House of Commons Hansard Debates for 10 Feb 1993

Mr. Doug Henderson (Newcastle upon Tyne, North) : I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes) : I understand that it will be convenient to discuss at the same time the following amendments : No. 107, in clause 140, page 142, leave out from beginning of line 37 to end of line 29 on page 143.

No. 130, in page 142, line 44 at end insert--

; and

(d) principally for the benefit of the people resident in the local authority area in which the land is situated.'.

Mr. Henderson : New clause 14 is about how best the problem of urban dereliction can be tackled in our country. The Government would say that a property-led urban regeneration agency was the most appropriate way of tackling the problem of urban dereliction. The Opposition would argue that such an agency would be inadequate and that the weight of evidence for the weakness of similar past attempts such as the urban development corporations is available for all to see. We would also argue that a full development agency along the lines of the Welsh Development Agency and Scottish Enterprise is necessary if a real attempt is to be made to tackle the problem of urban dereliction in Britain.

I am pleased to say that there was agreement in Committee that there was a problem of urban dereliction which could lead to under-utilisation of potential economic resources, both human and physical, with the inevitable result that unemployment is created. It is a problem which places physical and aesthetic blight on many urban areas. It is a problem which throws up huge social problems such as bad housing, family stress, poor health, poor educational achievement, teenage violence and a drug culture. It is a problem which in many communities in Britain creates a sense of hopelessness. Generations of unemployed people and whole communities feel alienated from the rest of society. It is a problem not only of people but of people and their communities.

There was also agreement in Committee that the problem of urban dereliction would not go away of its own accord and that the state must intervene if a real attempt is to be made to tackle the problems. There was a recognition that market forces would not deal with the problem of urban dereliction and would inevitably tend to create development in prosperous areas. It was recognised that the cost of urban renewal was too expensive to attract a market solution. There are extra costs, such as the cost of clearing sites and providing infrastructure such as roads, railways and new factories. There may be a lack of trained staff to work in a new employment area.

Indeed, there may be difficulty in attracting trained staff into areas afflicted by urban dereliction. A culture of community needs to be established so that staff who come to work in an area which needs to be developed have the

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facilities which they would expect in other communities such as shopping and recreational facilities. Market forces will not create such facilities. Also, developers will always be attracted to the easy short-term option--the pull of an attractive location which will give them a quick return. State intervention is necessary if developers are to be attracted into areas of severe urban dereliction. That is as far as agreement went when the subject was discussed in Committee and there was no agreement on how the problems could best be tackled.

The Minister said in Committee that a multi-agency approach was necessary, and I do not disagree. He must, however, think of the nature of that approach because there are plenty of examples of multi-agency approaches in the recent past. Urban development councils, task forces, derelict land grant, urban aid, city challenge, training and enterprise councils and a host of other initiatives have been taken. As he visits different parts of the country, the Minister's own eyes must tell him that the problem has not been resolved. He is welcome to come to Tyneside to find out what is happening there. The multi-agency approach has not made any real dent on urban dereliction.

Is not the Government's failure one of economic analysis? One of the Government's advisers, professor Robson of Manchester university, recently spoke about urban problems to the Institute of British Geographers' conference, saying :

"It is not enough to rely on benefits trickling down from large developments--such as London Docklands. When too many inhabitants of a city are without money, work, homes, and worst of all without hope, cities as entities must inevitably flounder."

Before he sat on the Front Bench the Minister was known to be keen to put his thoughts down in writing from time to time. He prepared a book called, "Popular Capitalism", which obviously endeared him to his master--or rather mistress--of the time, as he was quickly promoted to the Front Bench after its publication. In the book he said : "Far from being divisive or doing people down, popular capitalism has got something to offer all of the people. Many pilgrims are now wending their way to Docklands and are mastering the street names of the new city. Perhaps one day Heron Quay, Mudchute, Canary Wharf will be names as well known worldwide as Trafalgar Square, Marble Arch and Charing Cross."

So, who are the pilgrims? Credit Suisse, Ogilvy and Mather--an advertising company--the Daily Telegraph, and the remains of the developers Olympia and York. That constitutes only 15 per cent. of Canary Wharf, however, because the rest of it is lying empty--so they are lonely pilgrims.

