The Chairman: Order. There are 81 minutes remaining, so the mathematics are not difficult. We are without the normal aide-mémoire of the clock behind us but there are now 80 minutes left and eight right hon. and hon. Members seeking my eye, so please keep an eye on the time.

12.10 pm

Mr. Clelland: Thank you, Mr. Cook. I echo others in welcoming the opportunity to be here in Middlesbrough town hall under your chairmanship at this first meeting of the North East Regional Grand Committee. It is a great initiative and I want to congratulate our Government on bringing about these Grand Committees, particularly here in the north-east, which is probably one of the most successful held so far. It is a great initiative, though no substitute for regional government for which many of us in this room campaigned long and hard. We cannot make decisions here but we can draw attention to the region’s problems and its potential in our debates.

It is also interesting, if not a pleasure, to follow the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed. I agree with much, though not all, of what he said. It will be interesting to read the transcript of his speech because much of what he said is needed for the future of the region will involve a great deal of public expenditure, which does not fit too well with the savage cuts announced by his leader at the conference last week.

The north-east has a proud and, for too many workers, sometimes a painful history in manufacturing and mineral extraction. These industries dominated over centuries and painted a picture of a grimy and scarred landscape—of ships and trains belching smoke, of noisy and dirty factories, of coal heaps and the residual waste that created black hills to challenge the beauty that the north-east countryside and coast are now able to showcase to the world, encouraging the growth of the visitor economy referred to earlier by the Minister.

Most of our grimy history has gone and we are faced with the challenge of replacing the thousands of jobs it supported with new employment and new opportunities. Too often in the past when hard economic times hit the United Kingdom, the north-east took an unfair share of the consequences. North-east industry, along with the jobs it supported, was often the first to suffer. Today, however, having worked to replace the old industries with new, our region is much better placed than ever to weather the storm and to come through the economic downturn with optimism and hope for the future. But is the storm over? Reading the pages of the regional business press—which I often do as I am sure do other Members—we can see just in the past couple of weeks, comments such as,

“the long term outlook for the region’s exporters looks buoyant”

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from the Newcastle Journal of 16 September. We read of our region’s excellence in chemicals and biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and auto-engineering and that regional businesses are optimistic that we are

“well placed to take advantage of the recovery when it comes”.

If economic forecasters have it right, the recovery may well be on the way, thanks to the actions of our Government at home and the lead given by our Prime Minister to the rest of the industrialised world. However, we cannot be complacent and just lie back and hope that the recession is over and wait for orders to come and jobs to follow. We have to get out there and win orders, and sell our businesses and our skills in order to build the prosperous future that our region deserves. That is the call made recently by the north-east chamber of commerce and the Newcastle Journa l—the need for increased overseas trade to boost our economic prospects. Of course, much of that trade will be with Europe. Businesses in the north-east currently export to Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Poland, Germany, Belgium, the Irish Republic and so on. It is therefore in the best interests of our region and regional employment and business that we remain an integral and committed member of the European Union, something the Euro-sceptical Conservative party and the anti-Europe United Kingdom Independence party would jeopardise given the opportunity.

We learn from local companies, such as Stockton Building Services, of the need for public spending in education, health and defence to provide work opportunities for our people. The Labour Government are committed to continuing the economic stimulus that has helped us through the recession and will eventually see us on the upturn. In my constituency, British Aerospace on Scotswood road is awaiting the announcement of MOD orders that will maintain its work force and its excellent apprenticeship scheme. In a recent question to a Defence Minister in the House of Commons, I was assured that the announcement would come soon. I urge the Minister for the North East to ensure that it does.

As we are approaching a general election and discussing the future of our regional economy, it is relevant to examine what that future might hold. The Conservatives are hellbent on putting a stop to public investment and cutting the important social provision brought in by this Government over the past 12 years. Although the Prime Minister acknowledged at the recent TUC conference, as did the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed a few minutes ago, that efficiency savings and cuts in waste and unnecessary programmes would have to be made, he was equally clear that continued public investment remains crucial to a lasting and sustainable recovery. The Prime Minister was also clear that important front-line public services should not be threatened.

The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed will see that the Prime Minister accepts that there is a need for public restraint, but that is a far cry from the savage cuts referred to by the Liberal Democrat leader at the party conference last week. Under the Liberal Democrats’ proposals, even important front-line services could be threatened by cuts. Their Treasury spokesman, the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable), has said that nothing should be ruled out and that there should be no ring-fencing.

The Conservative party has not yet spelled out the full extent of what cuts it would make, apart from increasing the price of beer in the House of Commons,
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but we can glimpse what a Conservative Government would mean by reading the recent report published the party’s friends in the Institute of Directors and the TaxPayers’ Alliance. Stockton Building Services will be concerned to hear of the proposal that the Government’s Building Schools for the Future programme should go, as well as the education maintenance allowance that has encouraged so many youngsters from poorer families to stay on at school and gain the qualifications that will help them in future employment. So too would Sure Start, one of the Labour Government’s major achievements, which helps parents of pre-school children with their development during the opportune early years.

The Conservatives would scrap Labour’s plans for extending the school-leaving age to 18, cut £687 million from grants to voluntary organisations, freeze the basic state pension and abolish interest subsidy to student loans. Add to this their recommendation that universal free bus travel to the elderly and free TV licences should be scrapped, and it can be seen that no one would escape the painful consequences of their policies. In a region where public spending accounts for 53 per cent. of GDP, we must take threats of such cuts seriously. Avoiding them will be in the hands of the electorate in due course.

In the meantime, when the economic downturn finally becomes an upturn and employment begins to grow once more, we in the north-east need to be ready to take full advantage of it and ensure that our region is at the forefront of the recovery. I believe that we are better placed to do so today than we have ever been. I have mentioned our excellence in various fields of industry, but others are waiting in the wings or emerging even now, such as renewables, clean coal technology, low-carbon energy technologies and electric vehicles. I point out to my right hon. Friend the Minister that one firm at the cutting edge of battery technology is Sevcon, in my constituency. I urge him to visit the firm to hear what it has to say about the great potential of electric vehicles for the future.

We are well placed to forge ahead in those areas and provide a boost to our region’s economy, as well as to make our contribution to the green agenda and the nation’s energy needs. We have the coal, offshore specialists, technological expertise and manufacturers to do so. Ironically for a region that has boasted some of the nation’s most skilled workers, we face a shortage in skills that could jeopardise our progress. That is why it is so important to continue to invest in education and training, and why our young people should have every assistance to access the excellent further and higher education and training opportunities available to them right here, in this region.

