the Minister said, there seems to be an intergenerational transmission of family breakdown, with high rates of teenage pregnancy. My right hon. Friend has been given the task of first producing a detailed analysis. He has published a detailed document. It runs to approximately 500 pages but it is very good.

    The process of making recommendations has not yet happened—my right hon. Friend will do that in the summer. The shadow Cabinet will then consider them.

    Survey evidence from YouGov based on a large sample showed a worrying correlation between those who experience family breakdown and other problems. It showed that those who are not brought up by both parents are more likely to experience educational problems, drug addiction, alcohol problems, serious debt or unemployment. On dysfunction, my right hon. Friend’s policy group identified a breakdown of nurture in many families that are unable to provide for core needs, such as secure attachment, protection, realistic limits to behaviour, freedom to express valid emotions, autonomy, competence and a sense of identity, which are gained from a nurturing family.

    The report also worryingly points out the link between family breakdown and youth crime. The reduction in committed relationships has also affected the amount of family care that is available to the elderly. The Local Government Association recently said that that is an expensive problem for the country.

    It seems harsh to mention public spending but there is a high cost in benefits—more than £20 billion on lone parent benefits. We all know about the increasing housing needs that family breakdown generates, and the extra care costs for councils due to changed demography are estimated to be £146 million. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green will report on his conclusions in the summer. At that point, we will consider our policy response.

    Recently published research shows that the poorest households in Britain are paying a higher share of tax and getting a lower share of benefits than they did before 1997. The figures show that if the poorest fifth of households were paid the same share of total taxes and got the same share of total benefits as in 1996-97, they would have £531 a year more; and the second poorest fifth of households would have £427 a year more. To add insult to injury, the poorest fifth of households pay a higher proportion of their income in taxes than any other group.

    The claim in the action plan mentioned by the Minister—that the steady rise in income inequality has been halted—is simply not the case. The fact is that levels of income inequality are now slightly higher than they were in the 1980s or 1990s. The Minister ended up saying that there has not been an increase, while acknowledging that the position has not improved. However, what the Institute for Fiscal Studies said in its report was that inequality was slightly higher. The Government wonder in the action plan why those on the very lowest incomes have seen the lowest rates of income growth, which I think is a valid question.

    “those on the very lowest incomes have seen the lowest rates of income growth”,

    comes from page 17 of “Reaching Out: An Action Plan on Social Exclusion”, published in September 2006. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that there has been

    “little impact upon the slight upward trend in inequality that has been experienced over Labour’s term in government.”

    That is a straightforward quotation.

    Social mobility, which is so important, has been reduced since 1997. The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, who is well respected in the House, said in a speech to the Social Market Foundation on 13 September:

    “It is actually getting harder for people to escape poverty and leave the income group, professional banding or social circle of their parents. In fact, it’s currently harder to escape the shackles of a poor upbringing in Britain than anywhere else in Europe”.

    If your parents are poor, you are likely to be poor—and that is after 10 years of a Labour Government.

    It is not just that the rise in incomes—once one takes account of tax—has not been the success story one would hope for, as the cost of living for families is rising fast. The Leader of the Opposition recently highlighted the true levels of inflation on items affecting people on low incomes. He pointed particularly to energy prices, which are up 71 per cent. since 2003. Mortgage payments, which are also important to many, are up 78 per cent. and taxes are up 81 per cent. He has asked the Office of Fair Trading to investigate the rises in energy prices.

    The Minister and I would agree about the importance of education—she mentioned it—to reducing social exclusion. Unfortunately, success has proved elusive. Three quarters of 16-year-olds from low-income families in England and Wales failed to get five good GCSE passes at grades A to C. That is double the rate that applies to other students. The Public Accounts Committee recently highlighted the failure of 1,500 schools and only today we have learned—it is in the news—that 500 schools have failed to meet the 25 per cent. target for five good GCSE grades. If we look into some of the most excluded groups, such as children in care. About 89 per cent. of children in care failed to get five good GCSE passes—a poor record of dealing with the low achievement of children in care.

    The Government admit it. The Minister for Children and Families has said that despite the Government’s efforts—no one is denying that the Government are trying—the gap between the outcomes of looked-after children and others is “extremely wide” and “completely unacceptable”. The future for many children in care is very depressing. Almost half of young women in care become mothers within 18 to 24 months of leaving care; and between a quarter and a third of rough sleepers have been in care. I think that tackling the present level of under-achievement has to be a major priority.