The Minister's officials were not prepared to be pilgrims. They were offered the chance to jump on Howard's Mayflower at Westminster and troop down the Thames to the Isle of Dogs, but as soon as the opportunity was made available it became known as the great mutiny on the Thames because his employees were not prepared to go. Instead of being known as Heron Quay or Canary Wharf, it will be known as the lost city of Wapping, and in many senses it deserves to be, because the project was ill conceived.

Why will the Government not listen to the evidence that a development-type agency is necessary? That view has been expressed to the Government by a wide range of sources. The agency should co-ordinate infrastructure development, the activities of the important Departments of Transport, Environment, and Trade and Industry. It

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should link up any training schemes that might be made available and act to encourage inward investment. It should co-ordinate grants and aid and, importantly, promote the area.

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Not only the Labour party is saying that, but the Government's own consultants. I have a document which has already been presented to the Minister by Linklaters and Paines. It argues forcibly that a property-based agency on its own will be completely inadequate. It strongly argues for a development agency to co-ordinate the various factors that I mentioned.

The builders involved in many of the development schemes have also used the same argument. I do not wish to take up too much of the time of the House by reeling off endless quotes, but it is useful to quote Costain, which states : "The Consultation Paper"

on which the Bill is based

"gives no indication of how the primary aim of the Agency, to enable vacant and derelict land in urban areas to be brought into use', will be integrated with the people related activities which are so necessary. Scotland, with its network of Enterprise Companies, and Wales, with its Development Agency, have a more holistic answer to the challenge and we recommend that this opportunity be used to provide a similar response to England's regeneration needs." Nigel Smith, another of the Government's advisers, wrote in a recent article in the Local Government Chronicle :

"The WDA has been able to exploit the synergy between its property and inward investment functions--offering a one stop shop--to great effect. Regionally based outfits in England cannot hold a candle to the Welsh."

If the Minister is not convinced by the evidence of the consultants and the developers, perhaps he will listen to the views of Lord Walker, who will be appointed chairman of the agency should Parliament approve it.

Autobiographies have become fashionable for ex-Ministers and Lord Walker in his argues :

"We calculated that by creating new businesses, helping existing companies grow and attracting inward investment from Britain and overseas, we could bring down unemployment to the lowest figure in England"--

in relation to Wales.

"I quickly realised that my best instrument for achieving all this was the Welsh Development Agency. It was flexible, could help with the property side, offer grants in line with the EEC rules. I gave it more money to expand the job."

The Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities (Mr. John Redwood) : How is it that the hon. Gentleman argues for wider powersopportunities and responsibilities for an unelected organisation--the URA--while the leader of the Labour party said that much more must be done by elected politicians in government and local authorities? There seems to be an inconsistency between his amendment and what the leader of his party was saying a few days ago.

Mr. Henderson : There is absolutely no distinction between what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith), the leader of the Labour party, was saying and what I have said. My right hon. and learned Friend the leader of the Labour party would support me in saying that the agency charged with regenerating urban Britain must be given the proper powers to do the job. My right hon. and learned Friend

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made the point, as I would, that the agency should be democratically accountable to Parliament, certainly on an annual basis when setting out budgets and reports.

The agency should also be accountable to the regions of the country where it operates. The democratic structure on which the agency could be regionally based should be examined. There should be local monitoring committees so that where the agency is working in local streets or communities, the residents can have a direct say in what it is doing. There is absolutely no distinction between the views of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monklands, East and myself or my other hon. Friends.

Even were the property-led agency to have some impact upon our cities, does the Minister believe that it could have any impact on rebuilding communities in our coalfields? There is clearly a need not only to rebuild the whole economies of those areas but to bring in the infrastructure, to develop the training and to do all the other things which are necessary to give a community hope for jobs, vitality and a chance of being successful. I hope the Minister is not suggesting that there should be a Grimethorpe wharf. I cannot imagine that that would do much to help rebuild that community.