We will need help from the Government as well, of course, not least to improve our internal and external transport links, to which the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed referred. Proposals that the next major extension of high-speed rail should occur on the west coast are not acceptable to our region, although I notice that Network Rail suggests in more recent publications that that should be followed by routes through Sheffield and Newcastle. However, those are proposals made by others, not the Government. To be fair to the Secretary of State for Transport and the Government, no decision has yet been taken. The various
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opinions touted will be taken into consideration when the body set up to report on high speed 2, the next phase of high-speed rail, finally presents its report to the Government. So we need to ensure a strong voice for our region in that process.

But, public spending on other capital projects is also vital to this region. Our major road network needs to be upgraded to provide safe and efficient links to the north, south and west. The A66, A69 and Al north of Newcastle are three examples of this. I have long banged on about our region being isolated from the country’s motorway system and at least that is now being addressed by the Government. Works are under way as we speak to link the A1(M) in the north-east to the Ml by replacing the current dual carriageway between Scotch Corner and Dishforth with motorway. That is very welcome public investment which, while it is not in our region as the Minister pointed out, will nevertheless be a big improvement to our motorway links with the midlands and the south. Also welcome is the new Tyne crossing; it will be of huge benefit to the travelling public and to industry and commerce.

Public investment, properly directed, has been, and will continue to be, a vital element in our region’s future prospects and development. We have a proud and sometimes painful history here in the north-east. We have built the nation’s ships and provided its energy and we have felt the pain of recession and economic downturns too often. But we have come through all of that and we now have the determination and ability to build on what we have learned. This is a great region, a great place to live, to learn and to work. I believe we are better placed than ever before to take the region forward to a brighter future if we work together and make best use of the opportunities available. We have a proud past, but the best is yet to come. I believe the north-east can now look forward with confidence to an even greater future.

The Chairman: There are 67 minutes remaining and seven Members are bidding for the floor.

12.22 pm

Ms Dari Taylor: I am grateful to be called and I am very pleased that we are having our first Grand Committee in Teesside. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister would agree that today he is in the cream of the region.

I want to start by making a statement about the regional Select Committee. We have held meetings over the last four months and have met many people from the universities, the regional development agency, the business world and the employers’ associations. It has been a valuable period of exploration. My hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon, who is a member of that Select Committee, is sitting alongside me.

One statement that came through loud and clear in all our investigations and our evidence taking is that the RDA is performing an excellent job. That was said not just by the universities, as might be expected because they and their research and development are supported by the RDA, but by the employers. The Federation of Small Businesses said that if the RDA was not there to co-ordinate all the important parts of our commerce and industry, a similar body would have to be invented. That was a clear and positive statement. We are getting value for money from the £240 million.

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The Regional Select Committee travelled to Blyth to look at the offshore wind development. It is exciting stuff. The people there believe that they are leading not only nationally, but globally and they need more and more support from the Government. We are delighted that they recently received £4 million. They explained how Clipper is taking off in a very imaginative way. We need to have things explained to us: we are politicians, not scientists. They told us that when their offshore wind farm is developed, one of the wings of the wind turbine will be as long as our football field here in Middlesbrough. It is an incredible size and an incredible delivery of energy. It is very exciting. We also went to Nissan and heard a similar story. I will comment later on the way in which Whitehall works, and I hope that the Minister will take my comments on board and help to rectify the situation.

We are seeing exciting developments that will be significant for future employment in the region. There is NETPark and its innovative electronics—startling stuff. Furthermore, we are not talking about just one university: Newcastle is involved in Blyth; Durham in NETPark; and Sunderland in Nissan. The universities and the whole of the north east are linked and work together purposefully. We ended our travels here in Wilton where we looked at the work on technologies such as clean coal and biofuels, fronted, in particular, by NEPIC. This is a very clear and seriously important gathering of information and evidence. The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, who is a friend of mine, said that we are talking about the region during a recession. I accept that it is a difficult time, but we have so much to be optimistic about and so much that is contributing to the development of a great future for the northern region.

We are on the starting blocks with many different developments in many different areas of green energy technology. However, there are problems, and I would like the Minister to acknowledge them and, hopefully, help overcome them. The first problem relates to Whitehall. The Regional Select Committee is to take evidence from Whitehall officials from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. As we saw again and again, throughout the region, there is no doubt that Whitehall has brilliant ideas and very capable and clever people. Invariably, however, they seem to be stuck with Oxford university, Cambridge university and Imperial College London. What about us? We will make that case loud and clear. Billions of pounds are being invested, and we want some of it. We are as good as other regions, and should not be excluded. As has been stressed loud and clear, we are two and a half hours—three hours maximum—away from Whitehall, but we could be on a different planet from some people there and we are not prepared to accept that.

Secondly, we heard an impassioned plea, particularly when we visited Nissan: “Whitehall came up here with brilliant ideas about the formation of a new committee to bring together the sub-region of Sunderland, but we had a committee already and it was working. But they had a better idea and imposed their committee on us.” It took 18 months to bed in and was an awful waste of time, and many people involved in the process, giving vast amounts of their own time, felt thoroughly cheated. Whitehall thought that it had a brilliant idea, but it was not so brilliant, because the region was already delivering
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the necessary research and commercial development activity. I hope that the Minister will take that point back to Whitehall. We will be speaking to people from BIS and requiring much more effective liaison with our regions.

There is a third problem that will not surprise anybody here, but I repeat it to the Minister with a keen sense that it is critical not only to define the problem, but to seek a resolution. The point concerns getting money—anything from £100,000 to £1 million—for new product manufacturing. The research might be good, and the product proving its efficacy, but getting banks to accept the risks is monumentally impossible. However, we need the impossible. NEPIC would give us chapter and verse about good products that we could develop and benefit from, but which are left on the table because it cannot secure those amounts of money. If more than £1 million is needed, the banks are much more interested, which strikes me as inordinately funny. However, if less than £1 million is needed, there is a serious problem. The Minister will know that Ensus, a £300 billion green energy company, will open its doors in Teesside this autumn. It is a phenomenal piece of delivery and we are thrilled that Ensus management has achieved that private industry, with the support of One NorthEast. We can do such things, but we must have venture capital that can support small product development, otherwise we would be missing so much from our economy.

