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7 Jun 2007 : Column 178WH—continued
Housing has been mentioned this afternoon, and although I appreciate that the issue of affordable housing affects many parts of the country, unaffordability is exacerbated in coastal towns. I welcome the Committee’s acknowledgment that greater provision of affordable housing is a key priority in coastal areas. Too many grotty bedsits and flats hide behind the affluent image of the Victorian seaside hotels and villas. That is a consequence of changes in the tourism market and of the Government’s failure to recognise that special change. The housing that has been built is out of reach to the two thirds of would-be movers who earn less than
£17,500 a year, which is not enough to get a first-time buyers’ mortgage on a terraced house in my constituency, let alone on certain housing in areas of higher house prices in the constituencies of other hon. Members.
The Government must consider giving local authorities more power to require developers to build properties that match local needs. Part of the problem could lie in the fact that VAT is levied on renovations but not on new build. The renovation of a great deal of old, crumbling infrastructure, often built in the Victorian era, in our seaside resort areas could be encouraged if that VAT were lowered. Planning law also needs major reform; local authorities must have greater power to determine what can occur in their area. Following pressure led largely by Members of Parliament from coastal resorts, the Government changed the rules on second home council tax discounts. Although that change is welcome, however, it is only a tiny step in the desired direction.
The decline in business for both hotel and bed-and-breakfast owners and the consequential pressure from their lenders have led many into a tariff war with their competitors in which they have been charging rates that minimise profit margins. Where I grew up, I had friends whose parents made money as bed-and-breakfast proprietors—that was all that they did, yet it provided an income for a family. They were able to sit on the income during the winter months and spend the winter renovating for the next season. I do not know any guest house proprietor today who does not need a second job or income, because they cannot now sustain a living through tourism alone. Others have sought new custom from the growing numbers of people who are looking for accommodation to rent—many of them on long-term benefits. Changing accommodation use from tourism to long-term tenancies has an impact on the streets and neighbourhoods in which that accommodation is located.
Reference has already been made to the number of housing benefit claimants, which increased nationally by 5 per cent. between 2001 and 2006. In my own constituency, the number of claimants has increased by 16 per cent. Government ought to be asking why that is and addressing the consequences of that trend. In their response to the report, the Government have stated that they are on track to deliver 30,000 new social rented homes nationally in 2007 and 2008. I acknowledge that that is a 50 per cent. increase on 2004-05, but it is really not good enough. In my constituency alone about 6,000 applicants are waiting to be housed, with only about 600 properties being allocated each year. If the Government are serious about tackling the shortage of affordable housing, they need to provide serious funding, but currently they are not.
The Committee noted the impact that a coastal town’s demography can have on its economy. Inward migration of older or economically inactive individuals, coupled with outward migration of the young, perpetuates many of the problems that coastal towns face. The large, elderly populations are in many ways an asset—elderly people contribute to voluntary organisations, clubs and societies that would collapse without them. However, the numbers have effects for which local authorities, businesses, and health and
social services cannot compensate. A large proportion of the elderly population are on fixed incomes, which in real terms are declining incomes, so the amount of money circulating in the local economy is suppressed. The extra pressures on local health and social services are not fully compensated for by Government grants. As the number of retired people is expected to increase over the next decade, the Government must deal with those issues.
On regeneration, I welcome the Committee’s recommendation that the Government should support a permanent network to facilitate the spread of best practice in coastal town regeneration. Although they have held a Department of Trade and Industry conference on coastal towns, the Government refuse to take responsibility for the regeneration of such towns, stating that it is the role of the regional development agencies. Yet the South West of England Regional Development Agency, for example, with the support of the Government, is using taxpayers’ money to help relocate Dartington College of Arts—a higher education establishment—to another part of the south-west region. That is taking business and jobs away from the coastal resorts and towns of south Devon, despite the fact less taxpayers’ money could be used to secure the college’s future where it is currently based. I have much sympathy with the hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) in wondering what the point of RDAs is if they can, in my terms, misuse or abuse taxpayers’ money in that way.