    Schools can play an important role in the overall strategy to halve teenage pregnancy by 2010. If teenage parents are encouraged to increase their participation in education and training or employment, they may reduce their chances of long-term social exclusion. The likelihood of teenage pregnancies is far higher among those with low educational achievements, even after adjusting for the effects of deprivation. Nearly 40 per cent. of teenage mothers leave school with no qualifications at all. We need to give young people access to consistent help from professionals who understand them and can advise them—with proper assurances of anonymity, where appropriate. It is concerning that, despite the work of the teenage pregnancy unit, set up by the Government, pregnancies among under-14s are actually rising and the overall target for reduction has been missed.

    In terms of health, despite the Government target to reduce infant mortality by 10 per cent., the relative gap in the infant mortality rate between the general population and the poorest social classes has increased by 46 per cent. since 1997. Despite the clear link between mental health and social exclusion, the Government have had to reduce the percentage of funding for mental health in many parts of the country. Children are often the worst affected with 15 per cent. of those with mental health needs having to wait more than 26 weeks to see a specialist. Well, those are all Government figures.

    Aside from treatment, we need to provide people with mental health problems with better access to training and employment. Just 20 per cent. of those with severe mental health problems have jobs. Four out of 10 employers have said that they would not consider employing someone with a history of mental illness. If we are to move forward, we must tackle that stigma and discrimination.

    Concern is being expressed in the voluntary and not-for-profit sector that the Government are asking it to deliver a Government agenda, rather than allowing it to develop innovative services based on its knowledge and expertise. I hope that the Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-East (Mr. McFadden) will give the House an assurance when he responds to the debate that the kind of measures that the Minister for Social Exclusion was describing—monitoring, ensuring standards and so on—will not involve cutting back on the innovation that some social enterprise voluntary bodies have been able to give us to tackle these deep-seated problems.

    There is a considerable body of evidence that good public health—particularly the encouragement of good practice and healthy living—can really improve health outcomes. This is an area in which the Government certainly took their eye off the ball during their first few years. For example, there was an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases, particularly in London, before they took action. They also took a very long time to take action on the issue of tuberculosis, particularly among the Asian community. In public health terms, there are real concerns about how slow the Government have been to react to these major problems.

    It is well established that some of the cheapest and most successful health systems in the world are those that place a strong emphasis on public health, so that fewer people require treatment for the more expensive conditions. One of the problems with the Labour Government is that they have never really got down to implementing any solid reform in the public service sector in order to deliver on their intentions. Those intentions have often been very good, but the delivery has often been a bit of a shambles.

    I have visited many projects that help the socially excluded, and one lesson that I have learnt is that it is not possible to make sweeping decisions from on high. The socially excluded are, by their very nature, individuals with complex needs. Solutions to social exclusion must come from the bottom, from the people who know the individuals and their problems. This is not about abdicating responsibility; it is about giving the power to those who should have it. There is a role for national initiatives, but they only work if those delivering them on the front line accept them.

    We wish the new social exclusion taskforce well, and we hope that it will be more effective than previous attempts. We are concerned, however, that the new body does not appear to have the same direct backing of the Prime Minister as the original social exclusion unit, which was based at No. 10. We accept that tackling social exclusion is an enormous challenge that will involve efforts across many Government Departments, but this will require the full and energetic support of No. 10, simply because it crosses so many portfolios.

    Rather than relying on traditional thinking, and on the ideas that underpinned the last nine initiatives on social exclusion, is it not time to look for a new direction based on trusting people and on social responsibility? We need to trust the professionals, the social enterprises and the voluntary sector to tackle multiple deprivation through a combination of long-term funding, increased scope to innovate and a level playing field. We also need to trust local government, and to accept that civil servants and Ministers in Whitehall might not have all the answers. We need to move away from thinking that everything is the responsibility of the state, and towards a new spirit of social responsibility in which we work together to empower local people and local communities. We should not be so arrogant as to believe that politicians have all the answers. Our approach should not be solely about what the Government can do. It should be about what people can do, and what society can do, because we are all in this together.

  • Alex Cunningham – 2021 Speech on the Towns Fund

    Alex Cunningham – 2021 Speech on the Towns Fund

    The speech made by Alex Cunningham, the Labour MP for Stockton North, in the House of Commons on 4 February 2021.

