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7 Jun 2007 : Column 147WH—continued
2.52 pm
Mr. Gordon Marsden (Blackpool, South) (Lab): I wish to declare my interests, as one should, at the beginning of my contribution. First, I am the honorary president of the British Resorts and Destinations Association. Last night, I spoke at its annual conference in Eastbourne, where it was sunny. Secondly, I am the convenor of a group of Labour Back-Bench Members of Parliament who represent seaside and coastal towns. The group was formed shortly after the 1997 election, as you are aware, Mrs. Anderson, because of our belief that seaside and coastal towns had things in common. Thirdly—and, of course, not least—I am the MP for Blackpool, South. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) is unable to be here today because she is on a Select Committee visit. She and I work closely together on all the issues that affect Blackpool, and I am sure that, if she were here, she would echo many of the things that I hope to say this afternoon.
I praise the Select Committee and its Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey), for producing an excellent and outstanding report. To those of us who represent seaside and coastal towns, many of the issues that the report covers will not come as bolts from the blue, but the singular value of the report is in bringing all the specific characteristics and challenges together in a succinct way and with the full authority of an informed and thoughtful Select Committee. The report is an important contribution to the debate.
I was pleased, but not at all surprised, that the Select Committee included in the report many if not all the problems that Blackpool and many other coastal towns face. Some of them have already been mentioned: the skewed demography, the outward movement of young people, and the need for stronger care structures for vulnerable and elderly residents, which is a big issue that needs to be addressed. Certain resorts have a reputation for attracting retired people, but all coastal and seaside resorts attract a significant number of people who are retired or are about to retire. When they move to seaside and coastal resorts, they often think that there will be many years of happiness and security ahead of them, and for many, pray God, there will be. But if illness or accident come along, or if one partner loses the other, those people are often deprived of the natural supports of family and familiar social networks that they would have had had they stayed in the places that they came from originally. Therefore, apart from the number of care homes and the other issues to which my hon. Friend alluded, seaside and coastal towns attract significantly higher burdens in that respect, and the funding formula and the Government in general would do well to pay attention to them.
Transience has been mentioned. It is a great challenge for local authorities. I believe that sometimes the sophistication of the problem is not entirely
understood, particularly in relation to education. For example, I can think of two or three schools in the centre of my constituency for which turnover on the roll can be anything between 40 and 50 per cent. in a year. It is not just a question of people coming into the town—families coming to Blackpool or escaping economic pressures elsewhere and so on—but of families moving within Blackpool. I know from my advice surgeries and from cases that have been raised with me that some families in Blackpool move three or four times a year to get access to relatively low-cost accommodation in the rented sector, which, sadly, is sometimes of relatively low quality as well. That creates additional burdens. The impact of transience was well documented in a series of reports that Janet Dobson and her colleagues at University college London did some years ago under the sponsorship of the Department for Education and Skills. The report deals very well with the subject.
Housing is a major problem. If we pick up our papers today, we see alarmist reports about what will happen to the cost of housing in years to come and how difficult it will be for first-time buyers to get on the ladder. I pay particular tribute to the Select Committee for having the sophistication to recognise the dual problem in seaside and coastal towns. House prices have been driven up very high in seaside towns that are attractive and where regeneration has taken place. However, areas with former bed and breakfasts that have officially or unofficially become houses in multiple occupation, for the reasons given by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West, have remained areas with low-cost rented accommodation that is often of poor quality. Those twin pressures do not do seaside and coastal towns any favours. I am glad that Blackpool council, with the support of the Government, has begun to license HMOs. The Government acknowledged the problem in their response to the report, but a great deal more needs to be done about it. The situation will only get worse, not better.
As for tourism, again, I do not want to repeat many of the things that I and other colleagues have said continually since 1997 to a succession of Ministers, but the historical reliance on tourism for jobs and inward investment, certainly in a town such as Blackpool, cannot be expected to produce change or renewal overnight. An analogy that I have used before can be used to describe the problem faced by all of us who represent seaside and coastal towns. After Suez, Dean Acheson said that Britain had lost an empire but not yet found a role. That is true, although perhaps not in quite such a bleak way, of many seaside and coastal towns. We have lost the empire of the standard one or two-week family holiday.
