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Mrs. Lorna Fitzsimons (Rochdale) (Lab): I feel rather humble to be following the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), with his august Cabinet history. I clearly have not held any august office—I am just the lowly Back Bencher who represents Rochdale—and all that I want to comment on is the impact of the comprehensive spending review on my constituency, where I have lived all my life, apart from a blip when I went to university.
The CSR has made a huge, long-lasting, significant and long-overdue difference. After all the hyperbole about what Gershon and everyone else says, we need to cut to the heart of what the CSR means, in real-speak, to real people's lives. When I was elected, unemployment in my constituency fluctuated between 9 and 11 per cent., depending on the point in the cycle. Now, it is never much more than 3 per cent. Youth unemployment and long-term unemployment have been cut so drastically that they are virtually impossible to measure. In terms of school results, we have the best in my constituency's history. Yes, they have a long way to go, but they have come a long way. The investment in schools is phenomenal and is set to continue.
So phenomenal is this Government's investment in my constituency that my local paper will not even publish the figures, because it thinks that they are too incredible. The local development agency, at its annual general meeting this year, published a figure of £2 billion worth of investment by 2010 in the borough of Rochdale. The vast bulk of that was public money, but it will lever in a significant amount of other money. That figure is indeed incredible, but it can be broken down to projects all around the borough, and specifically in my constituency. We need to safeguard that investment, and I will do all in my power to support the CSR that has been laid before the House to do so. We need to build on that investment.
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In my constituency, there are initiatives that need to be enlarged, but there are also those that we need to celebrate. For example, we have a new hospital, which has more doctors, more nurses and more people being treated in it. Yes, change means uncertainty in terms of certain profiles of service, but it does not mean lack of growth. We are developing extra services in Rochdale—more than we have ever had. For example, Rochdale has more police than it has ever had in its history. We have a bigger policing budget and a bigger and far more effective drugs treatment programme, and we hope to be beneficiaries of the Chancellor's announcement about neighbourhood wardens. The more local and specific the policing, through partnerships in law and order, the more effective it is, as the evidence shows.
On housing, I welcome the wonderful announcement in the CSR. Rochdale is a net beneficiary in the housing market renewal project, arm's length management organisations and investment in better social housing. Housing market renewal is a real test in the pilot areas. It is a huge leap of faith in the amount of Government money that has been invested, but the difference that it will make will revolutionise communities that time forgot, and certainly the Conservative party when in government forgot. The reality is that those communities live in circumstances that most of us would not even tolerate, and they have been in that position not for five or 10 years, but 20 years and more.
We need to ask specific questions of the Liberal Democrats about area-based initiatives, of which Rochdale has a lot: housing market renewal, single regeneration budget round 5, new deal for communities and neighbourhood renewal fund. The Liberal Democrats' economic policy contains a specific little clause—those are the interesting ones—proposing to scale back area-based initiatives. I would like to know what that means for constituencies such as mine, which need specific targeting. It is not the whole borough of Rochdale that needs those initiatives, as it houses two dramatically different communities. Norden and Bamford, which is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Jim Dobbin), has 0.03 per cent. of the richest population in the country. Wardleworth, in my constituency, has 0.03 per cent. of the poorest population, and we need area-based initiatives. I wonder what the Liberal Democrats mean by their economic policy.
On the specifics of the statement, I wonder whether my hon. Friend the Minister will answer a few questions about area-based initiatives such as housing market renewal. One of the things we have learned through earlier programmes such as SRB5, and are still learning, is that the Treasury needs to allow flexibility—through the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister—to the regional development agencies, and organisations such as English Partnerships, in local spending on, for instance, housing market renewal. There is no doubt that that must be based on housing outcomes, but houses are about communities, and communities cannot be sustained without community facilities.
Two years ago, 48 per cent. of Wardleworth's population were under 16, but there were no significant youth or sports facilities in the area. We have had to put bids together for the sports lottery. We have just secured £1 million, which is wonderful. It is £2 million short of our bid, but it is still £1 million, and we are not going to
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say no to it. What we need, though, is the flexibility that I mentioned. Housing market renewal, English Partnerships and the regional development agency will then be able to add to the money we already have. We can use our initiative, with the help of brilliant local officers in both the RDA and the council, to capitalise on that. Yes, we are going to have mixed-market economy new homes, but they will not sustain a community without real youth facilities. I hope that my right hon. Friend can throw some light on that because we need detailed answers.
