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Most Gracious Sovereign,
We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.
Sir Peter Emery: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I refer you to paragraph 9(3) of the new Standing Orders, which states:
- "At ten o'clock on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, the proceedings on any business then under consideration"--
there follow a number of exceptions which do not apply in this case--
"shall lapse."
Has the interpretation of that Standing Order been altered by your ruling of just over an hour ago? If it has not, perhaps you would remind the Government Chief Whip and those in his office to be a little more alert, so that the Deputy Prime Minister and other Ministers do not overrun their time again.
Industry (Dunstable)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mr. Robert Ainsworth.]
11.2 pm
Sir David Madel (South-West Bedfordshire): I am grateful for this debate, and I welcome to the Front Bench for the first time the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche). I congratulate the hon. Lady on her appointment.
The object of the debate is to put to the House the industrial situation in Dunstable, and to explain why help is needed. [Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin):
Order. Perhaps hon. Members would leave the Chamber quietly while an hon. Member is addressing the House.
Sir David Madel:
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
It is 21 years since an earlier Labour Government helped us in Dunstable by the rescue of Chrysler Trucks. The late Harold Lever and the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), who was then Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry, came in with a rescue package to save, for a time, 3,500 jobs in Dunstable.
We have moved a long way from then. The economy in south Bedfordshire has somewhat improved, and local unemployment rates have dropped. However, there are still three major causes of concern in the Dunstable and Houghton Regis area, which is why I sought this Adjournment debate tonight. Those are, first, the decline of traditional industries; secondly, the impact of traffic congestion on local industrial performance; and, thirdly, the future of the site of AWD Bedford Trucks, which, alas, no longer makes trucks.
On the decline of traditional industries, we were struck yet another blow during the election campaign in the middle of April, when the De La Rue printing company, with no warning whatever, announced that it was pulling out of Dunstable, with a loss of 400 jobs. That follows the closure of Cross Paperware last year, and of several other companies in the past few years. Thus, yet another major traditional Dunstable industry--printing--will go.
Another local industry that has disappeared in the past few years is the truck manufacturing industry. Dunstable once had two truck manufacturers: the world-famous Bedford Trucks, and Renault Trucks. After years of decline, a recession and the refusal by the Foreign Office in the previous Conservative Government to allow an export licence for AWD Bedford to sell civilian lorries to Libya--the Department of Trade and Industry and my then right hon. Friend, Mr. Richard Needham, wanted to grant an export licence, but the Foreign Office blocked it--the company collapsed.
Automotive components manufacturing remains a major local employer, providing some 3,000 jobs in the constituency, but those jobs are constantly challenged as manufacturers face increased competition caused by globalisation. Manufacturers in my constituency are not entitled to major grants under the current Government and European grant regimes. Indeed, those regimes discriminate against companies in the locality.
When major international companies start to reconsider their future investment strategy, grants can tempt investment away from our area. TRW Cam Gears recently invested in south Wales rather than Dunstable, for that very reason. At that time, the unemployment rate in south Wales was lower than in the Dunstable-Luton conurbation, although the latter is not recognised officially, because of the travel-to-work area problem.
Traffic congestion in Dunstable continues to worsen. The Bedfordshire chamber of commerce recently complained that its members in the Dunstable-Luton conurbation find it increasingly difficult to service customers west of Dunstable because of congestion. The main local industry--automotive components manufacturing--now uses a "just-in-time" system of product delivery. Local congestion threatens that system and the local jobs dependent on it.
Dunstable and Houghton Regis therefore need urgent new investment in the local road network. We still do not know the outcome of the A5 bypass conference held in Dunstable in the autumn. I do not criticise the Labour Government for that; I believe that they will soon be able to release the conference's conclusions. At that conference, representative after representative from industry in Dunstable warned of the danger of not solving our congestion problems. No case can be made for spending money and widening the M1 in Bedfordshire before something is done about Dunstable and Houghton Regis.
On infrastructure and public and private transport, I note the Labour Government's commitment to greater investment in and enthusiasm for the railways. I am glad to say that a parish poll in Dunstable last week--confined to Dunstable citizens--produced an 80 per cent. vote in favour of reopening our rail link.
