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10.10 am
Mr. Frank Roy (Motherwell and Wishaw): Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to speak in this important debate, which has great relevance to the people
of Motherwell and Wishaw. I agree with much that the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) said: there is a need for a coherent policy for town centre regeneration.
The need for a coherent policy to encourage small retail shops is abundantly clear, especially in the main street of Wishaw. The retailers of Wishaw have been left to pick up the crumbs left from years of industrial decline and falling disposable incomes. At the same time, they have had to face the problems of spiralling overheads and a dwindling customer base.
The debate also allows me to make my maiden speech in the mother of Parliaments. I have the great honour to be elected as the first locally born and bred Labour party Member for the constituency of Motherwell and Wishaw. To be able to represent the community in which one has been brought up and where one lives is a great honour and it is a source of great pride not just to me, but to my family, friends and neighbours.
I should like to acknowledge the members of the Motherwell and Wishaw constituency Labour party who worked tirelessly for my election. I should also like to thank the voters of Motherwell and Wishaw who gave me and my party their trust on 1 May. I look forward very much to working on their behalf in the years to come.
The man whose footsteps I follow, Dr. Jeremy Bray, is not only my predecessor but a close family friend. I was his parliamentary election agent in the general election campaigns of 1987 and 1992. I am sure that all hon. Members would like to join me in wishing Jeremy and his wife, Elizabeth, a long, happy and healthy retirement.
Jeremy Bray was born in Hong Kong in 1930. He enjoyed a truly global education, which started at Eastnor village school in Herefordshire. He then attended Clefoo missionary school, China; Aberystwyth grammar school; Kingswood school, Bath; Jesus college, Cambridge and, finally, the illustrious Harvard university. He was a journalist, economist, mathematician and author.
Jeremy first entered Parliament as the Member for Middlesbrough, West in 1962. In 1965, he led the campaign against cigarette advertising. It seems that it has taken some of us nearly 32 years to catch up with Jeremy's advanced thinking.
My predecessor enjoyed various stints as Parliamentary Secretary--in the Ministry of Power in 1966 and in the Ministry of Technology in 1967, a post which he held until his resignation in 1969. He lost his seat for Middlesbrough in the 1970 general election, but re-entered Parliament as the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw in October 1974. Later, the constituency was renamed Motherwell, South. He was reappointed Labour's science and technology spokesman in 1989 and held that post until 1992.
To me, Jeremy Bray's finest performance in the Chamber was in April 1990 when, still recuperating from a life-saving heart bypass operation, he determinedly turned up to speak in defence of his constituency steelworks at Ravenscraig. Those works and its 10,000 steelworkers ultimately suffered from what they described as a death by a thousand cuts. To his great credit, Jeremy fought against every cut along the way. I had the honour and privilege to be Jeremy's parliamentary election agent and I now have the even greater honour of being his successor.
Until recently, Motherwell and Wishaw was at the heart of industrial Scotland. Indeed, to many we were the heart of it. The area played an integral part in a proud industrial heritage. That heritage gave conception to the famous steelworks of Lanarkshire, Dalzell, Clyde Alloy and Ravenscraig. They all played a crucial part in the manufacturing sector of Scottish life but, today, after years of dereliction, only Dalzell remains in operation.
The steelworks had a fiercely proud and efficient work force who prided themselves on their steel-making expertise. Indeed, as a Ravenscraig steelworker for 14 years, I hope that in my new parliamentary career I am able to find the same level of friendship, honesty, professionalism and dedication among my fellow parliamentarians as I did among my fellow steelworkers at Ravenscraig.
When those same steelworkers were about to retire or be made redundant, they used to say, "Listen son. You can take the man out of the steelworks but you can't take the steelworks out of the man." How right they were.
Motherwell and Wishaw, and Lanarkshire as a whole, might have lost the steelworks, but we have not lost our steel determination to rebuild our communities and create a new dynamic base for the manufacturing service sectors that will become the new heartbeat of our resurrection from industrial decay and decimation. Our small retail shops have a major part to play in that resurrection.
The regeneration of Motherwell and Wishaw, and of Lanarkshire, has already started. Inward investors realise the potential of an area where workers have shown their ability to adapt to modern technology and work practices. The area, which is at the heart of west central Scotland, is rich in skilled labour and modern purpose-built units and has a first-class infrastructure. It is an area in which people look after their neighbours and recognise the importance of family ties. They genuinely want to create a better life style for their children and their children's children.
Motherwell and Wishaw is made up of two towns with their own distinctive areas. Forgewood, Jerviston, Flemington and Muirhouse are among those in Motherwell and Craigneuk, Netherton, Coltness and Pather are among those in Wishaw. The constituency is also home to the old mining communities of Cambusnethan, Waterloo, Overtown, Carfin and New Stevenston on its outer edges.
Mr. Colin Breed (South-East Cornwall):
I congratulate the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Mr. Roy) on his maiden speech. His comments about Ravenscraig will have struck a great resonance in many of Cornwall's tin miners, who suffered at the same time--it was not that long ago. I remember our feelings of solidarity with that part of the country although, of course, we were a long way away from it.
Small family retail shops have been the mainstay of shopping centres for decades and have provided jobs that contributed directly and indirectly to the local economy.
Until recently, a number of small shops in my constituency took produce from local suppliers up and down the Tamar valley, where small horticultural operations provided them with fresh fruit and vegetables, but the rapid decline of the small shops and the prosperity of our town centres has knocked out many small horticultural operations and so caused even more job losses. The combination of high rents, the foolish introduction a few years ago of so-called upward only rent reviews, the imposition of the uniform business rate and the extraordinary growth of out-of-town supermarkets even in very rural areas have all contributed to the loss of small retail concerns from our high streets.
The latest competition, as my hon. Friend the Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) mentioned, comes from charity shops. I am certainly not against charities trading in the high street. In many respects, they provide a useful service to the community, but their enormous growth in recent years has had some detrimental effect. They have affected some towns in Cornwall, where they have put out of business long-standing second-hand shops and shops that traded in used furniture. They are helped by their ability to use voluntary labour and to receive business rate relief. They sometimes pay higher rents, but they can also pay lower rents because of the value of covenants on leases. Many landlords greatly value the opportunity of leasing premises to a national charity rather than to a small family firm that may be considered vulnerable. All that makes for uneven competition.
Many local councils try to raise additional income--using one of the few means possible--from their car parks. As local councils' responsibility for the rates of retail operations has been removed, they have raised car parking charges. Perhaps they have had slightly less interest in the health and prosperity of the main street because of the operation of the uniform business rate. Not unnaturally, more shoppers choose to avail themselves of free parking in out-of-town centres, being unwilling to pay ever-increasing car parking charges in our towns.
Sales by small retailers have declined considerably over the past 10 years with the rise in out-of-town retailing, and more and more in-town units are being left empty.
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome):
I agree with my hon. Friend about the effect of the uniform business rate on smaller towns. Does he agree that a significant problem for market towns in constituencies such as ours is that they fall between the assistance that is available from the Rural Development Commission, rural development area status and so on, and the urban programmes that apply to larger towns? While that does not fall within the responsibility of the Minister, she may wish to make that point to her colleagues. Our market towns are suffering from competition from larger conurbations.
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