It is not true to say that seaside towns have not yet found a role; they are all in their various and vibrant—some more vibrant than others—ways trying to find alternative roles, but it is not an easy path. I will briefly illustrate that with some facts about Blackpool. One of the great advantages of being the MP for Blackpool is that everyone has an opinion about it—it is not like representing some melange dreamt up by the boundary commission. Blackpool experienced one of the biggest, if not the biggest explosion of investment in working-class holidays and infrastructure in the late
19th and early 20th century. Our experience of the legacy and the downside of that is therefore significant, which is one of the reasons why Blackpool is currently ranked as the 24th most deprived authority area out of 354 nationwide, why between 1987 and 2003 visitor numbers dropped from 13.2 million to 10.6 million, and why about 11 per cent. of Blackpool’s population is classed as transient.
I am grateful for the comments on the evidence given to the Committee by Blackpool council as it means that we have not simply cried into our beer. I see my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Barbara Follett) in her place; and she will be pleased to know that I will not go into a long account of Blackpool’s attempt to secure a super-casino—although I am tempted. That process and campaign demonstrated that it was not just about getting a super-casino, but about everything that Blackpool has done with its master plan, its sea defences and the investment that has gone in. Much of that was directly a result of Government investment.
What can regeneration do? What should we expect the Government, local authorities or regional development agencies to do in terms of regeneration in response to the Committee’s excellent report? I hope that most hon. Members agree that the success of a community in a seaside or coastal town depends on addressing the needs of visitors and residents equally. We should take account of the needs of visitors, who are in many cases still the economic bread and butter of a town, as well as the needs of residents. In Blackpool there has sometimes been a history of friction and tension between those involved in the tourist industry in the town, who thought that enough could never be done for tourism, and those residents who were not involved, who thought that far too much was done. I am glad that that tension has largely disappeared in Blackpool during the past 10 to 15 years. Regarding the need to have a joint enterprise, there is a great sense of commonality between those who are involved in the tourism sector and those who are not.
It must also be recognised that investment in infrastructure is important, which the Committee has made clear. Another important factor is the economic motor in a seaside or coastal town. Money may be spent on infrastructure, but if there is not an economic force in the town—a vibrant activity, entrepreneurship or source of job creation—the infrastructure that is designed to attract tourists will not in itself lead to regeneration.
Tourism infrastructure will also not solve the problem of transport, which is a key issue in seaside and coastal towns. The report has alluded to that, but on the whole Governments of all parties have not focused on the transport needs of seaside and coastal towns. We are grateful to the Government for the first tranche of investment in our tramway, but we are still waiting for a definitive solution on transport. Hastings is a classic example of a south-coast town that does not benefit from good links to London, either by rail or by road. Such peripherality issues cannot be left solely to regional development agencies to deal with; they have their own priorities and pressures. An element of central Government intervention or response is needed.
Tim Loughton:
Internal transport in Blackpool may leave a little to be desired, but getting to Blackpool is relatively easy. Getting to towns in south-east England
that are on the south coast is a nightmare, whether it is Hastings or, in my case, Worthing. The density of housing that is being imposed on us means that transport will become an increasing nightmare. Never mind the gridlock that we have in our towns; getting into the towns, and getting corporate investment into the towns is a complete nightmare. The quality of life for residents trying to get back to their homes, particularly in south-east England, is also a problem.
Mr. Marsden: I entirely accept what the hon. Gentleman says as it underlines the need for transport and peripherality to be addressed centrally by Government.
I shall briefly mention benefits and education and skills because they are key issues. Blackpool had some good results this year in the league tables, but like many other seaside towns, Blackpool has historically had a low-wage, low-skill economy and staying-on rates have not necessarily been what we would wish them to be. On incapacity benefit, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West was right to take the Department for Work and Pensions to task for not looking at which of the two elements is relevant. My own view is that in Blackpool it is a bit of both. We know that many IB claimants in Blackpool originally arrived 10 or 15 years ago, probably when they were in their 40s from other industrial centres in and around the north-west. Those are important issues. If the Government want to achieve what they hope to in terms of welfare to work, they need to use their imagination in using the money that is put in. It is not enough to produce welfare-to-work plans; there must also be an economic strategy—whoever it is delivered by—to create decent and progressive jobs in areas that have an historically low-wage and low-skill economy.