Governments have recognised declining and restructuring traditional industries, and have funded inner cities and rural areas to assist their economic regeneration. New tourism markets have developed, which in most cases have won some of the business that traditionally came to resorts. Traditional seaside resorts have suffered a double whammy: their economies have been in decline because of overseas competition, while Europe and the UK Government have funded other areas and made them into competitors for tourists.
Why, given that single pot funding was allocated to the old coal-mining towns, are the Government so quick to dismiss a similar approach to tackle the problems faced by coastal towns? At the same time they seem perfectly happy to see European funding wasted on pointless relocations of higher education establishments that add no value to the economy of the far south-west. Is the answer that the decline of the mining towns occurred almost overnight, whereas the decline in coastal towns has been happening gradually for the past 25 years? Is it also that those who approve European and other funding lack any real accountability to the areas that they serve and to those whose taxes fund them in their work and largesse? Both those issues need addressing—and quickly.
In conclusion, it saddens me that the Government have disagreed with every single recommendation by the Committee that requires them to carry out any action or change any resource priority. The Government are supporting only those recommendations that require them to do nothing. Their response to the Committee’s report shows a blatant disregard for the people who live in coastal towns.
5.06 pm
Mr. Robert Syms (Poole) (Con): It is a pleasure to speak in the debate, because both it and the report are very worth while. Those of us who represent coastal towns realise that there are some serious issues to deal with, because the problems of coastal towns have not been under the spotlight in the same way as those of many older industrial areas in the nation. I, too, am disappointed by the Government response, but I hope that the debate will prompt both the Minister and the civil servants to go back and think more carefully about what can be done to try to address some of the difficulties.
It is clear that there is a range of challenges and problems and that there is no uniform solution. However, one’s impression from today’s debate is that the problems of larger towns that have proud borough councils with universities and conference business are little different from the problems of Skegness or Cleethorpes. Nevertheless a range of actions is needed. There are certain common themes. One is that all of us in seaside towns have wards that are generally speaking very prosperous and in which property prices are beyond the means of most of us, yet those towns still have areas of deprivation. That is not picked up by the grant formula or European funding, which means that when the average comes out we miss out on most of the grant funding. In the computer age, we should be able to refine the grant system to deal with some of those areas of deprivation.
In my constituency is Sandbanks, where people buy houses for multi-million pound figures, knock them down and build even bigger, Dallas-type houses. However, the constituency also has areas of great deprivation that can be as little as a mile and a half away. Dealing with the problems of that deprivation is terribly difficult. People go to the seaside and see nice beaches and attractive scenery, but sometimes that masks the social and economic problems. The report mentions many such problems, of which housing is one. People born in Poole and Bournemouth and in many other coastal communities are often the very people who cannot afford local housing and who are therefore sometimes forced to leave the area against their will.
A common theme has been the number of older residents that coastal areas attract, and the loss of young, enterprising people, partly because of house prices and partly because people with degrees can perhaps find better-paid jobs in London. South-east Dorset, which I know a little better than many other areas, has a real problem in retaining the knowledge base in the local economy to create jobs and wealth.
One of the most telling points in this debate was one made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). The issue is not only the number of pensioners—we can debate the statistics, but I believe that Worthing probably has the highest number of pensioners—but the fact that people live to their 70s, 80s or 90s. The dependency of people in their 80s and 90s—the number of visits from doctors, the visits to hospitals and the care support that they need—means that the real costs get driven up substantially. Quite often when I have a pensioner with difficulties or with problems with care, the relative who
writes to me and asks whether I can help Mrs. So-and-So lives in Cleethorpes, London, Bristol or somewhere else. People do not have extended family to give support.
We heard in this debate about the real problem of care homes in coastal communities, but, as we all know, dealing with some problem children in our boroughs and constituencies can cost an awful lot of money. Legislation makes much of that spending mandatory, which means that money allocated for social services does not get spent on the elderly, who need it and who have very real demands. There is certainly a good argument for reviewing the grant funding formula to determine whether it needs to be rejigged.
I believe that the report mentions the national health service once—it does not say much about the NHS because it is, of course, the preserve of another Select Committee—but the NHS and the impact that it has on our local citizens is a major and real problem in coastal towns, and it needs to be taken into account.