In relation to the regeneration of land, is it not also essential to do that in partnership with local authorities? The Government have not given sufficient emphasis to that. Partnership is necessary so that planning is co-ordinated and things like housing need are taken into account. Where there is a chance of revitalising many inner-city areas, much of the investment should be in housing. If inner city areas are to have vitality and hope for the future, people must live there. If there are no houses which people can afford, they will not be able to live in the inner cities.

The third argument in favour of a partnership with local authorities is that expenditure programmes must be closely co-ordinated ; otherwise, any good work undertaken by any agency could be undermined because of the authority's lack of resources. If I had had more time, I would have liked to give more evidence to the House of other authorities who have argued the same case. It is important that the House understands that the argument about building a partnership with local authorities is not party political. It is put forward by practitioners who have experience of development schemes. Organisations like the Building Employers Confederation have argued the case firmly. The royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which is far from being Labour-controlled, has also put in a submission to the Minister about the need for development schemes to involve local authorities.

If the Minister cares to read the press releases of his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), he will see in the press release of 16 November 1992 that "Mr. Howard stressed in his keynote speech that there were no quick fixes and that the success of urban regeneration required partnership, the key to his major capital partnership initiative. He said : There is no doubt in my mind there are opportunities in the inner cities. Local authorities have a key role to ensure that these opportunities are seized.' "

I hope that the Government are prepared to learn from the lesson that they must have witnessed with their own eyes, namely, the disasters in areas like docklands ; they should also learn from the experience of the 1980s when there were too many confusing schemes and too many unco-ordinated and disjointed schemes, and when all the

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schemes had too few resources, with the result that none of the schemes made any great impact on regenerating urban areas. The Minister should learn from the experience of his colleagues in Scotland and Wales who are sitting not far from him. Development agencies in Scotland and Wales, working closely and in partnership with local authorities, have achieved more than the panoply of schemes which have been available intermittently in parts of England. The Minister should listen to the experience of consultants, planners, architects, surveyors, builders and developers.

They are all saying the same thing : that a property-led agency will not work and that an agency with much firmer powers must be able to take on the real task of regenerating not only the economy but the social fabric of many of the inner cities. That rebuilding has to be done in partnership with local authorities. That is also the experience of local authorities and of the local people who have been involved.

New clause 14 gives the House a new opportunity for urban regeneration. It provides an opportunity to create legislation which can have a real impact on a terrible problem which afflicts many parts of the country. I hope that the Government will accept the amendment as proposed in new clause 14.

Mrs. Helen Jackson (Sheffield, Hillsborough) : I strongly support the new clause. If we want to promote economic development through the 1990s and into the 21st century, we need to take a long-term view and to ensure that it is carefully co-ordinated and planned. We need a well- developed strategic approach. Most importantly, we must consider the human resources in a particular area. The vast majority of the 306 responses to the Government's consultative exercise on the proposed urban regeneration agency raised the points to which I have just referred. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson) said, those responses were not party-based ; they came from across the whole spectrum of political parties. The Minister made it clear in Committee that he envisaged the urban regeneration agency as having a narrow brief--a step towards "bringing derelict land back into use."

He then said :

"the task of encouraging wholesale regeneration is very large. That is why we need a series of other policies in other Departments, other bodies, and local authorities."--[ Official Report, Standing Committee B, 12 January 1993 ; c. 806.]

The special measures expenditure, the urban block element of DOE expenditure, is small--a ratio of 1 : 12. It is a small carrot intended to encourage a donkey along the road of increased economic activity. Our point is that, if the donkey is walking down the wrong road--if unemployment and poverty are increasing, benefits are being cut and housing is becoming more and more derelict--that small carrot will not be sufficient to encourage the donkey down the right road of economic development in any of our cities. I hope that the Minister will make representations to his Cabinet colleagues to change the direction of wholesale economic policy to make economic development in inner-city areas effective. If he does not do that, the policy will not be effective.

The second point of concern about special measures--the £200 million carrot--is that there is every likelihood that the money will not go where it is most needed. A parliamentary answer to me on 27 January referring to the

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distribution of urban block expenditure this year clearly showed that £318 million of the £1 billion block had gone to London and the south-east. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North commented on docklands.