    The towns fund might be a good idea, but the lack of transparency in decision making has led to understandable concerns about the impartiality of the process, and from what I have seen of it in the Tees valley, those concerns are well founded.

    In December, I wrote to the Secretary of State about Billingham, soon to be the home of Novavax vaccine manufacture. The town is home to 35,000 proud Teessiders as well as the Billingham Forum, which is a huge sports and theatre venue including pools, gyms and an ice rink. The town is a cultural hub, but it desperately needs help to further develop. As the singer of Maxïmo Park, Billingham-born Paul Smith, sings, it is

    “where industrial tunnels were our fairytale castles”.

    In short, it is a town bursting with potential.

    Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council approached the Government to request that Billingham be included in the cohort of towns eligible to bid for funds, but it was refused. Back in October, Billingham councillors wrote to the Secretary of State asking why other Tees towns such as Thornaby in Stockton South, with a Tory MP, were fortunate enough to have been included in the selection of the first 100 towns for the fund when Billingham was not, even though it clearly fits the criteria every bit as well, if not more so, than Thornaby—although rest assured that we celebrate with the people of Thornaby that they do have the investment that they need. The decision led to confusion and concern locally that could have easily been put to bed if Ministers had responded to the request from the Billingham councillors to explain why their town had been passed over. Instead, the Minister fobbed off the councillors’ request for information and did not even engage with their concerns.

    I followed up with my own letter, which was responded to, but with only slightly more information. It said that Billingham will get the chance to apply to the £300 million levelling-up fund, which has been designated for a towns fund competition. I personally find this quite astonishing. If the Government had sufficient information to select the first 100 towns that were eligible for a deal, why do we have to have more wasteful bidding processes that pit deprived communities against each other for scraps from the Government’s table? Why can the Government not use existing data and provide investment now—and cut out the middleman, saving our councils time and money in doing so?

    It does not matter what money is being dished out these days by the Government: whether it is to the NHS, to councils or for town centres—Ministers are quite happy, and not even embarrassed, to pass over some areas and favour their own. It is time for fairness in the system; time for real, true levelling up and proper resources; and time for towns like Billingham to get the support that they need.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2021 Speech on the Towns Fund

    Yvette Cooper – 2021 Speech on the Towns Fund

    The speech made by Yvette Cooper, the Labour MP for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, in the House of Commons on 4 February 2021.

    Castleford has put in a bid to the towns fund, and I have been working with Wakefield Council, community organisations and local businesses to draw up plans for badly needed investment here in our town; to restore some of the cuts in investment and jobs we have had over the past 10 years; to regenerate our town centre and reconnect with our riverside; and to build on our community strengths and community pride.

    We want not only to restore our riverside—the River Aire runs straight past the mill here and we want people to be able to enjoy it again—but to boost Henry Moore Square in the town centre; support local jobs; restore Kingdom Hall, one of the oldest buildings in the town centre; and invest in Queen’s Mill, where the old Allinson’s flour mill has been taken over by the Castleford Heritage Trust, a local community organisation that has made it the community hub, not only supporting residents during the covid crisis but growing small businesses as well as new jobs and opportunities.

    We want to boost local skills, working with the Castleford Tigers Foundation to set up a new adult skills centre, because in our town the number of adults in training and education has halved over recent years as adult skills budgets have been cut. That is shocking when we need those skills to boost the jobs of the future. Too often, our industrial jobs and proud heritage have been hit and we have not had the investment for the new jobs of the future.

    I urge Ministers to support not only Castleford’s bid but all our towns, because the problem with the Government’s approach is that the towns fund simply does not go far enough. I have been calling for investment in our towns for many years, as part of the Labour towns campaign, because over the past 10 years the rate of jobs growth in our towns has been half the rate in our cites, the rate of business growth in our towns has been half the rate in our cities, and austerity has hit our towns much harder than our cities. We have lost more public services and seen more services shrink back under 10 years of Conservative Government austerity.

    In Yorkshire and the Humber, 16 towns were chosen for the towns fund. The first eight were those that ranked most strongly against independent criteria on skills need, investment need and deprivation. Rightly, Castleford was chosen in that top eight, but Knottingley was ninth on the list and was left out. Instead, the Government chose to invest in towns that did not have the same level of skills need or deprivation and that had not seen the same scale of cuts—Knottingley has been one of the hardest hit by austerity over the past 10 years, losing its library, sports centre and investment in our town. We need a chance for Knottingley to gets its share of investment, and for Normanton and Pontefract to get their share too. We need a comprehensive approach, not just a towns fund.