I also want to say to the Minister—I am not the best at criticising my Government, and it is painful to make this criticism—that a road transport fuel agreement for biofuels of 5 per cent. by 2010 had been established. However, the publication of the Gallagher report caused everybody to reconsider the matter, because it was thought that the food and fuel debate had not been answered. It said that we, as greedy westerners, were pushing the fuel side of the debate, and that we were denying food to third world.

The Government took on board the argument made in the Gallagher report, but the problem is that if Government policy is not clear, absolute and unequivocal, as it should be, getting private money is monumentally problematic. We understand the debate on food and fuel, but the fact is that Teesside answered that debate clearly and purposefully. There is no way that we want to take food off tables so that we can drive our limousines—we do not want that and would not support it. I hope that the Minister can get a clear and carefully articulated policy that does not change halfway through. If policies change, it is seriously problematic for investment.

The innovative schemes that have been introduced have been very valuable. I have received letters, as I am sure have many of my colleagues, about the car scrappage scheme. I have one from Benfield, a motor group in the northern region, that states clearly that the scheme has been an unmitigated success, that it has maintained employment and that it has been incredibly valuable. The letter goes on to say that car scrappage has been an “incremental” scheme, because it has generated extra funds in VAT for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which more than match the amount of money that the Government have put in. I am sure that the Minister will know what I am going to say next: 1 January 2010 is fast approaching and we would like the scheme to be
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extended. This has been a no-cost scheme for the Government, and I would like the Minister to please keep it going.

I also want to thank the Minister and the Government for the innovation whereby companies have been allowed to pay national insurance contributions and VAT at a much slower rate, over a period of time. I have received letters from companies that tell me that the scheme is giving them breathing space and allowing them to survive. Please keep that going.

The Minister has given a lot in the debate on council tax, but we want more. We would prefer to spend money to create employment than simply to support empty property, so will the Minister look at the matter again?

I shall end by referring quickly to the next inquiry of the Regional Select Committee, which will be on tourism. We will publish the innovative industry report in October, and then begin the report on tourism. There is an absolute belief that, of everything we do, tourism is one of the major areas in which employment opportunities are seriously undermined. We know that with a better and more focused tourism policy, employment opportunities will zoom. Although we have not been to Berwick and further into Northumberland than Blyth so far, we will be asking the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed to welcome us to his constituency so that we can talk about, and take evidence on, tourism. The Minister made a statement about the Lindisfarne gospels. I could say much, but will not, because time is tight. He is right to say that they belong in the northern region. The British Library has had a tremendous run with the Lindisfarne gospels and they should now be back in the north.

Mr. Clelland: I have followed the debate on the Lindisfarne gospels, and I also have an interest in Greece, where I take many holidays. Greece is asking for the Elgin marbles back. I wonder whether the Minister might want to ask the Foreign Secretary to suggest in the United Nations that all artefacts belonging to areas that it has designated international heritage areas should be returned. That would get the Lindisfarne gospels back here, would it not?

Ms Taylor: Mr. Cook, perhaps you and others might imagine it. I would certainly love the Lindisfarne gospels to be returned but I am not overly confident about sending back to Greece many of the artefacts that we have. I find I am in a very difficult position.

Mr. Mullin: Don’t go there.

Ms Taylor: My hon. Friend could be right. In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Tyne Bridge, I simply need to be reassured.

A condition report has been made on the Lindisfarne gospels. My hon. Friends the Members for City of Durham and for Gateshead, East and Washington, West worked stoically on the issue, and, according to the British Library, the document would allow us to house and exhibit the Lindisfarne gospels perhaps one year in seven or 10. I found the report markedly offensive.
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If the gospels can travel one year in seven or one in 10, I suggest we should have them permanently, and the British Library should have the copy. The last time the gospels were in the region, there were queues around the block of 700 to 1,000 people waiting to view them.

My last comment is this: no cuts. I say that absolutely. I have no problem with savings or with efficiencies or a slowdown in the introduction of a new product, even though that could well mean identity cards—but no cuts. I am focused on the fact that if we keep people employed, they pay tax, do not receive unemployment benefit and contribute to our community. Working families tax credit, child tax credit and supporting people grant, which I shall discuss later privately, provide money that we need in the community. We need the banks to be less risk-averse and we need Government support.

Perhaps I am over-optimistic but I believe that there are green shoots, such as housing development and the new schools development in my patch. There is the new academy and the investment of more than £4 million in St. Patrick’s, with which we are delighted. The green shoots must continue, but that will not happen if we take the Conservative party line and cut public expenditure now.

Several hon. Members rose—

The Chairman: Order. I have no wish to inhibit or stifle debate—it is the last thing I want—but I remind hon. Members that we have 50 and a half minutes left. We are losing pace with the clock, and six hon. Members still want to catch my eye.

12.40 pm

John Cummings (Easington) (Lab): It is a pleasure to be in the great town of Middlesbrough to speak at the first meeting of the Grand Committee sitting in the region. I shall adhere to your request, Mr. Cook, and curtail what would have been quite a lengthy speech, dealing with various problems in my constituency, although great progress has been made there over a number of years.

We have to understand the background to the position we found ourselves in following the demise and dismantling of our major industry, which was, of course, the mining of coal. The dismantling of the mining industry and the premature closure of pits during the 1980s and 1990s under successive Tory Governments still truly rankles with people who live in traditional mining communities. That is a significant factor in understanding our labour market figures. In particular, the hard physical nature of mining work over many years has taken its toll on the health of the male population. That has manifested itself in ill health and incapacity in later life, and has certainly contributed substantially to the high levels of incapacity affecting many ex-miners. However, there has been a steady reduction in incapacity and long-term sickness benefit claimant figures since 2001. Remarkably, there has been a 20 per cent. reduction in claimants in Easington, with the numbers reducing every quarter since May 2003.

More recently, multi-million pound public and private sector investments—driven mainly by the Labour Easington district council, as it was then, and the Labour Durham
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county council, as it is now—have certainly changed the face of Easington and helped to identify, so that we can diversify, our industrial base. Much of the work to secure investment in the area has borne fruit in the past three years. Over 8,200 more people were in employment in the Easington constituency in September 2007, compared with 2004, although we are now facing the additional challenge of a global economic downturn. This has also impacted on the automotive sector in Peterlee, where, last year, unfortunately, we saw considerable lay-offs in manufacturing and car component supply companies such as Caterpillar and NSK-AKS Steering Systems.