My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn) produced figures only two days ago showing that, overall, there has been a dramatic shift in public resources to east Anglia, London and the south-east. At the same time as the Government are talking about the problems of reclaiming derelict land and property in those areas which have suffered industrial decline, in the northern region there has been a 4 per cent. cut in public resources.

Through new clauses 14 and 108, we are attempting to ensure that expenditure is effective, but it will not be effective unless there is a well-developed, democratically controlled regional structure to define the strategic approach and to attract funds. As I said both on Second Reading and in Committee--on neither occasion did the Government satisfactorily pick up the points--there is nothing in the Bill relating to the increasingly important role of the European Community in special measures funds for economic development. Research over the past five years has shown that the European countries and regions which were most effective in their use of European economic development and social fund moneys were those with a strong regional democratic structure. That important element is totally missing from the Bill.

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This distribution of funds is also important. It is not possible for a regeneration agency which is blinded by land and property and politics alone, and which does not identify the plight of the people living there, to create a distribution system based on need. My hon. Friend mentioned what happened in the docklands in the 1980s. The special inner-city measures introduced by a Conservative Government during the mid-1980s were a sick joke. They were spoken of as relating to poverty and to inner cities, but there followed the most lucrative profits for property developers as property prices sharply increased. The Government have learnt nothing and they are making the same mistake again. They are offering a new initiative based simply on land and property, which will have no effect on the reality of life for people living in the cities.

Simultaneous with the launching of the agency is the rundown and destruction of the urban programme, which has clear criteria for meeting training demands and the needs of black communities. We have seen the rundown also of the safer cities initiative, which was crucial in upgrading inner-city policing and reducing crime, and of Home Office-funded schemes which made a major impact on training and education among black and other ethnic minority communities. All that is happening at a time when official statistics released yesterday show that unemployment among 16 to 24-year- olds is 18 per cent. while among black and other ethnic minority communities it is as high as 38 per cent. Yet still the Government are shifting from a people-based approach to one narrowly based on land and property. That missed opportunity is unforgivable.

The agency's style and constitution lacks everything that we want. It is yet another example of government by quango. The board's membership will be tightly drawn

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and nominated by the Minister--its chairman has already been nominated. It will follow the pattern set by many other quangos with memberships nominated by Ministers--training and enterprise councils, development corporations, health trusts, and so on. I recommend Keith Shaw's study of the north-eastern area, "Regional studies No. 2--1990 : In search of the non-elected state". A serious democratic deficit is now involved in the control of the major elements of public funding in a variety of areas. Accountability is lacking, because power and money have been shifted away from locally accountable authorities. I find that extremely worrying.

We discussed the regeneration agency's corporate plan in Committee. We also had an interesting discussion this morning in the Select Committee on the Environment about the merits of publishing the draft corporate plan for the Housing Corporation, for which the National Federation of Housing Associations has pressed very strongly. We want the plan to be open to public scrutiny, consultation and discussion. The Minister said a good deal in Committee about the need for consultation on the agency's plans and proposals, but nothing in the Bill even suggests that the agency has a duty to prepare and present a corporate plan ; such a plan is not even mentioned.

The Minister said in one of his replies that the agency would "be required to produce for the Secretary of State a corporate plan and detailed budget management documents, which he will study and approve".--[ Official Report, Standing Committee B, 14 January 1993 ; c. 843.]

That, however, is no answer to the question of open government. There is no point in simply publishing an annual report which is retrospective and then saying, "You can have all the consultation you want," because the consultation would be about something that had already happened. I ask the Minister to agree--in the spirit of open government--to require the agency to publish its draft corporate plan, so that discussion and consultation can take place before the Minister makes his funding decisions.

I hope that I shall catch the eye of whoever is in the Chair later today so that I can refer to the important question of the removal of planning control from local authorities in designated areas. That is relevant to new clause 21.

With the right economic policy, the agency has the potential to take on board economic development under democratic control, along the lines suggested in new clause 14. It could encompass all aspects of economic development, concentrate its drive and motivation on the human resources which exist in our cities and urban areas and help to promote the economy of those areas.

Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey) : I support the new clause, but I wish to concentrate on amendment No. 130, which is tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones).

