| Draft Thurrock Development Corporation (Area and Constitution) Order 2003
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Mr. Hammond: It strikes me that the point the hon. Member raises is perhaps an interesting question about the extent of the powers of the development corporation. As he understands it, would the development corporation have any locus over the health authorities to ensure that the necessary health infrastructure was put in place as part of their overall plans for the area? Column Number: 013 Andrew Mackinlay: Clearly the development corporation has no powers in this regard, but its duty is to alert the statutory authorities—I deliberately mentioned the health authority, the local authority, the police and the Government—so that as an area is developed its needs are matched. I understand that that is the Government's strategy: there will be appropriate funding. To be fair, I have already acknowledged the moneys that are immediately available to pump-prime some of those areas. In a way, the vein running through the duties of the UDC is planning in the real sense, not simply control of the development, which is extremely important and which the hon. Gentleman mentioned earlier. The infrastructure needs to be planned to ensure that as areas are developed, schools are in the right places and the much needed accident and emergency provision is there. Transport links are also important. I know that the Minister has visited the railway line. Clearly it needs substantial upgrading. I look to the UDC to ensure that the Strategic Rail Authority addresses the problem. The line needs upgrading now. One isolated community in East Tilbury is often cut off from emergency services because of antiquated road crossings. Clearly, this is where the UDC will have the energy, drive and enthusiasm and the entrée, which, regrettably, an existing local authority does not have. I take the point of the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge, which is why I am enthusiastic about this body. I am conscious of the fact that I am delaying the Committee, but there are one or two other points that I should like to flag up. Mr. Francois: I want to amplify the point that the hon. Gentleman is making about health care infrastructure. When we discuss new development, we traditionally identify the importance of infrastructure, which has often historically been taken to mean improved transport links. Increasingly, other infrastructures, such as those in health care and in education, must be in place to allow for growth. The health care infrastructure in south Essex is undoubtedly under severe pressure. I am not making a party political point, but that is genuinely the case. I appeal to the Minister to ensure that, in any discussions he has with colleagues in the Department of Health, everyone is aware that far larger health care facilities are required in south Essex to accompany the envisaged growth. The hon. Member for Thurrock is right, and I ask the Minister to bear that in mind in his deliberations. Andrew Mackinlay: The hon. Gentleman has underlined my point. He is from my area and understands the issue. I also appreciate his earlier comments on the need to be sensitive to the danger of flooding. Many aspects must be considered and nothing should be taken for granted. However, I am convinced that the vehicle for addressing the issues is a focused urban development corporation rather than a local authority. Mr. Hammond: If I correctly interpreted the Minister's statement on 30 July, of the £63 million Column Number: 014 that the hon. Gentleman is referring to, only £1 million is focused on health care. Does that not further underline the point being made? The rest is focused on other forms of pump-priming and infrastructure development. Is the hon. Gentleman alarmed that only one item, the proposed West Thurrock health and community centre, accounts for that £1 million of the budget?Andrew Mackinlay: I think that the health funding is wholly inadequate. I have pressed the Government for more funding for my area and take the hon. Gentleman's point. As I said, we need to reconsider the question of hospital provision, and we are particularly blighted by a lack of general practitioners. The situation is acute in many areas in the south-east and London, but is particularly bad in some of the wards that the Minister referred to—for example, Tilbury Riverside. I agree with the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge that we need more health resources. I believe that, over the next seven years or more, the Government will use the establishment of the urban development corporation as a vehicle for achieving tangible improvements in health service provision. I hope that the Minister will reply to me on the subject of the establishment of a Cabinet Sub-Committee named Miscellaneous 22—rather an odd name—that was chaired by the Prime Minister. It was designed to ensure that capital revenue planning mechanisms are synchronised with resource needs, which is partly the point raised by the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge. I am told that the Committee has either been run down or wound up. I do not lie awake at night worrying about the rubric of these things. However, I want central Government, and particularly the Cabinet Office, to address the valid point that, as an area grows, there must be sufficient money for improvements in essential services such as transportation and the health service, combating crime and improving the quality of life generally. The need to deal with household and human waste must also be addressed, but is often not discussed. One of the things that irritates us in Thurrock is that the barges that pass by the windows of this Room take London's waste down to Thurrock. We have had enough. We have been exploited for far too long with the tipping of waste. We want not only to stop that, but to ensure adequate provision for waste disposal in our area. [Interruption.] I am sorry, was I overstepping the mark? The Chairman: I was just about to call the hon. Gentleman to order. Andrew Mackinlay: The disposal of household and human waste needs to be addressed when major expansion occurs. I am very grateful for your patience, Mr. Benton, and for that of my colleagues. Thurrock has the potential to be a very attractive place for people to live and work; we want to retain people and build up our skills bank in the area. Through adult education, the local authority and Thurrock college are doing a great deal to provide the skills to develop the new town. Column Number: 015 When people think of Thurrock they think of its Lowry-esque, riparian frontage, but the majority of the borough is green belt, which we jealously safeguard. Even the Lowry-esque river frontage has rich heritage: it has two forts, the place where Elizabeth I addressed her troops before the Armada—[Interruption.] Come and see. The Chairman: Order. I can readily appreciate the hon. Member's enthusiasm for his constituency, but we are moving away from the measure. I take this opportunity to remind the Committee that we have only until 4 o'clock and that other hon. Members wish to speak. Andrew Mackinlay: I apologise for my over-enthusiasm, Mr. Benton. I will conclude my comments shortly. I can tell my hon. Friend the Member for West Renfrewshire (Jim Sheridan) that I am proud that I persuaded Mr. Speaker, when he was a Deputy Speaker, to unveil the memorial to the highlanders at Tilbury fort where they were incarcerated after 1745. I hope that my hon. Friend will come and see it.