My hon. Friend has already referred to the Government response; I share her concerns and her disappointment. I am not a fan of committee for committee’s sake or of a joined-up, linked, strategised or anything else approach. However, my experience as an MP for 10 years who represents a seaside, coastal town—and I think the experience of many of us—is that such an approach is sorely necessary. For the sake of argument, if civil servants in various Departments dealing with tourism, local government and communities and transport met regularly to speak informally about common issues, we might be dismissed as pedants for wanting a strategic approach. However, the fact is that they do not. With honourable exceptions, the record of Departments on this issue during the past 10 years—I can only speak about the past 10 years, but I know about before that period—has been extremely patchy. If there is not some form of joined-up strategy, it is very difficult to deal with the problems.
We may praise the efforts of organisations such as the British Urban Regeneration Association or the British Resorts and Destinations Association, but it is difficult to follow through their work in a systematic way. In recent years, we have had a coalfields regeneration taskforce and a rural taskforce, so I see no reason why the Government should not go back and think a little bit more about the recommendations of the Committee. Some of the details of the response strike me as rather complacent and show that the Government have not looked in detail at the issue. For
example, the response mentions the diversification of the economies and states that the RDAs are
“best placed to take on this role within the context of the Regional Economic Strategies”
and then refers to the role of city region economic development companies. However, I must tell my hon. Friend the Minister that city regions and city regional approaches will not necessarily be the magic solution for seaside and coastal towns. Most such towns—there are exceptions, and Brighton is a significant one—will not benefit directly from city region-orientated economic activities, because many, if not all, fall into the second-level category of town.
Mr. Jack: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one way to develop the co-ordination to which he referred to the advantage of the wider Fylde coastal area, including the constituencies of Blackpool, North and Fleetwood and Blackpool, South and my own, would be for the Government, as a major employer, carefully to think through their employment strategies? That is particularly true of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Departments that deal with national insurance, investments and so on. In its own way, that could have a major impact on the future of coastal areas and towns. Without proper co-ordination, however, we will have, not economic well-being, but economic unwell-being.
Mr. Marsden: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood and I, he is well aware of the importance of the public sector and the civil service across the Fylde. I agree that there needs to be a joined-up approach to Government policies in such areas, although I would gently remind him that that process is greatly complicated by the outsourcing and breaking up of elements of the civil service, which goes back to before 1997. However, on the basic issue, I entirely agree with him.
Let me say a little more about the role of RDAs. I pay tribute to the Northwest Regional Development Agency, which has grasped and grappled very well with seaside and coastal town issues. However, RDAs cannot do everything. As the evidence given to the Select Committee made clear, RDAs were not all clued up about some of the issues or—because of the population distribution in some of their areas—always entirely sympathetic. If we are to have a national strategy or linkage, it should not be implemented on a one-size-fits-all basis or by setting up some new Government quango that is stuffed with civil servants to administer it.
We should be looking not only at how to support some of the existing networks that have been mentioned, but at how Departments, and particularly Government officials, can meet regularly. We do not need to create an enormous, expensive bureaucracy to ensure that a few civil servants from some of the main Departments can sit down together two or three times a year to discuss an agenda put to them by BURA, BRADA or other outside groups and to look at some of the issues. At a time when we have the social exclusion unit in the Cabinet working across
Departments—social exclusion is, of course, another important aspect of the problems in places such as Blackpool—ensuring that those officials meet each other would be entirely in keeping with the spirit of Government policy.
I do not want to end on a negative note, and we are not talking about seaside and coastal towns managing the process of decline, to quote the offensive words of a certain chairman of the casino advisory panel. Seaside and coastal towns have a strong and vibrant future, and some good things have already happened. In a briefing that it has circulated today, the Heritage Lottery Fund rightly draws attention to the more than £104 million that it has put into seaside and coastal resorts in deprived areas. We in Blackpool are particularly grateful for the money that was provided to help with the major regeneration of Stanley park and the restoration of the Grand theatre.