Nevertheless, multi-million pound investments are changing the face of Easington, and Labour, in government, working in concert with Durham county council and private sector partners, has already seen the realisation of a number of successful developments. Many others are ongoing—a number of which I know the Minister has visited and taken an interest in over the last several years. These include Byron Place in Seaham, an £18 million shopping mall with an array of high street names including Asda, Wilkinson and Argos. Work was completed on the 300,000 sq ft development by Modus Properties in October 2007. The new shopping development was commissioned to bring new life into the heart of Seaham and it has already created 200 new jobs.

I intend to identify those areas where progress has been made over a number of years, to indicate that all is not gloom and despondency in east Durham. On the back of the town centre redevelopment is the £19 million St John’s square development, which will see new commercial and community buildings and health facilities, and see the demolition of derelict and unsightly buildings. The dock company relocation is a £10 million project that started in 1999 to relocate the commercial port-related activity of the Seaham Harbour Dock Co. to the outskirts of the town. It involved the construction of a new freight rail terminal and a new transport hub for distribution networks. It truly paved the way for the recent town centre redevelopment and the future marina development.

Following the approval of £2 million of funding from the regional development agency, One NorthEast, the Seaham north dock is witnessing a series of works to boost the economic prosperity of the Seaham dock area. Works currently under way include the installation of new dock gates, the creation of a 77-berth marina and the provision of workspace accommodation for 12 marina-related businesses, creating up to 50 jobs and, I hope, a permanent home to display Seaham harbour’s seafaring heritage and the former Seaham harbour lifeboat, the George Emily. Unfortunately, the lifeboat was destroyed in 1962 in a disaster in which many people lost their lives, but it is undergoing restoration and will, I hope, prove to be a focal point once the redevelopment of the north dock is completed.

The first phase of the £16 million east Durham direct link road to Seaham from the Al(M) was completed in September 2008. The second phase—a £1.7 million single carriageway—connects Cold Hesledon junction to the new Hawthorn Prestige business park, which we hope will become home to the Geothermal Research Education and Training Institute and to green businesses involved in work on climate change and carbon dioxide reduction. The project will provide the opportunity to create many thousands of jobs in a global growth industry.

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We should not forget the contribution of the private sector as an engine of economic recovery. In my constituency, the GT Group has shown the way forward in terms of innovation and has secured a considerable order book, which will help to safeguard existing engineering jobs and create new ones.

There is still more work in progress, with projects such as the £300 million world-class Centre for Creative Excellence earmarked for a 200 acre site south of Seaham, which could include educational facilities, a film studio, parkland, leisure facilities and a hotel, with the potential for 2,400 jobs and the magnificent vista of training opportunities for our young people in new media and the creative arts. I extend my thanks to the Minister for the personal interest and drive that he is showing in moving the project forward.

Labour in government has continued to address the structural problems of areas such as Easington and it is constantly working to raise the aspirations of the people of the town. We must continue to encourage investment in new physical infrastructures, such as the Hawthorn industrial park, Dalton park phase 2 and Spectrum business park, as well as in town centre developments in Peterlee and Seaham. It is also essential that we continue to diversify our employment base and provide new employment and training opportunities, especially for our young people, in a way that many would not have thought possible only a decade ago.

Labour in government has truly shown, and continues to show, the way forward, and I commend the positive and progressive policies that the Government have adopted. Those policies have worked in my constituency and have made a substantial contribution to the local, regional and national economy of the future.

Several hon. Members rose —

The Chairman: Order. There are 41 minutes remaining, and there are still six names in the bidding. I call Sir Stuart Bell.

12.50 pm

Sir Stuart Bell: As we say in the House of Commons, everything that could be said will have been said, but not everybody has yet said it. Therefore, Mr. Cook, you will have to hear four more speakers saying the same kind of thing about what we are trying to do with the north-east regional economy.

Although we are talking about the regional economy, no one has mentioned The Sage Gateshead, which makes a huge contribution to our intellectual and cultural life in the north-east. We are proud to have opposite this place, for those Members of Parliament who would like a stroll afterwards, the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. That is an extraordinary achievement when one thinks of the august occasions on which this council chamber might have been used, as the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed said. It was used in the first instance by Mr. Gladstone himself, way back in 1862, when he said that this town of ours was an infant Hercules. If he came today and saw MIMA, he might stop chopping down his trees and have a look at some of our wonderful portraits and paintings.

In terms of the regional economy and culture, I want to mention the Pentland school in Billingham. I had the honour of being at the Royal Albert hall last night for a
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concert by the Northern Sinfonia, where it was announced that a national competition had been held among schools for the best composition. Lo and behold—I do not know how many people were there; maybe 10,000, as it was a full hall—the winning school was Pentland school in Middlesbrough. Actually, it is in your constituency, Mr. Cook; I am happy to acknowledge that, and I know that you have taken a big interest in the school. That achievement is not something that one might read about, but it is what we do in this area: children learn to compose music that ends up at the Royal Albert hall and in the music section of the BBC. It is an amazing achievement.

You, Mr. Cook, and my right hon. Friend the Minister will remember when we came into politics in Middlesbrough in 1981. You were MP for Stockton, North, and my right hon. Friend became the MP for Newcastle upon Tyne, East. Here in Middlesbrough between 1979 and 1981, we lost 22,000 manufacturing jobs, a number that would have filled Ayresome Park. As my hon. Friend the Member for Easington reminded us, we had the coal and steel industries. We had two blast furnaces in Redcar. We had shipbuilding, foundries and chemicals. We have seen the transformation. If Mr. Gladstone came back today, what would he see? He would see not only MIMA but a university in the heart of our town. When I came to Middlesbrough in 1981, we could not get 6,000 students for the polytechnic. We now have 23,000 students, and the university is up for a national prize organised by The Times Educational Supplement.

We see the changes. The old Stockton race course is now a wonderful showcase. We also have, of course, the Riverside football stadium, with a capacity of 35,000 spectators. Attendance is down at the moment, I must admit, but we had 18,000 at Ayresome Park. That shows what great pride we have in ourselves.