I must declare an obvious interest : I represent a development corporation constituency, and have done throughout my time in the House. As a result, I have some experience of what it is like to represent, and to live and work in, an area whose regeneration authority is appointed by Ministers. I have had the opportunity to reflect on the nature of an authority whose members have come and gone while elected members have remained--and, above all, whose specific objectives have never been defined.

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Section 136 of the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980 defines the object of an urban development corporation as "to secure the regeneration of its area."

It does not say how, when or, more important, for whom. It does not say in whose interests an area is to be regenerated. It is regeneration for regeneration's sake. Often the attitude of those who live and work, and those who have lived and worked, in the Surrey docks area along the south side of the Thames, in Bermondsey and Rotherhithe, and by London bridge-- and, equally, those in the Isle of Dogs, Wapping, Tower Hamlets and Newham- -has been, "Yes, there is regeneration, but it is not regeneration for us."

In many cases, indeed, it has appeared to be regeneration against "us". Schemes were announced, put to the planning committee of the development corporation--a body not elected by anyone--and approved. Some of these schemes then took effect, even though they were contrary to the views expressed by local communities, their representatives and often the local councils.

Like the hon. Members for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson) and for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mrs. Jackson), I make the point that we should not be under the illusion that any type of appointed agency is a substitute for a democratically accountable body. This is no replacement for democratic regional government in England, no replacement for fairly elected local authorities making decisions for their areas, and no replacement for a tier of local government in London, as in the rest of England, at parish or community level, which could look at very small development and planning matters. I know that the Minister is aware of and at least partially sympathetic to the last of these points. I hope that, when he has completed the work that he is doing, he will agree that we in London, like people in the rest of the country, are entitled to parish or community councils.

We shall certainly not secure democratic accountability through the proposed agency. That being so, I make a plea for some things which, even if we do not like the structure and the format, can at least determine the nature of the agency. First, we need a partnership between the agency and its works, on the one hand, and those who are democratically elected and their plans, on the other. That point has been made already, so I shall not elaborate on it. Secondly, we need proper consultation--a point made well by the hon. Members for Newcastle upon Tyne, North and for Sheffield, Hillsborough, who said that it was not good enough to have a few quango employees producing a glossy brochure and saying, "This is the corporate plan--take it," but no consultation with people on the ground, who might just have some good ideas.

One of the frustrations of Members for Docklands

constituencies--this has been put to the Minister's predecessors--is that they have often heard of plans and initiatives only after the press has been told about them. That is no way to proceed. This is not self-interest and arrogance ; it is simply that, in a democracy, elected representatives, whether at local government level or at parliamentary level, are entitled to timely information about what is going on.

Within the confines of the structure that the Government want the agency to have, its membership should take some account of the interests and concerns of those who are democratically elected. Indeed, it would be no bad thing if the majority of the agency's membership

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could be arrived at after consultation with representatives of the local authorities--in particular, the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and, potentially, the Association of County Councils, the Association of District Councils, the Association of London Authorities, and the London boroughs. It would certainly be a good idea if those who do this job were to reflect democratic trends, as well as bringing skills and expertise to it.

Mr. Redwood : Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there are 34 local authority members on the boards in urban development corporations around the country? There are many good examples of how people work in partnership. I welcome the fact that, in several towns, cities and other areas, there is now excellent collaboration. Indeed, in the case of Hartland and Plymouth, the local authorities want urban development corporations ; they have been pressing us to set them up and get on with the job.

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Mr. Hughes : To be completely honest, I have to say that I did not know that the number was 34. I accept that development co-operatives have some local authority members. Indeed, such members have always been sought. In the case of the Docklands corporation, a local authority member has been sought from each of the three borough councils. The problem is, they never constitute a majority on the development corporation : democratic accountability is fine, but the inability ever to be a majority gives rise to the danger of tokenism.

Some local authorities see the benefit of an agency and of money coming in. The Minister must understand the point that I am making, as in the not too distant past he worked in and sought to represent urban areas, although the electors of Peckham were not terribly supportive of that proposition when he presented himself to them. At any rate, he will remember how important it is to secure partnership and agreement wherever possible.