I have said relatively little about the details of tourism, but the recent emergence of issues such as sustainable tourism, carbon footprints, lifestyles and short-tem breaks should benefit and give new life and opportunities to seaside and coastal towns. That will be particularly true if those involved in tourism, however it is stimulated, look at ways of building closer and more imaginative links with the rural and heritage hinterland of seaside and coastal towns. There is also the issue of social tourism. One in three families still do not get any form of regular annual break, and the Government could take up that issue imaginatively.
There is genuine and exciting entrepreneurship in seaside towns. Not long ago, the Number One guesthouse in Blackpool literally became the No. 1 guesthouse, when it was awarded the title of best bed and breakfast in the country. I have already referred to our master plan, and I should also mention the imaginative refurbishment of the Solaris centre in Blackpool, which turned an old solarium from the 1930s into an environmental centre and a venue for meetings and conferences. There are other examples up and down the country that we could talk about, including St. Ives.
Seaside and coastal towns bring out a can-do and entrepreneurial quality in the people who go to them. Blackpool pleasure beach is an extraordinary institution, which has been going for more than 100 years. It was built as a result of the efforts and continued investment of one family. So seaside and coastal towns have a can-do attitude and entrepreneurship, but they need structure, support and an economic motor for regeneration. Most of all, they need a joined-up strategy and encouragement from regional and central Government.
3.7 pm
Mr. David Amess (Southend, West) (Con): I wholeheartedly congratulate the Select Committee on its report. I can say with my hand on my heart that I agree with all its recommendations.
As politicians, we are only too well aware of the problems, but it is the solutions by which we are somewhat challenged. Having carefully read the Government’s 33 responses to the Select Committee on Health, or rather the Communities and Local Government Committee—sorry, I am a member of the Health
Committee—I am just appalled. I do not know who wrote the Government’s response. Over the years, I have become accustomed to the way in which the Government respond to Select Committee reports, but they normally dress things up a little. In this case, however, their response to the various recommendations has been to say, “One, no. Two, no. Three, no.” There is not even any soft language. The only recommendations with which they agree are those in which the Committee does not ask a great deal of them. The Chairman said that the Department for Work and Pensions saw certain matters as historical, but the Government have not even bothered subtly to blame the previous Government for what is wrong.
I am delighted that we are discussing the report, and those of us who represent coastal towns owe a great debt of gratitude to whichever member of the Select Committee it was who walked in one morning or afternoon and said, “Let’s have a report about coastal towns.”
Dr. Starkey: It was the hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh).
Mr. Amess: I am greatly obliged to the Chairman, and we owe the hon. Gentleman a great debt of gratitude for coming up with the idea for this inquiry. Those of us who represent coastal resorts have tried for so long to persuade the Government of the real difficulties that such towns face. Select Committees are wonderful and independent, and they increasingly have more powers, and it gives those of us with coastal resorts in our constituencies great heart to be able to refer to such a report, but I am not holding my breath waiting for something to happen as a result of the debate.
Sir John Butterfill (Bournemouth, West) (Con): Does my hon. Friend think that it is a coincidence that the Government’s response applies only to recommendations that affect non-Government agencies, and not the Government?
Mr. Amess: My hon. Friend and I entered the House of Commons at the same time, so we have become accustomed to these little tricks over the years. He is entirely right about that point.
I was going on to say that we are about to have a change of Government, without a general election, so I am hoping that we may get some action on the 33 recommendations in the Select Committee report. The Minister for Local Government is not here to respond to the debate, but he and I have had several meetings about the challenges that we face in Southend. I am in a reasonably good position to judge what it is like to represent a coastal town, as compared with a new town. Representing, as I did, a new town with a development corporation and a new towns commission was as if I had won the pools. There was investment there all the time. However, having moved to a seaside town I am, not to use too much of a pun, awash with challenges.
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