I may have misheard, and I have heard no further details, but I believe that the statement referred to community facilities. I understood that a fund provided through the ODPM might help. Specific funds such as the housing market renewal fund are aimed at specific targets, and it might be as well not to deviate too far from those targets. This fund, however, might be used to provide much-needed health services and youth facilities. I should very much like to hear more about it.
The extension of the neighbourhood renewal fund for three years is very welcome. As my right hon. Friend will know, one of the problems with some of the initiatives—although we do not suggest in any way that we do not want them—is that they involve short-term amounts. Anything that can be done to put chunks of money together and make the provision more permanent and sustainable will add to the undoubted impact of many NRF projects in our patch and across the country, and make them even more beneficial to the communities that they are intended to help.
I am very pleased about the extra investment in early years and family facilities. It makes so much sense. Anyone who has worked in education or child development, or takes an interest in antisocial behaviour, will know that the most important investment is made in the first six years of a child's life. I am lucky to represent a constituency that has received wave upon wave of Sure Start support. It is so good that people think they designed it themselves. It is probably the most successful of all Government policies.
I would welcome any additional investment from the CSR to extend the reach of Sure Start to all communities. The child poverty review acknowledges, among other things, the importance of investing in families. Although all the evidence suggests that poverty is a huge indicator of a child's health—including mental health—educational attainment and life chances, we must not assume that all parents, regardless of wealth or lack of it, do not need help with parenting. Nor must we assume that all children involved in antisocial behaviour come from poor backgrounds. Many children in my village who cause a neighbourhood nuisance—I would not place it on the same scale as the antisocial behaviour that some people must put up with—do not come from deprived backgrounds. Nevertheless, investment in youth facilities, in the extension of schools and in parenting assistance would accord with Government policy that is already making huge inroads in constituencies such as Rochdale.
In places such as Rochdale, economic regeneration is also very important. We are very lucky in having Kingsway business park, which is the biggest economic development in the north of England. I thank the Northwest Development Agency, English Partnerships, the Treasury and the Office of the Deputy Prime
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Minister for creating that huge development, which has used £35 million of taxpayers' money to lever in hundreds of millions of pounds of private money. As a result, a very deprived area of north Manchester enjoys untold investment in new economies.
However, we need to capitalise on that investment. My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary alluded to investing in the Northern Way, which forms part of the Deputy Prime Minister's vision. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that consideration will be given to capitalising on the public money that has already been invested in the Northern Way, and in places such as Kingsway business park? As I said, we have £35 million of Government money and hundreds of millions of pounds of private money, yet a certain tension exists, in that there are those who are focusing on investment in the major cities. We should note that the poverty index shows that the northern part of Greater Manchester is one of the poorest conurbations in the entire country.
There is another Greater Manchester organisation, Knowledge Capital, into which the Government are pouring a lot of money; in addition, there is the merging of the universities. It would be a tragedy if we failed to widen the aperture a little—if we failed to combine these elements in order to ensure that we bring the Deputy Prime Minister's Northern Way vision to fruition. We need to make use of the substantial investment that the Treasury has made in places such as Rochdale, Oldham and north Manchester. I ask the Treasury to look into this issue and to ensure that we join up such investment. There is only a matter of miles between these locations; it would be a real shame not to capitalise on that investment.
Constituencies such as Rochdale have not only thriving Church communities but huge and diverse ethnic populations, so I welcome the great interest that the Government are showing in international affairs. It is impossible to overstate the importance of their historic level of investment in international development. Cutting to the chase, such investment is also investment in security. My constituency is one of the biggest recruiters for the British Army, so it has a huge interest in defence. In the light of that and of my international development work, it is clear to me that we need to invest in other countries, because eventually somebody else's poverty becomes one's own lack of security.
I pay tribute to the Government's approach to international investment. People talk about the war and describe us as the great devils, but we are the biggest single investor in Palestine. We are holding things together, yet no one else is putting their money where their mouth is. Indeed, we are about to become one of the biggest investors in Africa. I say to the Government: please do not stop making such investment. Some people argue that investing in Palestine and Africa undermines jobs and prosperity in this country, but the reverse is true; indeed, such arguments endanger community cohesion in places such as Rochdale. That investment ensures jobs and prosperity in this country, because the richer we make the rest of the world, the richer we make ourselves. I am not a religious person, but I do believe in the principle that we should do as we would be done by, and that one should give in order to receive. I commend such investment; it is morally valuable in itself, but it also constitutes a defence policy.
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Be it housing, regeneration, schools, families, law and order or international development, the comprehensive spending review builds on policies that make me proud to be a member of the Labour party, and proud to be a Member of a Labour Government who are remembering forgotten communities such as Rochdale.
4.44 pm
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