  • Robert Halfon – 2021 Speech on the Towns Fund

    Robert Halfon – 2021 Speech on the Towns Fund

    The speech made by Robert Halfon, the Conservative MP for Harlow, in the House of Commons on 4 February 2021.

    I welcome this debate and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) and the Government for supporting the town fund and Harlow. Harlow has been my home for 20 years. It is a town of achievement, aspiration, community and opportunity. Although Harlow may not yet have enormous reserves of economic capital, it has enough social and cultural capital to fill any vault in any bank.

    I wish to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the Government for the recent investments in our town. Harlow has received £50 million for the M11 junction 7A, hundreds of millions for our new Harlow hospital, and major investment for our enterprise zone. I am proud to note that Harlow College is one of the finest colleges in the country, and Harlow is on its way to becoming the skills capital of the east of England, following a recent £3 million upgrade for T-level delivery and the construction of the £12 million advanced manufacturing centre. I welcome the fact that the Government have already committed £300 million to the creation of Public Health England’s science campus in Harlow, in anticipation of PHE’s expected move. I look forward to the Government confirming the funding for the project in the next spending statement.

    Despite all that, Harlow remains the second most-deprived area in Essex. It is essential that that is recognised in the Government’s levelling-up agenda. Part of the town centre is in a real state of disrepair, plagued by antisocial behaviour. Our neighbourhood centres are in desperate need of regeneration. Harlow’s towns fund bid sets out to remedy such problems and address the challenges posed by ageing infrastructure, through town centre improvements; the redevelopment of Staple Tye neighbourhood centre; measures to increase connectivity at the enterprise zone; and investment in a new institute of technology.

    Sadly, we lost out on £10.4 million from the future high streets fund because the Government procurement letter stated that Harlow Council’s bid

    “did not meet stringent criteria on value for money for the taxpayer”.

    The towns fund bid is a chance to make up for that loss. It will be the thread that ties together all the Government’s recent investments in Harlow. The town centre must be fit for purpose to support economic growth and social capital and make Harlow a place that offers community, security and prosperity for all our citizens—a town that aspirational people want to move to and live in.

    I give special thanks to the Minister, who is responsible for the towns fund, all members of the Harlow growth board, the chief executive of Harlow Council and the senior officers who are working day and night to make sure the bid succeeds. I hope that, this time, our bid will be a success and our town will get the much needed funding that it deserves.

  • Ian Levy – 2021 Speech on the Towns Fund

    Ian Levy – 2021 Speech on the Towns Fund

    The speech made by Ian Levy, the Conservative MP for Blyth Valley, in the House of Commons on 4 February 2021.

    As the first Conservative MP for Blyth Valley, I have been given the opportunity to help breathe life into my hometown, which has been neglected for many decades. Having lived in Blyth all my life, I have seen at first hand the decay and abandonment that the town centre has experienced, despite its great potential. I was delighted when the town centre was awarded £11.12 million of funding from the future high streets fund, to allow for much-needed investment and improvement.

    The towns fund provides limitless opportunities for regions across the country to unleash their full potential, while delivering on the Government’s agenda to level up. Such investment has the capacity to dramatically improve, regenerate and unite towns and communities across this wonderful country of ours. In Blyth, the funding will support the revitalisation of Blyth marketplace and Bridge Street by providing new leisure and cultural facilities at the heart of the town centre. As part of the recovery from the pandemic, the announcement on 25 September that shovel-ready projects in the constituency will be given a £750,000 boost was particularly welcome. I am extremely pleased that major work will start soon on improving Bowes Street, which will immediately make a real difference to the town.

    In addition, the £1.5 million of funding confirmed for the reopening of the Northumberland rail line will transform the town centre into a flourishing, prosperous and vibrant one. This allocation of funding is a great testament to those at the heart of the community who show great resolve and overcome the challenges we face, working together, and I am confident that Blyth will have a bright and prosperous future for generations to come.

  • Rupa Huq – 2021 Speech on the Towns Fund

    Rupa Huq – 2021 Speech on the Towns Fund

    The speech made by Rupa Huq, the Labour MP for Ealing Central and Acton, in the House of Commons on 4 February 2021.

