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10.36 am
Mr. Don Dixon (Jarrow): I shall intervene briefly in today's adjournment debate to raise my constituents' objection to the proposed privatisation of the Port of Tyne authority. Before I do so, I should say to the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Nicholson) that Nye Bevan did not include beef in his famous statement about being surrounded by fish and living on coal, because many of the people he represented could not afford to buy beef.
The fact that I am raising an issue during a Wednesday morning Adjournment debate brought about by the Jopling changes does not mean that I agree with the Jopling changes. I opposed them when they were introduced, I am still against them and I certainly do not condone them. In my view, the implementation of the Jopling recommendations and the clean feed to Members' rooms has made the Chamber virtually redundant. However, I shall not press my views on the Jopling recommendations, bearing in mind that the senior salaries review committee is still sitting.
Privatisation is raising justifiable fears in my constituency. I do not believe that the proposals are in the best interests of my constituents or of our region, and they are opposed by the Port of Tyne authority, local authorities in the area and many of the port users.
Having been born within a thousand yards of the banks of the River Tyne and having spent most of my working life working in shipyards there, I should draw the House's attention to the importance of the port of Tyne.
The River Tyne once had a shallow entrance that became troublesome as ships steadily grew in size during the 17th and 18th centuries. The Tyne improvement commission was established by an Act of Parliament in 1850. Its task was to carry out such schemes and works to make the river safe and accessible for modern ships, and to provide facilities for increasing seaborne trade.
In the first 20 years, the commission had 50 million tonnes of spoil removed from the river. Anyone who knows anything about rivers will realise the scale of dredging for that amount of spoil. The Tyne improvement commission's works have proved to be far-sighted. When it laid its plans, virtually all the vessels using the port were sailing craft of less than 1,000 tonnes.
Today, the Tyne regularly accepts ships of more than 45,000 tonnes in dead weight, and dry dock vessels weighing up to 100,000 tonnes. Indeed, hon. Members may have seen on television last night the giant 80,000-tonne bulk carrier Solitaire being taken to the Swan Hunter shipyard. That will provide some work for those who were made redundant when Swan Hunter unfortunately closed some time ago.
The commission built the Northumberland dock and the north and south piers. Within 50 years of the setting up of the commission, the port as we know it today was
mainly in place. The commission continued to manage and improve the river as an engine of economic growth until 1968, when it handed it over to its successor. The Port of Tyne authority was set up under an Act of Parliament as a trust port to control the facilities that were previously operated by the commissioners.
The earliest trade on the River Tyne was in grain and forest products from the low countries, Scandinavia and the Balkans. Those areas are still important today, but the port's interests now also extend to the far east, Australia, south-east Asia, India, the middle east, Canada and the Americas--in fact, all over the world. The port regularly handles valuable metals, vehicles, offshore equipment, foodstuffs, machinery, clothing, chemicals, oil, scrap metal, and, of course, coal.
Last year, the port exported more than 1.8 million tonnes of coal and coke, and of course we sent Andy Cole to Manchester United. The port also exported more than 28,000 tonnes of chemicals, 180,000 tonnes of grain, 175,000 cars and other vehicles and 316,000 tonnes of general commodities. Its cargo handling facilities dealt with exports and imports in excess of 3.7 million tonnes. With its royal quays in North Shields, the port of Tyne provides the most northerly terminal on the east coast for passengers using sea routes to Scandinavia. Last year, more than 360,000 passengers and almost 60,000 cars used the port.
The port of Tyne is now one of the most efficient and flexible ports in Europe, and is engaged in a further investment programme to increase its capacity and quality of service to port users. In the past 12 years, the Port of Tyne authority has invested more than £45 million in berths and equipment. That investment has been complemented by facilities built by port users and industrialists in the area. The port authority has played a major role with developing agencies such as the Tyne and Wear development corporation and others to attract investment and new industries.
The port of Tyne has large capital reserves. I am informed that trading produces a current annual profit of £5 million from a turnover of £15 million. It has no outstanding debts. Such healthy figures are likely to make the port attractive to asset-stripping bidders. We are used to asset strippers in my area. In fact, on the riverside of Jarrow, a statue of Charles Mark Palmer looks over the River Tyne. Charles Mark Palmer set up the old Palmers shipyard, which at one time employed more than 10,000--mostly skilled--men.
The asset-stripper Shipbuilding Security Ltd. was set up by shipbuilders, shipowners and merchant bankers in the 1930s. It came to Jarrow, decided to close Palmers shipyard and sell off the assets, and placed a 40-year embargo on the building of ships. So we have experience of asset stripping, and are concerned that it might happen to the port of Tyne if some company comes along with an asset-stripping bid. Purchase by another port is also possible. That would of course mean rationalisation of the port's services, and the port of Tyne could again lose out.