Secondly, much regeneration has yet to take place. Last year a friend of mine--a Zimbabwean nun who works for Oxfam--visited Britain. Having been to many parts of urban England, she commented on the extent to which land is under-used. She regarded that as a scandal. In Zimbabwe, good land is such a valuable commodity--yet here she saw much good land in this country which was not being used. My friend made the point very tellingly. It can be beneficial to be made aware of the perspective of someone from outside our own culture. I do not dissent from the proposition that there has been some very laggardly development, but there is no point in development if we get it wrong and if it does not meet people's needs. In this regard, I hope that the Minister is sympathetic to our amendment and that, if he is unable to accept it, he will undertake to consider it with a view to negotiating something which could be the subject of an amendment in another place.

I wish to make a serious point in relation to the two halves of a very simple amendment : first, any development should take place with due regard to the environment ; secondly, it should be principally for the benefit of residents of the area. Like my constituents and many others in urban Britain, I am aware that some of the benefits of urban life have corresponding disbenefits. One thinks for example, of noise, pollution, high crime rates and a generally lower quality of life. In urban Britain, the chances of having one's vehicle or house broken into are

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considerably higher, and people have to tolerate traffic noise through the night as well as through the day. It is therefore very important that the environment in which regeneration takes place should leave people with a better quality of life.

I will give two examples relating to the experience of those of us from south London. We believe that we are about to have something which, in the short term, will be much more useful than a regeneration agency. This is a matter about which the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Ms. Hoey) shares my concern. I refer to the announcement about the Jubilee line extension, which has been mentioned so often in the House that someone from another planet might think that we were struck in a timewarp--or the groove of a record. We have been promised that development, and we are waiting for it to come out of the tunnel--but we have been waiting so long that we have almost forgotten which way to look.

The extension will do much good for docklands south and north of the river, but we must have regeneration which takes account of the best means of removing the spoil of four years' work from where people live. There is no point in suffering four years of hell if it can be avoided. That is not a matter with which I want the Minister to deal specifically, but I mention it as an example. Regeneration must take account of the already noisy, cramped and difficult urban environment, and therefore must be planned so as to minimise disturbance and maximise benefit. For example, spoil should be transported by river rather than by road, and lorry journeys should be made as short as possible. Such practical measures can be taken to deal with problems which affect people immensely.

The second example is topical. It directly affects riverside Members in central London, and the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Ms. Hoey) and I are equally concerned about it. We have just learnt that some promoters wish to introduce a floating helipad which would move among 22 sites between Chelsea bridge and the pool of London. In the past 10 years, there have been six battles--all of them successful--to stop helicopters from landing and taking off from riverside sites at Blackfriars, Cannon Street, Bermondsey and Rotherhithe. On Monday, there was a trial flight from one roof of Sea Containers house by Blackfriars bridge before an inquiry in April.

Regeneration cannot be environmentally sound if its consequence is to permit helicopter flights, which people regard as a blessed nuisance, without their being subject to any planning authority. The Minister appears almost amazed that that is not subject to the planning requirements. We want not loopholes but proper processes of consultation and decision.

Ms. Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman--he is my hon. Friend on this issue--for giving way. This proposal will circumvent every planning law. It seems nonsense that we are discussing a Bill on housing and urban development while at the same time this proposal is being allowed to proceed. I am sorry that the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) has not been selected, because we must find a means of subjecting the proposal to the normal planning procedures so that people who live and work along the river are consulted before their lives are runied.

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Mr. Hughes : The hon. Lady makes a good point. There is a convergence of views in the community. People who live in inner cities, regardless of their political views, often have the same views. We are saying that we do not want short cuts which circumvent the proper procedures. The majority view is not held uniquely by people living in council tower blocks ; it is also shared by people who have bought expensive riverside flats on a long lease. Whatever our reservations and qualifications about the agency, our plea is that short cuts which have an environmental disbenefit must not be allowed.

My next point relates to paragraph (d) of amendment No. 130, which uses the words

"principally for the benefit of"

local residents. I do not mean that development must be only for the benefit of people who live in the area, but if a person's home is chosen for regeneration by an agency which nobody has elected, it is reasonable to expect the agency to act first in the interests of the people trapped by the decision and most affected by it.