    The towns fund: great in theory, but in practice, not a lot, and it leaves out London, bringing accusations of gerrymandering. Announced by the last PM on a hunt for votes for her doomed EU withdrawal Bill, when there was another deadline looming, it was seen as a Brexit bribe to bring prosperity after we leave the EU. By the end of the year, an election was called, and it was clear that 60 out of the 61 lucky winners were in Tory target seats. A lot of them translated into gains, such as Newcastle-under-Lyme and Bishop Auckland.

    The Public Accounts Committee noted how criteria for inclusion and adjudicating success were “vague”, while Professor Hanretty, giving evidence, went further, labelling it pork-barrelling based on party politics, not need. The remainder of it is a competitive bidding process, leaving towns, which are not a commonly understood unit of analysis, pitted against one other at a time when the country needs bringing together. Why not suburbs? Marginal Cheadle got, whereas nearby Didsbury did not. London suburbs, too, are blighted by all the guidance that was initially published—ageing population, reducing economic prosperity, high streets with reducing footfall. Ealing has a housing crisis, with 10,000 on the waiting list, and a social care crisis, yet our budget has been slashed by 64% since 2010—36p in every £1 it had—leaving huge holes, even with the covid extra. Every time there is another Government U-turn, there is more expenditure in this failed tiering experiment.

    Yes, our capital generates enormous wealth, but we are never too far away from pockets of poverty. In this borough, Westminster, Church Street ward is, on some indexes, the most deprived in the country—it is certainly the most overcrowded. In East Acton and South Acton, the streets are definitely not paved with gold, yet London is completely ineligible. Food bank use has doubled in the last five years. It has 40% child poverty and pensioner poverty. The fastest-growing unemployment in the country is found in London.

    Small beer and a drop in the ocean, compared with the revenue that we have lost from council coffers since 2010 and the EU structural funds that we will no longer get, will not cut it. Also, pitting the rest of the country against London—this demonising of our capital—is a dangerous policy. The only transparent thing about the towns fund is its naked politicking. It said that it would take the decisions away from Whitehall, but instead it has delivered them to Conservative campaign headquarters; the decision making is taking place there now, not in Whitehall. Perhaps the Secretary of State, when he is not scrapping with his pals to get money for his own patch, should stop his imagined war on the woke, because there is work to be done.

  • Karl McCartney – 2021 Speech on the Towns Fund

    Karl McCartney – 2021 Speech on the Towns Fund

    The speech made by Karl McCartney, the Conservative MP for Lincoln, in the House of Commons on 4 February 2021.

    It gives me great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow), who was very positive, and the not so positive hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett).

    I am sure that, across this House, we as Members of Parliament and, in part, representatives of our communities have as our driving aim and ambition the wish to leave our constituencies in a better, more prosperous and equal way than when we were first elected. I am one of the few MPs sitting in this House who has lost their seat at a general election and, fortuitously, regained that same seat subsequently. When one loses one’s seat, funnily enough one has plenty of time to reflect and think back to all one’s achievements, and to those issues or projects that had been delayed. When I lost in 2017, I was able to reflect on my record, and I am proud that I was able to say that Lincoln was a better, more connected, prosperous and equal community than when I was first elected in 2010. Our two universities continue to prosper, with Lincoln recently being granted its own medical school after I engaged with other organisations to promote its existence, initially in 2011. We also had direct, fast and regular train links to London, the now-complete Lincoln eastern bypass was under construction and the average worker had a higher wage and a lower tax bill than they did under a Labour Government.

    Lincoln has prospered, and continues to prosper, with a Conservative Member of Parliament fighting its corner and a receptive Conservative Government, but we now have a further, new opportunity to ensure that our constituencies level up, flourish and provide employment, incomes and livelihoods for our constituents. I believe that Lincoln’s bid for the towns fund will do this and I hope that Government colleagues share my positivity for Lincoln’s towns fund application. I would like to take this opportunity to officially thank my fellow scouser and colleague, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), who, as a former Minister, procured this opportunity for the city that I am so proud, honoured and privileged to represent.

    When people arrive and exit at Lincoln train station, with its ticket room plaque commemorating the official redevelopment and reopening, they are immediately greeted by the shell of a grand old hotel, the Barbican. It has unfortunately stood empty for well over a decade. If one of the projects in our bid is successful, it will be transformed into a production and maker hub for the creative industries. The space would enable the clustering and incubation of creative businesses and the establishment of a creative business network. This would be a distinctive, visible and high-quality offer in the heart of the city. I note that, as a landlord, the Lincolnshire Co-op is an incredibly commercial landlord and has steadfastly refused in over a decade to invest any of its finances into the site.