I am also informed that the proceeds of any privatisation would go to central Government. As the port of Tyne was formed as a result of locally generated investment in trade and by local subscriptions, such a process would be an unfair extraction of regional
resources by central Government. There has been a decline in the export of coal and coke--between 1990 and 1995, it fell by more than 600,000 tonnes--so there is a great need to invest in new facilities.
A recent example of such investment is the construction of the Nissan car handling facility and container sites. The capital resources of the Port of Tyne authority are needed for further investment on that scale. Privatisation could lead to a reduction in developments, mainly because the maximising of profits in the short term could replace longer-term development as the priority of any new owners and shareholders.
Originally, a number of trust ports were to be privatised by the Government, including Dover. I believe that even Vera Lynn became involved in the public outcry about the proposed privatisation of Dover, and it was dropped from the scheme. One wonders whether Government policy is determined by such public outcry. If Vera Lynn had sang about fog on the Tyne instead of bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover, perhaps the Government would have changed their policy and dropped the port of Tyne from their privatisation scheme.
Mr. John Carlisle (Luton, North):
The House will have listened with interest to the remarks of the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon), recognising that, because of his position in his party, he has little opportunity to speak. I found his speech informative. I know the port of Tyne. Indeed, in the halcyon days when I did a proper job before I entered the House, I used to ship a great deal of grain from the port. He is right to bring the very important subject before the House.
Other ports that have been privatised and have taken the private capital from the process, which the port of Tyne desperately needs, have been extremely successful. I personally hope that the port of Tyne goes down that road, but I bow to the superior knowledge and wisdom on the subject of the hon. Member for Jarrow.
On a somewhat grey May morning, when the House is about to adjourn for what I think is known as the spring recess, one's thoughts turn to summer. Hopefully, it will be a summer of sunny days, strawberries and cream at Wimbledon, cricket at Lords and elsewhere--indeed, the test series starts later this week--and holidays and pleasure for most people. Regrettably, residents in parts of my constituency look forward to summer with a somewhat different attitude and some misgivings. Inevitably, in parts of my constituency, as in parts of many others, the summer brings an invasion of one of the greatest scourges of modern time: the new age traveller or gipsy.
There is nothing romantic about such people, despite the fact that they hide behind a fairly romantic title. The House will know that very few, if any, people would have any objection to those who choose a nomadic form of life that is honourable and respectable and goes back many generations--not only in this country but throughout the
world--on the basis that Romany families and the genuine traveller or gipsy, as he was then known, is part of our history.
Regrettably, that romantic image has been shattered by several hundred and possibly thousands of people who decide basically to opt out of society and the responsibilities which the majority of the population abide by and accept, to follow a way of life that is an infernal nuisance, especially during the summer months, to those in and around the countryside and, unfortunately, also in our towns.
The travellers are, on the whole, a dirty and aggressive set of people with strong criminal links. They present a health hazard when they arrive on a site and leave a rather worse health hazard when they go. They are scroungers in the worst sense of the word, in that they willingly take every state benefit available to them, and, indeed, to other citizens. They are probably the most uninvited of guests whom no one would wish to see in and around his area.
A constituent, Mr. Armstrong, wrote to me last year when we had a particular problem in Luton. His words are worth recording and will, I am sure, strike a chord with hon. Members on both sides of the House. Mr. Armstrong writes:
At 10 am on Saturday 22 July last year, the vicar and his friends circulated in the Bushmead area of my constituency a leaflet which urged people to
"We are all very disturbed by the recent High Court ruling regarding 'travellers'."
I shall come to that matter later. Mr. Armstrong continues:
"It is all very well claiming rights but in having rights there are also obligations. Also someone has to pay for rights and it would seem that 'travellers' avoid the liability of making any payment.
there is now an expletive which I am not allowed to repeat--
They contribute nothing to the wellbeing of an area--quite the reverse. They cause disturbances, always leave a mess behind and usually cause a health hazard by using some part of their area as a lavatory. They regard the land as theirs by right and have been known to tell residents to 'get off our'"--
"'land.' After they have left, the local authority has to clear up the site at the council taxpayers' expense. If they want rights they should pay for them."
These people are a trouble when they come and a trouble when they go. Only last year, in a very respectable part of my constituency--all parts of my constituency are very respectable, but this area may be a little more genteel than others--it fell to the local vicar to act. Here one can perhaps applaud some of the Church's actions, which it has been difficult to do over the past few years. He got together a band of helpers to clear up the mess that the travellers had left adjacent to people's homes.
"join us at the tractor and trailer on the common."
The vicar offered free refreshment vouchers for the first 50 helpers and--this is the rub--the leaflet said:
"Gloves will be provided . . . This may be a dirty and hazardous job. You may help clear up at your own risk."
These people are enjoying the protection of the law and, possibly unwittingly, of local authorities. They are an enormous nuisance to our constituents. This is just the time of year when they begin to arrive. We have already had problems with them in the Luton area, and I am fearful that we shall suffer a further invasion during the summer months.
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