There are major problems. Another theme that comes up, particularly in Transport questions, is the ability of people to get in and out of coastal communities—some coastal communities have better links than others—but that is not only because the towns want tourists to come in, but because they want goods to be exported.
My constituency still has quite a lot of manufacturing. One of the enduring themes of local business men whom I meet is how to access the motorway network and how to get goods to market. The fact that we do not have very good transport links is a negative, and they are starting to take decisions for investment. The area can ill afford to lose companies, but we lose them because there are better transport links elsewhere. Where do Tesco and Sainsbury site their giant centres for distributing stuff to their various supermarkets? It is not usually anywhere near coastal towns. They usually pick a site on the motorway network, which does not serve coastal towns particularly well.
We also heard in the debate about the problems with day visitors and transients. There is a range of problems that are not always recognised in the Government’s grant calculations.
What are the solutions? The idea of the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden) for a taskforce approach is worth considering. There is a need for much more cross-governmental working, as the policies of some Departments can be offset by the policies of others. I agree with the Select Committee Chairman’s comments about the Department for Work and Pensions, which raised a real issue that needs to be focused on. I am not sure whether there is a solution to that problem, but I got the impression from her contribution and from one or two others that the DWP people had not focused on the issues and that that has implications for the coastal communities that many of us represent.
Many of the towns on the coast grew up not only because of Victorian entrepreneurs and the building of railways but because of strong and effective local leadership—borough councils and the people who built the piers, winter gardens and facilities combined with local entrepreneurs to attract people to the towns.
Another thing that came out of the debate is that the future will not necessarily be Government-led; it will be led by business, local authorities and people in the towns who have a vision of what they want to do with their communities. To reinforce that, my party would like more power to be devolved to local authorities rather than to regions, because decisions that are made at the lowest possible level by the people who live in the town and who realise what the problems are, and perhaps have some of the solutions, are better than those made by people in Whitehall. That would be an effective way to proceed in the longer term.
My hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Mark Simmonds) mentioned tourism. Perhaps a bit more thought could be given to how we promote tourism nationally and internationally to get people to come to our coastal resorts.
There are many problems, and the Select Committee has been good at focusing on them. I am not sure that we will get much progress in the short term, but we have started a debate that many of us who represent coastal towns realise we must have, and perhaps we will start to come up with some solutions for dealing with the issues. The focus must be on the towns and on looking at the real problems behind the palm trees, as the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr. Sanders) said.
We must determine whether we can deliver, sustain and reinforce the good things that are happening—and good things are happening in coastal towns. I was in Brighton recently, and I often go to Bournemouth. There is a vibrancy in some of the towns—sometimes they are a bit too vibrant late at night—but there are also problems a little bit back from the seafront that do not always get attention, money or investment. My party, which is reviewing its policies and looking ahead to its future manifesto, will focus on that problem, because it is important that we deal with the citizens of our country equitably. Coastal resorts have not had the attention or investment that they need. If we do not focus on and invest in them, we will have much bigger social problems and higher costs in the long term.
5.16 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Angela E. Smith): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) for truncating his comments. It is most frustrating after three hours of debate to have only 10 minutes to respond. I shall do my best to respond to the comments that have been made in the time available.
I thank the Chairman of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey), for bringing this subject forward for debate, and I thank hon. Members for their good and interesting contributions. I noticed that in an intervention my hon. Friend described her own speech as brilliant. That was backed up by several other hon. Members who thought that it was excellent, passionate, comprehensive and cohesive. Clearly, it was a good presentation of the issues that were raised in the report.
I have learned a great deal from the debate. From the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir John Butterfill), I learned that Bournemouth is an ideal
dating agency, and that it is a centre for foreign students who are learning English. I learned that the best fish and chips are to be found in Cleethorpes, and we had a competition over who went to the oldest person’s birthday party. I can claim only to have attended a 101st birthday party.