    We also have a proposal for the urban regeneration of Tentercroft Street. This project will support the redevelopment of a strategic brownfield site, to create new workspace and city living in the heart of the city centre. But by far my favourite of the proposals is the bid for Wigford Way. Once a critical artery for our city centre businesses and central road network, Wigford Way is now underused due to changes in pedestrianisation and flows of traffic, following the improvements secured through funding during my early years as the Member of Parliament for both the high street and Brayford wharf level-crossing footbridges and the east-west link road, so it now offers an opportunity for centre development, or rather, to be reimagined to improve and reconnect distinctive quarters of our city.

    For all those who live, work, visit and study in our beautiful, historic and well-loved city, I will always put Lincoln first.

  • Jon Trickett – 2021 Speech on the Towns Fund

    Jon Trickett – 2021 Speech on the Towns Fund

    The speech made by Jon Trickett, the Labour MP for Hemsworth, in the House of Commons on 4 February 2021.

    Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I look forward to this technology of the clock counting me down.

    This is an important debate. Britain’s lop-sided economy has left many of our towns, in recent decades, feeling abandoned as we both centralise and deindustrialise our economy. Of course, we cannot halt economic progress, but we should never turn our backs on those held-back communities in the towns. We clearly need state intervention, but on a massive scale—a new Marshall plan. The towns fund simply does not hack it. Towns have been left behind by gigantic global capital flows driven by a new and even more remote phase of capitalism and by a political elite operating in the interests of capitalism, rather than of those communities.

    I represent small towns and villages that at one time were at the very heart of the mighty Yorkshire coalfield. They helped create our wealth, heated our homes and powered our industries, but now too often they feel abandoned, especially as covid begins to impact more heavily on those same towns. We owe those communities a huge duty of solidarity. Large areas in my constituency—those great Yorkshire villages and towns such as Featherstone, Hemsworth, South Elmsall, Upton, South Kirkby, and the list goes on—are among the most deprived communities in the country, but not a penny has come to us from the towns fund.

    Let us be honest, the financial allocation is inadequate, and much of it is anyway recycled from other spending programmes. Deprived communities are forced to compete against each other for a share of a fund that in any case is unfairly distributed. More than half the towns that get the money from the towns fund are not even in the most deprived category, and quite a lot of them just happen to be in areas of political interest to the governing party.

    The distribution of financial resources and the location of economic growth are dictated largely by the whims of financial markets, leaving so many towns left behind, and then there is the apparently grubby gerrymandering of the fund itself, as I see it. It does not have to be like that. We do have the power to change things. Don’t say it can’t be done: look at how the last Labour Government used their power to intervene in the collapsing banking market. First, however, we would need to replace that part of the British establishment that serves the interests of big money rather than seeking to be its master. With a radical Government on their side and adequate funding, Britain’s towns can once again become the cradles of economic growth, cultural creativity and social justice.

     

  • Paul Bristow – 2021 Speech on the Towns Fund

    Paul Bristow – 2021 Speech on the Towns Fund

    The speech made by Paul Bristow, the Conservative MP for Peterborough, in the House of Commons on 4 February 2021.

    I beg to move,

    That this House has considered the Towns Fund.

    I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate. The United Kingdom is full of hard-working, innovative, entrepreneurial people. We are the fifth-biggest economy in the world, and we are a liberal, free, open and successful economy. A great number of my constituents have good jobs based in London, but lots do not, and many have been left behind, in a rich country like ours, even in good times of growth. It is therefore time to invest in our towns and cities that do not or cannot benefit from London. That is why all Members should welcome promises to level up and unleash the economic potential of towns, cities and rural places across the country. That is why all Members should welcome the towns fund.

    The fund will invest £3.6 billion into places like Peterborough, Blackpool, Barrow, Torquay, Darlington, Norwich and Warrington. It will more than pay for itself by stimulating economic growth with a focus on regeneration, improved transport, better broadband connectivity, skills and culture. The plan is to unleash the economic potential of 101 towns and cities across the UK. The towns fund has the potential to change lives.