3.16 pmMr. Davey: I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Benton. If I stray I am sure that you will bring me to book. This is a significant order for two reasons: it is the first UDC that has been created for some time, and it is central to the Government's policy in the sustainable communities plan and sets a precedent for its development. Although he touched on the subject, I expected the Minister to say more about the development of delivery vehicles for the sustainable communities plan. However, he made some important points about how the planning powers will be changed by the order and how the model proposed for Thurrock might relate to those for Ashford, Milton Keynes and so on. Will the Minister confirm, as he seemed to suggest, that this model will not be adopted in those places? As he knows, UDCs are not completely accepted as the way forward. As we debate the first UDC proposal it is important that we understand more about how the Government's thinking on the matter relates to other aspects of the communities plan. It is obvious when reading the consultation papers that there is a lot of support for this step forward in Thurrock; the council is in favour of it, and so are many of the local consultees in the voluntary sector. Statutory consultees and individuals have advocated the proposal and given it their support. The hon. Member for Thurrock, who made an eloquent speech, clearly supports the measure. I almost called him my hon. Friend, as his family come from Chessington in my constituency and he has distinguished political roots there. We should take significant account of his support for the measure when forming our views on it. Column Number: 016 I am grateful for the help of the sole Liberal Democrat councillor on Thurrock borough council, Earnshaw Palmer— Keith Hill: Who? Mr. Davey: Councillor Earnshaw Palmer. He is a very respected member of the borough council— Mr. Hammond: He has been a very respected member. Mr. Davey: I think some Labour members may be respected too. Councillor Palmer assured me that there will be positive benefits for Thurrock from this approach and we should listen to the local people. However, Councillor Palmer and others have asked questions about the proposal, some of which came out in the responses to the consultation, and this is the place to air them. The first concerns the UDC model, which is why I related it to the wider communities plan. The Government's study for the boundaries of the new UDC had a section examining the strengths and weaknesses of UDCs, but the results did not give a clear picture. Past experience of UDCs shows that they had many weaknesses, and that is why we need to tease out the Government's thinking on the subject. For example, the study examined a review of the London Docklands development corporation. The review said that it took 10 years for the LDDC to address the market failures in that area. The Government believe that this UDC will be able to speed up the development process, and push ahead with housing development and economic regeneration, but that was not the experience of the LDDC. Moreover, one of the problems with the LDDC and some other UDCs was the fact that they caused great upheaval in the local community without those communities having a real say in what was happening in their area. People were ignored in decisions taken by some of the earlier UDCs. The study commissioned by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for this order illustrates that point clearly. Some of the conclusions of the study were positive—I do not wish to misrepresent it—but one of the negative points made was that
We in the House should be concerned about that. The UDCs that were successful achieved that success because they had a very narrow focus. However, this model does not have a narrow focus. One of the other failings of UDCs was that they displaced economic activity, moving it from other areas into the UDC area, so that there was no net benefit, so there are some concerns about the earlier experience of UDCs, particularly with respect to their lack of accountability. A further point, and one that will concern the hon. Member for Thurrock, is that some of the pre-existing low-income households in areas where there were UDCs did not benefit at all. The concept of trickle-down did not work, because some of the earlier UDCs did not take account the existing population. I hope that the Government will reassure us that that will not Column Number: 017 be the case with the proposed UDC. If the Minister is able to give us that reassurance in his response, will he also tell us why he thinks that in passing the order, using the 1980 legislation, this UDC will be different from earlier ones? What is the difference in the order that we are considering today, in the Minister's guidance and in the Government's approach? Why should we think that this UDC will perform differently from some of the earlier ones, since his own Department's study found those wanting in important areas?UDCs have not previously been used in areas with a large amount of green-belt land. As the hon. Member for Thurrock said, 60 per cent. of the borough of Thurrock is green belt. Giving a UDC control of planning in an area with 60 per cent. green belt is completely new. Given that so much of their community falls into that important planning designation, one could understand it if local people were concerned about the fact that democratic accountability is being removed. We therefore need to know more from the Minister about accountability. He said that local people would have the same rights of appeal as they have with the existing planning authority—[Interruption.] That is not my reading of it. I thought, as the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge said from a sedentary position, that they would have none. I should like the Minister to tell me where, in law, the local people in Thurrock will have that right of appeal on the UDC's decisions. Will the Minister expand on his assertion? We need to know how local people can question the UDC's decisions, and what rights they will have to refer decisions made by the UDC to the Minister, for example. That brings me to planning. From what the Minister said, I am not clear about the role of the unitary development plan. No doubt Thurrock, like other boroughs, has consulted widely and developed a plan for its area. The UDC is about to take planning powers from the authority—whether or not those powers are merely strategic—so does that mean that the plan will be torn up? What is the relationship between the way in which the UDC is supposed to conduct its business and the existing unitary development plan? It is important for the Minister to clarify that because if the residents of Thurrock want to question the UDC's planning decisions, they will want to know where responsibility for the planning law and the planning brief lie.
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| ©Parliamentary copyright 2003 | Prepared 15 October 2003 |