I have a great affection for seaside towns, having spent several years in Westcliff-on-Sea in the Southend, West constituency. It is important that coastal towns are included in any Government objective to ensure that towns are vibrant, thriving places in which people want to live. They must not be forgotten; they must be included in policy. The report raises a wide range of issues that cut across Government Departments. That shows the depth and breadth of the issues that face coastal towns.
The debate goes back several years, and we can all think of Adjournment debates and conferences on the subject. Most recently, on 8 May, officials of my Department took part in a conference on coastal towns hosted by the Department of Trade and Industry. It examined whether there are problems common to coastal towns that need to be addressed, and the best policy approach for doing that. As my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West indicated, the diversity of seaside towns—and, in other cases, the similarities—brings challenges. In the light of the conference, which was valuable, the Government have to consider how to examine the evidence further to inform policy making.
I appreciate that in many cases hon. Members are making bids for additional funding for their areas. Indeed, I hope that they will vote for, not against, additional funding when that matter comes before the House. When we make such bids, we perhaps concentrate on some of the negatives and difficulties, but we should also keep at the forefront of our minds the fact that seaside towns have a strong appeal to the public and great potential for the future. Our seaside towns are changing, and there are strong grounds for optimism, but we cannot at any stage be complacent about the problems. I believe that that is recognised in the Government’s response to the report.
I would like to make some general points and, if I have time, deal with specific points that hon. Members made. Cross-Government working was raised by several hon. Members, particularly the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Mark Simmonds), and my hon. Friends the Members for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden) and for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac). My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West spoke about having one Department responsible—she said that there was no one Department to deal with these matters. Unlike the hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess), who I believe was at odds with the Committee on the issue, she did not want a national strategy, but she made the point that there should be a permanent cross-Government working group. The Government are convinced that that is the best way forward. It is crucial that there is a far greater degree of working together across Departments hoping to achieve that objective. The report and the debate on it have accelerated progress in that respect.
The Government’s approach to coastal towns is to promote the benefits of a local and regional approach to ensure that plans are based on a detailed knowledge of the specific needs of the places. That emphasises the
value of taking an integrated and strategic approach and of looking at the economic, social and environmental issues together, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South said. The report mentioned that local, central and regional government should be co-ordinated with business and the voluntary sector so that we are all pulling in the same direction.
Mr. Anthony Wright (Great Yarmouth) (Lab): I apologise for having to be absent from the debate for an hour. I had another meeting to go to and I did not think it was appropriate for me to intervene on other hon. Members who had sat through the debate. One of the points that has been raised today is that where there are pockets of deprivation in seaside resorts, such as in Great Yarmouth, we need to take the regional perspective. The area may well be affluent, but we tend to forget the problems, such as transport and infrastructure links.
Angela E. Smith: We should be able better to address infrastructure issues through a regional approach. My concern and that of hon. Members is that in doing so, those pockets of deprivation—whether they are in coastal, city or rural areas—can sometimes not be dealt with in the way that hon. Members want. We must ensure that we have that relationship and deal with issues at the appropriate level. Infrastructure must be dealt with at a more regional level. At the same time, we must ensure that local councillors, businesses and the voluntary sector are involved at local level.
The best way to strengthen cross-government engagement is through the Government offices that are supposed to represent the 10 Whitehall Departments. They could play a more strategic role, and particular issues that they could look at and work on with local councils on are transport connectivity, employment and skills training, which are crucial. They could also consider housing issues, which were mentioned by a number of hon. Members.
My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South paid tribute to his regional development agency and the way that it deals with coastal towns and their issues. He also highlighted several problems. My hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes made a serious allegation, about which I hope she will give me further information, regarding the misuse of funds by the RDA. I am not aware of the matter, but I will look into it because allegations of the misuse of funds are obviously a serious matter.
Angela E. Smith: Before I give way, I want to finish making this point. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South mentioned the sharing of best practice and I think that RDAs are best placed to share best practice information in the context of regional economic strategies. The decision of the South East England Development Agency to lead an RDA network is important and the Government will give as much support to it as possible. That is a way that we can recognise RDAs and bring them together.
Sir Paul Beresford: Will the hon. Lady give way?
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