    I want to illustrate the benefits of the towns fund by informing the House about how it will benefit Peterborough. The bid for investment in Peterborough is one of the first seven successful bids as part of phase 1. We have already had £1 million for a shovel-ready local growth project to support 14 parks across the city, but it will deliver nearly £23 million of investment for my city overall. Many other cities and bids are looking to Peterborough to see how we were successful. Where Peterborough leads, other towns and cities follow.

    I pay tribute to Matthew Bradbury of the Nene Park Trust, the chair of the towns fund bid, Andy Starnes of CityFibre, the vice-chair, and all those who served on the towns fund board. That board includes councillors and officers from Peterborough City Council and me. I also serve on the board, and that is what makes the towns fund different. It is different not only because this Government believe in the economic potential of these towns and cities, but because Members of this House have been invited to be personally involved in the projects and personally associated with their success or, indeed, failure. We are accountable to the electorate and can hold Ministers to account.

    Together with my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara), who represents the southern part of Peterborough, we have lobbied for and supported the bid from day 1. I am sure that is true for many other Members. The funding will create a new library and a cultural hub on Bridge Street and a centre for lifelong learning, as well as feed into the new skills and the technical university that we are building, bringing highly paid jobs back to our city centre. It will give the impetus for the new developments of the station quarter and north Westgate. It will pump money into Lincoln Road, a vibrant high street in Peterborough that just needs focus, investment and, dare I say it, a little bit of love.

    In the words of one local restaurant owner, Zillur Hussain, the fund is a fresh start for Peterborough that builds on our natural advantages, as we are only 40 minutes from London on the main road and rail arteries. We have a history of manufacturing, engineering, science and technology, and we have a wonderful, hard-working, skilful population. This fund is the shot in the arm that will unleash our potential.

    The fund will benefit communities across the country and Members across this House. It should not be a partisan political issue. It is a shame that some Opposition Members have sought to make it political, instead of welcoming investment in their constituencies, and I hope that does not happen in this debate.

    Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)

    Given that 60 of the 61 towns allocated funding were Conservative-held or Conservative target seats, surely it is the hon. Gentleman’s party that has made it party political.

    Paul Bristow

    As I understand it, 101 areas could benefit from that investment. If the Labour party had not ignored those towns and cities, perhaps it would still be representing them.

    This fund has happened when the Government are tackling an unprecedented public health crisis. Covid-19 is the biggest challenge this country has faced since world war two. Some might have forgiven the Government if they had paused the initiative while they focused on the pandemic, but rather than doing that, they have powered ahead, giving hope and optimism to places such as Peterborough and helping communities to build back better as we overcome the pandemic.

    This funding also includes the future high streets fund, which aims to renew town centres and high streets to make them more attractive places to visit, increasing footfall, driving growth and supporting local businesses. That is exactly what Lincoln Road, Westgate and other parts of Peterborough need. The pandemic has kept people away from the high street. People are eating takeaways and restaurant meals at home, and they are shopping online. My mobile phone boasts not just Deliveroo but, as a result of the pandemic and lockdown, Just Eat and Uber Eats. As convenient as that is, and as good as the hospitality in Peterborough has been at adapting, there is a real fear that hospitality and retail will suffer as we come out of the pandemic because people’s shopping and leisure habits have changed. That is why we need to think differently about town centres and high streets and make them a destination.

    We need to create new, innovative high streets offering different things, such as pop-up shops, entertainment, interactive experiences, culture, leisure and mixed use including residential, as well as fun, safe and changing nightlife and hospitality. The towns fund is the catalyst for change, because private sector money and investment will follow, unlocking the potential of our towns and cities.

    It is a message of hope, and it shows these communities that the Government and their local MPs have not forgotten them. Will the Minister remain committed to the plan? Will he confirm that there are chances for more towns and cities beyond the 101 already identified to submit bids for the future? Will he stress the importance of local MP engagement and ask all MPs from across the House to get on board with the towns fund and its potential to transform lives?

    To conclude, I am all pumped up for Peterborough in 2021, ’22, ’23 and beyond. We have a new university coming, Fletton Quays and a new Government hub; the station quarter, a new cinema and Queensgate expansion is planned; and the Embankment will become an all-year-round destination—and now we have £23 million through the towns fund. We are making the decisions now that will guarantee our future health, wealth and happiness in the future. I am so excited that we are going to unleash our potential, but I am just as excited about this country’s potential, and as we level up and build back better from this pandemic, this is what the towns fund can deliver.