We also have an elected mayor. I never believed in the concept of an elected mayor. It is not something that I supported. Elsewhere in the country, there are elected mayors who are not particularly successful, but the elected mayor of Middlesbrough, like the elected mayor of Hartlepool, has made a great contribution to his town and economy. He has worked with the council and Members of Parliament to develop a coherent strategy for the town that enables us to advance while we deal with our crises. We recognise, as my right hon. Friend the Minister said, that although the recession did not begin in Middlesbrough or on Teesside, we must suffer the consequences. By working together, we move forward. One lesson that we have learned in the past seven years is that by working together—the mayor of Middlesbrough, Members of Parliament and the council—we add to our town. It is a great success story.

I will not make too long a speech. I have read the speeches that were made when the second world war began in 1939, 70 years ago. The Prime Minister announced the war in a two-minute speech. The Leader of the Opposition supported it in a two-minute speech. Winston Churchill and Lloyd George spoke for two minutes. Members of Parliament have made some progress since that time, but I will not delay the proceedings, as others wish to speak.

I end on Redcar and Corus. As you will remember, Mr. Cook, in 1981, you and I marched from Consett to Jarrow to protest against the closure of Consett steel
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mill. We will not make a similar walk again, but will work with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar (Vera Baird), the Minister, other Members of Parliament, the owners and the trade unions. We have kept steel on Teesside for all these years. Steel production is improving, as is the market, and we are still there. We will give our heart and soul, and our time. Everything that can be done will be done.

I want a message of optimism to go out from this town hall to that area. We are tired of reading about doom and gloom. We should begin with the story of the school children because that is what we can achieve in our area. The rubbish that we read and the controversial TV programmes about how terrible we are and how bad everything is are wrong. We will move forward, and I hope and believe that we will do so with a Labour Government. The alternative is just too bad to think about. A recently retired member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee said that if policy was changed too early, unemployment would rise to 5 million, as the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed mentioned. That would affect the people of Teesside and Middlesbrough, those in the service industry and those in manufacturing. This is a serious political game and we must win it in the interests of ordinary people.

Several hon. Members rose —

The Chairman: Order. There are 33 minutes remaining and four Members are bidding for the floor.

12.57 pm

Mr. Mullin : May I say what a pleasure it is to be in a Victorian town hall that has not been demolished? We made the mistake of demolishing ours in 1970 and it has been regretted ever since. As the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed said, such public buildings reflect an age of confidence when this was a prosperous region. Those who built the public buildings knew that and had a statement to make. They built buildings that they knew would last for centuries, whereas we build ones that will be knocked down in 30 years. I hope that that trend is beginning to change.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough said, there is much doom and gloom these days. I do not think that it is entirely justified. The tabloid agenda—if I may summarise it as such—is that everything is bad and getting worse, that all MPs are useless, that the Government are useless, that nothing changes for the better and that everybody is in it for what they can get out of it. However, like other hon. Members I represent some of the poorest communities in the country and the lives of my constituents have changed significantly for the better in the last 10 or 12 years.

In 1997, there were people in Sunderland who earned £1 an hour. There were not just one or two such people. It included workers in paper mills, security guards and care workers. The minimum wage, which is getting up to £6 an hour, and tax credits have made a big difference to the lives of those people. In the mid-1990s in Sunderland, one had to wait for two years for a hip operation at the local hospital. I have no doubt that it was the same elsewhere. One can now have such an operation within 18 weeks. As we know, a huge amount has been invested in the health service nationally.

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About 10 or 15 years ago, only 9 or 10 per cent. of the pupils at Sandhill View school in my constituency were achieving five A to C grades at GCSE. Just one tenth of the pupils were meeting that minimum standard. The school has been entirely rebuilt. It has been put under completely new management. It is a community school, so the buildings are not all shut up during the holidays or when the school is not functioning. It is really part of the community. And with exactly the same catchment area it now scores near to 50 per cent., including maths. I can see that there is a long way to go—everybody can see that—but, my goodness, that is quite a large change. I would think that it is actually among the biggest changes that have taken place anywhere in the country, coming from such a low point as Sandhill View did.

We have suffered, like everybody else, the loss of a lot of our traditional manufacturing industries—glass, shipbuilding, the mines, a lot of engineering—and those things did not stop closing just because a Labour Government were elected in 1997. We all know that is a result of world forces that are beyond the control of any Government, never mind any politician. But what we have been successful at—I think this is true across the region and other contributions today have reflected it—is diversifying our economy, reinventing ourselves and making us actually less vulnerable to the slings and arrows of fortune, particularly now in the current recession. On the outskirts of my constituency is Doxford international business park. Some 15 years ago it was an empty site: 7,500 people now work there, all of them in industries or businesses that did not exist in Sunderland, certainly, at that time.

I mention all those things and I could mention more, just to say that I do not accept the line that everything is bad and getting worse—and it needs to be challenged regularly. Anyone with eyes to see can see the kinds of things that I have just talked about in their own constituencies and throughout the region. I doubt whether those changes for the better have occurred just in this region or just in my constituency. I suspect that they are reflected across the country. Although I do not attribute all of them, of course, to the fact that there is a Labour Government, I do think that the fact that we have had a Labour Government for the last 12 years has something to do with it.

We have talked about future challenges here, and we all know that there are plenty of them. Hon. Members have identified some of them and the Minister, who made an excellent speech, has enumerated some, so I will just touch on them. It seems to me that one of the ways forward for this region is for it to make itself a leader in this country and perhaps in Europe in renewable energy technology. Electric cars have been mentioned. Thank God for Nissan, incidentally. When we were losing all the mines, the shipyards and the engineering, up came Nissan and demonstrated that you can set up a car plant using our work force, which is as good as any in the world. We have heard a lot about the British work force up to that time, and how they were not up to this or that and about how everything was going to have to go somewhere else. Actually, Nissan demonstrated that workers on Wearside and in the north-east are as good and efficient as those anywhere in the world, given the right management and the right investment, which certainly has occurred with Nissan. That has made an enormous difference to the area that I represent, not only because
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of the 3,000 or 4,000 people employed at Nissan, but because of all the spin-off industries as well. Now it looks as though there is a chance that we can become a world leader with electric cars, and I welcome that.