The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North argued that one of the agency's purposes must be to maximise employment, and that point is made in one of the objects of the agency. My constituency has one of the 10 highest unemployment rates in Britain, so one of my key tasks is to maximise work opportunities for people who do not have work but who want to use their skills. Objectives must be specific and of benefit to residents.

Suitable housing must be developed. It is no good building luxury riverside flats which are out of the range of 95 per cent. of the population when there is not enough accommodation to house people such as the three who came to my door this morning before I left home saying that they wanted housing. Enough schools must be built to cater for the extra people who move into an area when it is regenerated. Such co-ordinated arrangements are necessary for the community.

The transport system must be able to meet the needs of a regenerated area. It is no good the M25 and the docklands light railway being found to be inadequate because they were planned wrongly. I am not saying that we should widen the M25--I believe that goods should be transported by other means--but a railway should be able to cater for the number of people who use it. Let us have some sympathy and priority for people who live in areas which are chosen for regeneration. Such areas are not just lines on the map ; they contain real people whose families have often lived there for generations, and they have a right to have their interests put first.

I agree also that one of the prime functions of the agency should be to help in the coalfield communities of Britain. As the docks of south London have shown, when an industry is removed it removes a substantial employer and generator of primary or secondary work. Whatever the outcome of the review, and however many pits are saved, we have a duty to ensure that the coalfield communities are supported and encouraged and that those areas become as prosperous to live in as anywhere else.

I hope that the Minister will be sympathetic to the new clause and to my amendment.

Mr. Jim Cunningham (Coventry, South-East) : The proposed urban development agency must be judged against a number of things, especially rising unemployment. Unemployment in Coventry is about 11.5 per cent.,

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and a fair proportion of those unemployed are young people. They obviously take much interest in anything that the Government suggest to tackle the problem.

My problem with the Bill is that, on the one hand, the Government set up an urban development agency but on the other the Government go into the abstract and become a little vague about what I call the subsidiary resources and the agencies that should go with it. As some of my hon. Friends said earlier, urban aid projects such as the safer cities programme, section 11 and education projects are under threat from the Government. People in urban areas, especially black people, rely on those agencies for training, advice and business experience to enable them to set up businesses. The Government say that their objective is to tackle regeneration and create jobs, yet they are removing that objective in the way that I outlined.

The other yardstick is whether the agency will help to revive Britain's manufacturing base. People in great manufacturing cities such as Coventry, Birmingham and Wolverhampton will take an interest in seeing whether these agencies can re-establish our industrial base. For far too long, Britain's industrial base has been eroded, especially during the 1980s, or the boom years as we now like to call them, when the service industries flourished and everyone thought that we were on the road to utopia, only to discover six or seven years later that we were not.

We must remember that many urban development agencies could be successful, providing they have the co-operation of local authorities and local industrialists. There have been several debates about Europe recently. Europe has forms of--dare I say it--regional government. Agencies can work hand in hand with regional government to allow for what I would call strategic planning on a major scale in any given region. In that respect, there is a vacuum in this country, and that is where the problems will lie in trying to ensure that the regeneration agency is successful.

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We should remember that we do not have a structure in this country to meet the European criteria in terms of attracting grants to some of our more depressed areas. Ministers often go to Europe to haggle with and to persuade our partners to provide money for our deprived regions. That problem must be dealt with if urban development agencies are to have a measure of success. The Minister might find that he will have to establish more locally based agencies because there must be a mechanism or vehicle to make people in localities within regions feel that they are part of the decision-making process of that region.

There must certainly be something more locally based in cities such as Birmingham and Coventry. If not, the agencies will not necessarily receive the co-operation of local residents who might experience difficulties with, for example, planning permissions, an issue that we shall discuss later.

The Minister said that there had been a great deal of co-operation with local authorities. I have no reason to doubt that, but based on my experience in the west midlands, stronger representation will be needed on any boards. Without that, the boards will become quangos which could ride roughshod over people, local authorities, industry and industrialists. The result might be that the

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