The congestion problem was neatly summed up in a short letter in last week's Dunstable Gazette. It was headed:
The third major concern is the future of the AWD Bedford Trucks site. We have made progress. English Partnerships gave us a grant of £1 million, and without it we would not have Arensons, which is an office manufacturing equipment company. It is on site and building, and it goes into production in the autumn. It will be hugely welcomed, and will provide about 600 jobs for the town.
The Government have offered a KONVER grant of £750,000 towards the cost of redeveloping the AWD site. We obviously want to be able to use that money flexibly
within the development process to ensure that we get that industrial production, even if the development process is not exactly the same as originally envisaged in the grant application. In other words, we need maximum flexibility.
It is pertinent to ask the Government to tell us soon how English Partnerships will fit in with the regional development agencies that were proposed in the Queen's Speech. We await the White Paper with interest. I have no hesitation in saying that English Partnerships is popular in Dunstable. It has given us nearly £1 million and is well on the industrial map, and we greatly appreciate what it has done.
What can we do to take our industry forward and get our manufacturing employment back? We are all hoping that Vauxhall will launch the new Corsa in 1998-99 at the Luton plant. We hope that that will be confirmed. There would then be two cars being produced in Luton--the Vectra and the Corsa--employing hundreds from Dunstable and Houghton Regis. In every street in those two towns in my constituency, somebody knows somebody who works at Vauxhall at Luton. I hope that it will be possible for the Government to give Vauxhall some launch aid to get the Corsa into production.
If we get that, I will appeal to General Motors, as I have before, to give priority to former AWD Bedford Trucks workers when it is seeking new employees. We had a breakthrough last year with the Vauxhall-Renault van deal, which will bring 900 new jobs. I appealed to General Motors then to look first to Dunstable and Houghton Regis to try to take on former Bedford Trucks workers. If we can get the Corsa, I will ask General Motors to do that again.
We need assisted area status and a change in the grants and the European grants to give us a manufacturing boost. The Under-Secretary of State who is to reply to the debate is the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green. In the Houghton Regis and Dunstable area, there are hundreds and hundreds of people who were moved out of London as part of the overspill programme, and probably some families came from Hornsey and Wood Green.
When those Londoners were moved out of London, they were moved because there were houses and there were jobs in our area. We did not operate a programme to move people out of London only for them to have to return to London to work. Therefore, houses and jobs were inextricably intertwined. What we have not yet got right is the jobs. My area has plenty of houses and housing developments, and there will be more to come, but we have neither manufacturing jobs nor the right infrastructure--road or rail--to support us.
I badgered the previous Government about those issues, and I shall, politely and gently, ask the brand new Labour Government, as they get their feet under the table, to see whether we cannot redraw the travel-to-work area boundaries to help us in the Dunstable and Houghton Regis area.
This month, in May, we saw the retirement of the former mayor of Dunstable, Councillor Reg Fossey. In his two years in office, he, with his wife Joan, gave great service to Dunstable, which has been hugely appreciated by everyone in the town. In his mayoralty, however, we have, as I said earlier in my speech, suffered some severe industrial setbacks, and we have seen shops close. Reg
Fossey, who has always been optimistic, has always urged the people of Dunstable to keep smiling, and Dunstable is trying its very best to keep smiling. We need help, however, to rebuild our manufacturing and a secure employment base.
As I said earlier, a previous Labour Government helped us, in 1976. It is early days for the new Government, but I appeal to Ministers to help us to rebuild a strong manufacturing employment base. Our area has everything going for it for manufacturers, such as good labour relations, which we have always had. With some public money spent on better roads and rail, our area would be hugely helped. We have a history of industrial stability and good will at the workplace.
"Back the bypass to attract new business."
The letter states:
"The local and national elections have come at a very opportune time for those living and working in Dunstable. Tragically (particularly for those employed there and their families) De La Rue"--
which, as I have mentioned, is going, with 400 job losses--
"yet another major employer, has left the town. There are few enough job opportunities locally and with the present communications (road and rail!) poor to say the least, it is more likely that further companies will leave rather than come to Dunstable. I fervently hope that those who have ended up representing the area will make it their mission to get us a bypass."
The writer of that letter can have no doubt about my commitment to the bypass. It is a very important matter, and I cannot stress too strongly how important it is for industrial reasons.
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