One area that has not been touched on is waste disposal. I think that this is one of the great challenges facing the human race over the 40 or 50 years. If you look at the booming economies of India and China, which are growing by 8 per cent. or 10 per cent., where is all the waste going to go? I saw an article in a newspaper that said plastic was invented in 1909 and that every bit of plastic since that time, with the exception of a small amount that may have been burned, is still in existence today. Where is it all going? Where is it all going to go? Where is this plastic cup or this bottle going to go when I have finished drinking out of it? It is one of the greatest challenges that we face. We cannot go on as we are. We have got to get a great deal more sophisticated about how we live our lives, in the first place—that is, switch to tap water—and about how we dispose of the waste that has been generated and cannot be reduced. Some high-tech solutions are going to be required. I am glad to say that, although this region lags behind the country when it comes to waste disposal—and this country lags behind the rest of western Europe—we are making some progress now. Three local authorities in my area—Sunderland, South Tyneside and, I think, Gateshead—have got together to invest in new plant and high-tech solutions. That is an area in which we have quite a big part to play if we choose to go down that road.

The other area on which we must spend a great deal of money and effort is education. The Government have been doing that over the past 10 or 12 years. We must have the skills that enable us to compete in the world. Most of the rest of the world, and certainly east Asia, have worked out that they must have such skills if they are to hold their own in the world. Traditionally, we have lagged behind, but we have not done badly. We have made education a great deal more practical so that young people coming out of school have the kind of skills that are needed to connect them up with industry. Moreover, we have universities linked to industry. However, we must continue making big investments in education if we are to hold our own in the world.

Finally, I want to flag up the issue of the growth in agency workers. Any discussion about efficiency always seems to involve talk of laying off people who have secure jobs and replacing them with people who have insecure jobs. As a result, there is a class of people growing up in this country—they are in all our constituencies—who have no access to occupational pensions, sick pay, holiday pay, redundancy pay or any of the little things that we have quaintly come to associate with civilisation over the past hundred years and for which my party has struggled. Suddenly, there is a class of people who do not qualify for such benefits. It is a big and widening divide that needs to be challenged.

I am concerned about the kind of bidding war that is opening up on how much we can all cut. That is the wrong debate. Obviously, we all know that, at the end of the day, the Government must balance the books, but it should be done in a sensible and non-hysterical way. I listened to that shameful piece of opportunism by the Liberal Democrat leader who called for bold and savage cuts. I do not wish to embarrass the right hon. Member
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for Berwick-upon-Tweed, who, I suspect, is not as signed up as his party leader to such cuts, but I think that the speech was a cynical bid to attract the votes of the southern middle classes. That is the kind of language that will get us all into trouble because it drives the debate further forward in that direction and there will be consequences, especially for a region such as this which is heavily dependent on Government spending.

When I was first elected in 1987, there were parts of my constituency in which all civilised life had collapsed. Our job as Members of Parliament was to evacuate people who could no longer bear to live in the streets and estates in which the world of work had collapsed and in which there was an epidemic of crime and yobbery. Such a situation arose as a result of the bold and savage cuts that the incoming Government had made at the beginning of the 1980s. A generation of youth grew up—and many still cause us problems—who had no prospect of work, no skills and no hope. Many of them went on to pass through the criminal justice system, and we are, to some extent, still clearing up the mess in this region and in other parts of the country. I hope that there will be no repeat of that folly.

In the great depression in 1929, or whenever it started, one of the first things that the Republican Government did was to make bold and savage cuts. By doing that, they dug the pit a great deal deeper around the world—not just in America—than it need have been.

Sir Alan Beith: I hope that the hon. Gentleman recognises that real reduction in expenditure never takes place if ring-fencing is in place. If we are to ensure that money is saved on the right things, we must examine every area of expenditure and make the cuts at the right time.

Mr. Mullin: I recognise that. I know that painful decisions have to be made and that Government have the responsibility to balance the books. I am just a bit worried about the way the debate is going now, because it appears to be driving us all headlong in that direction, when I suspect that some calmer heads are required. The next election will not be a beauty contest between Mr. Cameron and Mr. Brown; it will be about the future of this country. We are at a crossroads. If we go down the road of bold and savage cuts, the future of this country will be determined for some time to come, and eventually, no doubt, some new Labour Government will be elected and will have to clear up the mess all over again. That will be for a new generation of politicians, since I am retiring at the next election, but I hope that we do not go there.

Several hon. Members rose —

The Chairman: Order. There are 20 minutes remaining, with three Members bidding.

1.11 pm

Mr. Anderson : I fully associate myself with the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South. I come from that town and lived and worked in the Easington constituency with my hon. Friend the Member for Easington. For some of us, the discussion about recession is not academic, but real. We know
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what it was like 20 years ago. That recession, and the one 30 years ago, were deliberately engineered by a Government who believed that unemployment was a price worth paying. It was a price that was paid not by the Tory elites or the Old Etonians, but by the people who live in this and other similar areas. We do not want to go back to that. That is why despite the fact that the recession we are in at the moment is global and not of our own making, I am glad that the attitude taken by our Government has not been to sit back and leave the people alone, but to intervene and do the right thing for the people of this country.

It is not all good news—quite clearly, it is not. In my own constituency, we lost jobs at Virgin Media. We had a major job impact at the dairy in Blaydon, and despite fantastic input from One NorthEast, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and from many trade unions, we lost 300 jobs—a real blow to the area. There has clearly been an impact in my constituency, on the financial sector and the supply chain around the motor industry, and on small businesses that have been desperately let down by the banks.

But there is good news locally as well. The BAE factory in Birtley has secured a contract to supply ammunitions to the MOD for 15 years. It has been so successful that the factory will move from Birtley to the neighbouring constituency in Washington, but that is a positive move in terms of securing jobs and industry for this region. I have more good news, which will please my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South. Graphite, which is moving into the waste disposal industry, has built a state-of-the-art factory in the Tyne valley in Blaydon. It will deal with over 350,000 tonnes of waste a year—100 per cent. goes in at one end, and only 20 per cent. will come out the other. At the moment—when it is up and running—80 per cent. will be recycled. Discussions are going on with people in this part of the world about converting the remaining 20 per cent. into fuel—a win-win for everyone. It is a relatively small project in terms of what we are talking about for the wider south-of-Tyne disposal, which may well be placed in Gateshead, but it is clearly positive. It has created 50 new jobs, and for some of those jobs, the people who are running that factory have worked with the people who have lost their jobs at the dairy to try to get them redeployed. That is a good example of businesses working together in partnership with One NorthEast to try to support people.

Even more important going forward is the great stuff that has been happening at De La Rue plant in the Tyne valley. De La Rue has a long history in printing bank notes. In the past year, it has increased its work force by 80. Even better, it has won the contract for producing the new passports for this country for the foreseeable future: a £400 million contract that will create 80 new jobs, with very high-tech, high-skilled and highly paid work right in the heart of my constituency.

I take on board what my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South said. We should say to people who knock this area, the real moaning Minnies, “Go and have a look. Open your eyes. Have a walk down the quayside in Newcastle and in Gateshead and think what it was like 10 or 20 years ago. Go and have a look in places such as Merton and Seaham.” Seaham is unrecognisable—the site that was Vane Tempest colliery now has some of the best quality housing anywhere in
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this country. We have the Seaham Hall hotel—it was beyond anyone’s wildest dreams that something like that would ever be in our constituencies. Those are tremendous things, in addition to the reality of what we have to offer right across the region. I suggest to the people who are here today, not just my colleagues, that they visit some of those places. The journalists and broadcasters should go out and have a look at what is going on in this area.

I wanted to speak about the work being done in the Regional Select Committee. I will not go into detail of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South covered so admirably, but I want to mention NETPark and NAREC—the new and renewable energy centre—and Alcan, which is doing tremendous work not just in producing aluminium for the world, but in developing carbon capture and storage. People should go and see what is being done in those places. Nobody there is negative. The people there face tough times and are in competition with the world, but they are delivering quality. They are not sitting back—they are getting stuck in.

A year ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West and I met representatives of the association of councils about what we could do to try to bring forward training facilities for people working for Nissan. Working together with the Education Secretary of State responsible for higher education, we were able to convince Gateshead college and Nissan to work together with the Department and they brought forward training opportunities. Unfortunately, that did not change the fact that 1,200 people had to lose their jobs at Nissan, but we made a visit to Nissan at the beginning of the summer recess and were told that it has re-employed some of those people and the factory is working flat out—and that is before we get the electric vehicles. Its car production is at least one and a half times greater than it had envisaged before the recession hit. It reckons that if the recession had not hit, it would be producing three times more than had been estimated. That is a success story of which we should all be very proud.

I also want to mention the work going on down at Wilton with NEPIC. People face real problems, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South highlighted, but they are not sitting back and moaning about it. They might moan that they want more from the Government, and it is right that they want that. It is the role of those of us here today to try to secure it. We make no excuses about that, but the people down there are committed to this region.

I will touch on Corus. I hope that there is no need for my solution, because my solution would ultimately mean that more public money was needed for the nationalisation of the steel industry. I hope that Tata can deliver. I hope that it works together with the MPs, the work force and other people to ensure the security of the steel industry, because it is not just about this part of our region; it is about the whole of the region, particularly if we are to be successful at developing the technologies that will drive this place forward. If we are to build 7,000 offshore wind turbines, which has been committed to; if we are to start developing the offshore coal industry again, which is being piloted by Newcastle university; and if we are to develop CCS and have hundreds of miles of pipe coming out of the North sea, we will need a steel industry. Otherwise, we will end up
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having to ship our steel halfway around the world, which would defeat the purpose of having a CCS policy and a clean coal policy. We need to think seriously about that.

If the talks at Corus fail and the reality is that the plant has to shut, I would seriously say to the Minister that we want the Government to intervene—to continue intervening. People on the street will say, “Why shouldn’t you? You intervened to save the banks.” A lot of people say, “We don’t know why you did that.” I am quite clear that if we had not intervened, we would not have had a banking system in this country, but the banking system is still letting us down. If we ultimately have to intervene to save the steel industry, we should do that.

I am very much looking forward to conducting the inquiry into tourism in our area. We have a huge offer in terms of tourism, from Saltburn right up the coast to Berwick—all the fantastic castles and beaches—and inland, there are some of the best moors and dales anywhere in the country. The work being done by One NorthEast in its “Passionate People, Passionate Places” project has been tremendous. This is one of the few tourist areas in the country that has seen growth in the last year, but we could do better: we could learn lessons from people in Northern Ireland, with its very troubled history, where they have focused on maximising their offer in terms of tourism. I suggest that it would do us good to talk to people there and possibly consider the report that was done by our colleagues on the Northern Ireland Committee a couple of years ago about how they approached the work on tourism.

The role of One NorthEast has been vital. The Conservatives are clearly going to do away with bodies such as One NorthEast; it is not very clear what the Liberal Democrats would intend to do. I understand that the leader wants to do away with them altogether. The shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer says that we should keep some possibly, but not others. Clearly, the leader of Newcastle council is committed to One NorthEast, because he sits on the board, and he does a good job there. The truth is that One NorthEast has been tremendous and letting it go would be a huge mistake. The possibility of all this falling apart is real. We have much more to argue for, but I never thought that I would agree with the CBI, whose director general, Richard Lambert, was quoted in The Observer over the weekend as saying, “Forgive me”—I should have brought my glasses; no, he didn’t say that—

“for sounding romantic…But we do have the capacity for a manufacturing renaissance over the next few years, and if we don’t grasp it, future generations will curse us one way or another.”

We have the chance in my constituency to build high-speed trains at Tyne yard and there is the possibility of tapping into more than 3 billion tonnes of coal off the North sea coast with the work of One NorthEast and Newcastle university, but we really, really need to keep the pressure on.

This is a clear dividing line between us and our potential replacement in Government. If, somewhere down the line—whether in nine months, six months or many years’ time—we are replaced by the Conservatives, make no mistake, they will not do the sort of things that we have done. They do not believe in intervention; they do not believe in investing in public services; and they do not believe in helping those who cannot help themselves. Look at the history of what they have done; we do not
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need reminding of it, but we have to remind our people that the Conservatives have not changed. We do not want to go back there.

If you do not believe that, I suggest that everyone in this room and beyond look closely at the report mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Tyne Bridge. The Taxpayers’ Alliance and the Institute of Directors argue that they are not part of the Conservative party, but their membership suggests that they are very close. We know their friends by who they ride with. Along with the things that have already been mentioned—again, I wish I had my glasses—they want to reduce non-front-line staff in health and schools by 10 per cent.; reduce the size of the civil service by 10 per cent.; rationalise the framework of regional government and business support; and cut 25 per cent. from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. If that happens, we can forget about the film studio in Seaham, forget about bringing the Lindisfarne gospels back up here and forget about the work going on around the Olympics.

The Taxpayers’ Alliance and the Institute of Directors also want a one-year freeze on the grants from the Department for Communities and Local Government to local and regional government. They also want to

“simplify and rationalise the skills system and the plethora of skills programmes”

—in other words, “Don’t help people who need help”—and they want a one-year freeze of the basic state pension and the minimum income guarantee. People need to realise that voting for the Conservatives at the next general election will mean a one-year pay freeze across the public sector and increased employee contributions to all unfunded public sector pensions. Those working in the public sector will have less pay because the Conservatives will take more off them to pay for their pensions.

The Taxpayers’ Alliance and Institute of Directors also want the abolition of child benefit and the child trust fund, as well as a further one-year pay freeze. We know what is in store for our country if the people make the mistake of voting Conservative in the next few months.

I am massively proud of this region. We have so much to be proud of, particularly the way we have worked so hard in the past decade to turn things around after the despair that we all felt at the end of the 1990s. I believe that this region and this country are genuinely safe in Labour’s hands, and that if the people of this country make the mistake of voting Conservative, they will rue the day.

The Chairman: We have only seven minutes remaining.

1.24 pm

Vera Baird (Redcar) (Lab): I was grateful for Ray Mallon’s amiable welcome. I am glad to be in this wonderful town hall and I welcome you—and your mobile phone—to the Chair, Mr. Cook. I also compliment my right hon. Friend the Minister for the North East on his leadership during his tenure of office, and on his excellent speech this morning. I was proud to be appointed, along with my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham—she would have had a great deal to say today
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but has unfortunately been cut out by the time limit—an assistant regional Minister at a time when an extra hand to the pump and another eye on our industrial future were needed. Happily, I have two of each.

The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed is right: we must retain the spending and the fiscal stimulus to see us through properly into the upturn. My hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon is right, too: history makes it very clear that the only people who will ensure that we get our share of that spending in the north-east are a Labour Government.

Redcar steelworks has been geared to export since 2004. The internal structure of Corus was such that it no longer wanted to take our steel from that time on. So well did our excellent mill do that we obtained a 10-year contract for a consortium of foreign purchasers to take everything that we could make. Over the four years that the 10-year contract lasted, it was not a steel mill, it was a gold mill for the purchasers. They made an estimated £700 or £800 million—a considerable profit—because we were able to price our work so competitively that it was well below the market price on many occasions, and we stuck with the contract notwithstanding that. Of course, if we had left the contract, we could have sold at the market price, and that £700 or £800 million would have been our profit. Sadly, almost on the day, it seemed, that our contract price rose and the market price dropped, the consortium walked away. One can imagine the impact that that had on Redcar and the surrounding area; one minute ships were exporting steel as fast as they could and the next day, almost literally, the room was empty and one could only have thrown the steel in the sea. Gone.

When the market price was so low that we could not compete, almost all there was to do was consult on closure and redundancy, but plan A had to be getting the consortium back, if at all possible; the whole steel mill was geared to supplying its needs. We tried. I went to Italy myself and spoke to Mr. Marcegaglia. He gave me a large chunk of parmesan cheese to bring back, but unfortunately did not give me the steel contract that I had gone to get, which will be a matter for the courts to sort out. However, he came back and talked to Corus. The Corus workers and management are so flexible that they had been pursuing other customers at the same time and the price started to go up. I want to pay tribute to Jon Bolton, the excellent CEO at the mill, and to Geoff Waterfield, who organised the union so well. They fight their corners but co-operate when they need to.

Happily, the market price has gone up again and we have been able to bring our costs down. There are synergies at that steel plant, which is what is so good about it. It is flexible. One Chinese steel plant a week online can be brought on line, as I understand is happening now, but it will not have the engineering experience and good labour relations to offer what we can offer. Make no mistake, our steelworks is capable, in most situations, of being profitable. Corus internal orders sustained us after the consortium left, and we are grateful to Corus and Tata, who have made clear, by that action alone, how much they are behind the plant. We have export orders again. We are in the competitive price range and have export orders from a group of mostly Asian purchasers, all of whom are interested in perhaps bidding to buy the plant, as the first consortium were. Obviously, cost is absolutely critical.

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The Government have contributed £5 million for training. I expect the local Labour council to cut the business rates or to defer them for many months imminently. We have written, as local MPs, to ask for, and have got, public procurement in construction advanced so that steel can be bought internally as well. It is clear that we have to compete, which we can do because of the steadying price and other capacities coming on stream in Europe. We are still in a highly competitive position. We are not necessarily over the hump, but we feel positive and I want to give that message.

The loss of the consortium was a shock and a lesson in not putting all one’s eggs in one basket; we do not do that in Redcar, we have the Wilton Group as well. That is another story, which there is not time to tell, but it is not a hopeless case either. We realised, looking at the steel industry, that we were not diverse enough, although the north-east economy is more diverse than it used to be. We have a lot of things on stream that will help in future. Cyclical as the chemical and steel industries are—not usually as dramatically as now—they can be buttressed by other things. Biomass and carbon capture and storage power stations are proposed. There is a proposal to use some of the last riverfront land to de-engineer oil rigs. That would be 30 years of skilled work for our people. There is a plan for a heavy oil upgrader, which would take the non-commercial dark dirty oil out of the North sea oil wells and refine it to
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become bubbling gold. There is third-party business now at the steel wharf, and there is the Ensus biofuels plan, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South has referred to. There is a low-density polyethylene plant—that is a long set of words—which will soon come on and buttress the cracker, which is the biggest chemical plant at Wilton. Also, with luck, presently there will be a recycling plant.

What is going to get us through this is all the investment, with the Labour Government, industrialists, management, unions, the local newspaper and the Save our Steel campaign all working together. We will come through. We were the seat of the first industrial revolution, and it is north-eastern people who made that a great success. We will come through this crisis. We will succeed, and it will be the flexibility, resilience and calibre of the north-eastern people, whom we are all proud to serve, that will ensure that we come through.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the matter of the regional economy: tackling the recession.

1.30 pm

Committee adjourned.


©Parliamentary copyright 2009	Prepared 8:23 on 6th October 2009

Regional Economy

The Committee consisted of the following Members:

North East Regional Grand Committee

Friday 25 September 2009

[Frank Cook in the Chair]

Regional Economy

Pensioner Poverty

10.33 am

Regional Policy

A1 (North)

Column number: 11
Regional Economy (Tackling the Recession)

11.2 am

11.40 am

12.10 pm

12.22 pm

12.40 pm

12.50 pm

12.57 pm

1.11 pm

1.24 pm

1.30 pm